A
previous post referenced Janet Heimlich's book, Breaking
Their Will: Shedding Light on Malicious Child Maltreatment,
noting that Christians have other “compassionate, healthy”
alternatives that are available to them to help them in their duty to
raise “happy, strong grown-ups” (pg 120). They do not need to
resort to corporal punishment, certainly not some of the methods of
aggressive discipline that many Evangelicals tend to promote.
The author goes
on to point out several other trenchant points in the Conclusion
section of the chapter entitled The Perils of Mixing Faith and
Corporal Punishment which I
believe are worthy of mention and discussion from a Christian view.
The conclusion section appears on pages 119 and 120 of the book.
The Myth of Necessity
First, Heimlich quotes
the executive director of the Faith
Trust Institute, Marie M. Fortune, who states that too many
people have made the wrong assumption that “children need
corporal punishment” and that too many Christians
believe that orthodox Christianity actually teaches this concept as a
virtue if not a requirement. The author goes on to cite Phillip
Greven who notes the false assumption that Christians must use
physical discipline in Jesus' Name if they want to properly raise
their children, see them become “saved” later in life, and thus
ensure or encourage their eternal place in heaven. (I've also quoted
material from the same source, Spare
the Child by Phillip Greven, in
this previous post on the subject of child discipline.)
The methods
advocated by controlling evangelical Christian groups do manipulate
parents into believing that spanking is non-optional. They teach
that a parent's failure to use a literal rod or physical discipline
itself becomes the first cause event through an act of neglect on the
parent's part. Refusal to use physical discipline or parental
neglect of the duty to both God and their child becomes forges the
first link in a long chain of lifelong events which will eventually
result in that child's damnation to hell. Such ideas not only
misrepresent what the Bible teaches, but they also exploit the good
will and legitimate concerns of parents through emotional blackmail
and fear-mongering.
 | |
| Janet Heimlich |
As long as the faithful require of children unquestioning obedience, see them as inherently sinful, and believe that adults must break the child's will to help them earn eternal salvation, children will continue to suffer injury and die violent deaths.
I'd like to break
this statement down to note it's very direct, concise, and valuable
elements.
Unquestioning
obedience. First, the issue of unquestioning obedience opens
up a very wide and very critical topic of concern, especially for the
Christian parent. In the seventeenth
chapter of the Book of Acts, we learn that the the author
commended the people of Berea as those of noble character because
they were willing to listen to the Apostle Paul's message, but not
they were not willing to agree with it until they'd compared it to
the Law and the Prophets to see whether it was consistent with the
Truth. This
post concerning Lydia Schatz introduces John Bradshaw's challenge
to replace the dangerous outcomes of unquestioned obedience with a
culture of virtue. He challenges those who control children through
power and subjugation from a place of perfectionism to replace their
methods with love, care, and respect for children which ultimately
trains them to be Bereans. Raising children from a position of
tolerance and loving respect produces adults who abound in God's
liberty and grace as they freely choose to exercise wise discernment
and obedience out of love and from a place of virtue instead of fear
or a survival. In fact, evidence supports hat demanding blind
obedience through domineering control stifles
a Berean's critical thinking, and that abuse and trauma both
inhibit
and can actually arrest
healthy brain development.
Inherent
Sinfulness. Whatever your
viewpoint, I would hope that the reader would not dismiss the great
value of the this statement which at first blush seems to be a
challenge of the Christian Doctrine of Sin. Considering that the
author seems to reject the idea that children are inherently sinful,
balance that with the idea that chlidren are not diabolically
sinful to the great extent attributed to them by the fringe groups
that advocate aggressive corporal punishment methods. Many
Christians within the pale of orthodoxy argue that children sin out
of naivete
and lack of experience and not out of malicious intent until they
develop the capability to comprehend their moral responsibility.
As a commentary
from someone outside of Evangelical Christianity who has gazed into
this fringe subculture with a focus of understanding abuse and harm,
I consider the author's commentary on “inherent sinfulness” as
something that reflects the arrogant idea that parents possesses the
power to do what only God can do by producing holiness in children
through human effort and through the works of the flesh. I believe
her statement actually critiques the arrogance
of original sin as it manifests
in those who legitimize and
spiritualize their
own sinful desire to be like God
through domination and
control which they support with
misconstrued and misapplied religious principles. Such a concept is
most notably not
a Christian virtue.
Breaking
the will to ensure salvation.
In the April 2011 episode of ABC's 20/20 called Shattered
Faith, activist Jocelyn
Zichterman describes in such a powerful way the teaching of some
within the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist churches (IFB) that
physical discipline holds the power to drive away evil. She cites
Proverbs
20:30 as one of the Biblical sources for the concept that
discipline itself saves people from eternal consequences, and that
bruises and the “blueness of the wound” literally drives evil out
of the hearts of children. This teaching contends that men hold the
power to deliver one another from sin – that a sinful man can purge
another from the same nature at work in them. Kevin
and Elizabeth Schatz of the IFB who beat their daughter to death
using the Pearl
Method pursued a
similar cause through the belief that a Christian could attain a
certain level of sinlessness through human effort. And we also have
IFB minsiter, Ron Williams, proprietor of Hephzibah House, who
preaches at length about the spiritual
correction and salvation
of children through corporal
punishment. (And I thought good
Baptists only believed that salvation came through the Blood of the
Lamb?)
For Consideration
I applaud Janet
Heimlich and her statement about the miserable nature of “the
perils of mixing faith and punishment,” though I am saddened that
this message of warning did not come from within the halls of
Christendom itself. Kate Johnson of Christian
Coalition Against Domestic Abuse notes that many Christians
actually believe that it is the work of the secular world to provide
help and ministry in this area and do not see it as the
responsibility of the church. (Christians
should set the example and standard
of ethics and ministry for those in the secular world. At least,
that is how things should work in theory.)
I'm
reminded of the comment of my friend, Jocelyn Andersen, the author of
Woman
Submit: Christians and Domestic Violence.
She notes that because Christians find the discussion of domestic
violence so distressing, they end up ignoring the victims and the
conditions that foster the problem. She refers to sources like
Heimlich's book and the support for Christian victims of violence
from secular sources as the “rod of
man” which should rightly bring most Christians to shame. Too few leaders from within the Church will step forward to care ethically and
dutifully for the needs of the wounded lambs within the Body of
Christ, so God has allowed the “rod of man” to do it instead.
Though it so saddens me, I am grateful.
Preparing the Church to Respond to Domestic Abuse from FreeCWC on Vimeo.
