One of the sad legacies of Armstrongism was the oftentimes violent methods of corporal punishment used upon church children and teens. The Mt Pocono Feast site in its early years almost was shut down because of the beating of children. Members of the public who came to check out the weird church heard and witnessed parents beating their kids in the official Spanking Tent.
The minister we had in Cincinnati, Ohio (Carn Catherwood) said that a child must get 20 hard swats with a thick paddle and that he expected to hear them crying afterward. He also instructed the local Spokesman Club to sell 1-inch thick paddles with holes drilled in it to cut down wind resistance. They did this as a fundraiser. Imagine raising money off beating children!
Samuel Martin. some of the late Earnest Martin has been on a decades-long crusade to end corporal punishment of children.
This is his latest book:
STRATEGIES TO EMPOWER CHRISTIAN FAMILIES CONCERNING ENDING THE CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN:
DEALING WITH OPPOSITION FROM SPOUSES AND EXTENDED FAMILIES CONCERNING THE SUBJECT OF SPANKING CHILDREN
The subject of corporal punishment (spanking/smacking) is one which causes serious challenges in families especially when one spouse is in favor of spanking/smacking, while the other is not.
This issue creates serious tension between husbands and wives and in extended families and communities who pressure parents to spank/smack their children.
Christian families who choose not to spank may face loneliness, isolation and serious opposition to their decision to pursue peaceful parenting.
In some families, where spanking/smacking has been taking place for generations, the choice not to spank/smack by one of the parents may create situations in a marriage where major tension exists surrounding the subject of spanking/smacking.
This research study seeks to empower Christian spouses who have taken the often difficult decision not to spank/smack to provide them with simple Bible based tools to engage their spouses, extended families and communities thoughtfully concerning this most difficult subject.
This research study delves into God's Word in a deep but practical way to provide those in favor of peaceful parenting with Bible based teachings to help them engage with those around them who still believe in spanking/smacking.
This research study is based on almost 20 years of feedback that the author has received from scores of Christian families who have decided on a new path for their parenting journey that seeks to leave the experience of spanking/smacking behind.
The research study provides practical specific Bible based information to help Christian families engage the subject of spanking/smacking in a mature and thoughtful way with the goal of growing peace and love in our homes.
Martin's previous books:
22 comments:
After about four decades in the CoGs before I finally left, and I was not aware of a single bona fide actual case of child abuse.
Corporal punishment was reflected in the culture of the 1950s & 1960s. The church reflected that but corporal punishment was not only limited to WCG.
In recent decades ministry from WCG openly admit they didn't use corporal punishment and say they used 'the carrot rarther than the stick' which is a life lesson for members.
No, 11:09, that's revisionist bull shit which you would certainly know if you had attended attended SEP in the '60s, and had had a chance to get to know your fellow campers. Or, if you had walked through the parking lot during services at the Feast of Tabernacles. It's why I never allowed my parents to have any sort of close relationship with me as an adult. While we were growing up, I was constantly thinking that there is no way possible that my parents could possibly have the Holy Spirit, and then my Dad up and gets himself ordained as a deacon and a local elder, and still continued doing that shit to my brothers and sisters!
Most of the ministers did it, too. One, actually while he and his family were visiting us. Multiple way overboard spankings to his infant daughter.
I think you people who lie for your church like that get off on pissing off people who were beaten in the name of Jesus Christ as kids, (and it wasn't for getting out the gospel,) I guarantee you none of the kids I went to school with were getting abused like that. It was a major freakout when some kid got one or two swats with a paddle by the gym teacher.
"Corporal punishment was reflected in the culture of the 1950s & 1960s."
Weren't church teachings supposed to be based on the Bible rather than the surrounding culture? Based upon my church attendance, the church used the secular culture as a cloak for all manner of moral compromises and abuse.
I still recall GTA's child rearing booklet, which amounted to unleashing psychotic violence on children in order to turn them into church Borg drones. It also groomed the children to be abused by their future Fuhrer ministers. From memory, GTA advised that babies be spanked for crying, no matter that babies crying is natural. To me, that is sick.
Before I left in the late 1980s, the regional director stated from the pulpit that he was using paddles on his two sons. If most ministers used the carrot instead, it wouldn't surprise me since many pushed the official line but practiced the opposite in private. It's called hypocrisy.
as of now the USA is one of the few countries in the world not to have signed the UN Treaty on corporal punishment
even the wife spanking remark by one of the older gents reflected american culture of the time (see plenty of contemporary newspaper articles or letters sent in by readers of newspapers)
WCG in many ways reflected American culture of the 1930-1950 era......and as BB often stated it was not Progressive rather one of the last vestiges of conservatism during the uncertain times of the sixties.....
nck
If anything, WCG was a cartoonish amplification of conservative culture during the 1960s, nck!
During that era, at Imperial Schools in Pasadena, some parents actually spanked their kids for receiving corporal punishment at school. That is the ridiculous extent to which the fanaticism with spanking was taken.
WCG parents worried about their kids not being recognized as conscientious objectors. Some of them got the shocks of their lives when their kids ran away from the abuse at home, joined the military, and I personally know of some of those who were killed in Vietnam.
Ministers and counsellors at Ambassador College actually threatened some of the students with the possibility of Vietnam being in their near future.
The Radio and Worldwide Church of God ministry were a bunch of flaming assholes in their dealings with young people, and those refusing to be assimilated by the borg were given up as being worthy of death. A more educated and proper approach would have been a better way to go. They just counted the "lost" kids as serving as examples for the rest. We already knew they had no value for human life because of the perennially failing healing doctrines of that era.
"The Mt Pocono Feast site in its early years almost was shut down because of the beating of children. Members of the public who came to check out the weird church heard and witnessed parents beating their kids in the official Spanking Tent."
News to me, but that was before my time. Can you expand on this?
2.14, I'm m not surprised that your abusive Dad was made a Deacon and local elder.
Despite the waffling about these roles being one of service, their main responsibility is one of enforcing the church culture. They are the church policemen.
Bob is mentally "paddling" his readers today with a guilt trip, regarding anyone not sending in "enough" offering or "doing" enough etc. for CCOG endeavours. He condescendingly proclaims, "do not be satisfied or complacent with doing the least possible".
Does he play a Ouija board or Magic 8 ball now to deduce whether members are "doing enough"? Did David "do enough" when he set up Uriah for ghastly ambush? All to gain Mrs. Uriah for himself?
Bob, can you give us at least the break you give David regarding Uriah?
A carttoonish representation.... I might not disagree with that assessment.... in the sense of badly managed and executed principles. I do feel that non of the not conscientious object or's deserve to be conscientious objectors like that Adventist guy from the movie. I was granted objectors status during the Cold War as I really was at the time. Now not so much. Nck
Spanking is good. Keeps kids in line.
Condemn past values all you want, but modern society is sick. In the past nobody walked into a MacDonalds or Post Office and blew away 20 people. Now it happens all the time. No modern "expert" can really figure out why.
A thought for the old ACOG Bible Study: If your child has a demon, does it do any good to spank them?
2:52, the paychologists have it all sussed out. The shooters were oppressed usually by bullies at school or their parents.
There are more people in prison who had experienced abusive childhoods than permissive ones. If your parents are on your ass all the time, you just want to explode but are forced to bottle it up. Then something happens to cause an extreme release.
I believe infrequent and appropriate corporal punishment has its benefits.
Truth is many did not. Whilst others went overboard others did the opposite.
I can understand this is a shocking remark to make given the history of WCG . You can accept this or not but I have heard it said in recent decades, how they used the carrot instead of the stick on their own children. More was said on how they would encourage their children.
Huge lesson from this revelation is to think for yourself and make your own decisions. If a believer then the warnings of Jesus in scripture calling out the religious leaders in the temple as hypocrites, who clean the outside but are full of filth on the inside. Whitewashed tombs who stop others entering the kingdom...
Agree. Ministry perceive their children as the churches future rulers. To be treated as church Princes and Princess. Members children are perceived as lower than dogs.
Barren & unmarried.
I’m in favor of corporal and capital punishment. Then again I believe in the Biblical modes of punishment ie (the 2 just mentioned and multiple restitution). I don’t believe in the prison system. Of course I’m speaking about crime and punishment not how parents choose to discipline their own children.
AnonymousThursday, April 25, 2024 at 11:58:00 PM PDT
Nope. 4 great kids. I grant you that many overdid it, but not getting near a road due to not wanting to get a spanking is a good thing for a child.
How nice for your children, if that's not revisionist and only from your perspective, 5:36.
I actually did try everything to please the monsters HWA turned my parents into, until I finally realized in my middle teenaged years that no matter what I did, I was going to get my 40 lashes 3-4 times per day, be made to lose meals and fast sometimes for an entire weekend, and get kicked out of the house, walking the streets and collecting and cashing soda bottles so I'd have something to eat.
Unjust punishment, which way exceeds whatever is appropriate to the offense, makes a child just think "Fuck it! Gonna get beat anyway, so I'll just do as I please!"
A real problem developed, because I became very good at the Eddie Haskell routine. Do you know how difficult it is to root that out and get rid of it if you pick it up during your formative years? Can you imagine learning to deal with the extreme anger everyday unjust punishment causes? Once that is triggered as an automatic reaction to anything which violates our innate sense of fairness, it becomes very difficult to counter and reverse. It also gets passed to one's children, as they see examples of adults winning theough explosive outbursts.
I really had to do a lot of work to myself in those painful recovery years. How many people never realize what their Armstrong childhood did to them, and never make corrections?
Do spirit beings get "corporeal" punishment?
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