Samuel Martin’s recent newsletter from the New Foundation for Biblical Research is less a simple advocacy piece and more a strategic brief: a clear-eyed attempt to equip human-rights and children’s-rights practitioners with the cultural and theological literacy needed to engage the very people most resistant to abandoning corporal punishment of children. Drawing on personal experience inside a high-control fundamentalist environment, Martin argues that purely scientific or secular arguments routinely fail with devout Christians because they never touch the deeper systems of authority, belonging, and biblical interpretation that sustain the practice. The letter is patient, respectful, and practically oriented. It is also, for anyone familiar with Armstrongism, immediately recognizable.
Martin opens by naming the gulf between the two communities. One side works from empirical data on child development and harm; the other works from faith, Scripture, and submission to spiritual authority. He refuses the easy contempt that sometimes appears on the activist side (“God-botherers,” “Bible-bashers,” “Baptist Taliban”). Instead he insists that influence requires understanding the internal logic of the people one hopes to persuade. Christians who spank are not generally sadists; many genuinely believe they are obeying God, protecting their children’s souls, and remaining faithful to their church. Asking them to stop spanking can feel, to them, like asking them to abandon God. That is the first and largest barrier.
He then maps the interlocking controls that make change so difficult. Pastors and church leaders claim spiritual authority (Hebrews 13:17) and expect submission. Members are told not to forsake assembling together. Financial support is framed as obedience or even as refraining from “robbing God” (Malachi 3:8). Marriage and child-rearing fall under the same umbrella of divine instruction mediated by the church. In environments that present themselves as the true Church of God, dissent is not merely disagreement; it is rebellion against God Himself. Martin notes that the denomination of his childhood featured a “Pastor General” who exercised near-absolute control—language and structure that will ring familiar to anyone who lived through the Worldwide Church of God under Herbert W. Armstrong.
Within that framework, corporal punishment is presented not as one parenting tool among others but as a biblical mandate. Hebrews 12:6–11 is read as teaching that true chastening is “grievous,” not joyous. The “rod” passages are treated as straightforward commands. Positive or gentle parenting approaches are often dismissed as worldly, soft, or even anti-biblical. Martin quotes a pastor who insisted that spanking must continue “until the child’s will is broken” and until the tears are of submission rather than anger. He also cites the historical Puritan tradition that framed children as stubborn and rebellious and the parental task as conquest. These teachings do not merely permit hitting; they sacralize it.
The practical consequence, Martin observes, is that many parents continue the practice even when their own experience suggests it is counterproductive. One mother he quotes had been told by her pastor that she would be sinning if she stopped spanking—even if the civil law changed. That is the depth of the control. Scientific studies or secular children’s-rights arguments are easily dismissed as the product of “godless scientists.” The only way through, Martin insists, is to meet people inside their own authoritative texts and show that the traditional reading is shallow or mistaken.
Here the letter turns constructive. Martin points to his own 2002 book, Thy Rod and Thy Staff, They Comfort Me, which he still offers free of charge. The book is deliberately exhaustive—hundreds of biblical texts, scholarly commentaries, and Jewish interpretive perspectives that many Christians never encounter. By removing the financial barrier and by arguing from Scripture rather than against it, the work has, by his account, helped thousands of parents abandon corporal punishment while remaining within their faith. The strategy is not to demand that people leave Christianity; it is to demonstrate that the Bible itself does not require the violence they have been taught is mandatory.
The letter’s greatest strength is its sociological honesty. Martin does not romanticize the communities he describes, nor does he pathologize ordinary believers. He simply describes the mechanisms of control—time, money, marriage, child-rearing, and the fear of falling outside the true Church—and explains why external pressure so often hardens resistance. For anyone who has watched Armstrongist groups enforce “godly” child-rearing standards, the analysis lands with particular force. The same hierarchical language, the same use of Malachi 3 and Hebrews 13, the same framing of dissent as spiritual danger, and the same sacralization of physical discipline were standard fare in the Worldwide Church of God and remain so in many of its splinters. Martin’s father, Ernest L. Martin, was himself a prominent WCG theologian who eventually left; the son’s perspective is therefore both insider and critical.
There are limits. The letter is written from within a Christian frame and is most persuasive to those already committed to biblical authority. Readers who reject the authority of Scripture altogether will find the internal critique less compelling. Martin also focuses primarily on the American and English-speaking fundamentalist landscape; the dynamics in other cultural contexts may differ. And while he is careful to treat people with dignity, the very intensity of the control systems he describes can leave outsiders wondering how much genuine freedom of conscience remains inside some of these groups.
Nevertheless, the newsletter succeeds on its own terms. It is a clear-eyed map of the terrain that children’s-rights advocates must navigate if they hope to reach the parents who most need new tools. It refuses both contempt and naïveté. And it models the very approach it recommends: engage the sacred texts seriously, remove unnecessary barriers, and offer an alternative reading that allows people to keep their faith while abandoning a practice that harms children.
For those of us who once lived inside systems that treated “breaking the will” as a spiritual duty, Martin’s letter is both familiar and clarifying. It explains why the teaching was so hard to question at the time, and it points toward a more careful, textually grounded way of reading the same Bible that was once used to justify the rod. That is a useful contribution—measured, experienced, and still urgently relevant.
Silent Pilgrim
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Human Rights and Children’s Rights Practitioners Need to Understand This about Christians if They are ever Going to Get Anywhere with Convincing Them To Abandon Corporal Punishment of Children
A Newsletter from the New Foundation for Biblical Research
July 2026
In my first book, in the introduction, I mentioned that I wanted my book to be a bridge between the Christian community and the Human Rights/Children’s Rights communities.
These two groups are so far apart in how they relate to each other. One works on the basis of science and the other works on the basis of faith.
I remember one activist who I knew who referred to Christians who believed in corporal punishment as “God botherers.” This activist had such a frustrating experience with these people that they were just considered a “bother”, which if you live in Commonwealth countries, you will know that this means these people are a big problem and are very frustrating to deal with. In the UK, they are also called “Bible Bashers” (my sister who lived in England for many years used to use this term often when we talked). We have also heard of the terms “Fundies”, “Holy Rollers”, “Bible Thumpers” and in some countries “Clappers” or “Wowsers.”
It is important though that we all remember that all people must be treated with respect and dignity, even those we disagree with. What is important is that these dear people may hold views that we disagree with, we still need to look at things from their point of view if we hope to understand them and possibly influence them to think something different especially when we are talking about something which has a very huge influence on society like the corporal punishment of children.
There is also a pretty dark side to some of this. One of my friends had a blog, which is still online titled “The Baptist Taliban.” Many people have a basic understanding of who the Taliban are. They are an Islamic fundamentalist group who now are the leaders in Afghanistan, known for their rigid fundamentalist teachings, which many looking at characterize as brutal. What my friend’s blog chronicles are her experiences with various churches who operate as Christians, but their tactics practically resemble the behavior of the Taliban. In other words, they behave like a type of Christian extremists. Yet, many of these Christians do not consider themselves extremists at all. On the contrary, they consider what they are doing to be correct, true and reflecting the Bible and its teachings. In fact, anyone who is not doing what they are doing is considered to be out of step with God and in some cases anti-Christian. Some Christian groups go even farther and characterize anyone who does something different than what they are doing as being in “Babylon” or not being close to the true God and His teachings.
It is important to understand in countries like the USA, where according to some estimates, the number of different Christian denominations in existence exceeds 33,000, you are going to find a very wide variety of Christian behaviors and a very diverse way of looking at and interpreting the Bible. These churches are all different and differ from each other in one or a hundred ways, but almost all of them have the same holy book: The Holy Bible.
Honestly, many academics and people working in the children’s rights community have seemingly few real practical strategies to engage with Christians who believe in corporal punishment. The only problem is, though, that these Christians are the most ardent supporters of corporal punishment of children so if you are working to stop that behavior among all people, it seems you must have an approach of how to engage this target group. This is especially so important because there are so many fundamentalist Christians living all over the world and they all respect and use the Bible in their daily lives. This is very important because all children deserve to grow up in peace and this includes children whose families are Christians including the most fundamentalist sects of Christianity.
In addition, in an environment where financial resources are finite, does it not make the most sense to try to influence those who are strongest supporters of the practice of corporal punishment?
For people who engage the issue of corporal punishment of children with the view to having an open mind to change often means that they are not going to give up their faith. They would rather keep spanking their children and stay within their faith community than to give up spanking and abandon their religious beliefs.
So, scientific oriented advocates for children need to be willing to meet Christians where they are because overall they are not going to abandon their faith.
The Barriers To Changing Christian Minds About Corporal Punishment of Children
Many barriers exist within Christian society that encourage them to continue using corporal punishment on their children. To break down these barriers, one must approach the matter from inside the faith community. Attempting to engage them using science is generally not going produce good results. In fact, many religious leaders point to scientific arguments against spanking children as false teachings put forward by godless scientists who do not know the first thing about God and His Word.
The first barrier that anyone working with Christians is going to have to realize and accept is the simple fact that Christians have people in their faith communities who have taken on positions of leadership and authority in and over the lives of believers. These are pastors or other church leaders, and these individuals often place themselves in a type of spiritual authority over people who are members of their congregations.
Whether this is right or wrong is irrelevant. This is the reality and anyone seeking to engage this community needs to take this matter into consideration. This does not happen for no reason.
Let us review a Bible text which can help anyone from outside this community understand better how it works. It is found in the book of Hebrews, chapter 13:17 quoting here the King James Version:
“Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.”
We can see in this passage, depending on how would interpret what it says, it says that pastors and church leaders have authority over those in their congregations and that those individuals are to “submit” themselves to this leadership. People watching “souls” are in fairly important positions.
This is not a minor issue. Some religious leaders exhibit a level of control over the members of their churches which can be almost absolute. The church that I grew up in was very much like this. The head of the denomination referred to himself as the “Pastor General” using a military kind of term and rest assured he ruled with absolute control of what was taking place in the entire church.
This control in some fundamentalist religious groups also extends from pastors to their wives, who then exhibit control over other women in their churches. See my earlier reference to the Baptist Taliban blog which discusses this at length. Pastors and their wives can behave exactly like dictators. This is particularly troubling in some churches who operate on a decentralized local autonomy model of church government. Local churches can make whatever rules they want and have absolute power to do that. This is particularly difficult where the higher ups in a denomination may take a position which is consider less conservative and straying away from the truth which local bodies then take it as their mission to follow the more correct path.
Look at this example from some who read my book and left this testimony concerning the issue of corporal punishment of children and the attitude that she experienced from her pastor, who told her that even if the law concerning spanking children was changed, she should ignore that law and continue to spank her child. This is the power that some religious leaders wield over their church members, even urging them to break the law. Note her direct testimony:
“"Hi, I stumbled upon the blog, Dulce de Leche, and Samuel Martin’s blog was mentioned as well as the offer of a book about the Scriptures and spanking – Thy Rod and Thy Staff, They Comfort Me.
I have been struggling with the whole spanking issue. I grew up being spanked, which did not harm me, as far as I can tell, but I also do not know that it benefitted me, seeing as my parents only punished doing wrong and failed to teach how to do right.
Now, with my own children (two 2-year olds) I see that when I spank them (because I was taught that’s what good parents do), it seems to exasperate them rather than discourage them from doing wrong. Though I have been very intentional in trying to teach them what they should do instead, the spanking seems to make them behave worse. When I stopped spanking them a few weeks ago, I saw major improvement in their behavior and attitudes, as well as in my own attitude.
A few years ago, I was told by my (former) pastor that even if spanking were made illegal, Christian parents should still spank their children because they are commanded to do it in Scripture (the “spare the rod, spoil the child verse”, which is, even to me clearly, not a command). He basically told us (my husband and I) that we would be sinning if we did not spank our children.
All this to say, spanking has not been sitting right with me, but I want to follow the Scriptures, whatever that may be. I believe God led me to this site at this time for a reason. I was looking for information on a completely different topic when I came upon this, but this is perfect timing considering where I am at in my parenting journey.”
https://samuelmartin.blogspot.com/.../twenty-two... - THIRD
It is also important to remember that in some countries like the USA, there is a separation of church and state and freedom of religion is guaranteed by the US Constitution. In addition, Americans have freedom of speech and are generally allowed to speak their minds on all issues. What this means is that religious leaders can say things like this and their speech is protected and their views are allowed and allowed in a sense of little or no government regulation due to the prevailing law of the land.
This is not a minor issue as I said earlier. Many religious leaders in many countries, but especially the USA point to this issue of corporal punishment and any opposition to it as evidence of interference of government or other entities in the freedom of Christians to practice their own religion. It is because of this (among other issues) that in the USA, the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) remains unratified to this day and the right of parents to administer corporal punishment is one of the key reasons in America why this UN convention still remains unratified while 196 other countries have ratified it. The USA remains the lone holdout and this concerns issues of parental rights (of which corporal punishment of children is a key one) and national sovereignty.
The second barrier is connected to the first. It involves that fact that Christians are normally told that they should be a part of a community and that they should attend church services where they will hear the message of God from the one designated by God to give them such teachings, who are the church leaders or pastors. Let us review a passage from the Bible which teaches this. What is important is that it is irrelevant what the meaning might be and to whom the passage is directed. If a pastor reads this passage in church, it can be used to teach that Christians need to go to church and that avoiding doing so could be interpreted as wrong and a sin.
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
So, Christians are told by religious leaders that they have to listen to their leaders and they need to attend church. So, they are told what to do and where to do it. They are also told how to do things.
The third barrier concerns the fact that individual Christians are required to support this system they are a part of in a financial way. This is often through a mechanism where Christians are told that they have to give 10% of their income to the church and this teaching has ramifications to it that religious leaders often accuse Christians who do not practice this procedure called tithing as stealing from God.
Look at Malachi 3:8 from the King James Version of the Bible:
“Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.”
Imagine going to church and being told that if you do not contribute at least 10% of your income to their church (often including additional “offerings”) in addition to tithes [the 10%], that you are a thief and guilty of stealing from God. This is the exact church environment I grew up in and is mirrored around the globe among many fundamentalist Christian churches. Many pastors use these texts in a very dogmatic ways and they can be used to pressure people into giving money to churches accusing them of stealing from God. That is a very uncomfortable place to be in for most people being told you are a thief and the one you are stealing from is God Himself.
The fourth barrier concerns the issue of marriage. Many Christian denominations have certain rules around marriage and these teachings exhibit great control over the lives of individual believers.
The final barrier that we are going to address in this newsletter concerns corporal punishment of children. This is a teaching that is introduced by religious leaders with the design that parents are being instructed by religious leaders to follow the teachings of God about this matter. Anyone who does not use this practice on their children can be considered as being sinful or is someone often way out of step with the congregation who are being taught it religiously.
Numerous Bible texts are introduced to Christians that supposedly support this teaching.
We could go into other areas, but suffice it to say that it is fairly easy to see a system that controls your time, where you go and when, how you spend your money, who you marry and how you raise your children is one which exhibits major control over the lives of those taking part in it. You can also see how attempting to challenge this system for anyone who is a member can be very difficult.
If you are in an environment like this especially where the denomination that you are a part of considers itself the true church of God (like the one I grew up in), if you are not doing what you are told, you find yourself out of step with God Himself. That is a very uncomfortable place for most people to live and exist. So, many Christians go along with these teachings often against their own inner beliefs or intuitions. They also are told that any information contrary to church teachings is wrong and should be avoided.
This is the reality that anyone from outside of a Christian community must understand if they are going to engage with that community. Not taking this reality into consideration is going to leave the person seeking to engage the community concerning an issue about violence against children at a dis-advantage in trying to change the community or especially in trying to influence it in favor of non-violence.
Now that we have seen the overall situation and the circumstances in which Christians are living and operating, it is also essential for anyone trying to understand this community and influence it that when it comes to the matter of corporal punishment and correcting children, many Christians do not generally believe or are not taught about things like positive parenting, gentle parenting or positive discipline. In fact, these ideas are completely contrary to what many Christians are taught when it comes to rearing children. This may be hard to believe, but it an absolute fact.
Punishment, especially corporal punishment, does not have a gentle or a positive element to it at all. It is meant to hurt, to be painful and to be a negative experience. This is what we find exactly in the Bible and this is what Christians are often taught is the exact teaching of God. Note it here:
“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” (Hebrews 12:6-11 King James Version)
We can see in the very last verse of this passage the teaching which is passed on to Christians that “chastening” is not “joyous” (not positive), but “grievous” (painful and negative).
This is what Christians are taught and they are taught to hit their children because of this and other passages.
Discipline is not positive. It is negative, it hurts and it is meant to be painful or else it does not follow God’s rules. This is the plain and simple reality that many Christians live with and what they are taught by religious leaders. It is a pretty difficult picture that we are looking at concerning spanking.
I have the following quote about this matter in my book:
“For example, one pastor in his book on child rearing points out that: “The smacking (or spanking) should be administered firmly. It should be painful and it should last until the child’s will is broken. It should last until the child is crying, not tears of anger but tears of a broken will.” – my book can be downloaded free from www.biblechild.com – pg.99
Professor Tamar Morag discusses this in her excellent article: RELIGIOUS TRADITION AND THE CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN:A COMPARISON OF THE AMERICAN AND ISRAELI LEGAL SYSTEMS - International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 25(3), (2011), 338–364 - doi:10.1093/lawfam/ebr018 - Advance Access Publication 22 September 2011
“Beginning with the English Puritans, Protestant groups played a role in developing a broad spectrum of parental guidebooks. As both Greven and Ellison point out, this literature stresses the parental duty to impose rigorous discipline, and the parents’ unquestionable responsibility for the salvation of their children’s souls. Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards, considered one of the greatest 18th-century American theologian, said about parental discipline: ‘And let children obey their parents and yield to their instructions and submit to their orders as they would inherit a blessing and not a curse’.42 Greven analyses in his study how these religious approaches come to the fore in the language used in parental guidebooks and in Puritan theological writings describing the nature of children and the aims of education. He notes, for instance, the recurrent use of words such as ‘stubborn’ and ‘rebellious’ to describe children’s nature, and words such as ‘conquer’, ‘subdue’, ‘obedience’, and ‘repress’ to describe the parental role.43 A 1732 letter by Susanna Wesley to her son John offers an instance of this type of writing: ‘When a child is corrected it must be conquered, and this will be no hard matter to do’.” (pg.347)
Overcoming these barriers
This situation that many seeking to influence Christians who believe in administering corporal punishment to children is not an easy one. Thankfully, though, it is not an insurmountable one. Many Christians can be taught things that will allow them to overcome the barriers to personal change that they have learned throughout their lives and in their church communities.
To do this, you must come at this situation from their point of view.
The first thing that one must do is to show Christians that they have misunderstood this teaching. This is where books like the one I wrote (as well as others) have come along and had a strong influence to change Christians views about corporal punishment of children.
This was possible because I presented a strong academic case which when evaluated compared to the information that they were receiving from their religious leaders, they lost trust in their own religious leaders and embraced the ideas that I put forward in my book. (or others in some other books).
This is one of the reasons that I gave away my book for free. That in itself seeks to overcome a barrier, the financial one to secure a book, that I wanted to eliminate to help hesitant Christians who have been told over and over again that their pastors and church leaders are right and anyone who teaches something else should be ignored and definitely not read or ever studied.
My book presented a very comprehensive case. I really tried to put forward a “leave no stone unturned” approach. That is why I referenced 353 separate Bible texts, used so many different commentaries and opinions from learned scholars and also included Hebraic/Jewish perspectives that presented different points of view surrounding the Bible texts that Christians may not have known about. Many Christians were taught spanking using a very superficial approach to Bible teaching. My book is nothing of this kind of teaching at all. It is deep teaching, scholarly, studied and a comprehensive examination of a wide range of evidence to come to its conclusions about spanking.
When you take this kind of approach of coming with an open resource which is free for the reading with no obligation and no axe to grind, Christians can open their hearts to learn something new.
Thankfully I can say with much humility that since my book was released in 2002, 1000s of Christians have read it and made their decision to abandon corporal punishment. This is now documented with over 170 separate reviews from online forums, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Emails and online blogs.
For more information about this subject, please see my free e-book which can be downloaded from www.biblechild.com.
In closing, I would like to refer to one review that a friend from Australia gave me recently which referred to this text as important in her work of convincing Christians to rethink corporal punishment. It is the one which I included in the open page of the book as a key text to help orient us towards the truth of God.
“Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” - Romans 12:17-21
Samuel Martin
New Foundation for Biblical Research
P O Box 21543
Jerusalem Israel
www.biblechild.com
Email: info@biblechild.com
"Do you understand what you are reading?" — Acts 8:30
© Samuel Martin 2026
For more on the biblical case against corporal punishment, see my six books at https://www.amazon.com/.../Samuel.../author/B00HP94ZZA... or visit www.biblechild.com to download my first book free.
If you're struggling with these issues, you're not alone. Email me at info@biblechild.com - I've corresponded with parents working through this, and I'm here to help.
In closing, I would like to refer to one review that a friend from Australia gave me recently which referred to this text as important in her work of convincing Christians to rethink corporal punishment. It is the one which I included in the open page of the book as a key text to help orient us towards the truth of God.
“Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” - Romans 12:17-21
Samuel Martin
New Foundation for Biblical Research
P O Box 21543
Jerusalem Israel
www.biblechild.com
Email: info@biblechild.com
"Do you understand what you are reading?" — Acts 8:30
© Samuel Martin 2026
For more on the biblical case against corporal punishment, see my six books at https://www.amazon.com/.../Samuel.../author/B00HP94ZZA... or visit www.biblechild.com to download my first book free.
If you're struggling with these issues, you're not alone. Email me at info@biblechild.com - I've corresponded with parents working through this, and I'm here to help.
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