143 thoughts on “Mad Men”

  3. They are actually located in West Seneca which is a suburb of Buffalo. According to their website, they are “the Friendliest church in town”.

  4. “I will apply the board of education to the seat of knowledge” or “I will beat you so hard you won’t be able to sit for a week” Yea! Basic training was a breeze.

    1. and they obviously don’t teach capitilization rules at their “Academy”. 😳

      1. and I have brought shame down upon my head once again: either “Basic Training” or “basic training” 😳

    1. Gluteus Maximus is your butt. If it’s a big butt, it’s maxi-maximus, or something like that. 😳

  6. clearly they spent all of their website money on the printed paddles.

    1. Internet websites are the gateway to hell. There is no budget for appearances of evil that lead down the slippery slope of compromise. 😀

  7. Re: “Friendliest in town.” Yeah, because so many churches seem to view “friendliness” as a church growth method at best and a sign of spirituality at worst.

  8. I think that’s hilarious! Finally, a church with a sense of humor. I saw at Whole Foods last week they were giving free “Nerve Scans.” There was a long line waiting for it. According to the demonstrator, “three to thrivers” and “home schoolers” were the healthiest. No wonder. Darryl, are you selling this? I’ll start the bidding at $10. Cheaper than a doctor visit is how I look at it.

      1. “Darryl” is the one who proofread the text for the “Gluttus” paddles.

        duh.

  9. These guys better get David Gibbs on retainer. I know for a fact that CLA is now advising schools to stop spanking kids.

  10. No worries with them using one of them fancy new-fangled web site templates to make you wonder if they’re IFB or not.

    “SERMONS. yes, we have them please stop by and join us. They’re a lot better live”

    Very friendly, I can tell.

  12. This church is across the street from West Seneca Jr. High, my old school. I don’t recall ever hearing much from or about that church. Unless it was one of their parishioners who was riding her bike down Center Road when I was walking, abruptly stopped in front of me, handed me a tract, and then sped on her way. Not a word was exchanged.
    I guess I should be happy it was a tract and not a paddle she gave me.

    This is an incredible promotion. Can you hear the discussion–we need to promote the church with something that lets people know what we believe. A paddle! So every time the child gets hit, they think of the church. That sounds like a perfect idea. 😕
    The only thing its missing is 1611..so we know the proper Bible to use.

    1. It makes you wonder how much longer it will take before some IFB preacher decides that he has a right to spank his church members’ kids. (I suppose the “Christian” school model has this covered already to a point.)

      1. It is surprising we haven’t seen a whooping’ during a sunday morning service of a rebellious child since fundy pastors have no problem calling out people in the pews from the pulpit.
        Such an abusive system.

  13. Hey, that’s my paddle! Like the actual paddle used on mah butt every day til I was about 10. I’m SFL famous! (Note to self: unfriend Darrell on Facebook. Kidding!)

    I will say that I am a well-rounded adult and I don’t feel like I was abused as a child. In case anyone was wondering.

    2. As someone else who this exact paddle was used on, I feel the same way (in terms of well-rounded, not abused, etc.).

  14. Random: I tried to get a Google Street View of the place but I could only get to the street next to it, Westminster. I was surprised to find that it almost looked like the Midwest there!

  15. Sadly, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this. Our church didn’t give them out (thank god) but there were a couple of other GARB churches in the district that did.

  16. The public school I went to back in the late 70’s and 80’s paddled too. Many of the male teachers would write “funny” things like that on their paddles and carry them around with them clearly on display.

    My guess is that they had jobs traditionally held by women and tiny Johnsons. That’s why they needed to carry and display a weapon with which they could strike a person who couldn’t strike back to make themselves feel all manly.

    Peace,

  17. Awwwww man. I was hoping by the title that this was a discussion of the AMC TV show and there’d be a picture of Jon Hamm. Anyhoo…my parents used a good ol tree limb, aka switch, on my brother and I. Or their other favorite, a broken off arm rest from a child’s wooden chair. My mother recently told me how my brother “better break my nephews’ wills very soon or they’d be in for a lot of heart break.” My nephews are 1 and 3. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open. Yes Mom, let’s just beat on them. Pretty sure Mom had the book “To Train Up a Child” at some point. She wonders why I consider myself a survivor of a cult. Well I’m off to curl up in the fetal position.

    1. What’s always interesting to me is that they are blind to the fact that they don’t BREAK the child’s will (there really is no such thing). All they do is WARP it. (But that, of course, is the real goal and thus the accomplishment of it delights them to no end!)

      1. Agreed Deacon’s Son. If anything, my will was strengthened by the “spankings.” I was one of those bad girls in ugly culottes. Hahahaha 😈

  18. This paddling business keeps coming up, often referring to the olden days.

    My recently-former-fundy CEO advocated in a recent 12 message sermon series on child discipline spanking your children as early as 9 months (after all, that’s when he started with his) and bare bottom spanking (after all, that’s what God made you butt for).

    It always appeared to me to be about the outward conformity all the while paying lip service to the heart. The Mog doesn’t want any of the little vermin interrupting his precious sermon.

    B.R.O.

    1. My little sister got her first spanking when she was *3 weeks* old. Dad said she was crying ‘rebelliously’. I was 14 at the time, and beyond horrified. And wouldn’t you know, my folks wondered why she ran away repeatedly when she was a teenager- once she even got on a plane and flew from Honolulu to the mainland to get away from Dad.

      And Dad wonders why not one of his four children refuse any contact with him.

      2. That’s horrible. In our home, we didn’t spank 3-week-olds (thank God) but you certainly did not have to reach your fist birthday before getting your first spanking. One of my mother’s favorite games (inspired by Michael Pearl) was to “teach the meaning of no” by putting an object in the infant’s reach and when it tried to grab it, she would slap its hand and yell “NO!!!”

        1. This’ll certainly teach a child to not touch things, but it also destroys his or her curiosity about the world and inhibits the desire to explore. Apart from the fact that it’s horribly abusive and downright cruel, it’s destructive to the child’s very soul.

          I honestly hate people who hurt children. 😕

      3. Can barely hold it together reading that and holding my 10-week-old sweet girl. 😥
        That is heartbreaking and evil in every way! I’m so sorry for your experiences Liutgard. Just awful! 🙁

    2. “You have to break a child’s will. They are born with the sin nature. If a parent doesn’t break the child’s will, the child will never submit to God.” I heard that crap a thousand times in my family of origin. That’s why that paddle was used frequently.

      1. THIS puts the responsibility of the child’s salvation on the parent which is unbiblical. When I tried to recommend a book to a family member, she got a horrified look in her eye and said, “They say you don’t always have to spank in that book!” Oh, my hurting heart. For the record, I’ve seen a lot of parents desperate to “do right” by their kids and they have been so trained that this the only way….they are not raging, control-freak beaters. Sigh…

    3. The IFB church is one of the only places left in the world where a parent can drag a child through a roomful of people while the kid is screaming “No! Please don’t spank me!!” and NO ONE thinks to call Child Protective Services.

  19. I live about 10 minutes from this church. Wacky people my wife had family that used to go there. Also Scorpio the Bills suck!!

      1. Aw, Scorpio, there was a time when the Bills suck saying at least we have the Sabres meant something. The sad truth is (and this pains me to say) the Sabres suck too. Although I have some hope with the recent shake up of things with a new gm and all….
        Perhaps this paddle could be punishment for losing teams….

      2. BTW, Huge mistake the Blackhawks made sticking with Crazy Eddie back in the early 90s and letting Hasek go to the Sabres. I only wish he had gotten a Cup with Buffalo instead of the scoundrels from Detroit.

  20. Looks like the one that the principal used on me in the third grade. It was a ACE IFB school. He was upset that I wouldn’t play sports at recess but, wanted to play house with the girls on the play ground. It was in his office on my bare butt. I had to grab my ankles and count each swat out loud. Ten times. I felt ashamed and like I couldn’t tell anyone. It was the kind of school where the boys wore red white and blue ties with American flags on them, and the girls wore these ugly blue polyester jumper dresses. A few years back I lived across the street from the building. The school had closed down. I always maintained if there was any type of civil unrest I would burn the building to the ground. Bitter? Oh, just a tad.

    1. Yes, it makes me sick to my stomach to see it. It’s exactly like the one used on me at my Christian school. No child should ever experience the deep horror that such “punishment” causes. There wasn’t much difference between getting beaten as a small child, or being dropped into the worst nightmare I could imagine. At that age, fear and terror were real, and you never knew when it would strike even though you tried your hardest to be good. And people wonder why I’m hyper-vigilant.

    3. It is *extremely* disturbing you were forced to be bare-butt. That is sick! 😡

  21. Sadists who use paddles on their children are bad enough, but a church that gleefully brags about it with free paddles is to be AVOIDED.

    2. I sat under the preaching of one man (The name would probably be familiar here) who brought a Raggedy Ann doll and a dowel rod to use as an illustration of how to properly spank a child. He would mimmick the child rearing her head and screaming while explaining to the people that you should not give in to their crying, but exact the punishment as promised.

      The sad part is that I continued to sit under this style of preaching for many years to come. But no more.

      B.R.O.

  22. I took my 7-year-old daughter with me when I did the shopping the other day, because she wanted to pick up some duct tape. There were boxes of paint stirrers on the same aisle, at eye level.

    They were almost as long as a yardstick and about twice as thick. I had heard about children being “Biblically” “disciplined” with those things, but dear God why? (And yes I know about those five scattered Bible verses that use the word shebet all being translated “smack ’em whack ’em take ’em down,” and how a set of neatly dressed little robots somehow proves Godliness in IFB culture. I would rather have my children covered in mud and happy to see me, thanks!)

    1. Don’t expect to get much mileage with the IFB crowd with the shebet verses. Even for those who leave the IFB, spanking seems to be one of the hardest IFB teachings for people to shake off. This in spite of the fact that in addition to your point about the book of Proverbs, the New Testament condemns corporal punishment pretty clearly as I read it. By HIS stripes we are healed. He who is WITHOUT sin cast the first stone. Let the little children come unto me and hinder them not. Provoke NOT your children to wrath. Do not make your children discouraged (literally “without spirit” or “without heartiness”). Etc., etc., etc.

      1. Not always, DS. It was my study of the shebet verses and the consequential discovery of historic Jewish understanding of the symbolism of the rod which led me out of Fundamentalism. I guess I did it backwards.

        I think a lot of ex-Fundies cling to spanking because they have always heard discipline equated with corporal punishment. As a result, many honestly do not know that non-violent disciplinary methods even exist.

    2. I’ve had the shebet conversation with relatives and got nowhere. I can’t understand why people are so attached to hitting their children and unwilling to research non-punitive discipline. 😡

      1. For people who grew up that way, having to face that what their parents did and their pastor preached was not Biblical, not holy, and not excusable.

        For people who have already spent time hitting* their kids in order to make them Godly, there’s also the agony of having to face all of that wasted time, destroyed trust, and mangled love.

        *I do not give a solitary crap whether it’s called popping or smacking or chastising or switching; using a hand or an object to strike a smaller weaker person is hitting and the ritual that surrounds it is just a sick thrill.

        1. So, yeah, my original question was largely rhetorical, a sort of giving thanks that no matter how angry I have been with my children (and I have been incandescently angry), I could not find a way across the gap between the brief horrible thought of doing that and the deed. Hooray for my lukewarm upbringing!

          Now if only I can stop yelling. 😳

        2. Speaking as a sensitive child, my dad’s yelling did more damage to me than the physical punishments, I think. I know it’s a hard habit to break, but it can inspire just as much fear and be just as toxic to the parent-child relationship. Try to find some help – I know there is a blog called Hands Free Mama that might have some tips for you.

  24. Does that look like a canoe paddle to anyone else?

    I was going to make some tasteless joke about they might have more visitors if they packaged the paddles with ball gags & blindfolds, but my heart isn’t in it.

    I’m going to join Redheadedstepchild in the fetal position while unbidden memories overwhelm me. 🙁

    1. In some south Louisiana churches I’ve seen small wooden “boat oars” for paddles. Sadly, I’m NOT kidding. My mom’s favorites were wooden stirring spoons (for when we were little), dad’s belt, a 2 x 1 wooden plank with holes drilled into it(and cut off our wooden shed out back), and the worst was literally a small boat oar with a “Six Flags” ad painted on it (from a souvenir shop).

  25. Dear SFL Reader:

    Imagine using that on pastors who act like dipsticks.

    Christian Socialist

  26. I am hopeful that maybe one or two more generations will be enough to totally eliminate this practice. I received corporal punishment as a child and (regretfully) used it for my children. By the time the grandchildren came, I realized that this is not the best way to discipline a child. Unfortunately, there are far too many ministers who promote this crude method. (The most well-known is a Dr. James Dobson who has a radio program and has authored several books.)

    1. Dobson was the Michael Pearl of my parents’ generation. My mom had all his books & would read portions of The Strong-Willed Child to me before making me bend over & grab my ankles.

  27. I was spanked so much as a child, up until I was about 16, and then occasionally after that. I only remember being hit in anger a few times, that was when I would be hit on the back or legs. Thankfully nothing worse happened, but I have always promised myself not to spank my kids. I hated being hit by my parents. It didn’t have to happen.

  28. “Dobson and others set age limits. Corporal punishment should not be used on babies younger than fifteen months and rarely if ever used on children more than ten years old, they say. Some fundamentalist leaders, however, recommend hitting infants with switches because they are born with the sin of rebellion and the earlier corporal punishment is started, the easier it will be to control them later.”

    Dobson: the voice of moderation and reason.

  29. Sadly, there does not appear to be a smiley thingie that is gagging and retching. If there was, there’d be a whole row of them here.

  30. Ugh. A former pastor used to make large, menacing paddles for my parents to “test” on me and my siblings, even the little ones.

    This one gave me shivers and flashbacks.

  32. We were spanked with big flat boards from our building blocks, shoes, belts, wooden and plastic spoons (they’d break many spoons trying to break our wills), clothes hangers, dowel rods, rulers, yard sticks, paint stirring sticks, chop sticks (don’t laugh, it’s not really that funny), ping pong paddles, plastic plumbing supply line (a la Michael Pearl), a 3/4 inch thick cutting board that my dad made for my mother as a gift (split in two spanking one of my siblings), even books. I’m probably forgetting some here. The theme that tied all these together was that all of these items could be passed off as serving some innocent purpose so if anyone ever tried to hold my parents accountable for the physical abuse, they could lie. There was one memorable incident I recall when my dad’s boss’s wife ran into my mother buying dowel rods at K-Mart and said, “oh, are you putting up curtains?” And my mother stammered out some lie about how homeschoolers do lots of craft projects and walked away as quickly as possible. We were subsequently lectured by her in the car about how we better NEVER tell anyone about how she disciplined us because President Clinton wanted kids taken away from people who parented Biblically.

    We were spanked as young as several months old. Spankings of 20, 30, even 50 swats were the norm. My mother enjoyed meting out bare bottom (or just underwear) spankings until one day I refused to pull down my pants anymore. I was about 16. (It was a wonderful epiphany for me. Even though she threatened to call the police and have me removed from HER house, I realized that she would never tell ANYONE that she still made her teenage son pull down his pants for a spanking.)

    We had a spanking chart on the fridge that listed numbers of swats for various offenses. These included 10 swats for “disobedience” and 10 swats for “lying.” And, wouldn’t you know, my mother decided that EVERY infraction was disobedience of one form or another and her favorite thing to say was “all disobedience is lying.” (Whatever THAT meant.) So, we basically had a baseline of 20 swats for everything we did wrong. Plus all the add-ons for vague things like “selfishness,” “unkindness,” “disrespect,” etc. Whenever we were cleaning the house for company, one duty that was never neglected was to turn the spanking chart around on the fridge so the company could not see it.

    Whenever ANY item that was long and thin came into my mother’s possession, she used to delight in whacking her hand with it and going on like, “oooh, nice sting! Look at how it made my hand all red. This will make a great spanker! I can’t wait to try it out!!” Psychological torture at its best. She was particularly fond of doing this when one of us gave her a mother’s day gift or birthday gift that was something for the kitchen. (She always needed new spoons, spatulas, etc. Wonder why. As for why we bought them, well we were REQUIRED to buy her gifts for these holidays and it was something super cheap we could get for her.)

    We were in the worst sort of abusive home because my parents were educated enough to know better than to cross certain lines. Was everything that happened to us legal? Arguably, yes (although as a lawyer I have my doubts). But was it abuse? Absolutely. Yet my parents to this day deny that it was abusive because, as my mother once told me, “I didn’t do anything that would put me in jail.” Did I suffer worse than some of you guys? I know I did not. Many of your stories are chilling. But do I carry the scars of my own abuse to this day? Absolutely.

    1. Terrible….There are instances where I wish I could go back in time and make sure that justice was handed out.

      Reading your stories is one of those times.

    2. D.S., Your story sounds oddly familiar to me. I’m sorry that you went through that. It becomes a bit easier to deal with once our parents are gone (I say through experience). However, it takes decades to process why it all happened. I don’t personally understand the why of it all, but I’ve been ‘processing’ it for decades. My brother went to his cancer death at 58 still wondering why he was physically abused.

      In my case, I’ve become adverse to anything that causes pain to another person or animal. We have to stop the cycle of abuse. Much abuse is excused under the rubric of godly child rearing. It’s very sad.

      1. One more anecdote, DS. My family nicknamed me “Karate Bottom” because my parents broke 5 paddles over my posterior. Because of the apparent structural weakness of the paddles, they took up a board that looked a helluva lot like the one Darrell posted here. But it was 1/2″ thick. It was never broken, but it was sure used on me and my siblings. Whereas the bolo paddles stung this one hurt deeply and could have broken bones.

    3. didn’t do anything to be put in jail….and there in lies the problem. The standard for fundies is not what is healthy and praiseworthy or Christ like. Its walking the thin line between socially acceptable and psychopathic.

      And you and your siblings are left trying to find health and peace. Bless you for staying in touch with your parents.

    4. “We were spanked with big flat boards from our building blocks, shoes, belts, wooden and plastic spoons (they’d break many spoons trying to break our wills), clothes hangers, dowel rods, rulers, yard sticks, paint stirring sticks, chop sticks (don’t laugh, it’s not really that funny), ping pong paddles, plastic plumbing supply line (a la Michael Pearl), a 3/4 inch thick cutting board that my dad made for my mother as a gift (split in two spanking one of my siblings), even books”

      Holy crap, I swear we must be related. My mom had the most creative hitting tools. The cutting board was her usual instrument of torture, but she also had a crap ton of those little paddles that were supposed to have balls attached with a little rubbery string (I hope someone knows what I’m talking about!), and she’d tear off the ball so that she could spank us with it. Books weren’t uncommon, and wooden spoons would do in a pinch, particularly if we were already in the kitchen. Then my dad’s belts.

      She would never use her hands to spank us (unless she was hitting our faces or something) because, I quote, “It hurts too much.”

      1. Definitely got hit with those ping pong paddles (with the little ball removed of course). Bad memories.

      2. Yep, she used the Ping-Pong paddles that came with the rubber balls. Ours came from a local toy store and had pictures of frogs on them, so we were required to call them the “froggy paddles.” She had lots of fun with those for a while (personally, I think there was a sexual aspect to my mother’s spankings, and I think she liked those paddles because they brought her hand so close to the buttocks). But, as you say, she never used her hand because “hands are for loving.” (Not that she ever used her hands for that purpose.) Anyway, she soon determined that froggy paddles didn’t hurt that much so she made a new rule that they could only be used on 4 year olds and younger. We were required to make sure the diaper bag was stocked for our mother before we would go out anywhere and one item that we were required to make sure was included was a froggy paddle so she could hit the toddler. She broke LOTS of those on us kids.

  33. “Dr. Louis Guadagno” featured in SFL Cognitive Dissonance Redux received his doctorate from CBC !!!

  34. A close family friend used to say something along the lines of, “Beware of extremists of every stripe.”

    Following graduation from Bible “College,” I went to work for an extreme Fundamentalist “Christian School.” There were a number of teenage boys enrolled in that school who were living in the custody of a man and wife who were serving as their foster parents. In any case, the couple (or at least the husband) decided they needed help, so he hired a man to assist in taking care of these young guys.

    Anyway, on one occasion, this guy he hired informed me of an idea of his to be be used in the correcting and disciplining of these young men– he planned on building a stock. That’s right, he planned on building a stock. If I remember right, when I told him that he could (or would) get in trouble with the authorities if he did that, he responded by saying something to the effect of, ‘the Pilgrims were smart people.’

    A number of years later I ran into one of those guys in another state. He told me that the stock had been built, the state had found out about it, and all of the guys had been removed from this couples “care” and sent elsewhere. There was some other method of “discipline” that had been used, but I don’t recall exactly what he said that was.

    Never looked into the matter further and I didn’t ask the young man whether or not criminal charges were ever filed.

    1. Ben, I believe that nut cases are attracted to a religion that bolsters their insanity. You’re right about extremists. The extreme IFBs are a lot like the radical Islamists.

  35. It’s good the address is printed on the paddle so CPS knows where to find the parents Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. 👿

  36. I don’t remember, but, my mother told me I used to laugh as I was a toddler when she spanked me, then she would hit harder until I cried.
    When told her I wouldn’t be spanking my future children, she said they would end up murderers, to which I replied I was offended. When my future children turn out to be law abiding citizens, I’m going to make her eat those words! She’ll probably deny she ever said it though. 🙄

    1. Mothers who deny saying things and doing things could be a whole other post (flat reality denial). I know where you’re coming from…

    2. My mother, a professing Christian who had a non-Christian abusive father, had the philosophy “spank until they cry and keep spanking until they shut up”. She preferred to use her hand “because if it hurts my hand I know I’m hitting hard enough”, occasionally used a wooden spoon or spatula. Once when I was about 3 years old I thought she was going to kill me when she lost her patience with me trying to wash my hair at the kitchen sink. I was afraid of having water in my face and when I flinched she launched into a fit of rage, flipped me over on my stomach on the counter and shoved my head under the running faucet until I couldn’t breathe. After that she made some lame gesture at remorse and tried to feed me something I liked. That was the day my life was over and I became a nonentity and alone forever. In later years I figured out she had been molested by her father the night before her wedding, that sort of thing ran in his family. People like him are what make me have to believe in hell, and regardless of any opinions out there I take some comfort in that.

    3. Elizabeth, I have to live with the knowledge that ANYTHING that my kids do wrong for the rest of their lives (or rather the rest of my parents’ lives) as well as anything bad that happens TO them will be chalked up to the fact that 1) I left the IFB, 2) I let them go to public school, 3) I let them listen to CCM, 4) I read other versions of the Bible, or 5) I let them watch “bad” TV shows and movies. It’s a heavy burden, but I keep reminding myself that there is NO CONDEMNATION to those who are in Christ Jesus.

      Arlene, I’m so sorry for the terror you experienced as a child and for the woundedness in your mother that she took out on you.

      1. I have a similar sword hanging over my head. My escalating health problems are because I left that church, the husband, etc etc. My kids turned out ok, but the fact that they are all agnostics is laid on my doorstep, rather than the fact that they could not reconcile my life and faith with their father’s dire warnings that I was a heathen and going straight to hell, etc.

        They don’t really care, and neither do I. The ‘friends’ I had at church *ALL* abandoned me. Attempts to contact them have been ignored. And you know, I’m ok with that. Their insistence that they ‘loved’ me… well, love isn’t conditional. And I have friends now that love me through thick and thin, as I have them.

        Living well is the best revenge.

  37. Yeah, “Stimulator” may have seemed to be innocent to the marketers at the time but given the pedo-propensity of the pulpit pounders who preach “black bottom” paddling… in retrospect it was truth in advertising for the spanking fetish, control freak’s need to be stimulated.

  38. At home I can only remember 2 instances where corporal punishment was used. Once with a belt- I was playing with matches probably age five. Once with a fly swater I forget why. It left marks and my dad and mom decided to not to spank me. I got slapped in the face around the age of 16 or so. In a rather heated discussion I asked my mom why she was being such a b she slapped me before I could finish getting the itch on it. I deserved that one. School was a different story. Chapel two days a week right when we got to school. If you even blinked you be taken to one of the back pews and forced to lay down while you were given 10 swats with a paddle similar to the one displayed. You felt like they were just waiting to beat you. And they were. We bare the scars both physical and emotional. We learned how not to parent, and hopefully we have raised a better generation.

  39. I grew up secular; our public school did spankings, and we would get spanked at home as well. Neither place spanked for any and every offense; I think it did me good, and I’m not against spanking. I think the Bible teaches it.

    I realize, though, that it can certainly be taken to unhealthy extremes, as many of the stories here indicate.

    1. Matt. 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

      I’m asking sincerely: how do your beliefs about spanking correspond with the above concept?

    2. I once thought the Bible commanded spanking, too, until I had my own children and realized that hitting my children went against every instinct I had. (I have largely parented solely by instinct because I had piss-poor excuses of parents.) I listened to my instincts, and I researched as much as I could. The rod verses, imo, have been sadly misused. I like what this rabbi has to say about the matter: http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/hammerman_ethics/sparing_rod

      1. “I did what I knew to do and when I knew better I did better.” Maya Angelou (maybe not exact)

        1. Oh, I don’t judge anyone who spanks. I know plenty of people who do spank and who still have well-adjusted kids and strong relationships with those kids.

          But it’s not for me, and it’s not something I ever want to do to my kids, so I made a conscious choice to find other ways to guide and correct them.

        3. I think a lot of the nonsense stems less from the use or disuse of spanking, and more from their idea of how awful children are. My memories are of parents who tried at least to use spanking in a reasoned manner. While there were some things that went wrong, I don’t think they would have been any less bad if some other discipline method was used.

          (1) Offenses like “attitude” or “disobedience” were common enough, and often vague enough that I as a child did not really understand what I was doing wrong. Cheerful obedience was of such prime importance that it was hard for normal emotions to be worked through for fear of being an offense.

          (2) The idea of children being naturally rebellious often precluded the idea of legitimate problems. When a child did something that displeased the adults, the first thought was that the child was doing it on purpose. I remember many spankings for struggling with a particular area in school, because I was a normally intelligent child and the conclusion that I was being intentionally difficult was easy to reach in that system. Crying was especially bad – I remember frequently being accused of being rebellious and manipulative, without anyone really considering any other conclusion.

        4. I understand, P.P. One of our children has adhd/mild Asperger’s. Spanking so that he would submit/learn would have been disaster for him. But, yes, I do know families that make it work….probably raised in reasonable families themselves.

  40. They’re so friendly that they make a snarky comment on their website home page about sermons, and that they in fact do have them.

  41. Don’t be too hard on the spankers. They are only doing what the infallible, inerrant, God-breathed bible commands.

    “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.” (Prov. 23:13-14)

    Shoot, God himself models this kind of behavior for us. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” (Heb. 12:6, quoting Prov. 3:12 and actually intensifying the violent wording, not mollifying it like we often think the NT does in relation to the OT. Just saying.)

    Mastigoi–now there’s a nice little word study for you.

    1. How about:

      Bare ’em (babies be born)
      Beat ’em (bare bottomed beatings)
      Berate ’em (bad boys blunder)

      In order for this to work, you’d have to pull countless texts out of context and then read into the said texts what you so desire.

      This is IFB topical hermaneutics at its finest.

      B.R.O.

  43. Does any one have a copy of Barnie Lee’s book “The Dangers of Heavy Petting”?
    This is not a joke.

  44. For the followers of Michael Pearl

    Exodus 21:20-21
    King James Version (KJV)

    20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.

    21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.

    1. Mark, this is another one of those so-called “hard passages,” similar to the passages that I discussed earlier with ITBand (who was gracious and neighborly even while disagreeing with me, for which I am grateful). Is there the possibility here of an allegorical interpretation? I don’t see how one can get away from the simple reading: “And the LORD said unto Moses” (Ex. 20:22) etc. etc. Beating your male or female slave is ok as long as they recover from
      the beating. After all, they are your money.

      One explanation I heard growing up (and even preached myself, may God forgive me) was that this was in keeping with the time of human progress, that this commandment actually improved the situation of slaves, that God adjusted his dealings with humans depending on the violence of the times, that if God had just made an outright commandment, “Thou shalt not own another human being, or beat another human being, for I the LORD created them and they are precious to me,” people would not have obeyed anyway, and on and on.

      But according to the bible God issued plenty of other difficult yet humane commandments with the expectation that people would obey, so why not here? Isn’t it at least possible that whoever (Moses?) claimed that God gave this commandment was wrong about that? What does it make Christians look like when we have to hem and haw and make excuses over something as straightforward as basic human rights? What are we protecting? Is our faith in God, or in a book that, at best, gives mixed signals on basic issues that contemporary believers can no longer ignore or spiritualize away?

      Either God commanded this or he didn’t. If he did command it, I don’t like him much. If he didn’t, then maybe a more critical approach to the claims of the bible are necessary. And, if he didn’t, perhaps we should wonder if maybe it’s offensive to HIM if we keep insisting he did issue this command (and other like it).

      Sorry to keep harping on this. It just keeps gnawing at me, and SFL is one of the very few places I feel like I can address my concerns with some measure of civility and safety.

      1. My 2 cents (probably not worth even that!):

        I don’t believe there’s room for allegory in the Ex. 21:20-21 passage. This is a legal issue, not a religious one.

        I do believe the writers (or religious leaders of the day) ascribed many things to God which God didn’t explicitly communicate in order to keep the masses in line. Much like the Mogs of today.

        1. Thanks Dr. J–your opinion is valuable to me, and would be so whether or not you shared my concerns. A free exchange of ideas is important! Though according to some interpretations of the bible, God made you a woman so you should just keep silent (1 Tim. 2:11-15) :wink:.

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