At “Faith, Hope, and Love” we believe in peaceful, non-violent, positive discipline methods.
Tragically, though many children are being disciplined to death, all in the name of Jesus.
The number of Christians who discipline their children using humiliation, domination, and violence is alarming! There have even been three instances over the past few years where children have been murdered by their Christian parents all in the name of (so-called) Biblical discipline. Yes, there are several verses in Proverbs that mention the use a rod for discipline.
Proverbs 23:13 does says- “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.” Is this verse intended to be interpreted literally? I think not, but I guess the parents who murdered their children did interpret it literally. There was just one problem with that…Their children did die! You can read more about these tragedies at Elizabeth Esther’s blog post, Justice for Hannah Williams: #NoMoreDeadKids. You can read an excellent explanation of Proverbs 23:13 at Arms of Love: Spare the Rod. It doesn’t mean what you may think it does!
It greatly distresses me that Christians really believe that parents are commanded to literally hit their kids with sticks! Although I personally do not like spanking of any kind, I understand that some parents may choose to give their children a little swat on the butt if, for instance they try to run out in the street in front of a speeding car, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about cold, calculated, and repeated smacks across the butt with hard objects until the parent decides that the child’s will is broken. Who in their right mind wants their child’s will broken anyway?!
Discipline does not have to be physical. The definition of discipline is the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience. (I’m not even a fan of using punishments to discipline. I prefer positive forms of discipline). It is not wrong, sinful, or un-Christian for parents to choose non-violent, non humiliating, peaceful, and positive methods of discipline to teach their children to behave.
Jesus did not brow beat, humiliate or hit the people He discipled. He used stories and parables to teach new Christians how to behave. Jesus was gentle, loving, kind, and respectful. Christian Parents, if you want to be more like Jesus than gentle, peaceful, positive parenting is for you!
My personal experiences with spanking my children.
When I first trusted in Jesus as my savior way back in 1982 I was a young single mother to Jimmy then four years old and Brian who was two. I had always been vehemently opposed to any kind of violence being inflicted upon a child including spankings. As I began hanging around other young Christian mothers, I was shocked to discover that they hit their children as a form of discipline. In fact, they encouraged me to spank my children also. When I made it known that I didn’t believe in spanking, the other mothers were quick to enlighten me on the subject of Biblical discipline.
My new Christian friends proceeded to inform me that If I loved my children and wanted to be a good Christian mom that I HAD to spank them. Indeed, I was told if I did not spank my children that I would be sinning. My new friends taught me that the Bible was the inspired and infallible Holy Word Of God, the only true and ultimate authority over all things, and that it was always to be interpreted literally.
I adopted all these new beliefs. It was my greatest desire to obey God and be the best mom that I could be. I convinced myself that to be a good Christian and a good mother I needed to discipline my children with spankings. Yet still, the thought of hitting or spanking my children literally sickened me. Thank God my children rarely ever behaved in a manner in which I felt deserved a spanking. When they did I more often than not chose an alternative non-violent method of discipline instead.
I have rarely been more conflicted over anything the way I was about spanking. Hitting my children seemed and felt wrong to me. However, it did seem as if the Bible taught that not spanking them was wrong. Thank God that sickening feeling finally won out and I came to my senses. I still believe that the Bible is God’s infallible, inspired Holy Word. I still believe that the Bible is the Christian’s ultimate authority over all things and our instruction book for life. However, I am not so sure that every word in the Bible is meant to be interpreted literally. Some passages in the Bible use imagery, metaphors, similes, allegories, symbolism, and parables as a way of instructing us. Are such passages meant to be taken literally or figuratively? I do believe that the Bible instructs parents to discipline their children, but does He really expect us to beat, batter, or strike them in any way. I think not! I no longer believe in spanking my children. In fact, I never really did.
The verses most often quoted when attempting to prove that the Bible promotes corporal punishment are:
“He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” (Proverbs 13:24)
“Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. But the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” (Proverbs 22:15)
“Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.” (Proverbs 23:13-14)
“The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to itself disgraces his mother.” (Proverbs 29:15)
In the above verses the Hebrew word for ROD, is SHEBET which can mean a shepherd’s rod, a walking staff, or a King’s scepter. Since it was King Solomon who wrote the Book of Proverbs I think we can safely assume that the rod being referred to in these verses is a king’s scepter. This type of rod would not have been used to beat someone with. In fact, when the King’s scepter was held out to someone it meant life for them. When the scepter was withheld it meant death. The Hebrew word for correction in these verses is MUCWAR which means discipline, chastening, and correction. This type of correction implies verbal correction, not physical.
Did Jesus, in the New Testament teach that children should be beaten or battered? I think not! Except for the one time with the money changers in the Temple, Jesus always conducted himself in a calm, loving, gentle, and peaceful, manner. His ability to forgive an offense was God like!
I just cannot for the life of me imagine my Jesus smacking around defenseless little children, beating them with sticks or encouraging their parents to do so! And what about children like Bethany? Children with disabilities such a hers cannot even comprehend why they are being spanked! Bethany does not have the ability to connect the discipline (spank) to her crime (disobedience). She would learn nothing from a spanking other than someone who is supposed to love her and protect her is hurting her!
I realize that there exists more than one interpretation of the scriptures and that scriptures are often twisted to promote their interpreter’s own agendas. I am in no way implying that I am the ultimate expert in Bible interpretation, nor am I claiming to be a great Bible Scholar. I certainly have not spent years and years studying this topic. Yet despite that, God is capable of imparting to me through His Holy Spirit the same wisdom, knowledge, and spiritual discernment that He gives to everyone.
I believe that God does command Christian parents through His Holy word the Bible to teach, correct, and discipline their children and then to hold them accountable for their behavior. However, it is my opinion there are more effective less violent methods than spanking to utilize when correcting or disciplining our children.
Another personal testimony on spanking
When my oldest son was little I was married to different man. Before we married he was kind and spiritual. It wasn’t long after our son was born that my husband’s personality took a turn for the worse. At first he just yelled a lot. Then he began punching the walls and throwing things. He was tough on our son. He expected too much out of a two year old. Even though my husband was abused as a child, he still thought our son should be spanked. I did not.
My husband decided that we should go to counseling to help us sort out our differences, I agreed. (The counselor agreed with me on the subject of spanking, by the way.) When my husband came home from a private counseling session one day and and informed me that he had been punching pillows pretending that they were me all day, I decided that I was not going to stick around and wait for him to start punching me for real or worse, start punching our children. (I was also pregnant with our second son by this time.) One morning I pretended I was going to work but instead disappeared with our son! Shortly after that I learned that my husband had died suddenly in a tragic accident. I was twenty two years old with two young sons.
I vowed that I would never hit my boys. Until I became a Christian, that is. Despite my earlier near brush with spousal and child abuse, I caved in to the peer pressure of my new more knowledgeable Christian friends who convinced me that spanking was the right and good Christian way to discipline children. I never did feel good or right when I spanked my boys, yet I continued to use spanking, shaming, and punishment as my primary forms of discipline for many years.
Frankly all the controlling, micro-managing, disrespecting, shaming, negativity and pain which I inflicted upon my children when they were little did nothing but cause them to fear me and fear the spanks and punishments. So they learned to lie and became sneaky and deceptive in order to avoid punishment. As they became pre-teens and teens they became rebellious, even sneakier, and disrespectful. They began treating me the very same way I had been treating them!
Somewhere along the line I returned to my senses. I renewed my previous conviction that spanking, shaming, and punishing was a contradiction to loving and protecting my children. I became conscious of the wrongness of physically and emotionally hurting the very children that I professed to love more than anything. I realized that I never would have treated anyone else as hurtfully and disrespectfully as the way I was treating my own children. I stopped spanking my children and began exploring and studying peaceful, positive, and respectful parenting alternatives.
The children whom I have treated respectfully, the children whom I have trusted, the children whom I have not micro-managed, the children whom I have not tried to control, the children whom I have not spanked have never been disrespectful, rebellious, untrustworthy, sneaky, or felt forced to lie to avoid a punishment!
Thankfully my older children have forgiven me my mistakes. Despite their early experiences with being spanked they have grown up into wonderful, socially conscious gentle, caring, and peaceful adults!
*Please note- I do not blame or accuse the Christian faith, the Bible, or any religious denomination of promoting child abuse. We each need to study the scriptures, search our own conscience’s, pray, and decide for ourselves how we should discipline our own children. We should not just blindly follow along with what we are told is gospel truth by others. It is not anti-Christian, un-biblical, or wrong to choose peaceful, gentle, and positive discipine methods*
Peaceful, non-violent, positive discipline resources
Parenting Wild Things: Embracing the Rumpus
Gentle Christian Mothers
Gentle Christian Families
Arms of Love Family Fellowship
An interesting read on positive parenting- 10 Facts Every Parent Should Know
Time Magazine’s The Long Term Effects of Spanking
American Psychological Association’s The Case Against Spanking
For peaceful, gentle parenting resources pleas see my article, Peaceful, Positive Parenting
A excellent report on the statistics of spanking: The Psychology of Spanking.
Here is support for people affected by child rearing practices promoted by the Pearls and others like them. Unprepared For Parenting
I retrieved some of the information for these posts from the following articles:
Biblical Perspectives on Spanking
An Answer to Proverbs 23 and “Beatest”
Spare the Rod
A Study of the Rod Scriptures
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