One by one, it looks like the Duggars' children are walking away from the restrictive beliefs that ruled their childhoods. In her new book, Becoming Free Indeed, Jinger Duggar reveals that Jessa has also left the religion — the Institute in Basic Life Principles, and in fact, it sounds like she was out before Jinger was.
Jinger's memoir is finally out and in the world.
The book was released on Tuesday, giving fans a look into Jinger's thought process as she dissected what her parents' beliefs growing up really meant and found a new path to her own spirituality along the way.
She does talk about her family in the book, and that includes Jessa — the sister Jinger has always been closest with.
In the book, Jinger mentions that Jessa is one of the people who helped her see the light.
According to Duggar critic Katie Joy of Without a Crystal Ball, Jinger writes that Jessa encouraged her to rethink her beliefs.
We already knew that Jessa's husband, Ben, had been instrumental in Jinger realizing that there was something wrong with the IBLP, but Jessa's involvement hadn't been confirmed until now.
Jessa has never shared this information herself.
And as Katie Joy points out, it makes a lot of sense why she wouldn't — it comes at a big personal risk.
"Speaking out against the group means risking losing friends, family and community. Jinger was ready to take that step, but it doesn’t seem like Jessa is there yet," Katie Joy wrote in an Instagram post. "While Jinger has great intentions, I don’t know how this will impact Jessa or what pressure it will put on her now that Jinger has told the world Jessa doesn’t believe in the IBLP."
Jessa doesn't seem to be *quite* as out of the fold as her sister is.
We've spotted Jessa wearing pants for years — a telltale sign that those IBLP beliefs are starting to shatter — but she still seems to be just as close to parents Jim Bob and Michelle as she always has been, which doesn't appear to be the case for Jinger.
Hmm …
We may learn more about Jinger's other siblings in the coming days.
According to another post from Katie Joy, a Duggar son reached out to her personally to share that he's working on breaking out of the IBLP himself, so things could be getting very interesting around here soon.
We wonder what Jim Bob and Michelle think of all this …
