Jinger Duggar Speaks Out Against Family's 'Cult-Like' Religious Beliefs
Jinger Duggar Vuolo on Growing Up Under 'Cult-Like' Religious Beliefs: 'I Was Terrified of the Outside World' https://t.co/aU6MGYKVLc
- People (@people) January 18, 2023
Jinger Duggar Vuolo gave an interview about the way she grew up to promote her memoir Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear. She finally found freedom in 2017.
"Fear was a huge part of my childhood," Jinger says. "I thought I had to wear only skirts and dresses to please God. Music with drums, places I went or the wrong friendships could all bring harm."
She was even scared when her family went to play broomball. "I thought I could be killed in a car accident on the way, because I didn't know if God wanted me to stay home and read my Bible instead."
Jinger was raised by parents who were devout followers of the Institute in Basic Life Principles. The IBLP movement teaches that women should be subservient to their husbands and that followers should shun dancing, dating and much of modern popular culture. Gothard, 88, led the church until 2014, when more than 30 women accused him of harassment and molestation.
"His teachings in a nutshell are based on fear and superstition and leave you in a place where you feel like, 'I don't know what God expects of me,' " she says. "The fear kept me crippled with anxiety. I was terrified of the outside world."
In 2017, she finally started to doubt his teachings. "His teachings were so harmful, and I'm seeing more of the effects of that in the lives of my friends and people who grew up in that community with me," she says. "There are a lot of cult-like tendencies." She ultimately walked away from IBLP altogether. While Vuolo stresses that she's still a strong Christian, her understanding of how to live her faith has changed.
Her memoir will be released January 31st and she's hoping it will help others. In the book she details leaving behind her childhood fears and embracing a new life - one still based in faith but no longer commanded by one living man.
"That's the beauty of this journey," she says. "The teaching I grew up under was harmful, it was damaging, and there are lasting effects. But I know other people are struggling and people who are still stuck. I want to share my story, and maybe it will help even just one person to be freed."
Watch her full interview below.
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