Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Jinger Duggar Vuolo: Disentangling Faith from Fear

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Jinger Duggar Vuolo ( 19 Kids and Counting , author of Becoming Free Indeed ) opens up about the evolution of her views on Bill Gothard’s extreme religious teachings, how it feels to deal with her family’s struggles as someone in the public eye, and her anxiety as a result of trying to precisely follow religious principles. She discusses the positives of her upbringing, like her community of siblings, as well as the harmful dynamics she witnessed often at the expense of women. Jinger recalls the origins of her disordered eating and how her mom helped her through it, what forced her to finally challenge her beliefs, and her technical approach to disentangling her truth from the religious falsehoods she was taught to believe. Mayim breaks down religious obsessive compulsive disorder and shares her pop culture recommendations with Jinger. They discuss why Jinger still wants to be in the public eye, how she feels about her parents now, and the value of privacy after a life of being observed. Jinger considers how her relationship with a higher power and how her views on sex and a woman’s role in a relationship have shifted. Jinger Duggar Vuolo's new book, Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It places all these burdens on you, and you start to think, oh, no, what is God going to do if I don't do this? And he had an answer for that right away. As soon as you made the vow, he said, now don't, don't forget to pay these vows to God. Because if you don't do this, then God's helped to get you, basically. I had these little fears as a child already. and then whenever you're placed on top of that, God is out to get you. It became so focused on me. So I'd wake up in the morning or if I was going to bed at night.

I'd be terrified in fear thinking, have I done what's right? Did I forget any of the principles? Did I forget what I'm supposed to do? Did I? Oh, no. I made this vow to God. Now I need to wake up. Right now, it's 1150.

I got to wake up and read my Bible for five minutes. Pray for five minutes. Otherwise, maybe God's going to spite me dead. So you start to feel. this fear and this anxiety within because the teachings produced that. I could be killed in a car accident because maybe I had this feeling I was supposed to stay home and read my Bible for two hours and I went out to play with my siblings instead. So there was a lot of fear that I had to work through and it wasn't until really I came out of these teachings that I saw where it stemmed from. It's hard

to say like was it a cult because I know that it would have to be left up to the experts to like examine that and see. But there were elements of it that were cult-like for sure. It hasn't been the case for me, thankfully, but for some kids when they leave, it's like their families are just not wanting to talk to them or they'll have like this certain level of like cutting them off because maybe they're not, they're going to be a bad influence on their family or whatever. It's my and be all this breakdown. She's going to break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two. So now she's going to break down. It's a break down. It's a break down. She's going to break it down.

Hi, I'm I. I'm Biolic, and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place we break things down so you don't have to. And I'm flying solo today, always missing Jonathan when he's not here. And this is a really, really, really fun one to break down. Ginger Volo, you may know her as Ginger Dugger Volo, has written a book called Becoming a Book. free indeed. And that's Ginger with a J. From the age of nine to 27, she appeared on several reality shows. 19 kids and counting is the one that many people know her from and also counting on.

She's an author. This book is really, really awesome, and I'm so excited to talk to her about it. She also has written a children's book. You Can Shine So Bright. She lives in Los Angeles now with her husband and their two daughters. And I am very excited to get into the breakdown with Ginger. Ginger, thank you so much for being here. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. So as I told you off camera in our little debriefing, I have never seen you on television. And I knew your family's last name just because I would hear about it. You know, part of the reason might be, I have kids who are 17 and 14, and we're not really a TV family. And I very famously have never watched a reality show. Like, I've seen things here and there, but, you know,

with all due respect, it's just like it's not my jam. Like, I like Lord of the Rings and I like documentaries and I'm very interested in like World War II history. So it just like wasn't in my kind of wheelhouse, but I knew you existed. But when Valerie mentioned your book, I was very, very intrigued and really appreciate you being here. And as I shared with you also, you know, I'm a person of faith and you're a person of faith. And our faiths may be different, but in our case, they also share an Old Testament. And so a lot of our, a lot of the things that you believe, while, you know, you may have a different way that you practice them. There's a lot that I really enjoyed about the basis of sort of your faith and how you came to it. Also, as I've spoken about here, you know, I have a lot of

family who are very religious, like very religious. And so when I was reading your book and I was learning about a lot of the way that you grew up and a lot of the restrictions and the guidelines, you know, those are things that are very familiar to me. My mother was raised Orthodox. She was raised very religious. And I have a lot of family that are even more religious than the way my mother was raised. And a smaller portion of my family really does not watch television or engage in pop culture. You know, many, many parts of the Orthodox Jewish community. You know, many have restrictions even against wearing bright colors. You know, there's parts of my family and large parts of the the Jewish community that that really just wear black, white, and gray. And it's a, it's a decision based on,

you know, an interpretation of modesty. So there was a lot that I really understood, you know, about the way that you were raised. In addition, you know, for those of us who follow, you know, traditional Judaism, I mean, we have restrictions indeed about clothing, about food, about decorum, you know, modesty is a very large umbrella. So while I think a lot of people may have been interested in your family or might even be interested in your book kind of for, you know, a little bit sensational reasons, like, ooh, let's hear about all the crazy things these people do. There also is a really interesting, you know, kind of basis to the foundation of a lot of the boundaries. And Restrictions kind of has a connotation. But I wonder if you can talk a little bit, just kind of before we get into a little more of your head.

history about kind of what you understood was positive, you know, about the way that you were raised. Yeah. You know, it is interesting. I think like it's neat hearing some of your perspective on your life as well. I think so many of us, whether you're raised in the setting that I was raised in or not, we have this common scene that we'll see within like our families or our communities where you have, there's such sweet memories that I have. I really would say overall, like I had a very happy childhood. My parents sought to pour into us and we had a lot of fun together. I remember long bike rides on Saturdays where we would line up in a straight road, try to stay as far off of the street as possible. And you had like this trail of like 10 kids behind my dad. My mom would

drive the van, the 15 passenger van with this long flatbed trailer on the back. That way, as we got tired, we could throw our bikes on and then that we would hop in the van and she'd have snacks for us. But I remember those sweet, fun memories together as a family. My parents said their kids were their hobby. So they would always seek to like pour into us, have fun, take us along on little projects they were doing since my dad was in real estate. He would like, we get to go see houses all the time, which I love. To this day, I will sit down on Zillow for fun and look at homes. Like, it's just a hobby because those were this fond memories of childhood that I had. So there was so much sweet and my parents sought to make it a happy hope. And I think whenever you look at the bigger picture

of everything, the sad part was for me that like you could see, man, inwardly, I was wrestling with a lot of anxiety and fears. But whenever you think about like the, thankfully for my story, I had, you know, there were, there were difficult times for sure in pain that I experienced that the world didn't see. But I can think back to all of these years of fond memories. And for those of our listeners or viewers or just for me to have a refresher, how many siblings are there? So I'm one of 19 kids.

I'm number six in the family, so I'm a little bit further. I'd say I'm in the older top half. We don't know. They're like three sections, really. Right. Are there any twins? Two sets of twins. Okay, well, bless your mother.

Number two and three and numbers 10 and 11, I believe, are the twins. Wow. And, you know, I have members of my family that have. I mean, I think the most might be closer to a dozen, certain members of, you know, my extended Hasidic family. You know, the reason that a lot of Jews choose to have a lot of children, well, first, there's the issue of a lot of religious people don't believe in birth control. Like, that's a thing.

there are, and this might be TMI, there are ways that women are taught in traditional Judaism to learn their ovulation cycle. There's a lot of boundaries and restrictions around the menstrual cycle for Orthodox women. In any event, a lot of women can and do work within those bounds to avoid getting pregnant or try to avoid getting pregnant while also not violating, you know, some of the rules that we have around menstruation

and not having intercourse during that time. Because, you know, if you think about it kind of historically, and I hope this provides a little framework for people, you know, a lot of the culture that the Bible describes, you know, was a very different time when people were expected to have lots of children to help work. Many children often died, you know, depending on when it was in history, it was a guarantee you know, that you would be able to have a functioning farm or a functioning business. And so, you know, for a lot of people, that was a way of life. And for my family in particular, you know, my family, you know, was rebuilding after the Holocaust.

And there are many, many branches and many communities, specifically of Eastern European Jews, who really believe that it's like an edict from God to replace, you know, the, the, the six million, as it were, and the approximately one million, you know, children who were killed during the Holocaust. So, like, it's a heavy burden, but, you know, I can't say that it's not really for me to say, like, oh, those women are miserable. And I do know, as a woman who has had two children, it's incredibly physically taxing, and it's incredibly exhausting. And when you have a large family, you also then have child care. I mean, it's, and, it's, and, I don't even think of it like using your kids. Like that's how families used to work. And for a lot of history,

that's how it was. So I wonder if you can speak a little bit about, you know, kind of what it felt like to be part of. I mean, you kind of were your own little, you know, community of siblings. It is interesting. I think growing up in such a large family, it was, there was so many sweet aspects of that. So even right now, we just have two kids. We have a five-year-old and a two-year-old. two little girls, they're so much fun. But at the same time, like, I can see how even those mandates in scripture about be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth, you know, I could go off for that and say, okay, therefore I have to have as many kids as possible, which is, I think, the teaching where a lot of people will have differences on that and opinions about what

scripture is actually saying. But whenever I think you can see, a breakdown within the community, at least that I was raised in. I'll just speak to that, where I think it was mandated that you couldn't use any form of birth control, even if it was, like you said, like planning. Just counting. Natural family planning, right, which you're just keeping track of stuff. Some would even refuse that and say that's, that is pushing away the arm of God in what he is commanded for us. And so we need to receive children as a blessing, even if I just had a baby. And so you get into this cycle of having as many kids as possible. And the thing that I see as the challenge was within that community, that's not the only issue. There were other things

where they would say don't go into debt at all. So you have families who are, they're trying to make it. They're trying to figure out how am I going to support my family? How am I going to have even a home for my kids if I'm not able to go into debt, get a mortgage. So you had them living in these tiny homes. And of course, the dad's working, but maybe if you had older daughters, they're not allowed to work. So no one's really allowed to move outside of the home until you're married or there's, there are different dynamics that I saw as harmful. And often the women were the ones would take the brunt of it. And they would be in this place of, difficulty and trying to function and make it as it was just, it becomes more of a burden.

And you don't, like within my family, I could say I loved, I loved being a part of a big family that I think my parents were able to manage a lot of that pretty well. And at the same time, like I would look at other families around, maybe you were not as fortunate. Maybe their circumstances didn't fall into place as well financially. and there was more challenges, there were more challenges there for sure for the women. And I saw that as very damaging.

And I think that whenever you welcome a kid, you want to be excited for that child. Come into your family, you want to be joy-filled. And sadly, some of those moms would be sick at their stomach, the entire pregnancy on bed rest for many months of the pregnancy. And at the same time, they have nine kids over here who need to be cared for.

So I'm sure you've seen much of that, like within these communities, even within the Jewish community, there are these things where it's like, yes, children are a blessing. We don't want to reject that because that is in scripture and it is true. But so are many other things. So if all of this is a blessing, do we need to have as many of it as possible? That's the question. So Christians have disagreed on this for many years and ages. It's gone back to biblical times where you've seen there have been disagreements on this.

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The thing that is interesting that I found kind of throughout your book is that the Jewish tradition kind of follows the traditions of the rabbis from that time. And what happened was after, you know, after the Romans and after, you know, Jesus' death and we had Christianity starting up, what happened was there was a group of rabbis who basically kind of kept a lot of these traditions alive and kind of wrote down and they wrote down, you know, I mean, their disciples wrote it down and, you know, kind of over the next several hundred years, we start having this, like, code of behavior. And for Jews, we call it halacha. And it's the, it's the set of laws that kind of tell us all the details, right? So that it's not so much open to interpretation. It's like, here's what we're generally agreeing on. And, like,

you know, when you talked about, like, oh, there's nowhere that says to wear a skirt, like, so for Jews, there is a place that says you should not show the space between, you know, basically your knees and above. You shouldn't see a separation. Like we have, we got it down to a science. And like, you know, part of it was like when the temple was destroyed, which was our main place of worship, you kind of had people just like scattered everywhere, right? And our most of our main rabbis were killed by the Romans. And, you know, but what happened is you had these like books that kind of like people kept

track of like what you're supposed to do. And things like be fruitful and multiply, you know, there's books written just interpreting what does that mean? and where does the health of the mother, you know, way into that. A lot of the discussions about abortion and things like that come from us going back to thousands of years of writing of like, what's the health of the mother? And what does that mean for the family? And I'm not saying we interpret it perfectly.

No religious system is perfect. But I wonder if you can talk a little bit about, you know, your family followed a particular guy and his kind of community that basically said, we have the interpretation. right? Can you talk about who he was and sort of, you know, how you understood how that interpretation was kind of your, you know, your rabbinic interpretation, for lack of a better phrase. Yes. So it is interesting how I remember Bill Gothard being this, in my mind, he was like the person that we all wanted to be like. He was the man who I believed, like, I never would have said for for us as believing that God's word is sufficient.

I would never would have said I needed somebody to interpret it for me. That's not in my understanding of what I believed. It wasn't true. But for some reason, Bill Gothard was also in my mind, like maybe he's a prophet sent from God to share these teachings that we would never be able to find out anywhere else. So I kind of viewed him as such and really held him in high esteem. And so Bill Gothard came on the scene in the 60s and 70s.

He was, it was in the middle of the sexual revolution. So a lot of parents were kind of freaking out. Like our kids are going to get wrapped up in sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Look at us now. It's a mess. So it is crazy because they were looking at this saying like, what are we going to do? Like how are we going to keep our kids from all of this? How can we guarantee that they're going to not leave our Christian values?

So Bill Gothard came on the scene in that time with this basic youth conflict seminar. And he would fill up massive stadiums full of people, people from all different, even faiths were like busing people in to these stadiums saying, we're going to bring our youth here and you can teach them these principles, these seven basic life principles that will guarantee their success in life. So that's already our first problem, right? when someone says I've got the one answer, right? The key.

Right. That's where my ears kind of like, oh. Right. And that's so right. Because we are, we want in some sense, it seems so comfortable to like have someone who will give us the answer. Like, okay, what's the recipe? I want to follow it to a T and I'm guaranteed the success. Who doesn't want that?

Right. So I can see the appeal of it. now as a parent of even a two and five year old. I'm like, it is crazy to think about my kids growing up and having opinions. And how do I point them at me as a believer in Jesus? I want to point them to my faith in the Lord. And I want them to have a relationship with God like I have loved.

But at the same time, I see that these external things are not what's going to keep them from, like keep them from these dangers that I would see, you know? Like, I want them to love God, but I think what happened was, Bogother came on the scene with this list, and it was a guarantee. Just do these external things and you're good. So a lot of families got wrapped up in that from all different backgrounds, like I said. You'd have some who were kind of dabble in it.

Like, we're going to pick a few things he says and see if it works. And then you had others who took it to the extreme of like, we're going to use Bill Gothard's curriculum for all of our schooling, which was a problem, because some of them were poorly educated because of it. Because they were like, we're going to do math from numbers, which you, I'm sure, maybe read numbers. I don't know the Old Testament numbers, but they're like, let's add up these families and how many do you get.

Yeah, for those of you not certain. So like a lot of the math in the Old Testament is a census. It's a lot of keeping track of who's who. And it's because the Old Testament was it was, you know, considered like a not just a spiritual book and a historical book, but it was like a logistical book of like literally like who lived where and how many tribes were there. Like it was a lot of that kind of math. Also some people live to 900 years and like. Right. So let's subtract like how many years before they died. Right. So some, some. a couple of families did that. And then you had others who would actually have a legit education, which my parents were very, very good about giving us actual school to do, even though we were homeschooled. So you have within this setting, those who would pick and choose. But if you were actually in these teachings,

Bill Gothard would say that you need to follow all of his teachings to a T. And if your life started to fall apart, or maybe your kid started to not turn out, he would be like, pause and go back to these principles and let's see which one you violated. So talk to me a little bit about him because, you know, people who have the ability to draw people to them are often very intelligent.

I mean, I'm just guessing. I don't know him. Like, I wouldn't know him if he walked up to me on the street. Did he live near where you lived? Or it's just like people knew about him and you went to places? No, so because the seminars were so, prevalent in this pocket of time. I think that a lot of families got involved in it. I know my family

was involved before my parents started having kids. Oh, got it. And so that was part of the reason why, you know, maybe they had so many because of these teaching. So I think a lot of people were drawn to Bill Gothard in those early days because he really had, he had promised to have the key, right? But he wasn't even living near us, which was interesting because he was in Oak Brook, Illinois. That's kind of where he was. But people would go to his conferences or they would go to his seminars at that time. I guess in the early days, it was the seminar that he would promote in Knoxville. He would fill up these massive arenas full of thousands of people. And they would hear these teachings. And once you hear it, it was interesting how he got people into the teachings. I think he has the,

this personality of like, I just want to help your family. I just want to, you know, give you these answers that God's given me from his word. And it seems very plausible. Seems right. But at the seminar, he would have people make vows to God to keep these teachings that he had just taught them. But he would like take a verse of the Bible and he would say, you know, whatever it was. Like if you vowed to read your Bible for five minutes every day, because we're supposed to, you know, hide God's word in our heart. Let's make a vow before God. Raise your hand all across the stadium.

Let's make this vow to God that you're going to read your Bible or pray for five minutes every day, which as a Christian, you're like, oh, okay, that sounds good. Let's do that. And then he keeps going down this whole thing. But what that does is it places all these burdens on you. And you start to think, oh, no, what am I, what is God going to do if I don't do this? And he had an answer for that right away. as soon as you made the vow, he said, now don't, don't forget to pay these vows to God.

Because if you don't, if you don't do this, then God's help to get you basically. Yeah. So, yeah. So I kind of want to, and I, I want to interrupt you there because I want you to talk about what that did to you. And I think what's really neat about your book is that you don't talk about what's right for everybody. You don't talk about what anybody should do or should. didn't do, like you're really, really careful with your words. And, um, and I, I really appreciate that. But what you describe is that and, and I can't say this is true of all of your siblings, right? Because we don't know. What we know is that for you, this started a train of thought that began, it kind of began to feel scary. I mean, the, the line of thinking that you went down, which is not

unusual, I would say, you know, when you're getting this kind of information. But can you talk a little bit kind of about where your young mind went with this kind of, you know, dogma, which is kind of what it is. Right. I think that for each person in this community, I've talked to a lot who have come out of it. You'll have different people with temperaments that maybe can handle it better. But for me, I feel like from the start, I was always, I had these like little fears as a child already. And then whenever you placed on top of that, God is out to get you. Even as you are walking like very carefully or seeking to do what you're supposed to do, I was a very like compliant child.

I was never one to push the boundaries. So I wanted to do what was right. But even in that, with these teachings, what it happened was it became so focused on me. So I'd wake up in the morning or if I was going to bed at night, I'd be terrified in fear thinking, have I done what's right? Did I forget any of the principles? Did I forget what I'm supposed to do? Did I?

Oh, no, I made this vow to God. Now I need to wake up right now. It's 1150. I got to wake up and read my Bible for five minutes, pray for five minutes. Otherwise, maybe God's going to spite me dead. So you start to feel this fear and this anxiety. within because the teachings produce that. And so I wouldn't say that for every single person in that setting,

it was the exact same. But the longer you're in it, unknowingly even, you're slowly slipping into this mindset of like, okay, like I'm trying to appease God at every turn. Instead of as I would see now as someone who loves the Lord, I'm in this place of delight in relationship where it's not a burdensome thing. And it's not like if I don't read my Bible today that God is up there like,

okay, now I'm going to have you be in a car accident because you didn't read your Bible. No, there's a delight and a love for God that changes everything. It's like I want to read the Bible. So I'm reading it because I love God, not out of fear. And realizing there's like a relationship change of God as father, not looking at me like I'm out to get you at every turn. And, you know, what you describe, I mean, first of all, sounds, you know, really scary. Because, you know, what you talk about is kind of that it started touching, like, kind of every part of your life.

Meaning, it touched your, like, your fears about what you should eat or, you know, how you should look or literally, like, what you should wear and how you should wear it. And the thing that's really interesting to me is that when your thought, you're thought. come under attack like that, it must feel really terrifying. And you went to your mom a lot and it sounded like your mom, you know, was very loving and very, you know, caring around it. And I thought it was very interesting some of the things that she kind of helped you arrange around your eating, you know, which had become disordered. And for you, it was kind of like you, I know, what struck me and please, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, it seemed like you couldn't escape from. God, meaning in ways that didn't feel loving and supportive.

Yeah, it is interesting because I think within these teachings, he would teach about fasting, which is something that we do see in the Bible. Yes. But it's not. I do it many times a year. Happy to text you when we do it. It actually is like, it's a fine thing to do, right? It's a spiritual practice, but we do it very specifically, yes.

But not as like, I'm going to wake up in whatever I feel today is. what I need to do because if we live by our feelings, then life becomes very disordered because it's like, especially when I'm pregnant, right? When I was pregnant with my kids, goodness, if I would have had that perspective when I was pregnant, my emotions are up and down. I'm like extra emotional crying over here. But it's like part of it was I think when I would wake up in the morning, I think, am I supposed to fast today? And I was already struggling with my eating, like not wanting to eat enough, not eating things that were going to sustain me. And so, I had opened up to my mom about that after struggling for a while. And my mom had an eating disorder

that she had shared publicly about this, but she had had an eating disorder as a young teen. And so I knew that I could go to her and I wouldn't face judgment. My mom has always been so kind. So I went to her and shared that. And she really helped me to like work through that. And then I heard this thing about fasting. So I was like, oh no, maybe I'm supposed to be like fasting once a week because Bill author talked about that and like how you can you know like have a closer open line of communication with god if you do this or whatever my parents were like no like no way because they knew my struggles with that so they said don't do that so i was grateful for that but at the same time like you said it it affected everything so if i was going to go out the door to go shopping with my sisters or if i was

going to go to broomball to play the sport with my siblings i would like be fearful because I was like, I'm going to, what if I'd go? I could be killed in a car accident because maybe I had this feeling I was supposed to stay home and read my Bible for two hours. And I went out to play with my siblings instead. So there was a lot of fear that I had to work through. And it wasn't until really I came out of these teachings that I saw where it stemmed from. You know, there's something that that I started becoming curious about really kind of in our culture. I think around the time that people started learning about Islam and, you know, there was a lot of erroneous and, and really, you know, racist things that people believed about Islam because of a lot of things going on in

our culture. And I think it started, at least in my knowledge, you know, around 9-11. You know, and there was a lot of discussion that started happening about, you know, religious belief and how far we will go, right? And I'm not comparing your situation, God forbid, you know, to a situation where you believe, for example, that you should die for God, you know, because there are people, you know, who take it to that level. But I started becoming interested, especially because I was becoming more religious myself. I started becoming interested in what I called religious mental insanity. And that was just like my term for it, meaning I would meet people or interact with people or hear about people in the news. And I was like, I don't believe that this person was born,

you know, wanting to necessarily live that kind of life, but something happens on our journey and with who we meet and what culture we're raised in and whatever. And this, you know, in the years since that, it's something that has been talked about kind of with more structure. And I'm not trying to pathologize you. I'm not trying to be like, I have a diagnosis for you. But there is a thing called like religious obsessive compulsive disorder that is now studied in the literature. literature. And what it is, it's a form of obsessive compulsive disorder, which like, you know, is a full spectrum, meaning like some people wash their hands all the time or like have to check the oven 86 times, whatever. But for a lot of people who are raised in very specific religious

communities, there's like this exactly what you're describing. Like I'm just looking at, you know, a list from Center for Anxiety Disorders, you know, compulsive praying, which can include restarting the prayer, like if you get it wrong, and I do this even with prayer. Like if I don't have like a full, you know, like fluidity to my prayer, like I'll be like, oh, I got to start again. It doesn't count. I got to do it like that. Reading or studying excessively, right? Questioning your motives, like because of God's role in it, you know, constantly seeking forgiveness or, you know, believing that there are things that you have to do to guarantee safety. And that's like literally the definition of OCD is that people have these compulsive behaviors

that they believe will guarantee them safety and freedom from like the obsessions. And so it's kind of interesting because, you know, what you describe sounds a lot like your brain latched onto something, you know, and it became like, you know, this kind of focus for you. Do you think that really continued until you met and started dating your now husband? Like, did this sort of, in one way or another, continue? I think it did because it was interesting. I had, I would kind of look at other people outside of our circles and think, okay,

maybe they're walking with God. Maybe they're not because you kind of see differences. Like if the woman wore pants in their family, I was like, okay, well, I know they're not obeying every rule as they're supposed to, even if they come to conferences. They would wear skirts conferences, you know? And I was like, well, how are you actually get a guarantee success for your family? So I really wholeheartedly believe that stuff until it was really, I believe, whenever my brother-in-law came in the picture, then he kind of came on the seat, started talking to my sister, that kind of like challenged my thinking and how I read the Bible.

But it wasn't until my now husband, Jeremy, came on the scene where he approached the Bible differently. Right. And I really appreciated seeing how he handled the Bible because it wasn't like he was going to just pick out a verse, make it say wherever he wanted to. he wanted to see what did the Bible actually say? What was the context of this? When was it written? And who was it written to? And these things are all important questions that we have to understand when we're

reading the Word of God, which I had never really taken into consideration. So I was like, oh, I'd hear a message on like modesty that was like picking random verses and like trying to apply it to today or something on dating where you're not allowed to date. You need to do courtship. Well, in that case, if we woke back to biblical times, it should all be. arranged marriages really. Correct. Which we did not believe in. Right. So you have all these pick and choose, which just it doesn't end up in the right place because what we see is yes, in biblical times,

these things may have been mandated for Israel or they may have been in this specific time period. But with even as a believer now, as I view the Bible, with the new covenant, I would say as a Christian, I say there's this new covenant when Christ came onto the scene where I can see that he fulfilled, build a lot of those things. And so as a believer, I'll view the Old Testament, some of those teachings as like, okay, that was for Israel in that time. And so you have these differences that Jeremy, when he came on the scene, he knew nothing about the teaching I was raised in.

He did not know who Bill Gothard was. So he went to this conference and was kind of like, this is interesting. Everybody kind of like talks the same, looks the same, has the exact same, secondary and third convictions on things that I've never heard of. So how is this possible? So can you, before we kind of get more to that sort of, you know, new way that not only you started thinking, but also living and seems like is, you know, suiting you really nicely and also, you know, the family that you're growing, do you, do you consider that

you were part of a cult? Like, is that how you talk about it? I say now that it was very, you could have very cult-like stuff within it. It's hard to say, like, was it a cult? Because I know that it would have to be left up to the experts to, like, examine that and see. Right. But there were elements of it that were cult-like, for sure. And I think even for some kids when they leave, it hasn't been the case for me, thankfully, but for some kids when they leave, it's like their families are just not wanting to talk to them.

or they'll have like this certain level of like cutting them off because maybe they're not, they're going to be a bad influence on their family or whatever. But it's hard to say like for me, like as an individual. I would leave that up to experts to look at it and see what elements may have been cult. Yeah. Well, and I guess the reason I'm asking is not just because I want like a sound bite of you being like, I was in a cult. But I'm curious how you kind of frame it for yourself.

And you talk about this in the book. in a really, I mean, I was honestly really surprised because I knew nothing really about you except, you know, your last name, like your family name. And you really like, you go hard on really taking apart what no longer worked for you about that and why. Yeah. And I'm curious like, you know, did you feel like this was an act of bravery to kind of like break it down like? that because you could have also been like, here's the new way I like to live. But it's like there's, it's very academic in terms of like you, you go like you go deep and you go hard. Step by step through the teachings. And yeah, it's interesting. Kind of balzy. Ginger, you're kind of balzy. It was kind of crazy. You know what's interesting about that. When I first thought about like, should I write a book? It took me years to get to that place because for one, I was working. I wanted to work through first myself for those years. And, you know,

on disentangling, what I would say now, like taking apart the truth from the error myself before I came to the place of talking about it publicly. And why I wanted to write this book was to help those in the community who may still be there or to help those who have been harmed by it and leave any sort of Christianity altogether

because they're like, now that I have this view in mind, I can't see God as anything but somebody who's always out to get me. can't see God as a loving heavenly father. And that was what drove me to write this book. And that's why it is so detailed. And like, this is how this teaching of authority is wrong. Because I do see, I do believe as a believer in Jesus as a Christian that there's a difference of like, there is an authority structure, right? Like, I'm supposed to obey the government. I'm supposed to pay my taxes. I'm supposed to do these things that the Bible commands. But I can see how Bill Gothard would come in and he would twist stuff.

to make it so harmful where you're so confused about who got it is. So I wanted to take it apart piece by piece walking through. That way, if there's someone who's still in this or even outside of Bill Godthard's teaching, set that aside. There are enough teachers who will try to place burdens on you that you can't carry and we're not meant to carry. And so that's why it is so technical, I'd say. I wanted to get into it for those who can identify with the pain.

has caused them for all these years. Here's a hard question that honestly, I don't know if I would know how to answer if I were you. So, you know, you can do your best, but I won't be offended if you're like, I don't know how to answer that. What's really neat is that, you know, you kept journals. And so you actually have like this tangible evidence of like what your thought process was, like, you know, really down to a T, like really, really specific. And I would imagine that must be so trippy to like be able to look back at like this person

that you were, you know. Yeah. And this is something, you know, I wonder about in general, but I've never really gotten to ask someone, were you lying then? Like, when you look back, do you think, like, I was lying to myself? Or do you believe that you were just in a state where you, like, that was true, but now it's not? Yeah, I think that that was my reality because part of it, well, to an extent. extent, right? Like, anybody can hide anything in their journals of like, oh, I'm fine and I'm not.

But for me, I think, of course, I had a journal stolen from my bedroom at a young age. I couldn't believe that. So with that, yeah, so with that, like, of course, I'm not, I'm not writing everything so personal. I would never write a thing again. I don't think I'd speak out loud. I need a safe for my journal. That's right. So, yeah, it's interesting. So that kind of just, kind of shook me a little bit. I'm like, okay, I can't be. so raw. But at the same time, I would say like in in that season, because it was like I had on these lenses that were viewing the world in a certain way. And I wholeheartedly believed it all. I was like, I was probably, I don't want to say, but in my, in my circle maybe I was like the most

about like I was so into these teachings. So families would come on, they would come around us and they didn't do all this stuff. If their kids were rebelling, I'd immediately say, say, I think in my mind, they haven't learned these principles yet, have they? So I felt like even as like a 13, 14 year old girl, I had it all mapped out how my life was going to go, how my kids were going to be raised. And I would judge other people, like even in my heart, I would judge other people for maybe sending their kids to a Christian school or for doing like dressing in a way that I thought would bring them damage because Bill Gothard, I don't think I said this yet, but Bill Gothard taught that if you follow his principles, then your life will be a success.

But if you don't, then your life will be one disaster after another. So with that in your mind, I would view everyone else around me like, okay, you can love Jesus. I had friends who love Jesus who were outside of circles, but I thought it's a matter of time when your kids are going to rebel or when your finances are going to go away or when you're going to get cancer and you don't know what you did to cause this. So you need to go back to these principles. And then you'll have the answer to all of life's problems. Okay. So I have to stop you though, because, and this is, this is not said lightly because I do understand historically and, you know, while I do not accept Christ as my savior, I understand that people have and that's fine. Right.

But, you know, I do know enough about Jesus to know that he was known to be a person who welcomed the downtroddened, the stranger. He healed the sick. Like he was a, he was known as like a non-judgmental icon, right? Like, let he who is without sin cast the, did I do it? Cast the first stone. So, and this is not being like, you were a bad Christian. This is just me saying, I'm wondering what was sort of the party?

line on we are allowed to be judge, jury, and executioner for other people's ethics when Christ is supposed to be guiding our behavior. Like, how did you rationalize it? As a child growing up in that, you have a framework for how you view everything. I would have said, I come to Jesus, not by any works of my own. Salvation is a gift is how I would have said that as like a four-year-old, five-year-old. I knew that. Right. But practically, whenever you start to follow these teaching, once you think that you view Jesus in a certain way, Bill Gothard would say, you know, it's almost like it's all on you instead of all on Jesus,

which as a believer, now I'd say it's more, it's all on the finished work of Jesus because he died on the cross for my sins. Right. So therefore I am accepted before God because of Christ. Right. But in that setting, I would have said like, okay, I can see how this person may,

maybe they are saved. Maybe they're going to, you know, they believe in Jesus, but maybe they are not, they aren't doing enough to keep their kids from falling away. Maybe they're not doing enough of these rules to satisfy or to appease God. And so it almost becomes a totally different religion because you're looking at it in a way of like, okay, now I'm working my way to God as opposed to this other view that I have now, of like it's done. It's finished and I am now a child of God, not because of all this stuff to keep myself in a right relationship with God. Yes, because I love God, I don't want to sin against him.

But what is sin? What does that mean? What does God command me to do and not do? Well, I need to go back to the Word of God to see what he says. So yes, I would judge other people because I wanted out of almost compassion. I don't, I don't know how often in my heart it was like, I'm just so much better than you. But pride, all pride will do that. So I'm sure there were seasons where it was like that. But it was almost more like, man, I just don't want your life to fall apart and you not know why. Because you, that's really what it was. It was like Christians would believe that their lives were falling apart because they did not do enough of the principles.

So then you have to go back and diagnose. Like Bill Gauthored told story after story of like he told the story of this person who had an eye condition. They were starting to like lose their house, all these things. and it was because they didn't know about a specific principle. Once they got the principal in place, he says, oh, their life started to fall into place. It's like, yeah, maybe she just got some creams for her eye. And maybe she started to actually handle her finances correctly.

So it's interesting. You start to become fearful and like, what am I going to do? What am I going to not going to do? Instead of looking at the person of who God is and seeing what his character in nature really is. I think for a lot of people listening, you know, of any religious faith or of none, I think can relate to that connection that you just made because, you know, meditation has become a larger part of my life and I think a lot of people.

And, you know, there's a meditative process to my religious tradition as well. It's been there for thousands of years. Just a lot of people don't kind of talk about it because we're very busy, you know, making rules and laws about who should live where and what they should eat and how they should dress. but what you just said feels a lot closer to the idea of kind of like a unity in the universe where we all believe that there's something good that is not us that guides all sorts of things and every religious tradition is going to try and find the best way to get there. And along the way, there's going to be people who use that to their advantage because we're all human,

you know, like we're all just like doing the best we can trying to make sense of a world that is beyond our understanding in my perspective because I didn't create it. Like, I don't have all of the knowledge of how things work and why children get cancer and, you know, all these things. But like there's certain things I know to be true. And while we now know why prayer works, right, it doesn't work, in my opinion, because God has ears and God is picking and choosing. I'm going to listen to her, but not him.

I don't like how she dressed or she ate pork so she can't have her prayer granted. There's a much larger, you know, kind of picture. So I wonder sort of what you'd say your perspective is now. Like what does it feel like now for you? Yeah, it is interesting because I think as we look at the bigger picture of everything, I would look at my life back then and see it very fear-based, very controlled with anxiety, looking at God as always out to get me, like I said. But I see this as, yes, we are all wanting to figure out,

why are we here? Why do we exist? What does God have in store for our life? If you believe in God, there's that certain reality that I, now as a Christian, would say, I look at life and say, yes, I want to honor God. Why? Like, I have this, we all have this desire to want to figure out why we're here.

And so for me, when I look at God, God's word, I say it makes sense now. Like it makes sense more than ever realizing that I am here for a reason. God has designed and created me. I long for a relationship with God. Whereas before, I think it was a certain sense of like I know what is true in a sense. Like I had this understanding of truth, but it was mixed with so much error to where I felt like, man, I just never know if I'm pleasing to God. And so now I feel like as a believer in Jesus, I see there's a difference there where it's a shift of seeing when I open the Bible now. I'm not terrified thinking, okay, if I woke up late today, I'm not reading my Bible today. If I go to the gym, if I do this, then God's looking down

waiting to get me. He's waiting to kill me in a car accident, waiting to give me cancer. Because I see like even if I get cancer tomorrow, I know that God's good. And I know that it's not because of me doing something outside of his will that he's just out to get me. Because I can view God as a loving heavenly father. And I can come to the Word of God with reading the Psalms where David is in agony. He's pouring out his heart before God. He's raw. He's real.

He's broken. And that is where God meets us. He meets us in our brokenness, in our weakness, in our pain. And we can express that to him. We don't have to feel like we're hiding all of this. and come to him and say, there is nothing I can bring to you to offer that will ever gain me favor with God.

And that was the difference between Bill Gothard's teaching. He would have all on you. You're always fearful. There's always something you didn't do. And when you come to Jesus, you see coming to the Word of God is sufficient and you don't have to worry about like, oh no, I'm not going to be accepted today.

And there's peace there because I realize for me as a Christian, Like I am not, I am no longer like living this life of fear. So like with my kids, we're sending them to this, you know, we're choosing different schooling options. And I would say, where I have privacy. But it's like we're doing different schooling options that I, then I would have ever thought I would do. But I think it's right because I'm making the best decisions for my kids today as I, as I would see that is best for them.

And it's, I'm not like going to overthink stuff now. I wonder if you can talk a little bit, because you touched on something, and you didn't say the word, you kind of talked around it. You're really kind of threading this really fine needle of perfectionism. And, you know, when you talk about Gothard, like, it seems like there really was, there was like a perfect way to be. Like, these are the things you do and then your life will be successful. And to me, like, I hear perfect. You know, my mental health. My mental health radar is like, that's perfection. And not to talk Bible, but I love to. You know, you mentioned. David, and King David was a flawed leader. Every leader in the Old Testament. King David saw a woman bathing on the roof, and he sent her husband to the front lines because he wanted to lay with her. And, you know, it's something that the, you know, that the Old Testament, you know,

it comes to terms with it. But like Moses was a reluctant leader, you know, Miriam even, Moses' sister. Like, we are made of flawed, like humans are flawed. Yeah, we're all broken. We're all, I mean, it's just like, that's just the state of the universe. And if I wasn't, if I was perfect, I wouldn't be me. I'd be God. And that's not going to happen because that's not how it works. Right. But, you know, when I think about what you talk about, you know, with your eating stuff, right? A lot of disordered eating and I share disordered eating with you or a history of that. A lot of that is about, for me, perfectionism. Like there's a, I have to, my body has to look perfect. And if my hips have this, you know, extra flesh, like, that's not perfect. or like my skin's not perfect or whatever, you know, pick a body feature or thing about me. And that's not perfect. And I wonder how you view that now. Like do you see a shift in sort of your notion of perfectionism? Can you talk about that? Oh, yeah. I'm so glad that you touched

on that because that is a huge part of what I experienced. That perfectionism of feeling like if it's not just for myself, it's, it's for God. If it's not this perfection. perfectionism. Like I feel like I can't even pray to God in my real state of what I'm feeling in my heart because I'm like, am I praying the right words? Is he going to hear me in this way? And then in like relation to other people, it's like I always have to carry myself a certain way. So I struggle with like social anxiety talking to people in certain settings where I wasn't as comfortable. What are they wanting to me to be? So I'd almost like adapt myself to their personality because oh no, I'm just not like my personality is not good.

enough so I need to be just like them or I need to say the perfect words in this conversation or I feel like a failure. Those things, it is interesting how they have shifted and I don't now it's like I realize that because of who I am now as a believer, like I can see that I am made and created to be ginger. I'm not created to be anyone else. And I'm here for this season. And if I'm I'm just trying to be a carbon copy of everyone around me, that's going to be boring. That's going to be dull. And so, yes, every day I will have to wake up and remember that. I will have to train my mind in a way. Like, I have to just remind myself, like, wait, stop thinking like you used to think because I used to be so, try to feel like I have to be so perfect. Like, I had a friend over to my house

the other day. And after she left, I was like, girl, I'm so sorry your kid was eating old Cheerios off my floor. Because I didn't have time to vass. And I was like, she said, can I come over? And I was like, yeah, come over. And I realized my kids had spilled food everywhere. Well, she came over into my mess. And yes, I was embarrassed. But at the same time, there's like this, I don't have to be so perfect all the time. I don't always have makeup on. I'm, sometimes my hair is like a mess and I'm like run around. And I have people in and out of my house, not able to make a meal. And I, there's that sense of like, I can, I want to be, I want to not focus so much on these. external things. And even for others around us, like I think social media, okay, we won't even go into all this. But like social media, that whole thing has created this, this sense of like, we have to be so perfect. And even with like our personalities, even with my, my husband, my sweet husband, like we get along so well. We hit it off. We have a lot of the same things in common. But even with him, when we first got married, I was like, I felt like I was having like in my mind

initially, I was like, I want to be this perfect person for him. So that way he always loves me. But he realized he's like, Ging, I want you to be, I want you to be you. You don't have to be performing for me to like always have this cheery happy attitude when inside you're sad. Just tell me you're sad. I want to be there. And we can do life together in the dirty and the messy and all these things. And that changed something for me. It took years to work through. but there was a shift in my mindset of not performing, realizing that I want to be, I want to be a loving person. I'm not going to, if I'm angry every day, that's, there's something messed up there, right?

So I want to like work and grow to be more like Christ. But in my mind, it's not me working. It's like God's working these things in me through all the circumstances of life. And I realize that this is a slow thing. We're working. And I want to become a, person who's more loving, more Christ like every day, show my kids that. But it's not going to be just by me like mustering up the courage to do every single thing to be this perfect person

for everyone because that's not real. And no one's like that. Only God is perfect. Very well said. I have a funny question. How has your perception of sex changed? Because I know like for my, I know like, you know, for people that I know and, you know, people who are raised religious, like there's a very specific, you know, set of like rules and how you should think about it. And, you know, in Judaism, even in traditional Judaism, like, we believe very, very deeply in enjoying, you know, sex. And obviously in very specific ways of like, you know, traditional Judaism would say it should be in a, you know, a marriage and a monogamous, you know, whatever, loving, whatever. But I'm curious just, and I'm not asking for like nitty gritty about your sex life,

but I'm curious like how your perception of sort of like what you thought the expectations were for a woman, like how that changed when you sort of opened up, you know, into this new way of thinking. It is interesting because earlier when you mentioned that about like, you know, your menstrual period, it's like you have a certain time that you're supposed to abstain. We would have followed that in Gothard's setting. And that would have been something that was taught. because Bill Gothard was very quick to go through all of these rules that he thought were prescribed in scripture.

Given he's a single man, never been married, never been in a relationship. So it's kind of weird. But anyhow, set all that aside, I think that one of the bigger things for me was just realizing that I kind of just thought I was going to have as many kids as possible. And that was going to be my future. It means you got to have a lot of sex. I know, but you know, it's interesting that shift of like coming out of that. It actually provides more like there's there's a sweeter sense of like, you're not like, oh no, stay away from me because now I know I don't want to get pregnant right now.

I just have a two month old. So there's a certain sense of like I think a gift, the gift that marriage is that God is provided. And yes, I still would say that my view is one that's biblical. So I, what I am faithful to my husband. and I want that to be where I enjoy that gift from God of sex. And so that is something that I still hold to as a Christian. But at the same time, I think that that pressure of perfectionism is gone.

Because it, yes, as a woman, I will often like, you'll feel like, oh, man, after I have my babies, it took me a while to get back down to the normal size of, like, feeling more fit or feeling whatever, like stronger. And those things are natural. Like every woman, some more than others will have to like work harder at that to like to feel more normal. But for me, there was a certain level of like, I knew that I wasn't the one who was like keeping Jeremy in this relationship. Because within author's teaching, he would say, you know, you need to always be cheerful, always be happy, always be available.

And that's just, it's crazy because it puts the pressure on you and it says if the man leaves, it's all on you. Yeah. And I wonder if you can talk a little about that because especially, you know, like I've, for most of my life, heard people say that, like, religious life is misogynist and, like, you're being told what to do and, like, why are you wearing skirts and, you know, all that stuff because that, you know, was a lot of my life. And there are many places that, like, you know, I like to educate people about all the different kinds of women that are religious. Like, it's not just one kind of woman and we're not all being told what to do. And some people prefer wearing skirts.

And, like, that's their God-given right, too. But as you describe kind of this shift, I can't help but saying, like, as a person who also is a feminist, meaning it sounds so much more empowering to live this kind of existence as a woman and meaning the way you describe it. Like, I can't say what's right for, you know, I don't know enough about your family to know, like, who's still in and who's out. But, like, for you, what you're describing is living an authentic life as a woman where you are the master of your own destiny and get to say, even though I'm told I'm supposed to have sex with you because you want it, I'm also allowed to say, I don't want that right now. And it doesn't

mean that anything bad's going to happen. Yeah, that's part of the teaching. I think that Bill Gothard would say, I'd see the skewed side of like this authority structure that he would say, like God's here. Your husband is here. If you do anything or say anything against him, like, hey, I don't want this or like share your opinions. It could come back, come back bad on you. And maybe he won't be faithful. Maybe he, it's all on you as the woman. And I see within scripture that I see that there are roles, but it doesn't mean that one's better than the other. Like in our relationship, we are a, we are a unit. So I, Jeremy and I were like bouncing things off each other. I have these ideas. We'll run with that. He has this idea. He'll run with that. Like we are, we are a team.

And that's how we view our lives now, which is such a beautiful thing. Because then it's no longer like I am this like I'm just I'm here with doing the dishes I'm here like whatever kids I do stay at home with our kids but I also have a very lead a very busy life um so there we'll have like people come in and you know help us um with the kids so there are there we have this whole balance and Jeremy will take the kids and I'll go do my own thing so we are not like it's not like this structure like okay now you can't leave the house ginger like it was never, it's never been that way. Jeremy has actually pushed me to, to think for myself, to see what kind of hobbies and what kind of things I enjoy, which I found out rock climbing is

something I enjoy last week. Yeah, I wanted to ask you. Okay, I wanted to ask you, right, because I, I'm not really a part of, as you can tell pop culture, um, to a large part, you know, the fact that like I don't watch reality TV and, you know, like I just, whatever, I'm kind of an old person. Um, but I, I, I am curious, you know, you grew up in, such a specific, you know, community that did have so many boundaries around what you can listen to and what you can watch. And I totally get that. Like, I have family, like, they don't listen to modern music. Like, it's totally a thing. But I'm curious what you like. Like, I'm going to ask, I'm going to ask you a couple questions. Have you listened to the Beatles? Beals, yes, I have.

Do you like the Beatles? Do you like the Beatles before Sergeant Pepper? Because that's when they got stoned. You know what? I haven't. That's part. part of pop culture that I don't know a lot of, I don't know too much still because all those years. But you've heard the Beatles. Yes. Oh, yes. Okay. Have you heard like the Beatles? I know that name, but I haven't heard the spice girls. I'm sure I've heard them, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you mention names, I'm not going to know names, but if you tell me a song, I'm like, go, I know that song. Do you like country music? I do listen to a lot of country, probably because on occasion, you know, I feel like it's kind of like this Arkansas thing still in you. Yeah. I don't really have a thick accent, I wouldn't say, but I, I kind of fall into that. Jesus. So it's like whenever I'm talking, it's so interesting how I'll fall into it. Country music is a thing that we have on our,

our radio in the car all the time. You turn on our radio. Do you like, do you like Christian rock? Like, do you like Christian music? I do listen to Christian music. Sometimes I feel like it gets so repetitive with the styles that we need a little change. But I love Christian music, of course. It's interesting, Jonathan, who's not here. Jonathan, I mean, there's certain kinds of Christian music that he loves because of the message is very powerful. And even though we don't believe in Christ, like, there's a real passion to that kind of

music. So I was curious. Have you listened? Okay, have you listened to, like, do you know, like, any Kanye music? Yes, Kanye. We listened to tons of Kanye. We actually went to one of his Sunday. Saturday services.

What? Went to one of his, the first Sunday services he did at, goodness, the forum. Yeah. In L.A. We went over to that one. Did you like it? It blew my mind. It was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen because of the way that the whole

choir. Yeah. I saw some footage of it. So talented. Those people are so talented. Love it. So do you like, like, have you seen like, classic? Disney animated movies?

Like, have you seen like? Yeah, my kids are into all of these. Like, what do they like? Like, what do you? I mean, I still watch animated movies by myself. So you're in good company. So I'm not the biggest fan of animated movies, actually. I'm more like you, maybe on documentaries.

I love documentaries. I love to like learn. You want to learn. I'm all about that. But I love shows. Like, Seinfeld is one of our go-toes. I love the office, Seinfeld, all those that are really fun. Seinfeld is like, that's like all my people.

That's what my whole family talks like. I just love those. You love the Jews. You love the funny Jews. So great. What are the shows do you like? Wait, do you know I was on TV? Have you ever seen Blossom?

I've never seen it. So I did have to look you up. I will be honest. I have to look you up because I was like, Bank theory. No. That was a really popular show. That's what I hear.

And I saw that whenever I looked you up, I saw that you were on that. I played a scientist. And also, I feel like there's a little resemblance to Kaylee Quoco, that's a compliment. I could see, like, if you were like, oh, that's Kaylee Quoco's like cousin. She was the star, you know, of the Big Bang Theory, too. Okay, what, I mean, I want to ask you all the things. If you had to choose, like, a favorite movie, like a movie that you just love. Oh my goodness. I can only sit through a movie once and then I'm done

with it. I'm not a, I'm not a person to rewatch unless it is the office. So I don't really have, I don't really, I like shorter shows. It's just part of me. Like, I don't know why. I'm going to ask a dumb question. There's a movie called Exodus Gods and Kings. And it's Ridley Scott. It's the guy who did this movie called Gladiator.

But it's all, it's like... Gladiator is Jeremy's favorite. Okay, that's my favorite movie. But wait, you have to watch... Okay, that's Jeremy's favorite. Okay, but you have to watch Exodus Gods and Kings because it's the same director. But it's all Moses.

It's like Moses and Egypt and I watch it, I watch it every Passover. Okay. That's our holiday. I think that's what we're. We're going to watch tonight. Yeah, you have to watch Exodus Gods and Kings. And it's Christian Bale, who's like this really famous actor.

He plays Moses, but it's like kind of like he's like a rag tag Moses. He's like gathering all the like rebels to like, you know, try and take on Pharaoh. And it shows the 10, it shows the 10 plagues in like, but it's like it's so real and it's so interesting. The frogs. Oh, I can't. But they come out of the water. It's so cool.

Anyway, I highly recommend Exodus gods and kings. We watch it every Passover. Hey, I think you just gave us a good suggestion for tonight. You know, there's a lot that I didn't really know about your family that it is my producer, Valerie's job to tell me about. And I know that there's stuff in your family that's very troubling. And it must be troubling for you because it's about your family. And it must be troubling for you because your families live publicly.

And what happens is when people own a part of you, they feel like they own all of you. So what happened in your family, I don't know the details, but what I know is that there's, there are problems in every family. No family is immune from complexity and in many cases, mental illness. Like, you know, my family has a lot of that. And, you know, who knows, like how that manifests. But what I wanted you to see, what I wanted to see if you would talk about, because I know there also, we found out, there's like a docu series.

They're making about your family and that must feel really invasive. You mentioned that your journal was stolen, you know, when you were very young. and with all the stuff that's kind of continuing to go on, you know, a lot of what you advocate for is privacy, meaning like protection. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit, like if you could say to people how it sort of feels to be you with all this stuff going on in your family,

which is not pleasant. It's not pleasant for you or your brother or your parents. But I wonder if you could talk to people sort of about, like, as a human, what it feels like, to have so much of people thinking they own all parts of you. And sort of what you'd like to say, you know, I know that you and your sisters are part of, you know, kind of a very unified front in trying to protect the notion of your privacy.

And I wonder if you could talk about it. I know a lot of people might be like, I shouldn't feel bad for her. Like they were on TV. But this is not, you know, your life kind of happened at you. Yeah. And now you get to sort of put it together. what would you like to say to people about what they perceive as like the drama or what they get to

know about you? Yeah. That's interesting, Maya, because I think I don't talk about like all the time, the privacy side of it. I think you probably can identify, even though I did just have to look you up. It's only because of mine, only because of my sheltered, right? But everybody else knows who you are. But with that, like there's a certain level of when you are in the public eye. And I think that, but people do expect you to share everything with them. And so whenever we, we had shared little bits of pictures of my oldest. And then we just decided a little bit into that

before we had our second child to keep her off of TV for one because we were still filming at that time. And, and then also just off of social media in general or out of the public eye. And that was just a decision that we had made. And I think initially you have reactions from people thinking that they're entitled to your kids because they watched you grow up, they feel like they're your friend and they know you.

And so there's this interesting dynamic of feeling like, okay, now that we know who you are, we want to know who your kids are and we need to see them. So don't show them at all. Don't even show the back of their head if you're not going to show us their face. So it's interesting. You have very strong opinions on that. But on the other side of things, whenever you walk through life in a very public way, I think that it puts more responsibility on you as a person to see, okay, this is something that God has placed here for me.

And maybe it's just a season. Maybe it's just for the next several months. Maybe it's for a couple more years. But in this season, I need to be faithful with what is placed before me. And so for me, you know, I thought about like just fading off into like just no one, no one seeing my face again on social media and doing that. But then whenever I thought about like this story and sharing my journey out of these teachings, I thought it's necessary because of how many people have heard me promote these teachings, even as a young girl, I want to come back and say this is harmful. This is not

helpful. And hopefully they would come out and find freedom themselves. So that was something that like drove me to keep going. And I think now that I've done that, it actually has been the biggest encouragement because you see, you hear stories from people who've been through way worse stuff, or a setting that was actually a cult and realizing like, man, I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to speak this into their lives. And you realize like it is worth it in that sense. But as far as like the privacy side of it, there are days where, it's harder where you feel like, man, it would be easier to not be in the public eye whenever you're walking through the biggest challenges publicly. And those things, I have to just view in a bigger picture

and say, yeah, this is hard. But I think that perfectionism goes away when you realize that, like you said, we are all broken people who are, we are all imperfect. God is the only one who is perfect. Jesus is my delight and my joy. So I'm running there for my satisfaction. And if somebody hates me or they hate what my outfit looks like, yeah, I might, I think whenever I go to post on social media, that is something that I think about. Like sometimes I'll be off of social media for a few weeks

and they're immediately like, you have marriage problems. Your kid has a medical condition. They thought Evie had Down syndrome because I wouldn't show her face. They thought that my kid had Down syndrome. That is so funny. Isn't it crazy? You just jump to conclusions because you don't understand why we're, why we're giving privacy to our children or why we may not want to be on social media. And so some of that can produce in you where you feel like, is it worth it?

And you're overthinking every post. You're overthinking how you look. You're overthinking what caption you use, what word you use, because it's going to be attacked. And so ultimately, I have to set that aside and say, well, if I choose to be on social media, I want to just be who I am, share this. Even if it's raw, I want to share this. And if people hate it, they hate it. Because I'm not going to be able to be who they want me to be. Even if I do what's just perfect, it's not good enough.

I also have one more hard-hitting question. And then I have just a couple fun things. And then I'll let you go. I promise I'm just really enjoying talking to you. How do you feel towards your parents now? Like, do you feel like they, you know, should have, done something different. Do you have compassion for them? You know, obviously with like what's gone on, like with the stuff with your brother, like I have such compassion for parents who are dealing with all

these things. Like, how do you feel towards your parents? Yeah. With my parents, I love them so very much. And I see how I think I said at the beginning, I saw how parents got wrapped up in these teachings in the start because it was, it was a good thing in their mind. Like, you're promising your kids guarantees for success financially, physically, spiritually, all these things. Of course, it sounds good. So I can see how even now as a parent, like, if I didn't know anything about these teachings that I heard, I could be like, oh, what is that? You know, it sounds kind of good. Let's help our kids to be good, upstanding citizens who are, they love God. Let's do that. you know, like I see how plausible it is.

And so I don't have any, any like ill, you know, like, I don't think they had ill intentions, like when they step into these teachings. I think they were genuinely thought that this is biblical and this is how we're going to love our kids best. And so me as a parent, like, I can look at them and say, they did an amazing job of pouring into us kids, being there for us. it's just sad that Bill Gothard, I would put it back on Bill Gothard because of him being the one who captured so many families in these teachings. But yeah, that's just how I'm able to like, I view it

that way. And I love my parents so very much. I wanted to ask you a little bit about living in L.A. because in the book you talk about, you know, you and your husband kind of forged a different path. And, you know, there was initially your parents were concerned, which I totally get, you know, about you even, you know, being pursued by him because he was not from your family's kind of set of teachings. And, you know, you've settled into what sounds like a very happy and much less pressured, you know, kind of Christian, you know, sort of community. But one of the really cute things is like, you know, I grew up in Los Angeles. So I'm used to all sorts of different people, you know, different shapes, sizes, colors, socioeconomic backgrounds. But, you know, when you talk about coming to L.A., it's kind of funny because, like, I can tell you come from not only a place where there are not necessarily a lot of diversity. But you also grew up where, like, you kind of had your own.

I mean, you were each other's school and you were each other's social group. You know, you had this whole family. So what's it been like coming to Los Angeles? Angeles where like there's, I kind of felt like you're like, look, there's like tattooed Christians. And like, there's black people and Latino people. Some of that I knew, it's interesting. Some of that I knew because I traveled, like we traveled a lot because of the show. We traveled the world. So we were not totally isolated. Like I remember going to Israel. And I was like, oh, wow. Like, they don't all talk like Seinfeld. Sorry. So great. The Jewish community actually, like they had so much in common with my family

in a sense. So I was like, wow, this is, it's interesting. So we did travel the world. We saw. I'm not your first Jew you've ever met. I thought that might be fun. That's so funny. Yeah. Too bad. Sorry. So anyhow, with all that, though, it has been, it has been so good and so healthy. We love being in L.A. And I think that part of that is, like, regardless of where I am, it's, it's so cool to see, like, the different cultural backgrounds that are here in represented in LA and being able to raise our girls here is so much fun. It's so fun. And also, let's just say the food scene is next level. I was going to say, there's so much good food. Oh, we, we love trying new cuisine. So that's like our favorite thing. We don't want to eat at the

same restaurant twice unless it's like Dave's hot chicken, the Nashville hot chicken is ridiculously good. So we'll do that. But other than that, it's like, nah, we just, we always have to try some new ethnic food. That's really fun. I'd like you to talk about, because I know you, you had a book that you wrote kind of before. Tell us what books people can look to. This is not the only book you've written. So talk about what books you'd like people to check out of yours. Yeah. So the hope we hold is another book. It just talks about how it's more of my story of how I met Jeremy. We actually wrote that book together. It's called Hope We Hold. And then the other one, you can shine so bright. It's just a fun kids' book. And so our girls love it. They love to like all the bright colors and the illustrations.

It's just so fun talking about how you can shine so bright in this world. And then the book that we've been talking about today is becoming free indeed. My story of disentangling faith from fear. Yes. And that's the story of coming out of Bill Gothen's teaching. Really such a pleasure to speak to you, I think you're really, I think you're really brave, you know, to dismantle so much and to show how you built it back up into the life that you're living now. I really respect you a lot. And thank you so much for talking. Thank you so much, Myam. I really enjoyed speaking to Ginger and I was very impressed with how articulate she is about some really, really complicated things that I think she's still working through. But one of the really neat things that I didn't get to talk to her

about that I thought I would end with is, you know, I think she's, I don't want to say come under criticism, but I think people have asked, like, oh, you're deconstructing your faith and, you know, you're breaking it down. And I think she's gotten some criticism for that. But the way that she describes it is she describes it as disentangling. And she has this story about one of her brothers got like putty, you know, like that, like silly putty or whatever kind of putty stuck in his hair. And it took her mom literally an entire day to get this putty out. She had to like keep adding like, oil to it and heating it up to like, you know, to take it out of her brother's hair. And she said it was that process that most feels like what this book is and, and what she's doing. And, you know,

I think what really strikes me is that she was part of such a cloistered and protected community. and then by being put on television, even though like, oh, it made it so big and it made it so public, it was kind of just another version of a life of being observed and restricted. And, you know, I'm really comforted by a lot of what she writes about

in terms of her life with her husband and how far she had to step out of her comfort zone to even think about religion differently and life. And that disentangling is really, really, really interesting for me as a reader to learn about. So I highly recommend her book. And, you know, I also think a really, really interesting kind of cautionary tale when we see people, especially reality TV stars or people on social media, like, we still think that we know them, you know, to a certain extent. But there's a whole person in there that was having a whole process,

that whole time that America was watching her. And we still watch people. I know it, because I talk to all of you on social media at Bialik Breakdown. I also talk to you there. And yeah, I think it's just a really, really healthy reminder for me of as much as we think we know, there's still a lot going on that we don't. And that to some extent,

that still needs to be protected, even in a culture that loves, loves to dig into the details of people's life. So I really enjoyed talking to her. And from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time. It's my Bialic. Break down she's gonna break it down for you she's got a neuroscience PhD or two

One fiction was a now she's gonna break down break it down