Disgraced former reality star Josh Duggar is once again under fire from his own family.
This is not actually the first time that Jeremy Vuolo has thrown shade at Josh.
But Jeremy is also clearly taking aim at Jim Bob with his latest post.
Jim Bob’s focus on “forgiveness” might have made his family more marketable, but it concealed Josh’s evil deeds for way too long.
Taking to Twitter, Jeremy shared a Christian theological quote with obvious implications when it comes to the Duggar family.
“Sometimes our witness to Christ must expose and denounce evil as well as proclaim good news,” the quote began.
The quote concluded: “To be truth, truth must reveal error, and to be good, good must expose evil.”
When it comes to the extended Duggar family, “evil” can mean several things.
But the most obvious thought at the moment is that this is a reference to Josh Duggar.
There is no better word but evil to describe any stage of the sexual abuse of children, from the act to circulating photos and video of it.
Some may argue that Jeremy was simply sharing a random theological quote.
He’s a pastor. He’s a hardcore evangelical. That fits the brand.
But Jeremy hasn’t exactly been silent about his disgraced brother-in-law.
Jeremy and Jinger said that they supported the cancelation of Counting On after TLC finally, finally ended the series.
The spinoff was ostensibly created to keep Josh’s sisters (and victims) on television, but somehow Jim Bob, Michelle, and Anna krept back onto the show.
Like the original show, it was just another means to promote Jim Bob’s twisted worldview while funneling money into his pockets.
We also have to note how specifically this quote addresses Jim Bob and Josh.
The IBLP cult uses its particular interpretation of Christianity to oppress its members, particularly women and girls.
But at the same time, the cult to which the Duggars belong will bend over backwards to make excuses for sexual predators.
Over the years, there have been numerous interviews, discussions, and reports about how Josh’s scandals were treated.
From the beginning, when he was first caught molesting five young girls (including four of his sisters), there was a focus upon one thing:
Forgiveness.
His victims, already placed at his mercy with no education about consent, were forced to forgive him.
The family’s sincere religious beliefs in spiritual redemption were used to force them to accept a predator in their midst.
Years later, when Josh cheated on his wife, that same theology was used to give him yet another blank slate.
Whether someone’s soul is wiped clean of some sort of spiritual debt, real or imagined, is their own business within their own belief system.
But whether someone is a dangerous sexual predator with a taste for and access to extremely young girls is another matter.
Religious beliefs can be very personally important. Child safety must always, always come first.
Whether he was in denial, trying to keep his family “marketable,” or something else, Jim Bob failed catastrophically when it comes to Josh.
He deliberately muddied the waters between a divine forgiveness in his religious and personal forgiveness.
In other words, he focused upon the “good news” to which Jeremy’s quote referred over revealing error or exposing evil.
Jim Bob went to great lengths to not only not expose, but to conceal the evil in their midst.
When Josh’s sex crimes were exposed in 2015, Jim Bob took his daughters on a PR blitz to try to minimize the molestation.
Jeremy’s quote’s meaning goes right to the heart of why Josh’s scandal is not Josh’s alone.
Of course, Jinger’s husband is himself a flawed man and not a genuine moral authority.
“When you boil it down, there are actually only two religions,” he said recently.
“One is the religion of man’s achievements and the other is the religion of Jesus’ achievements,” Jeremy bizarrely claimed.
“The one says you can earn salvation, nirvana, or freedom by what you do,” Jeremy continued.
“The Bible tells us that no one can be saved by keeping works of the law,” he continued.
Jeremy continued: “But only through faith in Jesus Christ, through faith in what Jesus Christ has done in his life – life, death, and resurrection.”
That last part is wholly inoffensive because he’s just explaining how his personal religion and religious beliefs work.
That part is fine.
His claim that there are “only two religions” wasn’t just absurdly incendiary, but also revealed how little he has bothered to understand other faiths.
Not every religion even has “salvation” as a goal or looks to their theology for guidelines on how to live their lives.
But if you view the world through a fundamentalist lens, then perhaps all that you can see is “us vs them” without learning anything about “them.”
So no, Jeremy’s not anyone’s favorite person. But he’s a much better person than Josh — or than Jim Bob.
