Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear

Times New York Bestseller The sixth child of the well-known Duggar family from TLC's 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On, Jinger Vuolo, describes how she came to reject the harmful philosophy of her upbringing and came to embrace real freedom in Christ. Growing up, Jinger Duggar Vuolo believed that following the rules was the path to prosperity and divine favor. Jinger, together with three of her sisters, published a New York Times bestseller on their religious views. She fervently supported Bill Gothard's Basic Life Principles. Though she secretly worried constantly that she wasn't living up to the enormous expectations placed on her, she thought that this degree of dedication would ensure God's favor. According to Jinger's account in Becoming Free Indeed, she was forced to reevaluate her views in her early twenties after meeting a brother-in-law who wasn't raised in the same close-knit conservative community as her. He was committed to the Bible, but he didn't believe many of the things Jinger had always assumed were true. His influence and the assistance of Jeremy Vuolo, a pastor, helped Jinger see that her life was based on laws rather than the teachings of God. Jinger committed to studying the Bible—truly understanding it—for the first time. She came to the startling discovery that much of what she had always considered to be true about God, obeying His Word, and being holy wasn't supported by the Bible. Becoming Free Indeed, who has since experienced a resurgence of personal conviction, talks about what it was like to live under Bill Gothard's rules, the biblical truth that altered her viewpoint, and how she managed to keep her religion apart from her trust in Jesus.