Is Conservative Christian Group, No Greater Joy Ministries, Pushing Parents to Beat Kids to Death?

[Christa]

Paradise, Calif. (CBS/AP) Prosecutors say that earlier this month Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz of Paradise, Calif., beat their 7-year-old daughter to death with quarter-inch plastic tubing because she mispronounced a word. They say the girl's parents held her down and whipped her for hours causing massive tissue damage that resulted in her death.

Paradise, Calif. (CBS/AP) Prosecutors say that earlier this month Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz of Paradise, Calif., beat their 7-year-old daughter to death with quarter-inch plastic tubing because she mispronounced a word. They say the girl's parents held her down and whipped her for hours causing massive tissue damage that resulted in her death.

"It was torture," says Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. The girl's sister was also allegedly beaten with tubing. She survived.

On February 26, 2006, 4-year-old Sean Paddock died in Raleigh, N.C. He had been beaten with plastic tubing as a punishment. When that didn't work, his mother Lynn wrapped him in blankets so tightly that he suffocated. She was found guilty of murder.

Photo: Web site of No Greater Joy Ministries.
These two families don't seem to have come up with their notions of discipline on their own. Both say they were inspired by a Christian group with nonprofit tax status, No Greater Joy Ministries.

No Greater Joy Ministries takes the Bible's notion that "He that spareth his rod hateth his son" as an edict for child-raising, or, as the ministry's website phrases it, "child training" via "biblical chastisement."

The Ministry's website says that "Proper application of the rod is indispensable to communicating the divine principle of retributive justice," and that people who avoid using the rod might be "emotional coward."

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/26/crimesider/entry6247502.shtml

[naaman fletcher]

1. sure sounds like it. repeal tax status, asee how far they went in advice, maybe can be charged .nt

[Blue Owl]

2. they are deeply conflicted

They'll beat the love of Jeebus into you, by God...

[DeSwiss]

3. It would seem that these folks are taking their instructions......

...from the inimitable stylings of Doctor James Dobson:

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-feldman/media-whitewashes-dobson_b_109151.html">Media Whitewashes Dobson, Hides 'Beat-Your-Child' Dogma

Consider this quote from Dobson's best-selling parenting self-help book Dare to Discipline in which Dobson recounts the fanciful "story" he used to tel his children to explain why beating them was a sign of love and what would happen to them if they did not submit to his authority:

"I knew of a little bird who was in his next with his mommy. The mommy bird went off to find some worms to eat, and she told the little bird not to get out of the nest while she was gone. But the little bird didn't mind her. He jumped out of the nest and fell to the ground where a big cat got him. When I tell you to mind me, it is because I know what is best for you, just as the mommy bird did with her baby bird. When I tell you to stay in the front yard, it's because I don't want you to run in the street and get hit by a car. I love you, and I don't want anything to happen to you. If you don't mind me, I'll have to spank you to help you remember how important it is. Do you understand?" (p. 23, The New Dare To Discipline)

In other words, 'Listen to Daddy or a big cat will eat you,' and, 'If I spank you it's only because you made me.'

The deception in Dobson's parable of the little bird eaten by a cat, of course, is that it seems to be saying that only bad kids get spanked. Not true. The more we read of Dare to Discipline, the more it becomes clear that all children must be beaten in Dobson's universe. One cannot raise a healthy child, according to Dobson, without at some point breaking the so-called natural rebelliousness of the child by beating them -- preferably with an object that causes sharp and memorable pain. The converse is also true: in Dobson's violent vision of America, there is no such thing as a healthy, well-adjusted child who does not have fond memories of their first welt from mommy's wooden spoon or daddy's belt. Dobson recalls his own first moment of truly understanding how important discipline was in a story about disrespect, his mother, and a wire girdle loaded with metal clips and straps:

The day I learned the importance of staying out of reach shines like a neon light in my mind. I made the costly mistake of sassing her when I was about four feet away. I knew I had crossed the line and wondered what she would do about it. It didn't take long to find out. Mom wheeled around to grab something with which to express her displeasure, and her hand landed on a girdle.

Those were the days when a girdle was lined with rivets and mysterious panels. She drew back and swung the abominable garment in my direction, and I can still hear it whistling through the air. The intended blow caught me across the chest, followed by a multitude of straps and buckles, wrapping themselves around my midsection. She gave me an entire thrashing with one blow! But from that day forward, I measured my words carefully when addressing my mother. I never spoke disrespectfully to her again, even when she was seventy-five years old. (p. 23-24, The New Dare To Discipline)

Now...when I read about Dobson scaring his kids into thinking they will be eaten by a cat if they do not heed his authority -- or read him wax romantically about his mom wounding his midsection with a mid-century girdle -- the absolute last question that pops into my head is, "What can I do to make this man an influential figure in U.S. politics?"Text

- Although I must say that considering all of this from the perspective of the Christian religion whose holy book specifically sanctions the beating and/or killing of one's disobedient children, it all seems rather tame.......

K&R