"Happy Shiny People": A Review

 

 Yes, I have the Red Notebook around here, somewhere.

In high school, I went twice to The Institute Of Basic Youth Conflicts. I went to The Institute at The Omni, a recently built arena in Atlanta, to show you how long ago it was. Gerald Ford was President during one of my Institutes, and Jimmy Carter was the President during my other.

The Institute of Basic Youth Conflicts was a man named Bill Gothard.  He came out and stood behind a podium. Next to him was an overhead projector where he drew Basic Youth Conflicts and how to overcome them.

Since I was a basic youth, I was his target audience.

The Omni was packed both years I went. Gothard gave the same lecture in a plain Midwestern accent.  He was not flashy or charismatic at all unless you consider wet socks charismatic.

He taught "Basic Life Principles," which were: Design, Authority, Responsibility, Suffering, Ownership, Freedom, and Success.

A lot of time has passed since I went to The Institute, but I remember the teaching on authority, in which he drew an umbrella showing how God gives an umbrella of authority to protect kids from Satan.  It goes from Christ to Husbands to Wives.

I also remember he mentioned how your birth order in the family could determine how you act.  It always made sense to me that an only child behaves one way while the youngest of four acts another.

Besides that, I only remember a little from my nights at the Omni.  I remember feeling good about going, although I'm not sure why.  I remember thinking some of it was good, and some of it was legalistic. (Note: this is Evangelical talk for "too strict" and not in a good way.)

 On Amazon Prime, there is a documentary streaming called "Happy Shiny People" about the Duggars, a family with 19 children.

The documentary is good, sort of.

The documentary shows that Jim Bob Duggar and his wife popped out 19 kids, all with a first name beginning with "J."  The whole dang family ended up on a reality TV show.

Ma and Pa Duggar were big Bill Gothard fans, and their reason for having so many children was Psalm 127:  "Blessed is the man whose quiver is full." The documentary says that Gothard taught Christians to have as many kids as they could physically have.
 

As Larry Wachs said, when Jim Bob took off his pants, he was all business.

The documentary discusses the oldest Duggar child, Josh Duggar, who is currently in prison for Child pornography.  He also admitted to assaulting his sisters. He's really a piece of work, but you're bound to have some bad apples when you have 19 kids.

There are as many problems with "Shiny Happy People" as with Gothard's theology.

"Shiny Happy People"  paints with a BROAD brush that everyone went to a Bill Gothard seminar came out a Baby Making zombie.  My wife and I have gone to the seminar, and we had ONE child because I was convicted that if we had two children, we would have to live in a van down by the river.

 
The documentary makers lump all fundamentalists and evangelicals in one bag, going so far as to call Wheaton College "the Harvard of fundamentalists," which I'm sure is news to their professors and students.

Besides not knowing the difference between an Evangelical and a Fundamentalists, the film makers don't know the difference between a denomination and a para-church organization. By the time the Duggars met Bill Gothard, Basic Youth Conflicts had morphed into the Institute Of Basic Life Principles (IBLP). They seem to say that IBLP was a "cult" mainly because most people who were into it were nuttier than a fruitcake. Case in point: they are conservative Republicans. Horrors. 

The IBLP was big into "homeschooling, " meaning someone (usually mom) stays home and teaches the kids.  Like most educational matters, homeschooling is only as good as the instructor.  I know homeschooled kids who grew up to be fantastic adults with multiple college degrees, and I've known some who are unsuccessful.  Just like the kids I've known who have gone to public school.

The documentary features an "expert" (a journalist who had an article published) who claims the homeschooling movement is a bunch of prejudiced white people (the journalist was white) who don't want their precious children going to school with a bunch of minorities.

That may be true.  Maybe they just want to provide the best education possible for their children because sometimes the public school system leaves a lot to be desired.

The IBLP got into Republican politics, so you know that's a bad thing.  The politician that gets the worst of it is Mike Huckabee, who is shown chewing out a potential voter over Josh Duggar.

The documentary shows how these conservative Christian Republicans try to "infiltrate" the political world by working for congressmen, PACs, etc. Another way of saying it is: participating in American democracy.

The saddest part of the documentary is the various former IBLP young people and how participating in IBLP ruined their lives. Particularly the girls because Bill Gothard has been credibly accused of being a predator and sexually harassing young women.

All of these kids are "deconstructing" their faith. That's a fancy term for not going to church anymore, wearing cotton candy-colored hair, nose rings, tats, and dropping F-bombs.

These guys all had an ax to grind, and since Gothard (or the kids' parents) refused to participate in the documentary, you have no idea how accurate the stories were.

 So we're left with a documentary that gives a cursory glance at an Evangelical phenomenon, along with a look at a goofy couple from Arkansas and the apparent power of reality TV.

The best thing to do is never turn off your brain at church or when you are watching Amazon Prime.