Reality Check 101

By the time this hits the presses, the Josh Duggar affair will hopefully have yielded its place in the media spotlight to some other target of opportunity.  Josh is the first-born of 19 Duggar children.  The family is well known for their TLC reality show “19 Kids and Counting”.  In May, 27 year old Josh admitted that at the age of 14 he had been guilty of inappropriately touching several of his sisters and a babysitter.

When the parents, Jim Bob and Michelle, realized Josh had a problem, they turned to their pastor for guidance.  The Duggars recently explained that the situation was reported to local police, stringent safeguards for the girls were put in place and Josh was eventually sent to a licensed Christian counselor for help.  In the end, Josh repented of his behavior, the girls forgave their brother and the family went on with their lives.

The purpose here is not to rehash the explosion of controversy that has erupted since the police report of the case was leaked to the press – some would say illegally or at least vengefully.  More important issues need to be addressed.

A June 5th exchange between Dr. Keith Ablow and Dr. (Pastor) Robert Jeffress represented the perfect example of the contrast between soulish and psychological explanations of juvenile sexual misdeeds.  They were discussing Josh Duggar.  Dr. Jeffress tried, ineffectively, to explain the dynamic of repentance and reform.  The constant refrain from Dr. Ablow was “he’s a pedophile!”  There it was, the most important question – sickness or sin, patient or perpetrator?

For the public at large, the most fundamental focus should be the concept of juvenile sexual abuse itself.  From the secular psychological perspective, abnormal sexual behavior is a disorder and not necessarily a matter of morality.  As a matter of fact, if it could be demonstrated that socially unacceptable actions or thoughts were simply brain-based mental sickness, there could be no judgement of right or wrong.  How can an errant chemical process which requires chemical control be given a moral value?

If a secularist view is granted its valueless arbitrary system, there is still little justification to brand juvenile sexual activities that cross social boundaries as lifelong plagues.  Various studies have demonstrated reoffending rates of only 5% to 14%.  Of those offenses, depending on the circumstances of the first case, the vast majority are neither sexual nor violent in nature.  Hardly justification to tag kids with a lifelong pedophile stigma.

Society’s response to juvenile sexual offenses and the effect of those transgressions on it is much different if the problem is driven by an individual’s immaterial and “bent” conscience or soul.  The actions by the Duggar parents and eventually of Josh himself is a lesson in a biblical worldview as opposed to a secular one.  Jim Bob and Michelle did exactly what God required of them.  They confronted the sin (Matt 5, 18), honored their position as parents (Eph 6, 1 Tim 5), sought Scriptual counsel of their leaders (Heb 13), followed the authority of the church (1 Cor 5) and finally fulfilled obligations to government authority (Rom 13).  As a result, Josh’s life changed.

Men like Dr. Ablow may not understand or like a thoroughgoing biblical value system, but the fact remains that remaking a person from the soul has always been and always will be, hands down, the best response to offensive behavior or a troubled life.  Whatever one may personally think of the Duggars lifestyle, they understand the most important principles of life; the power of God-given Scripture (Heb 4), parental authority and the gift of rebirth out of forgiveness (1 Cor 6).

Josh Duggar carries the same illness in him that all of us battle – not just a past sexual sin, but that internal propensity to abuse others and ourselves, to belittle God’s place in the real world and to kick against requirements of pure living.