The beating of children being encouraged in certain segments of Christianity is a topic I’ve heard about occasionally in recent years. A recent AlterNet article by Frank Schaeffer, titled “Beating Babies in the Name of Jesus? The Shady World of Right-Wing ‘Discipline’ Guides” highlights the issue.
There is a brutal movement in America that legitimizes child abuse in the name of God. Two stories recently converged to make us pay attention. Last week, a video went viral of a Texas judge brutally whipping his disabled daughter. And on Monday, the New York Times published a story about child deaths in homes that have embraced the teachings of To Train Up a Child, a book by Christian preacher Michael Pearl that advocates using a switch on children as young as six months old.
What many people may not realize is that in the evangelical alternative universe of the home school movement, tightly knit church communities and the following of a number of big-time leaders and authors, physical punishment of children has been glorified for years.
As the Times illustrates — “Preaching Virtue of Spanking, Even as Deaths Fuel Debate” — the books of Michael Pearl and his wife Debi have been found in the homes where several children were killed.
They’re not the only right-wing Christians who advocate these methods. Some of the most respected evangelical discipline gurus have made beating children not just “respectable” in conservative religious circles, but even turned it into a godly activity.
Maybe there’s a way some of these methods can be used without being abusive, but I’m not sure how. Encouraging people en masse, without knowing what kind of judgment they have, to use physical punishment against a child is playing with fire. Tragically, it’s the child who gets burned.
