"Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets" is a limited docuseries streaming from June 2, 2023, on Amazon Prime. The show promises to reveal the grim truth behind the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), an ultra-conservative Christian church to which the Duggar family belongs. Bill Gothard, the group's founder, preached that the way to earn a place in heaven was to stay away from worldly influences such as TV, movies, non-religious music, and public school.
Men are the authorities both at church and at home, while women are counseled to dress modestly, marry young, bear plenty of children, and make themselves "joyfully available" to their husband's sexual needs at all times to keep them from straying (as Michelle Duggar famously put it). Although Gothard himself is no longer affiliated with the group — he resigned in 2014 following numerous sexual harassment allegations against him — his church and teachings live on and are still embraced by members such as Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, and the Bates family of "Bringing Up Bates" fame.
Jinger Duggar Vuolo addressed the church's shortcomings in her recent memoir, "Becoming Free Indeed." However, despite her assertions that the IBLP's harsh rules left her feeling guilty and fearful of not being found worthy of God's love, she refused to blame her parents for raising her in such a restrictive faith. Another family member who appears in the documentary may not feel as charitable, however.
