It's a first for the ultra religious Duggar family. One of their daughters got re-baptised, and not just for fun: Jinger says she needed to because she had doubts about her religion when she was growing up.
The pants wearing, Netflix watching mom of two just confirmed a few things the old #FreeJinger movement speculated years ago. Fans of her TLC shows have long believed that Jinger wasn't always into her family's strict fundamentalist lifestyle- and it turns out, she wasn't.
Here's what Jinger told curious fans in a recent IG Live.
She Regrets Following Along
For background, baptism is a Christian ritual about declaring one's faith. As Jinger told IG, the first time she did it she was just following instructions. She says she didn't truly believe in the spiritual aspect of it at the time.
"When I was six you know I prayed a prayer and I thought, you know that made me saved," she explains in the video. "And I kind of just held to that for years. But at that moment when I was six I just kind of did it because my sister was doing it and I just repeated some words, and you know the 'ask Jesus into my heart' type thing, but I did not."
She Felt Guilty and Told Michelle
Jinger's spiritual doubts continued through many of the teenage years captured on '19 Kids and Counting.' Despite being featured on TLC attending church events and studying the bible, Jinger says she often wasn't feeling it.
"Being raised in a Christian home, you kind of go through like 'well I read my bible,'" she explains, pulling faces. "But I hated it. I would go to church but it wasn't my favorite thing in the world. I would sit through sermons and I was like 'ugh, when is this going to be over.'"
At 14, she decided to come clean to her mom.
"I remember just pulling her aside one day in the afternoon and I told her," Jinger says. "I was like 'I am not saved, I don't, you know, I know if I were to die I would not go to heaven.'"
She says Michelle told her to "cry out to God and ask him to forgive me," so she did- but she still didn't feel as strong in her faith as she does now.
Life On Her Own Terms
Now Jinger is freshly re-baptised and this time (like with a lot of things in her adult life) she did it her own way. She says she still follows bible teachings, but feels better now that she's not being forced to.
"I'm living my life according to it, not because I have to, but because I want to," she shares. "Because now my heart is desiring those things."
She called her baptism an "outward symbol" of that "heart transformation," and you can watch it yourself here: