Jinger Duggar Vuolo grew up in a strict household under legalism, before allowing biblical truth, the true gospel, to help her break free.

Jinger was schooled in the teachings of Bill Gothard, who was a man that claimed his teachings were the word of God that everyone should abide by.

“His side was more man-made rules,” she tells Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable.” “If you looked at the lives of his followers, sadly, they were living a lie. Half of them were not able to stop the indulgence of their flesh, because it was outward things they were doing.”

“Some of them may have been believers, some of them weren’t, but they were trying to find a key outside of scripture, outside of themselves, that was not from the Lord,” she continues, noting that Gothard himself was accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct.

“It was all outward. So the external side of that, that focus on the externals like the Pharisees, really, I think that’s what was driving his teachings. So you prop people up until you can’t anymore, and then when real life hits, when temptation comes, they fall, because they were not truly the Lord's, or they were not truly grounded in the word,” she explains.

Jinger herself was praised for what she was able to accomplish externally, like dressing modestly.

“I was trying to keep up all the outward things until I couldn’t anymore, until I was so broken, and I wasn’t saved until the age of 14,” she says. “So that was something I noticed, this pattern of just trying to keep everyone happy around me, and it wasn’t until I realized I can’t do that whenever I have differences and disagreements.”

“Whenever I stopped walking in those teachings of Bill Gothard, it immediately shifted, and I had people mad at me for living by conviction. When I started wearing pants, it was hard. There were people who were very upset about that and they felt like I was walking away from the faith for marrying someone who was in a different theological camp than me,” she continues.

“But we’re not talking about immodest,” Stuckey comments, adding, “Because that is what it is. You realize that, OK, that is not necessarily the biblical standard of modesty. Yes, we’re supposed to be modest, but it is not a biblical dictate that women have to be wearing dresses or skirts.”

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