Jill Duggar and husband were not cleared for missionary work by anti-LGBT Baptist group

While Jill Duggar and her husband, Derick Dillard, have raised funds for what they called missionary work in El Salvador, the couple has not been certified to perform in that capacity, The Inquisitr reported.

Dillard had stated on on a Duggar family blog that the couple's home church, Cross Baptist Church, had "commissioned" them to "the mission field."

"The commissioning consisted of our pastor leading the congregation in praying for our family as we work on the mission field," he wrote.

But according to the rules of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), Duggar cannot be accredited as a Baptist missionary spouse -- and thus be eligible for funding from the organization -- unless she completed at least 12 hours of study at one of the group's accredited colleges. However, she has never enrolled in any college.

For his part, Dillard would only qualify for missionary funding if he both earned a bachelor's degree from one of its accredited universities and completed between 20 and 30 hours of graduate studies covering subjects including theology, evangelism, and biblical studies, among others.

The couple had been asking for donations through their own tax-exempt organization, Dillard Family Ministries, until fans began questioning whether Dillard and Duggar were traveling back and forth between the US and Central America for legitimate reasons.

The questions continued as recently as Oct. 2, when someone asked online whether the couple's activities were sanctioned by an SBC affiliate, the International Mission Board (IMB).

Duggar is slated to be featured in new specials produced by The Learning Channel in the wake of her family's previous show, 19 Kids And Counting, being pulled from the air after her brother Josh admitted to molesting four of his sisters and a babysitter in their sleep.

On June 17, the SBC's leader, Rev. Ronnie Floyd, said members should declare "spiritual warfare" should the Supreme Court strike down several state bans on same-sex marriage. The high court did just that a week later.

Four months earlier, another SBC affiliate, the Madison Baptist Association, moved to "defellowship" Weatherly Heights Baptist Church in Huntsville, Alabama after both its senior pastor and another minister expressed their own support for marriage equality.

[h/t In Touch Weekly]