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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Lori Alexander Advocates Making Children Fearful by Beating Them

There is a huge mistake going on among many parents today. They don’t want to say “no” to their children. They don’t want to correct them. They don’t want to discipline them or use the rod on their bottoms for disobedience. They don’t want to link sin and pain together. They want to be their children’s friend instead of their parent. They want their children to have “freedom of expression.” This is not raising children in wisdom; for God’s Word tells us to raise our children opposite of this foolish way.

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We are still allowed to use a “rod” on children anywhere in America as long as it does not physically injure the child. I pray this never changes since this is biblical! Spanking must bring short-term pain to a child in order to accomplish long-term gain.

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I have personally witnessed parents who do not spank and discipline their children. Their children grow up to have little to no self-control and live a life of destruction. They don’t fear sin because they weren’t taught to fear it as a child. Most of them have grown old with many regrets.Yes, it’s usually the mother who doesn’t want to “harm” the child because women are more sensitive and emotional. I have also seen women interfere with their husbands’ discipline of the children and this is devastating for the children’s future. We must never be led by our feelings or emotions but live by the truth of God’s Word. The Lord knows that children need a rod when they misbehave because He knows the seriousness and the destructiveness of sin. The sooner parents nip this in the bud, the better for all.

— Lori Alexander, The Transformed Wife, Making Raising Children a Delight, July 6, 2018

14 Comments

  1. Avatar
    Geoff

    I remember when we had our daughter and was urged by others in the church to inflict spankings when she misbehaved …I did it once or twice and thought to myself …fuck this and fuck what they think and say.

  2. Avatar
    Gene Stephens

    Some of the most thoughtless, unkind, hard-hearted people I have known have been evangelical Christians. Seeing that pattern was one of the reasons I deconverted. Witness the fact that an article about beating your kids is titled “Making Raising Children a Delight.” If being a Christian makes walloping your kids a delightful thing, then heaven forbid I should ever be a Christian.

  3. Avatar
    ObstacleChick

    I was raised being spanked as a child and my husband was not. Before we had kids, he convinced me that discipline without spanking was the better way. It definitely took much more creativity and communication not to spank, but I believe that we as a family are better for it. Our kids were well behaved and are now well-adjusted young adults.

  4. Avatar
    Brian

    Sweet baby Jesus, thank-you for giving us the black book of instruction to harm ourselves and others. Thank-you for making children depend on us so fully that we can beat them and abuse them and be protected by society and the Church. God is Love! Amen.
    Lori is so fully deluded that she freely lies to others about the ‘correction’ of children. I wonder why it does not matter that so many of us have raised our children in love and respect without hitting, swatting, spanking, whipping etc.? My wife and I decided that we would not disrespect our kids with physical harm, with the rod that Christians say God requires. Evangelical Christianity is a sickness. I wonder how Lori would feel if her husband whacked her in the head for bothering him in some way, just up and whacked her good, correcting her misbehaviour? As the head of the household, it might be seen as his duty to do so, to ‘teach’ her so that she can pass on the ‘teaching’ to children and those she is able to victimize. Why does Christianity call itself true love when it is so full of ignorance and darkness? Sweet baby Jesus needed a good swat in the head and didn’t get it, I guess, because his followers act like bullies from hell with their children and pat one another on the back for doing harm. Their churches are schools that teach torture and hatred, that harass and cajole, that seduce and rape
    innocence not by accident but by divine design. Imagine that, and you know that they get their wallets out and put money into offering plates to support and further this sick abuse in the world…. Not such a bad gig and tax-free; let’s not forget that…

  5. Avatar
    J.D. Matthews

    I assume Lori won’t mind when I catch her doing something wrong and take a stick and wallop her with it. I’m sure she won’t press charges or anything, because that’ll just be me teaching her to associate “sin” with pain. Bend over, Lori.

  6. Avatar
    mary

    we have apologized to our kids for spanking them. I still get teared up when I think about spanking them, and we gave no more than 3-4 swats per spanking. we did not spank often. thankfully, said grown kids have forgiven us and we have a great relationship. hubby and I were spanked much more often and worse, so I guess we are breaking the cycle. I remember my own mother bragging to her friends about spanking us for making noise in church and then threatening us w/more beating if we did not stop crying quickly. this is most likely why I cannot cry most of the time,my first urge to is push tears down right away. needless to say, I hold my parents at arms length and do not wish a close relationship. thanks for shedding light on this.

    • Avatar
      Brian

      mary, you have indeed broken the cycle and the respect you show for your children, honoring them with your concern and apologies for old patterns gives them a foundation in their lives that will mean their kids win big. I am sorry your mother disrespected you like she did and that it harmed you down the years. I too kept a considerable distance from my parents after they made it clear that they had no interest in acknowledging the harm they had done. Jesus apparently looks after it all anyway, so they said but I didn’t ask for Jesus to acknowledge anything. Jesus is a crock and garbage can of denial. Thank-you for sharing your feelings here, mary. I think maybe somebody will see them and think twice before hitting their kids.

  7. Avatar
    Reynard Ransack

    Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, child spanking was practically commonplace – but unfortunately not for me. Rather than take down my pants and warm my naughty bare bottom for stealing, lying, being rude and playing with matches, my mother and my oldest sister (my childhood disciplinarians) punished me by withdrawing their affection.

    I’d been caught at age eight stealing the change from my sisters’ coat pockets. In our mothers’ absence at Teachers College, my oldest sister asked me if I wanted her to pull down my pants and paddle my bare bottom. This prospect of a sound spanking was meant to dissuade me from ever stealing again. It failed to do so. Being deprived of the authentic punishment I clearly deserved only added to my difficulty in properly learning the critical lesson of Actions & Consequences.

    As a 14-year-old who’d been recklessly playing with matches in the basement of our new home (I’d been having great fun setting paper airplanes on fire), I may not have actually caused the subsequent house fire that displaced our family for several months while repairs were made. Even so, I’d been terribly irresponsible, and at the very least, I should’ve had my bare bum spanked good and hard across my mother’s knee (I had a father, but he left much of raising me to my mum). In fact, I never got so much as a smack.

    If I’d been a boy raised with the occasional spanking for straying from the straight & narrow, I wonder how likely it would’ve been that I’d thought to amuse myself by behaving so dangerously. After all, that’s the whole point of warming and reddening a naughty child’s backside; to leave them questioning the wisdom, in future, of doing something they know they shouldn’t.

    Personally, I don’t believe I could’ve been any better suited to having my bottom spanked. I was a shy, sensitive boy, respectful of authority, and with a solid, compact build just right for being turned over the lap of adult authority. To her credit, my mum did say in her later years that she would spank me if she had it to do over again. I think just maybe she’d seen the problems that never getting spanked had brought me.

  8. Avatar
    Yulya Sevelova

    Hi, Reynard. I saw this post rather late, as July 2018 was a real tough month for me and mine. Anyway, this account of Loony Lori’s child-bearing philosophy applies to victim’s of this practice, and not to most others. People inclined to harm children would see her advice as a green light to abuse their children while laying the blame on the Bible/ God as their go-to EXCUSE. I grew up in rough area of Los Angeles, and saw firsthand over the years the frequent striking of children, from newborn to late teens, and I can state that where these things are done, the crime rate is highest. Among modern nations, the U.S. leads in all societal ills. Including child abuse, assault, and murder. The Catholics and conservative churches, and the ” ghetto fabulous” alike, prided themselves on being hard on kids– both as the method for ‘toughening’ and controlling them in the ‘ home’. L.A. is naturally beautiful in the wilderness, but our crime stats are too awful to be believed. I’d think about that before envying spankers. Who knows. You could have wound up in prison, had you been beaten.

  9. Avatar
    John Arthur

    The god of Fundamentalism is a barbaric, vicious and violent crank. Many Fundamentalists become like the god they fervently believe in, whereas others remain compassionate and caring persons by selecting those passages in the bible that present God as a God of loving-kindness, while ignoring those passages that present god as an authoritarian control freak.

    It seems that Lori Alexander belongs somewhat to the former group along with her other Fundamentalist mates, like Spaniard 8.

  10. Avatar
    John Arthur

    Well, Lori is correct when she thinks that corporal punishment will instill fear in a child, but apparently she doesn’t believe that NT statement that says “perfect love casts out fear.” If this NT statement is true, then don’t children need to be loved? Hence there is no need to instill fear in them. I can’t understand how bashing children (corporal punishment) ever does them any good.

    • Avatar
      Brian Vanderlip

      John Arthur said: “I can’t understand how bashing children (corporal punishment) ever does them any good.”

      It doesn’t, John, as you accurately observe. The point of hitting, slapping, spanking is to harm, to instill fear and compliance. Christianity pretty much does the same thing as I see it. They call it obedience and love. Nothing better than being ordained to beat the shit out of helpless folk in pain, especially children. It is not always enjoyable but ….. GOD!

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