Becoming Free Indeed Book Review

I picked up Becoming Free Indeed by Jinger Duggar Vuolo with a lot of skepticism but came away feeling like Jinger had put into words many of my same experiences. Even though I have stepped away from Christianity completely and Jinger is still a believer after “disentangling” her faith from what she identifies as wrong teachings, her conclusion of Bill Gothard’s teachings is extremely similar to my own.

Jinger Duggar is the 6^th of the 19 Duggar kids starring in TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting while growing up in the fundamentalist Institute in Basic Life Principles led by the now disgraced Bill Gothard. I grew up in the same organization and the Duggar family were the poster kids we all looked up to and whom our parents wanted us to be like. I never met them, but people I know who had seemed starstruck by such an honor.

I watched the show from time to time, but didn’t closely follow the individual lives of the kids, as some fans have. Subreddits like r/DuggarSnark have been very skeptical of the book leading up to its release, as many believe that Jinger has simply jumped from one rule-laden religion to another after marrying her Calvinist husband, Jeremy Vuolo. I went in skeptical as well, but was pleasantly surprised to find the book valuable, genuine, and encouraging.

Below is a chapter-by-chapter summary of Jinger’s book, which includes “spoilers” of the content, so if you’re planning to read the book for yourself, you could skip to the end where I share my opinion on the book.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Jinger begins her book by comparing her life on TV to the Truman Show, which she describes as “the ultimate fishbowl,” since she has been on television since she was 10 years old. She mentions the discussion board created by fans of 19 Kids and Counting called Free Jinger, which she considered funny at the time it was created because she already did consider herself free up until the point that she left IBLP’s curriculum behind, and now describes herself as “free indeed” referencing John 8:36. She also makes a point to define her journey through religion as “disentangling” versus “deconstructing,” which is a phenomenon in today’s culture of people unpacking their childhood faiths and determining what to keep and what to leave behind. Jinger specifies that deconstructing one’s faith is to take it apart and leave it all behind, whereas hers has been a journey of unthreading faith by “separating truth from error.”

In chapter 2 Jinger describes her young life as being filled with fear and anxiety. “I was afraid to say the wrong thing,” even “to confess [her] inner desires in a diary.” She was worried someone in her family would get sick and she’d have to watch them die, that she would say something embarrassing on camera, and that she was gaining too much weight (which induced an eating disorder that she claims her parents helped her recover from). She was afraid that she wasn’t spending her time the way God most wanted her to and would be displeased if she spent it—for example—playing games with her family instead of reading the Bible. She describes viewing God as stern and harsh, and explains that she had an “overactive conscience,” which she realizes later is not God convicting her, but rather her fear- and guilt-fueled intuition.

In much of the book, she blames Bill Gothard for the strict beliefs her family grew up believing. Bill Gothard is a non-denominational Christian minister who centers his teachings around achieving a successful Christian life enjoying God’s blessings. You know that God is blessing you if you’re financially stable, healthy, and your family is living in happy harmony. If these things do not describe your life, that’s your hint that God is withholding His blessings from you and you need to change.

Jinger tells us that Gothard’s teachings were attractive to her family because they painted an ideal life and spelled out practical steps to claim it. He wrote numerous books on all sorts of topics—modesty, homeschooling, marriage, obedience, parenting, conflict-resolution, and on and on—and Jinger writes that “It was comforting because it turned life into a series of deposits and withdrawals. All I had to do was deposit the exact lifestyle Gothard advocated, and I would withdraw health, money, a wonderful husband, and a bushel of godly kids. But this cause-and-effect view was also terrifying because I thought I would experience devastating consequences for any mistakes I made.” She also warns that this step-by-step guarantee to success was a recipe for becoming self-righteous and pitying those who didn’t follow the same principles.

Chapter 3 was by far the most content-heavy chapter. Jinger begins by explaining the expectations she had for her life, which followed Gothard’s teachings of a woman’s role to a T.

She would marry young, have as many children as possible (as she explains that Gothard views children as gifts from God—and who are we to decide how many gifts we are to accept from Him?), and she would stay at home to raise and homeschool them all. Because children are gifts from God, birth-control is forbidden, even in instances where the mother has health conditions that make pregnancy and childbirth dangerous. She quotes Gothard saying, “If God wants to give a child to a couple, He is also able to give the level of health in the mother and the child that will bring the greatest glory to Him.” (I.E. if the women and/or child dies in childbirth then God caused that to happen to glorify Him.)

Contrasting this, Jinger explains that now she realizes that the Bible never tells us how many children to have, and that she believes “birth control is a gift from God that may be used for the wise regulation of the size of one’s family, as well as a means of seeking to have children at the time which seems the wisest.” She points out that it is not financially responsible to have more children than you can afford to care for. She shares at the beginning of the book that she has two daughters, Felicity and Evangeline, and indicates that she is—at least for now—done having children.

Then she dives into explaining Gothard’s principles, which I’ve summarized below:

The Principle of Design: Everyone has an individual purpose which we must discover and live in harmony with to be fulfilled in life.

• In unpacking this, she describes Gothard’s view on how people inherit the sins of their forefathers. “According to Gothard, if someone’s grandfather was an alcoholic, it would take ‘five generations of no liquor at all just to remove the proneness to alcoholism that passed on to the children.’ That same principle applied to any sin: anger, laziness, lying, or lust… To break this family curse, to reverse the way my family was designed, I had to set up special disciplines and limits… For a while I tried to avoid places that even sold alcohol, including restaurants, grocery stores, and convenience stores. I thought this was the best way to avoid the abuse of alcohol, something I was sure would be inevitable if I let myself be exposed to it at all… Avoiding any association with a potential sin dominated my life.” She goes on to note that similar teachings in which Gothard would quote a Bible verse and then claim that it proved his point were actually extrabiblical and problematic.

The Principle of Authority: Everyone has authority figures over them, such as parents, church leaders, and government officials, which God has placed in our lives to provide direction and protection if we follow and honor them.

• Jinger explains that her main problem with this teaching is what Gothard says about parental authority after marriage. “He taught that when a couple gets married, there is a new structure of protection and authority, and the husband is the head of the house. But he also said the young couple is ‘under counsel of father and father-in-law, mother and mother-in-law.’” “Gothard invented a system whereby grown children still have to listen to their parents and obey their counsel.” She says that “this idea is nowhere in God’s word. Rather, God’s word commands, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24).’”

The Principle of Responsibility: Gothard describes this as “realizing that I am responsible to God for all my thoughts, words, actions, attitudes, and motives and that I must clear up every past offence against God and others” to gain a clear conscience.

• Jinger describes being terrified as a teenager that she “had some unconfessed sin. I thought that if I didn’t clear up ‘every past offense against God and others,’ as Gothard taught, then God would punish me.” She goes on to describe how she would often skip taking church communion in case she had unknowingly sinned but couldn’t confess it to God without knowing what she’d done. Now she believes that “this in an unhealthy view because it assumes that God wants to punish me—and that it’s my responsibility to avoid that punishment.” She writes that according to the Bible the opposite is true, and quotes Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far does God remove our transgressions from us.”

The Principle of Suffering: That we will experience hurt and suffering and should accept it as part of the work God is doing in our lives; additionally, that God commands us to forgive those who cause the hurt and suffering.

• Jinger writes that Gothard taught her that if she was suffering, “there was a good chance it was because of some hidden or secret sin in my life,” which caused fear that she would face suffering if she unknowingly sinned. She concludes as an adult that “contrary to what Gothard taught, there’s not always a way to know why suffering happens.”

The Principle of Ownership: That everything we have in life belongs to God and is lent to us so we can use it to benefit God and others; therefore, we should yield our lives to Him.

• Jinger doesn’t conclude differently on this later, and I expect that this is still her view.

The Principle of Freedom: Gothard describes freedom as “enjoying the desire and the power to do what is right rather than claiming the privilege to do what I want.”

• This appears to still be Jinger’s view, as she doesn’t unpack it later, but does say in another section of her book, “Along my journey of disentanglement, I’ve come to see that unfettered freedom does not produce the good life. In the end, it often leads to more bondage…because it puts me in charge of my life, and I am not the best judge of what is best for me. If given limitless options and the responsibility of figuring out what is going to make me truly happy, I struggle to commit to anything… In the case of life’s big decisions, the question becomes: is there a better job, home, or relationship? I’m left to constantly second-guess my choices.”

The Principle of Success: Gothard says that this principle “involves building God’s Word into every aspect of our being so we can receive His direction for every decision,” and Jinger writes that she “saw Gothard’s principles as the ticket to success,” and that if she followed them, “God would make it clear to me what decisions I was supposed to make and not make. He would do that for the big decisions in life, like who I was supposed to marry, and the smallest of events, including questions like ‘What am I supposed to eat?’”

• Jinger describes Gothard’s guarantee of success by way of following his steps and principles as problematic, and now considers his teachings a version of the health and wealth gospel, which she explains is believing that “God wants to give his children money and wealth and physical health, but they must have faith that He will bless them. The size of someone’s financial success is proportional to the amount of that person’s faith and obedience.” She says that these principles produced exhaustion, fear, and paranoia, and concludes of them that what she “thought was the key to success was actually a recipe for spiritual failure.”

Jinger then goes into other principles present in her life: how they’ve shaped her and how she has disentangled them from her core values now.

Courtship: Jinger grew up believing that dating was an unwise approach to relationships that commonly led to sin (premarital sex, for example). Instead, the Duggars’ approach to relationships (as well as Gothard’s) was courtship, a parent-sanctioned and often parent-instigated relationship between a young man and woman who get to know each other with the goal of marriage in mind. It’s a side-hug only, no handholding until engagement, and first kiss on wedding day kind of relationship, and there’s always a chaperone present, which in Jinger’s case was usually a sibling. She expresses that she viewed attraction to young men as a distraction from her pursuit of God, and that this often kept her from even interacting with them in social settings. In a journal entry, she describes deflecting thoughts about a particular young man by praying for her sister instead, and writes that “what Satan meant for evil, God used for good.”  

These days, she writes, “I recognize that there were real problems with how I thought about relationships,” and that “In relationships, there’s no substitute for spending time—lots of time—with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Getting to know them in their context of life and family, spending hours talking, going on dates, and experiencing all sorts of life situations together is so valuable. Courtship can become so highly controlled by parents, regulated, and overseen that it doesn’t allow for this level of openness and vulnerability.” Later on in the chapter she adds, “There’s more than one way to find a spouse.”

Modesty: The Duggar family is famous for their view of modesty, which includes that girls should never wear pants, ensuring their skirts are at least below the knee, and that their tops covered their shoulders and were not form-fitting so as not to cause other people to have “impure thoughts” about them. On the cover of her book, Jinger is wearing a jumpsuit, which has *gasp* pants! In her interview with People Magazine, there are pictures of her walking on the beach wearing shorts. Clearly her views on modesty have changed, and she attributes this to having reexamined what the Bible (versus Gothard) says about modesty. “Though the Bible warns against causing others to sin…it doesn’t say that if someone has impure thoughts about me, I am at fault. That logic shifts blame away from the individual committing the sin. In extreme circumstances, it can put blame on the victims of assault instead of the abusers… In a document called Counseling Sexual Abuse that was given to attendees at IBLP’s Advanced Training Institute, [Gothard] said God allows victims to be abused because of: immodest dress, indecent exposure, being out from protection of our parents, [and] being with evil friends.”

In chapter 4, Jinger focuses on explaining what Gothard called The Umbrella of Authority/Protection. She says that “Gothard taught that God was life’s ultimate authority. But to live under the umbrella and enjoy a flourishing life, you had to obey, respect, and honor the four human institutions to which God had delegated His authority: parents, government, church leaders, and employers. Gothard said that Christians who disobeyed even one of these authorities would no longer be under the umbrella of protection and would instead find themselves under the domain of Satanic attack.” She writes that “Gothard’s theology so emphasized obedience and submission to authority that I began to believe all authorities—whether parents or Gothard himself as our spiritual leader—were never to be questioned or challenged.” This led Jinger to believe that God was primarily pleased with her obedience, and that as long as she remained under the Umbrella, she wouldn’t be punished in the ways that God might punish others who rebelled. It also fueled her fear of displeasing or dishonoring God, which she describes as “an all-consuming terror.” She reflects on this saying, “Gothard’s teachings…were giving me a system that I thought would please God,” but “the ever-present umbrella of authority was teaching me to be afraid of God.” She clarifies that being afraid of God is different from fearing Him, the latter meaning to be “in awe of Him.”  

She goes on to criticize Gothard’s extreme views of authority as “top-down: those in charge should be served by those being led,” and that Gothard implies “that disobeying him is the same as disobeying God.” She compares this to true Biblical authority, citing Jesus’ attitude of servanthood, and says she believes that God hates it when leaders abuse their power.

In chapter 5 we get more background on Jinger’s life as a Duggar; she spent time traveling for the show, going on mission trips, and touring to promote the book she wrote with three of her sisters, Growing Up Duggar. Looking back, she admits that “for a girl who was barely out of her teenage years, I had a lot of confidence. I was sure I knew about a lot of topics. The older I get, the more I realize how little I actually knew and how hesitant I should have been” to make such strong recommendations for or against various ideas.

She describes her older sister Jessa as her best friend growing up, and that when Jessa was courting her now husband Ben Seewald, she was often their chaperone and privy to many conversations on spirituality and the Bible that Jessa and Ben had together. This was the beginning of the shift in her views as she noticed how often Gothard deviated away from scripture while indicating that his extrabiblical teachings were straight from the Bible.  Her views also began changing as she interacted with Ben’s family, who she could see were righteous, wonderful people who also lived much differently from her own family. Bill Gothard wasn’t a household name for them. The women wore pants. They listened to music that she didn’t. They homeschooled their children but were involved in co-ops, unlike the Duggars. The girls worked outside the home. And also, the pastor of the church Ben attended didn’t preach sermons on topics, but simply walked the congregation through the Bible and let scripture speak for itself.

In chapter 6 we get to know Jeremy Vuolo and learn that before he asked Jinger’s parents for permission to court her, over twenty other suitors that Jinger hardly knew had also asked permission! Like the Seewald’s, Jeremy’s theology and convictions were different from Jinger’s family, but he watched more than sixty hours of IBLP content before and during their time courting to learn about the nuances of her beliefs. Slowly, over time, Jeremy chipped away at Jinger’s understanding of Gothard’s teachings through discussion with her, often watching videos of Gothard’s seminars and pausing to ask questions or make comments.

Jinger realized that a lot of her religion was actually superstition, which she says was the main source of her fear. “For a long time, I believed that at any moment, God could be displeased with me for some hidden reason. For instance, I was worried that I might hear music that would make God angry. Once I was in the car with some friends who started listening to music that, at the time, I was sure didn’t honor God. I was genuinely scared that I was going to get in trouble with God for even hearing it. I also fretted about my clothes. I remember one time feeling a lot of guilt because I had worn a skirt that I considered immodest. When I sat down, the skirt did not fully cover my knee.” She describes going shopping afterward looking for much longer skirts so she could be as modest as possible. She later concludes that “that was a terrible way to live, and it’s not what God intended. He doesn’t punish us for random nonsinful decisions we make. He is far kinder. He tells us exactly what sinful behavior looks like” and she goes on to quote scripture backing this up.

She also explains that Gothard’s teaching promoted a Salvation by Works attitude where we need to clean up our lives and behave better before God will bless us, and that this isn’t the true gospel (which is salvation by God’s grace).

She explains that her fear of taking communion was not Biblical either: that communion should be a joyful reminder of our Salvation through Jesus. She also points to how Gothard taught many of the rules of the Old Testament, including that we should avoid eating pork and shellfish, despite how Jesus’ death on the cross removed the burden of these rules from us.  She affirms that “God has given us all food to enjoy.”

She concludes her chapter by warning us of the dangers of a teacher who makes himself essential. She writes, “If there are secret principles that lead to God’s favor, and if Gothard alone understands these principles, then he is an essential teacher.” “Thankfully,” she writes, “God, in His kindness, does not keep us in the dark. His word is clear. The key to the Christian life is not listening to hours of lectures from Bill Gothard. It’s knowing Jesus Christ.”

In chapter 7 Jinger continues unpacking her childhood religion during her courtship with Jeremy. She describes “The Gothard Vow,” which is a vow Gothard would encourage his attendees to make to God at the end of his seminars. These could be vows to never drink alcohol or never listen to rock music, or to spend five minutes each day reading the Bible and praying. Vows were serious and should never be broken, he taught, lest you be guilty of sin, which Gothard referenced Deuteronomy 23:21 to prove.

Jinger talks about how growing up she believed the Bible was the tool God gave us to show us how to live, versus what she says it actually is: a story about God. She describes the ways Gothard treated the Bible.

• He taught about “rhemas,” which are personal interpretations of scripture that come to individuals during their Bible time as direct communication from God. Gothard would teach about the rhemas he got from his Bible-reading all the time, describing it as God revealing a new “key to the Christian life that was going to transform the way we all lived.”
• Jinger describes Gothard’s strategy for creating “secrets to success” and rules we should follow as proof-texting, which is “coming up with an idea you want to promote and using a smattering of verses to support your claim.”
• She describes how Gothard uses correlation between subjects like Biblical characters to make connections that don’t actually exist in the Bible. She says that “this is dangerous because, similar to proof-texting, it allows the teacher to find whatever meaning he wants in the Bible.”

In chapter 8 Jinger describes how she has begun removing fear from her faith, and her new views on who Jesus and God truly are.

In chapter 9 she shares about early married life in Texas as a pastor’s wife, and how life away from the emotional security blanket of her family caused anxiety that she had to learn to overcome. She also writes about how her understanding of what it means to be a good Christian wife has changed. She grew up believing that a wife exists to encourage and love her husband, never complaining, never having an opinion different from her husband, and never having any expectations of him. She shares how Jeremy helped her step out of that limiting view by reminding her that he loves who she is and doesn’t want her to be a parrot or a Stepford Wife.

In chapter 10 she shares about life after moving to LA, and how there are people from many walks of life attending her church, many of whom she is friends with despite their tattoos and nose piercings, which she no longer considers immoral. She says, “Since we share a common love for Christ, the other issues are not as big a deal. There truly is far more that unites us than divides us.”

In her new church she writes that, “When the pastor preaches, he simply explains what the Bible means. He doesn’t tell funny jokes or stories. He doesn’t share his opinion. He describes what the Bible says, what it means, and how it can change anyone’s life. And the people of our church submit to everything the Bible teaches, even if that puts them out of step with broader culture.” When I read this I wrote “sad” in the margin because I thought this sounded like a boring and strict alternative to a captivating preacher who puts personality into their messages. To her credit, I think Jinger’s reference to pastors not sharing jokes and stories harks back to Gothard’s flowery stories and analogies on which he builds arguments in seminars. It seems that Jinger prefers listening to teachers who get to the point of the gospel instead of searching through fluff for the truth. She defines what a false teacher is (a false prophet) and concludes, “I’ve become convinced that Bill Gothard is one of those dangerous teachers.”

In chapter 11 Jinger gets into the sexual abuse allegations against Gothard that arose in 2014, recalling her own experiences with Gothard, IBLP, and its headquarters, and remarking that Gothard was so well-known by headquarters and conference staff for surrounding himself with pretty blonde girls that they were coined “Gothard Girls.”

She discusses how these allegations came to light through testimonies shared by women published on Recovery Grace, concluding that “their testimonies are too consistent to deny.” She condemns Gothard’s views on sexuality, marriage, and legalistic attitudes as unbiblical and hypocritical.

In chapter 12 Jinger shares about her life now that she is no longer on television. She expresses that while she is grateful for her own experiences on TLC growing up, she is relieved that her daughters will grow up out of the spotlight. She shares some things that she wants her daughters to know about faith.

In her final chapter, Jinger writes to those who she dedicated this book to: “To those who have been hurt by the teachings of Bill Gothard or any religious leader who claimed to speak for God but didn’t.” She reflects on her disentanglement journey and encourages those who are wanting to deconstruct their religion to disentangle instead, emphasizing how much God loves us all.

MY REVIEW

I appreciate the message of this book, as I fall into her target audience. I grew up absorbing Gothard’s teachings as the truth and believed as much as Jinger did that Gothard was a modern-day prophet; I felt extremely lucky to exist during his lifetime.

I appreciate Jinger’s willingness to speak out against the beliefs she grew up believing as a child, despite potential family conflict and disappointment from community who may disagree with her conclusions. She states repeatedly that she loves her family and does not share her deviation from their beliefs maliciously or to place blame on anyone but Gothard. Her sole intention with this book is to speak to those harmed by Gothard’s beliefs, and I think she has done that graciously and genuinely.

This is an important book to read if you:

• Were influenced by Bill Gothard/IBLP or IBLP-adjacent belief systems,
• Are deconstructing and intend to leave your faith behind,
• Want to deconstruct without losing your faith. If remaining religious is valuable to you, then the journey to a healthier attitude towards faith that this book takes you on is gentle and compelling.

Becoming Free Indeed impressed and surprised me. I wasn’t previously aware of Jinger’s current stance on religion or relationship with her family, so I didn’t know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised how healthy her disentanglement journey seems to have been, as well as how firmly she condemns Gothard’s teachings. I’ve listened to a lot of people politely dismiss his more extreme ideas while still affirming that his overall teachings are valuable. For someone like Jinger—who was so entrenched in the entire culture of IBLP—to so strongly oppose Gothard’s teachings as well as his personal character is bold and impressive. I also appreciate that this book is not a tell-all, which disappointed some 19 Kids and Counting fans. This book is not meant to be a memoir or a middle finger to her parents for her upbringing. It is personal in nature, but its purpose is outward—to those who need to hear her message.

Becoming Free Indeed also disappointed me. While I respect Jinger’s challenge to those deconstructing their faith to not completely leave it behind, and while I believe that if a person feels that religion adds value to their life that they should hold onto it, some of her conclusions on what true Christianity is are still grim.

• Jinger still believes that God should guide her decisions and feels that the freedom to make her own choices at the risk of making a mistake is paralyzing. This lack of self-trust is unusual for an adult woman, and leaves her out of touch with her intuition, an invaluable tool and window into oneself that I hope she will one day pursue.
• Jinger also still believes that everything the Bible teaches should be submitted to, which of course means she considers the Bible to be inerrant and infallible. This leaves little room for deviation away from the traditional Christian lifestyle. Compared to her life growing up, the ability to wear pants, have friends with tattoos, and be a wife who speaks her mind sounds like a big step toward freedom, but it’s still a very small box to live inside of. I do have hope that her journey will continue and perhaps one day she will allow herself to wander beyond traditional gender roles and her Calvinist beliefs.
• She still believes in Hell. While she no longer believes she will go to Hell for wearing pants, Jinger still believes that people will go there if they do not believe in God. She paints a beautiful picture of God’s love and Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins, but without a Hell to protect us from, the significance of Jesus’ death on the cross loses significance. Believing that unless you have faith in God and spend your life following Him that you will burn for eternity is still pretty bleak.

I hope that someday Jinger peeks beyond the religious structure that holds her life together so she can experience what those outside of religion have realized: that’s it not so bad out here either. I believe that religion was made to make sense of the world and its mysteries. When I walked away from religion because I decided it wasn’t adding value to my life, I let go of my belief that I had to understand and have an answer for everything. All of those clear, crisp explanations for all of life fell away and…it was chaos! But then life became so, so big. I learned that it’s okay to make choices without consulting a god first. And it’s okay if that choice isn’t the one you would make again in hindsight. Life is full of mistakes and course-correction. It’s a beautiful mess out here, and I feel lucky to be a part of it.

Maybe someday Jinger will write another book about that. She could call it, Becoming Freer Indeed, or 19 Freedoms and Counting or something like that…

All that to say, I’m proud of Jinger for braving the journey of reexamining her faith, and for having the courage to share it with all of us. I have hope that her pursuit of freedom in her faith will continue.