Jon & Kate Announcement

TLC is running ads that Monday’s episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 will center around a major announcement that will (according to Kate’s voice over) “affect the life of everyone in the family, and hopefully bring us some peace.”

Let’s hope that the announcement is that they are cancelling the show and working on their marriage.

Christianity Today on Jon & Kate Plus 8

Julie Vermeer Elliott writing on Jon & Kate Plus 8:

It was not until the recent allegations of sexual impropriety arose that a significant number of Christians began to question whether Jon and Kate were indeed the examples of faithful living that we had imagined. Somehow most of us missed the long trajectory that was, day by day, moving them farther from a life of Christian virtue. Sexual immorality—whether actual or merely suspected—caught our attention, but the materialism, narcissism, and exploitation of children that preceded it was largely overlooked.

Read the whole article here.

(ht:  Justin Taylor)

Dear Jon & Kate, What About the Eight?

“Daddy, I don’t want you to go away no more.” – Alexis Gosselin (5)

There are three popular reality shows on the TLC network about unusual families that have in some ways defined a genre.

One show is about a family with Little People parents with three average height children and one Little Person child.   Another show depicts the lives of a family that has 18 biological children and may indeed have more.  The third is a show called Jon & Kate Plus 8, about parents who have two sets of multiples, eight year old twin girls and five year old sextuplets.

The shows are unusual for network TV in another way.  All three families are professing Christians, and their programs usually depict their faiths in a positive light.

That is one reason that I find the recent controversy surrounding Jon and Kate Gosselin so troubling.  For a family who used to be so openly faithful, they seem to be acting with a surprising lack of faith.   Yes, it appears that Kate would be extremely difficult to live with, and Jon appears to have at least emotionally, if not physically left the marriage already, but I can’t let either of them off the hook so easily.

Here’s the thing.  I know couples a lot like Jon & Kate appear to be temperament-wise.  But, they have worked through the personality issues.  They have honored their commitments by relentlessly pursuing Godly lives and deliberately committing to the success of their marriage.

I’m sure that having your lives broadcast on TV can’t be helpful, but I hope and pray that somehow Jon & Kate work through their difficulties and raise their children together as a family.  That would really make a statement to the world.