Child abuse, is quite common in the Evangelical/Fundamentalist Church. The Bible DOES teach it, after all.
He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. (Proverbs 13:24)
Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. (Proverbs 19:18)
Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. (Proverbs 22:13,14)
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. (Proverbs 22:15)
If you don’t beat your children you are not a good parent.
A popular book among Evangelicals/Fundamentalists is Richard Fugate’s book What the Bible says about Child Training.
I wasn’t able to find a text copy of the book online. What follows is a few screen captures from a website devoted to Fugate’s teachings. I will leave it to you to decide if Fugate teaches child abuse in the name of Jesus.
Oh, Bruce… the damage done by this book. I found a copy at a thrift store not long ago and, remembering that my new-parent, new-Christian parents read it diligently, browsed through it. It actually helped me “get over” some of their over-zealousness in punishing EVERY LITTLE DISOBEDIENT DEED with spanking.
I know them as an adult and understand that this was not in their hearts at all; they were both abused children and are giving, kind and compassionate– a teacher and a nurse! But instruction like this about rearing children threw that all off and really damaged the basis of our relationship. They weren’t rearing children to survive in a slave state, which biblical law suggests. But that was the implication, wasn’t it?
If I knew you wanted a copy of the book I’d have picked that one up, or… I’m sure my dad isn’t reading his anymore
In our circles it was John R Rice’s book on The Home:Courtship, Marriage and Children and Bruce Ray’s book Withhold Not Correction. Similar stuff. A training manual in abuse.
I abused my older kids.. Fortunately they have forgiven me.
Bruce
Ray’s book was one my parents used, too. Funny how these writers can find enough material to write an entire textbook on such a handful of Bible verses!
I can’t bring myself to read this post. I glanced. I live with such sorrow for ever having been a Christian.
((((Zoe))))
Thank you.
A yard long ½ inch dowell is a serious weapon. If it was still an issue, i’d submit to some whacks across the back to demonstrate just what kind of bruising an instrument like that can cause. People need to be woke up.
I remember my parents laughing and joking about us not being able to sit down comfortably for a day after being punished corporally (a belt was used in my case). Looking back on that, I don’t see how being bruised that much could be funny at all. My folks must have been so desensitized. As a matter of fact, we had to cry when being beaten. If we didn’t the beating would go on until we did.
What caN I say? They were doing what they thought was right. They were just doing what their little cult told them to do.
Robert,
Yes, if there’s anything that ex-believers need therapy for, it’s the dichotomy between “I love you, therefore I (and God, your ultimate lover) will bring you pain until we shame you into submission.” My mother still laughs about my younger brother tearfully threatening to go “tear down her switch tree” after what was probably his third bruising spanking of the day.
I guess that’s funny… a child wanting to get to the “root” of his terror and end it. Unfortunately, the tree was just a tool and the Bible and Fugate/Gothard/Dobson were the real sources. Maybe it’s “funny” because our parents had so much faith in what they believed that they just knew that no matter how much they hurt their children, they did it out of “love” and God would make it all OK?
OK, I still don’t find this easy to talk about without getting really worked up. I do hold my parents responsible for what they allowed themselves to believe, the same reason I can’t believe this junk. But, in reality, they are still a huge part of my life and I love them. We don’t talk about this part of my childhood, and I don’t have the stomach to challenge them on it yet. Maybe one day?
I did confront my parents. My mom who never physically disciplined me, apologized. She got it. My dad on the other hand, his first reaction was to say, ‘It’s nothing compared to what your uncle and I got.’
It took several hours to get through to him. He eventually got it.
My parents didn’t have a clue. Confronting them was the hardest thing I ever did. I don’t recommend it unless you have spent years preparing for it and have therapy to assist you in working it all out first.
The problem with Christian/ evangelical/ fundy morality is that (1) the Bible focuses on the wrong things (2) on the issues that matter, the Bible is either silent or wrong or doesn’t emphasize it enough.
Beating children is a great example. Beating children is ASSAULT. Yet it is advertised by many as the best way to keep children well behaved.
I’ll stick to secular morality, as it makes sense, it has answers to the real problems of today, and it is humane.
Thanks a lot Bruce for ruining my day! LOL Seriously, this is NOT a laughing matter. I was brought up in an abusive home. Only in the last year have I been able to say that! I didn’t admit that it was abusive. I always thought EVERYONE got ’spanked’ the way we did…with a belt…a hand…a branch from a tree(which WE had to get) (and if it wasn’t big enough the spanking would be harder!)…until we had welts! Yes, welts. Red, raised welts that would be there for sometimes a whole day, running from the knee area up to the lower back! AND, the bare bottom issue? I don’t know for sure how old I was when my dad still did that …BUT I was old enough for it to traumatize me enough that I still remember it vividly!…I would say at least older than 10 yrs old. Then there was the time that my dad was ‘whipping’ me and I was trying the whole time to tell him that what he was punishing me for something I had NOT done, but rather my brother had…when finally after it was all said and done I got through to him and he said “well, then that spanking was for one I should have given you and didn’t”.
Now, the really bad part? When I confronted my dad about that last incident in his later years he was appalled and apologized!? He truly did feel bad. But when we were young, there was very little temperance when it came to ‘punishment’.
We spanked our kids…like the book says (and like the pastor taught from the pulpit!!!)…it’s the only way to drive the rebellion from them. BUT, when our last child came along, it did NOT work!! We ended up in counseling because he was unmanageable, and it was then that we realized we were wrong!
Somehow, it’s pretty easy to forgive my parents for this. Maybe because I realize that even I was wrong when I used excessive spanking and that my motives were not malicious.
The hard part is seeing our olderst son…a dad of 3 with one on the way, exhibit these same practices…we practice what we’ve learned (fortunately he doesn’t go overboard much). SO…our parenting job is not done…even at the ages of 56 and 60! We still have responsibility to show our son a different way, and to remind him that there are ways to discipline that work better than taking out your frustration and anger with a woodern spoon! I’m thankful that we still have influence in his life and he listens to us.
We laugh at the stories of how our kids HID wooden spoons and we’d find them in odd places like the couch cushions…but in reality…it’s very sad!!
My eyes are open now..maybe too little too late. I sincerely hope not!
We were products of our era, of our religion, of our family culture. Our parents were raised by parents that used strict discipline methods. We picked up their habits and passed them on to our kids. Fortunately some of us saw how wrong we were and stopped. Unfortunately, beating children is still common in many religious circles.
I don’t necessarily think a swat on the butt or a slapped hand hurts a child BUT ritualized, regular beating of children is child abuse. It is unnecessary. It teaches children that violence is a proper form of discipline.
Bruce
I was definitely considered one of those children who ‘needed the rebellion beat out of them.’ Anytime my mother tried to spank me, she endured hell over it. I just wouldn’t give in to the spankings ~ it hurt and I’ve never been a pacifist!! But, of course, that wasn’t issue. The issue was that I was a stubborn rebel who wouldn’t learn her lesson. As a 32-year old mother now with a nine mos. old and one in the oven, I realize how vital it is that I respect the individuality of my children in every aspect of guidance and teaching. What is good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander (and spanking/abuse is never good for goose or gander). My well-meaning, Gothard, Dobson, Rice-trained, abused as children themselves parents followed what they were taught to do by people they believed knew what was right and by their own conditioning as well. Somehow, in spite of trying to ‘beat it into me,’ they managed to raise a thinking daughter who never bought ‘it.’ Lucky for my kids!!
There was also Elizabeth Sanford Rice’s “Me? Obey Him?” to keep the women in line.
Zoe,
I didn’t wait for the confrontation. I came to a place where I knew I had abused my older children and I went to them and apologized.
My parents whipped me when I was little but nothing like I did with my three oldest. Brutal. Beat the devil out of them. They WILL be good, little preacher’s kids. I am still sickened by what I did.
That said my actions were sanctioned by my religion, taught by the Bible, and encouraged by disciplinarians everywhere.
My three youngest children fared much better. They were spanked a few times when they were little. Of course my three oldest were boys and two of my youngest are girls. (along with a boy) The girls are much easier to discipline with a look, a frown, with words. The boys, not so much.
Bruce
Ah yes the Rice’s.
My favorite Pete Rice line was his advice to a woman who had a “unsaved” husband who was beating her. He told her to endure his violence in hopes that he would be saved. Leaving and divorce were not options.
We were in a multi-church City Crusade when I heard Rice says this. I was incensed , even then, by such a statement. I pulled our Church out of the crusade.
Bruce
My parents never apologized for anything.
That’s one thing I made sure would be different when we had children. When we screwed up, we apologized.
Bruce, if I may, on behalf of the girls … it was the non-verbal looks that my dad gave me, that most haunted me. Still do to this day.
The looks were more so when the girls were younger. At ages 20 and 18 any look now gets the “whatever” look.
I am grateful my kids turned out as well as they did. In spite of the brutal discipline they seem to be OK. I know their will not be any imitators in my family. Those days are over. If we have to resort to violence to get a child to do something the problem is US not them.
Bruce
I think I’ve told you before that Bill Rice III was/is a member of the church my family attended for many years. We listened to his sermon tapes in the car on vacations, and I remember his sermon on “Christian” marriage well because it scoffed at the idea that a wife would ever have reason to not submit if her husband abused her. He thought that was such a hypothetical situation that no one should even consider it as a basis for questioning his ideas.
Yep, a surefire way to start creating a little feminist… listening to men tell women how to live.