In Defense of Biblical Chastisement, Part 1

By: Michael Pearl

The following article is designed to be used as a resource in defending your faith on Biblical child training. If the Federal or State agencies take me to court over advocating corporal chastisement, this will be part of my defense.

“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes (Prov. 13:24).”

This is one of many verses in the Bible that instruct parents to chasten their disobedient children with a rod. Websters Dictionary defines rod as: “a straight slender stick growing on or cut from a tree or bush.”

If you read the many published accounts of studies done on “violence to children,” it is clear that there is a crusade to wipe out Biblical child training. Opponents call it “corporal punishment,” which means punishment to the body. Their first argument against Biblical discipline is to call it punishment. The Bible calls it chastisement with a rod. We call it training. The spankings we give our children do not resemble punishment. We are not angry. We don’t lose control. We are not desirous to make children suffer for their misdeeds. Application of the rod is only a small but essential part of our training technique. You must first understand our position if you would fault us.

The scale of media opinion has tipped, and they now assume that Christians are guilty of some evil in their application of the rod. Propaganda has created the impression that our methods are the last remnants of a medieval practice that is certainly destined to go the way of slavery or restriction of women’s rights. They think it is just a matter of time before enlightenment filters down to put out the remaining shades of darkness. It’s tragic and amusing, but opponents assume they hold the moral high ground.

At the moment, the government usually takes a “don’t tell, we won’t ask” approach. But we read of frequent arrests where parents are jailed and children are removed from their homes for nothing more than parents spanking their children in the traditional Biblical manner. Spanking is still too widely practiced for the police to intrude into homes without cause, seeking out offenders. But those opposed to spanking are fully in the propaganda stage, trying to swing opinion to their side. By publishing stories of parents going to jail, they have driven believers underground. We are compelled to defend traditional Biblical practices.

We are led to believe that they have progressed and now know a better way to raise kids. After all, if children persist in being unruly, the experts will give them the sixties cure—drug them out of their minds. The kids will then make peace and not war. With a better drug, the children might even be prevented from killing each other in grade school.

We don't "hit" our children

Research supposedly confirms that children who are “beaten” become beaters. They are correct in saying that “hitting” the child may cause him to grow up to use violence as a way of resolving conflicts. Children are very good at passing on what they have experienced at the hands of their parents. From our perspective, the problem is that opponents assume that all spanking is violence— “hitting,” as they call it. We decry the fact that “corporal punishment” is practiced by some people motivated by self-interest, and this is what the spanking abolitionists are seeing.