Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

Holy fucking hell, this Duggars doc on Prime, "Shiny Happy People."

 

Something, ain't it?

 

Dunno if this should be in the politics thread or here, but anyhoo:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (deep breath) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

 

Steve Bannon is so excited that he may call off the murder plot.

 

How so? Are they even more messed up than we thought?

 

That's really fucking funny.

 

Sinners go to hell, saints go to heaven and suckers go onto the Staff-Parish Relations Committee. Starting to envy the sinners a little.

 

The doc may be more about the evangelical leader they followed, and how that played out in both the show (unseen by me) and Josh Duggar’s crimes, than it is the family itself. One of Josh Duggar’s sisters/victims agreed to interviews.

The IBLP - the set of precepts they follow - is straight out of cult religion. Warped. The show has some ex-members, wise to the whole thing, very open. The last two episodes struck me as pretty serious - not quite Leah Remini’s Scientology series, but close. The structural sin is clear, nasty. (And many of the ex-IBLP folks are whip smart and sharp-tongued. I like them.)

On another note, the Hillsong doc series is good and probably creates conflicting emotions, since I think most of the people involved - even the celebrity, philandering pastor - are about some of the right things and the wounds and confusion are still fresh. You can tell some of them miss what it was, because what is was did, for a minute, some good. If you can imagine a touching moment related to Justin Bieber, there is one; he wants to get baptized, and he and this pastor, spur of the moment, call a celebrity friend to use their bathtub instead of some big thing.

 

Which streaming service has the Hillsong documentary?

 

Hulu

 

If you’ve got a half hour to spare, there’s an NPR interview with Beth Moore that is quite good. Talks about how her experiences as an incest survivor ultimately led her to break with the Southern Baptists. But apparently NPR links are back in purgatory here.