As we previously reported, some of Jinger Duggar’s own supporters might not like her new book.
Becoming Free Indeed doesn’t take too kindly to Free Jinger fans.
Jinger may be “free” of the toxic ideology of the restrictive cult of her childhood … but she explains that she doesn’t want actual self-determination.
In fact, Jinger might like choosing what clothes she wears … but she says that she doesn’t trust herself to make her own moral choices.
The full name of Jinger’s memoir is Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear.
In the book, the former reality star “recounts how she began to question the harmful ideology of her youth.”
“And,” her book’s promotions have teased, how she “learned to embrace true freedom in Christ.”
During early chapters of the book, which releases on January 31, Jinger takes aim at and disavows the “Free Jinger” movement.
Obviously, this was a smaller group than “Free Britney.” It also began years earlier — on a forum (yes, remember actual forums?) in 2005.
Jinger admits that the name entertained her … but took offense at the idea that people wanted her to abandon her faith.
To Jinger, freedom — at least, the kind of freedom that she actually wants — means not letting religion control what she eats or wears.
(Or not allowing an insular cult to weaponize religion and boil it down to a strict set of lifestyle rules)
But, as is unsurprising given her fundamentalist background (and current beliefs), she sees religion as essential for making moral choices. Even if it sort of takes “choices” out of the equation.
“I’ve come to see that unfettered freedom does not produce the good life,” Jinger writes alarmingly.
“In the end, it often leads to more bondage,” she adds. She does not, for the record, mean sexual kinks.
“Why? Because it puts me in charge of my life,” Jinger explains “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,” Jinger posed.
She confessed that “I struggle to commit to anything.”
Of course, she may be missing the fact that lacking the opportunity to make moral choices as a child and build ideas from the ground up may be behind her “struggle” as an adult.
Kind of like how people who couldn’t play video games as kids may struggle with certain things as an adult.
Part of childhood is supposed to be about developing life skills.
And if someone denies you the chance to work on that, well, it can be hard to pick up as an adult.
And she had more to write about those who hoped to see her walk away from the world of restrictions.
“The curators of the website saw in me a girl they assumed didn’t have the good life because she didn’t have unbridled freedom,” Jinger reflects in her book.
She goes on: “They thought, ‘If this girl could break free from her family’s ultraconservative rules — if she could wear what she wanted, date who she wanted, pursue the career she wanted, and drink what she wanted — then she would be happy.’”
But at the very end of her book’s first chapter, Jinger declares that these supporters were “wrong” to feel that way.
Obviously, Jinger is not alone in her belief that morality can only come from religion. Even those of us who are people of faith can acknowledge that this is simply untrue.
Perhaps Jinger would struggle less if she’d had the opportunity to develop her own ideas about the world. Her faith, her sense of right and wrong, would be more authentically her own if she had gotten to figure things out herself. Now she’s “free” but fears embracing it.