You call this "discipline," the rest of us call it torture...

[lunadelcorvo]

Christian discipline drawing criticism even from Christians

The two cases discussed are here and here. There is another excellent Salon article on the phenomenon here.

---

When the hell are we going to deal with this crap? When are we going to realize that parents usually don't dream up this stuff on their own? In no way do I exonerate a parent who can beat their child to death without knowing it's wrong, but the Pearls and others with similar rhetoric are to blame as well. "Doesn't advocate abuse?" Seriously? In whose dictionary is advising a parent to use plumbing line to strike their child (as young as 6-12 months!) NOT abuse?

What really bothers me is that this stuff is not broadly pursued with any real vigor because it hides behind a bogus screen of religious freedom. Individuals who go to far are sometimes (but not always) convicted of what it really is: abuse, murder, torture. But the broad problem gets a minor mention at the bottom of the article, with words like 'suspect,' 'may be influenced.' Why? Why is this not a center stage issue?

I'll tell you why. First, imagine a Muslim family that did this in the US; beat a child to death in the name of religious discipline. What a shitstorm that would be! Or a Wicca parent, using a switch to instill their religious values (supposedly just as well protected)? We look the other way on this stuff because as a society, we are scared to confront the Christian gloss on it, and it perpetrators hide behind that gloss, knowing it protects them. I call bullshit!!!!!!

Comments

[doctoreon.livejournal.com]

In America, you have the freedom to practice any denomination of Christianity. That's what 'religious freedom' means, right? Right?

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

Sure. But let's consider a few points: First, let's be realistic - a significant percentage of the crap that comes out of the Christian lunatic fringe would *never* be tolerated if it came from other religions. What's done and said with Bible in hand gets passes and get-out-of-jail-free privileges that the same thing done or said with Quran, Bagavad Gita, or (for lack of a better comparison) The God Delusion in hand will never get.

Secondly, religious freedom *does not* equal the freedom to abuse children, nor, in my opinion, the freedom to make child abuse somehow a protected religious doctrine. Free speech yes, and I know this is problematic territory in that regard as well. But...it seems that the authors & promoters of things like "Train up a Child" and "No Greater Joy" have to be held to some kind of responsibility for advocating this stuff, and then standing back and waving their hands when someone who has taken it on religious authority ends up seriously injuring a child.

As fervently as I believe in free speech, I also believe in responsibility, and words have consequences. Along with the freedom to speak those words needs to be the responsibility for the consequences of them. Just like all those who bandied about a rhetoric of violence bear culpability in the deaths of abortion doctors, the Pearls and others with similar programs bear culpability when some damned fool, fired by the religious conviction on which these authors so blatantly play, ends up beating a child to death.

[doctoreon.livejournal.com]

You're preaching (pun intended) to the choir.

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

I figured your comment was rhetorical, but it gave me a chance to expand. Did I just make you my straight man? ;)

[doctoreon.livejournal.com]

I think you may have. ;-)

[primitivepeople.livejournal.com]

As fervently as I believe in free speech, I also believe in responsibility, and words have consequences.

Absolutely - hence the need for hate speech to be a crime. This would certainly fall under that category.

[donerleg.livejournal.com]

Huge sorrow.......

[primitivepeople.livejournal.com]

Terrible, terrible story, but encouraging in that even ultra-conservatives are starting to see what's wrong with an ideology that is extremely abusive.

I don't see anything in the Bible about beating the crap out of your kids, and it's good that people are waking up to this. Horrible.

[lucretiasheart.livejournal.com]

Yikes.

That sort of shit makes me sick. Rationalization of authority to the point of trying to "train" children to treat parents like "sovereigns"-- even leaving out the whole concept of physical abuse, the mental abuse of such a thing is gigantic.

And it doesn't work! Children brought up in such families are MORE likely to become criminals, promiscuous, drug abusers-- etc.-- not less! AND it all happens when they get too big to beat without retaliation (in other words, at some point children, especially males, tend to hit back or just leave the home.) I was in Ohio around families where this attitude is common, and families where FATHERs were in total charge were often very sick with incest and all sorts of things. And the sons did go to drugs and crime, and the girls left home early and slept around and....

Besides, AUTHORITY CAN BE WRONG! If you aren't allowed the ability to question authority, how can you possibly stop evil from happening like a good Xtian should? Wasn't Jesus anti-authoritarian himself?

This is why I can't respect Christianity (or ANY of the desert religions) as a whole at all. They START from a bad place, and attempts at reform (as I consider Jesus' teachings to be) fail again and again in the face of a system that is bad to begin with. Chuck it all and try something else, I say. Something that is not about a Male Authoritative God and his blindly obedient followers.

Ug.

[primitivepeople.livejournal.com]

I agree with a lot of what you say here. I've seen a lot of people who had very strict parents end up going off the rails - it very rarely has the desired effect.

However, there are plenty of sensible Christians out there (and I hope I'm one of them) who recognise this stuff for the absolute bollocks that it is. I take raising my children very seriously and I encourage them to think.

Thinking is so important. As soon as people run away from thinking for themselves, and let someone else do it - that way madness lies.

[lucretiasheart.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Of course.

I know there are good Christians out there, who are sane, sensible, and compassionate-- true followers of Christ. I'm sorry if my words seem so condemnatory.

I just see too much automatic rationalization and tolerance towards violence and injustice on the basis of serving male authority in the desert religions based upon scarcity: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Good people can and do follow these religions, obviously! However, the basis of the religions make it a very short step for people to justify abuse and subjugation...

sub·ju·gate 
–verb (used with object),-gat·ed, -gat·ing.
1.to bring under complete control or subjection; conquer; master.
2.to make submissive or subservient; enslave.

... based upon a male over female, human over nature, God over everything fundamental viewpoint which is generally intrinsic to these desert religions, given the cultural context in which they arose. Add the sneaky mind-control adage of "blind faith" as a requirement and all is doomed.

And I disagree with all of this so I can't respect it. I would never stand in anyone's way of believing anything or practicing anything so long as no one
is harmed-- but there's the rub, there's so many levels of harm, as soon as you apply the structures right from the get go. Hense my lack of respect.

I'm glad that good and sane people, regardless of their religion can see insanity and cruelty for what it is and stand up against it. VERY glad. However, I can't help but notice the connections and the source of where it comes from-- it's not a bizarre coincidence that desert religions have all these awful types of leaders and followers. It's not.

[primitivepeople.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry if my words seem so condemnatory.

Don't worry, I wasn't offended. I'm often shocked and saddened by how utterly stupid some Christians are, and it's often enough to make me tempted to give up. God I can cope with, but a lot of his followers are nutjobs.

Thankfully, here in the UK, more extreme Christian fundamentalism is rare, and a lot of churches are fairly moderate.

I fully understand your issues, as I've had to work out a hell of lot of this stuff myself - and a certain Raven Moon has seen a lot of my agonised travails over this.

I think a lot of this hinges on how far you go in taking the Bible literally. Most hardcore evangelicals/conservatives/fundies adopt an "all or nothing" approach to the Bible - or at least claim that they do - despite the fact that it was written thousands of years ago in a violent and largely anarchic culture. The view that it's either all true, or all false, is very widespread, and I held this for a long time, until I realised that this is crazy, and the Bible is full of stuff that, true or not, just isn't relevant to 21st century life. For starters, modern concepts of love, romance, marriage and relationships simply didn't exist when it was written, and trying to apply bits of the Bible literally to this is extremely problematic.

I have a lot of serious problems with most of the Old Testament and some lesser problems with the New, and I'm not sure I'll ever deal with these. But thankfully I recently moved house, giving me an excuse to dump the fundie-nutjob church I was in and move to a much more sensible and rather more liberal one. It did me a lot of good.

[lucretiasheart.livejournal.com]

Wow. Why aren't you a spokesperson for all Christians?? We need to hear more from people like yourself. You give me serious hope.

And, yes, the UK doesn't have the crazy fundies we suffer from over here. Sigh! America started as a place to escape religious persecution only to become one of the least liberal places religiously. Double sigh... =^\

[primitivepeople.livejournal.com]

Well, I've occasionally thought about becoming a minister of some sort, but I don't think I'd be taken all that seriously, unfortunately - because I'm not "evangelical" enough. A lot of Christians are threatened by people like me, who stick with it but ask lots of awkward questions.

[hope-guides-me.livejournal.com]

I couldn't read that entire article.

You know I'm a Christian.

I'm a little exhausted and not fully understanding, but...

This nonsense needs to stop hiding behind my religion. I'm sick of this bullshit making my religion look bad.

>:|

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

Totally! I don't blame you a bit.

I'm sorry you're feeling exhausted, sweets.... *hugs*

[hope-guides-me.livejournal.com]

Of course, I don't want it hiding behind any religion. I wouldn't wish this on any religion.

The crazies need to just admit that their freaking insane.

[primitivepeople.livejournal.com]

A lot of it comes from completely unrealistic expectations of children, and I would say this is more a psychological problem than a religious one. To some extent, I think that the propensity for violent and unreasonable behaviour may pre-exist in these people, and if it wasn't fundamental Christianity, they'd find some other reason to be the way they are, be it political, social or moral.

Just a thought...I wonder if anyone has studied this sort of thing?

[primitivepeople.livejournal.com]

This nonsense needs to stop hiding behind my religion. I'm sick of this bullshit making my religion look bad.

Fully agreed. Moderate, thinking Christians have had their faith stolen from them. When Richard Dawkins lets rip, he attacks Christianity from an assumption that all of us are brainless fundamentalists, and that's the major issue I have with his writing. Sadly, it's largely the fault of the extreme Christians who shout the loudest, leading him to draw the conclusions he does.

[x3non.livejournal.com]

First, imagine a Muslim family that did this in the US; beat a child to death in the name of religious discipline. What a shitstorm that would be!

This is an excellent example of how people are just talking past each other in America nowadays.

I just did a two-second Google search on "muslim honor killing in america", picked the first hit (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24329), skimmed the reader comments and found this:

Can you just imagine if it was a Christian ritual to abuse the women of the house???? That would give the NY Times and Newsday headlines for a year.

See? We're just talking past each other.

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, up to a point. However, there is a significant 'persecution mentality' inherent in what was far left Christianity ten years ago, and approaches mainstream Christianity today. (I have not checked the link you reference, but I am going to guess it is from either a significantly conservative or overtly Christian source?) This idea of persecution persists (witness the 'war on Christmas,' and other hot button 'culture wars' issues) despite the overwhelming majority Christianity enjoys in the U.S., and the markedly Judeo-Chritian cultural bias that goes with it.

That the rhetoric of entitlement is co-opted, however inaccurately (even absurdly!), by a majority group as a means to vocalize its paranoia of another group, in no way negates the fact of that majority's entitlement.

Admittedly, I see outrageous things glossed in the name of other faiths too. Kosher slaughter, for example, is allowed for religious reasons, even though similar practices are strictly prohibited as excessively cruel even within our nightmarish meat processing industry. However, none of this changes the fact that, of all the outrageous things which pass under the guise of religion, the majority of them, and those to which we are the most inured, are done under the aegis of Christianity.

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

As if on cue.... I saw this this afternoon and thought of this exchange...

http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/1161437.html

SRSLY?!?!?!