I'm Not the Duggars, You Aren't the Duggars, the Duggars Are the Duggars

I’m hoping to watch Shiny Happy People some time. It’s a short-form docuseries about the Duggar family (“19 Kids and Counting”) and the ideas that influenced them. It appears that most of these ideas gained prominence through a somewhat mysterious guy named Bill Gothard, whose Institute for Basic Life Principles gained some notoriety in the 1970s. The vast majority of what I know of Gothard and IBLP comes second-hand, so I’m interested in what the documentary lays out regarding Gothard’s teachings and how widespread they became.

Let me say that one more time: I do not know first-hand about Bill Gothard or IBLP. I suppose this is important to clarify from the outset, because I am a white, homeschooled, conservative, evangelical male; apparently there are some out there that would associate me with IBLP on that basis alone. Here is an article, for example, that attempts to tie The Gospel Coalition and Kevin DeYoung with IBLP, at least kinda sorta. Here’s a tweet that suggests the Duggar family is a pretty representative sample of Christian homeschoolers. There are more pieces of commentary like this.