TTUAC and Child Abuse

Robin of Heart of Wisdom has a nice synopsis of the Dangers of the Pearls’ teachings in Pearl’s To Train Up A Child And Child Abuse. This is a good post for sharing as it contains the Action News Report as well as quotes from TTUAC and a lot of links for further study.

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Pondering the Pearls’ Teachings – Part 10

Under Much Grace has published part 10 of her series Why Good People Make Dangerous Choices: The Schatz Family is Not Unique: Why People Make Dangerous Choices (Pondering Pearl and Lydia Schatz) Part X In this post she focuses on Philip Greven’s book, Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact…

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Responses to Our Critics

pFamilyGal considers the question of whether it is right for Christians to condemn the Pearls’ teachings in Called to Judge. Pearl In Oyster (PIO) responds to her critics in More Thoughts on Biblical Parenting where she discusses Divine Punishment vs. Grace, Spanking for Danger Situations and the Rod Verses.

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Analyzing the Schatz Tragedy

Cindy, from Under Much Grace, analyzes what causes people like Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz to harm their children in a new series: Why Good People Make Dangerous Choices (Pondering Pearl and Lydia Schatz) An Introduction Part I: Virtue In Place of Unquestioned Obedience. Part II: How Dehumanization (and Declaring War Against Family Members) Causes Moral…

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Letters to Dobson

Discipleship Parenting wrote a Letter to Dr. James Dobson. It is a lovely letter, you should take a look at it. In it she gives a testimony of how his teaching on spanking hurt her family and how they found something better. She got a reply from Focus on The Family defending their stance. She…

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Spanking is NOT God’s Will Part 3

( Part 1 ) ( Part 2 ) I finished Samuel Martin’s book, Thy Rod and Thy Staff They Comfort Me today.  Here’s more of what I have learned about God’s Word. Many Christian advocates of spanking children quote the following Proverb in order to support their philosophy that spanking children will save their souls from Hell.  It says:…

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Spanking is NOT God’s Will Part 2

(Part 1) After reading and studying more today in this wonderful book by Samuel Martin and doing my own Bible study, here are some things that God has revealed to me. First, the book of Proverbs is the oldest book in the Holy Bible.  While King Solomon and King Hezekiah wrote most of Proverbs, according to Martin’s…

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Spanking is NOT God’s Will Part 1

I am reading a wonderful book by theologian, Samuel Martin, Thy Rod and Thy Staff They Comfort Me. It’s clear from historic, contextual, Hebrew info on the book of Proverbs that we are NOT to spank (hit) children. The book of Proverbs was not meant for verses to be taken out of context. Even Jewish…

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Another pro-spanker speaks up

Another negative book review of TTUAC by a pro-spanker. I’m praising God that more people are taking a stand against this book. Jenni Lenc has good insight as to some of the major problems with these teachings, although she is careful not to be too harsh in her condemnation of them. A very good piece…

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Email to a Church

Someone on a message board has graciously given me permission to share the excellent email she sent to a church to explain why she would not be returning.  I thought that someone could use this as a jumping off point if they ever need to write a similar letter. Hi _____, Thank you for the…

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Pro-Spankers’ arguments

Michael Pearl alleges that only those who are anti-spanking oppose his teachings. He has no idea how wrong he is. For your convenience, here is a compilation of arguments and concerns from Christians who approve of spanking: To Train Up A Child (Book Review) by Tina Jobe To Train Up A Child: An Examination of…

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Zooey’s Arguments

It began with a feeling of uneasiness….. I started to read what had been described to me as a “Christian book for women”. That seemed OK. I mean, I am a Christian woman. But I rapidly became more & more uncomfortable with what I was reading. There was a coarseness about it that jarred with…

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In Depth Analysis of Pearl’s Teachings

  To Train Up A Child: An Examination of the Pearl Method by Rey Reynoso who had done a great job of digging deep and analyzing the Pearls’ teachings using the Bible to refute them. Parenting in the Name of God: Introduction from Scita > Scienda  Note:  This is the 1st in a series. Lydia The…

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Concerns About The Pearls

The letter I sent to my pastor about the Pearls. By MarynMunchkins Dear ***, This morning’s message was wonderful.  I love how you bring grace and mercy into every message, and call legalism and self-righteous behavior what it is.  It’s truly a blessing to listen. Unfortunately, my husband had an experience this week which was…

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Arguments against The Pearls’ Teachings

  On The Pearls and Parenting by Tulipgirl Michael and Debi Pearl’s No Greater Joy Ministries: A Look at the Basics From Allthings2all by Catez Michael Pearl on Original Sin: An Analysis From Allthings2all by Catez Concerns about the Pearls A letter to a pastor By MarynMunchkins Salon’s article about The Pearls by Lynn Harris Child…

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Arguments against Spanking

Is Spanking Biblical? By Carol Avoiding Millstones (An Open Letter to Those Who Advocate Spanking) by Rebecca Prewett Spare The Rod, Spoil The Child? by Aurelia Ann Thy Rod and Thy Staff… By Jennie Hall Biblical Discipline: Conclusions by Laura Moody who was a “Contact Mom” for GFI from January 1999 to August of 2000.…

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Amy’s Arguments

The philosophical underpinnings of these kinds of “Christian” behaviour “training” models do not sit well with biblical theology. The more I read about Ezzo and Pearl’s behaviour modification techniques the more I am reminded of Behaviouristic psychology (the works of Skinner, Watson, Pavlov etc) Fundamentally, behavioural psychology advocates the use operant/classical conditioning for behaviour modification…

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Danielle’s arguments

“What is “wrong”, IMO, about going strictly from a training point-of-view is that children are *NOT* dogs, mules, mice, etc. (Some could pointedly argue you don’t even need to train dogs with all this “pain”.) There is a future. We do not just need our children to be manageable *today*, we hopefully want them to…

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Jo’s arguments

“You know, this is my very basic beef with Pearl and Ezzo, et al. This very basic concept that THEY (the parent) control the hearts of their children. Wow, how incredibly god-like. I was pretty sure that the Bible says only GOD can rule the hearts of his children. Controlling the hearts of our children…

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Kathy Thile’s Arguments

“The Pearls believe that training is a separate thing from teaching and discipline. They start very early using a switch to inflict pain…to train babies to avoid things the parent wants the baby to avoid…just like a behavioral psychologist might use electric shocks and rewards to train rats to navigate a maze. In my opinion…

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The Disobedience of Man and The Consequences

Even if The Old Testament did say to hit children, it also says to sacrifice animals and to stone rebellious teenagers (and other sinners).  So, anyone who spanks (or strikes) their children is living under the Law and therefore, not under Grace.  If we are living by Grace, we must apply grace to our children.…

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