Did anyone else catch CNN's UnGodly Discipline broadcast last night? Part of it can be viewed at the Anderson Cooper 360 blog -- perhaps all of it could be pieced together.
A quick review...
The opening was disappointing, and I thought to myself "A hatchet job". The reason is that Anderson Cooper made some weighted statements about the IFB and child discipline. There are among us, apparently, those who still believe in spanking -- even to the point of causing pain to children! Gasp! And a child has died! I was angry enough that I almost turned it off. After all, the muddle he created in the opening moments of the broadcast was patently unfair. Is it a spanking if no pain is caused? Can he not recognize the difference between a pat on the behind to correct a child and beating a child to death?
The show, however, improved greatly as the hour progressed.
After sharing the story of a family that killed their child by beating her to death under the label of "spanking", they transitioned to an interview with the much reviled Michael & Debi Pearl, who are at the outer extreme of viewpoints that favor spanking. Their book, "To Train up a Child", was found in the home of the couple who beat their child to death. And the prosecutor feels confident that if the family had never read the Pearl's book, the tragedy of the daughter would never have happened.
The interview with the Pearls however was not a hatchet job. They sounded extreme (and many of us, myself included, would agree), but not crazed, and in the climax of the section dealing with them, actually "spanked" a reporter using a switch on his leg after he rolled up his pants. "That hurt", observed the reporter. "But it didn't leave a mark", observed Michael Pearl. All in all, the report seemed fair to the Pearl's, except for one sarcastic observation by Cooper. Pearl says "We're not punishing them. We just need to get their attention." Returning to Cooper in the studio, we hear Cooper say "Well, the death of a little girl got our attention."
In the next section, Jocelyn Zichterman was asked to weigh in on the topic. She DOES make a sort of distinction between spanking and abuse, and especially between spanking and beating a child to death. But she goes on to characterize the spanking as taught among many IFB's (including her own father) as abusive on a different level. Because of the teaching that the will of the child must be broken, many IFB's will hold their children down until all reaction to the spanking ceases -- until they are passively submissive to the whole event -- even if it takes hours. She herself was a victim of this kind of spanking, and she characterizes it as inherently abusive. I presume by this she means that it is emotionally abusive to put a child through this even if the spankings themselves are not legally characterized as child abuse. Cooper transitions quickly, and this important question is left un-analyzed.
The next section tells about the abuse allegations against Hephzibah House. In a balanced approach, the piece interviews two alumni of the home, one who shares stories of abuse, and one who defends the home and puts the stories in a different context, softening them. The piece left me thinking that something is wrong there (40 years of similar complaints), but not certain if it happens as often as represented. The attempted interview with the current leader of the home was pointless, and should have simply been cut.
In the final section, Bruce Feiler (author of "Walking the Bible") and CNN legal consultant Jeffrey Toobin are asked about the interface between faith and law in this matter. What do we do when faith says one thing, and the law another? Cooper observes that spanking is legal in many states, to one degree or another. Feiler gives a somewhat skewed view of the debate within Christianity, but makes the perfectly valid assertion that telling Christians they can't follow the Bible because of the law is pointless. The debate for a Christian must center on the Bible itself. He then describes the debate between Evangelical and Mainstream denominations on this topic. Toobin's remarks were unremarkable.
______
I was left with a few thoughts and questions at the end of the show.
1). I find the Pearl's appalling. They seem to cloak their work in Scripture, but it is all KJV quotes out of context. I believe in spanking, but not their kind or degree of it. I believe an analysis of the "rod" passages in the original languages and cultural context and a comparison with the entire body of Scriptural truth on the subject of child-raising produces a much more nuanced view of spanking than they provide. Yet even the Pearl's clearly would not nearly approach beating a child to death. I suspect the problem is in the people who beat children to death, not the church or book from which they glean their child-rearing instructions. A normal parent would be appalled at themselves long before they reached the point of lethal force, regardless of what they were told was the proper way to discipline.
2). Jocelyn Zichterman's point seemed reasonable to me. Clearly, if you're waiting for a child to stop retreating, flinching, or crying at a spanking as your mark of "submission" and a "broken will", you are licensing yourself to cross lines that should not be crossed. Many children will never hit that point until unconsciousness. I was left looking for a Scripture verse on which to hang the "broken will" concept, and couldn't find one. "Molding a will" seems like a more appropriate expression.
3). The Hephzibah House section didn't ask the most important questions from a Biblical or Psychological perspective. Only the Penning woman, the graduate who defended them, hinted at the point that the backgrounds of the girls will heavily influence how they react to and interpret the discipline there. I know from our foster care experiences that a child who has been seriously abused would interpret a spanking far differently than a child from a Christian home where discipline was used. So, beyond the question of their methods, I suspect that their discipline is self-defeating for some of these girls. At no point would AC360 ask the important Biblical question: Does a spanking from a stranger mean the same thing or accomplish the same purpose as a spanking from the parent? I would argue we have no Biblical warrant for spanking someone else's children. Even the Lord doesn't spank the Devil's children (Heb. 12). Hephzibah House does come across, as Cooper implied, as obsessed with order and discipline.
4). I was also struck with Fieler's comment about using the Bible in the debate about spanking. I think Fundamentalists need to do much more research in this area. While preaching on this topic recently in a series at our church, I myself was struck by how different the Bible's emphasis was from what I had always heard growing up in the IFB movement. I do not preach against spanking, but, as a friend of mine observed after the show, we pay the price of reacting to the anti-spanking crowd over the past 40 years. Many of us have emphasized our traditions without carefully exegeting these passages, and we have not been careful in sharply delineating how to spank and how not to spank. The tendency has been for those few who are most careful to delineate these things to be the element within the IFB that is most out of balance on the issue.
*A few of my quotes may be word or two off. I did not review the piece to get them 100% accurate. My apologies. I believe I have accurately rendered them.
) you know I feel that most of the Proverbs passages on the "rod" use a word that implies young adults rather than what we would call children. Their point is not spanking a small child for correction, but literally caning a young adult son, presumably to correct him before he is stoned to death by the village elders for his increasingly rebellious tendencies. If that were the end of the matter, I could side with this point by Clarkson. But there are just a few of the Proverbs passages that use a more general word for child. Therein lies my principle problem with accepting the above point. Even the "rod" itself, in these passages, is presumably both literal and representative of the entire range of parental disciplinary authority up to and including the rod itself, just as the sword in Romans 13 represents not only the death penalty, but all penalties up to and including it. Limiting the rod passages to spanking alone would miss part of the point of the rod passages -- just as limiting Romans 13 by saying the government can ONLY exert the death penalty would miss the point. But limiting them so as to not include the rod would also miss part of their point.
I think the Pearls are WAY too far to the behavior modification end of the parenting spectrum.
Dead right, Susan. They sound like Behaviorists in their thinking, and all children are Pavlov's dogs. Of course, all of this authorized by various Proverbs.