If you saw the recent video of a Texas judge beating his daughter, you might not have noticed some of the language being used. You may want to go back and rewatch it, or at least just listen to it, because the language of the judge is important: it reveals that he's acting out of a Christian ideology which teaches that children must "submit" to the "authority" of parents, even if force is required to achieve that.
There's a widespread movement among conservative Christians where these attitudes are fostered and one of the movement's heroes is Michael Pearl, a preacher whose book teaches Christians to beat infants as young as seven months and to withhold food in order force them to become more subservient.
Larry and Carri Williams of Sedro-Woolley, Wash., were home-schooling their six children when they adopted a girl and a boy, ages 11 and 7, from Ethiopia in 2008. The two were seen by their new parents as rebellious, according to friends.
Late one night in May this year, the adopted girl, Hana, was found face down, naked and emaciated in the backyard; her death was caused by hypothermia and malnutrition, officials determined. According to the sheriff's report, the parents had deprived her of food for days at a time and had made her sleep in a cold barn or a closet and shower outside with a hose. And they often whipped her, leaving marks on her legs. The mother had praised the Pearls' book and given a copy to a friend, the sheriff's report said. Hana had been beaten the day of her death, the report said, with the 15-inch plastic tube recommended by Mr. Pearl.
"It's a good spanking instrument," Mr. Pearl said in the interview. "It's too light to cause damage to the muscle or the bone."
Some of the Williamses' other tactics also seemed to involve Pearl advice taken to extremes; the Pearls say that "a little fasting is good training," for example, and suggest hosing off a child who has potty-training lapses. The Williamses have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.
Source: The New York Times
Conservative Christians have transformed beating kids into a "godly" activity -- something that is not merely demanded by God, but which helps distinguish pious Christians from a demonic, secular world. Giving it up would mean giving in to Satan and abandoning God. It's a twisted world with twisted moral values where violence is the currency of affection.
And if they regard beating their own children as an expression of their love, how do you think they'll treat people they dislike?
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