https://religionnews.com/2025/10/09/new-book-debunks-spanking-and-the-myths-of-christian-parenting/
Evangelicalism has an established track record of compromise and worldly thinking. From its inception in the post-war context, this movement has left the doors wide open to worldly influence.
Therefore it's no surprise to read of these assaults on Biblical parenting being offered by women - women who are effectively teaching doctrine and ethics. Their disobedience to the Scriptures and the fact that they are given standing and an audience within the Evangelical sphere only further emphasizes this point.
There is no doubt that there's a lot of bad parenting advice out there. There are many Christian teachers such as the Ezzos and Pearls that offer a mix of good and bad counsel. The main problem is that some of their opinions are confused with Biblical imperatives. One also thinks of Bill Gothard and his cult of followers who adopt his completely subjective and culturally defined ideas about things like dress, style, and aesthetics as being purely and self-evidently Biblical.
In other words, these things can and have been abused but these would-be feminist theologians offer an alternative that's just as unbiblical and compromised. They turn to secular humanism and its anthropological pseudo-science - psychology.
The so-called findings of the 'experts' should have no standing as these are lost people who have no concept of sin. Why supposed Christians would turn to these experts for succour or wisdom is mind-boggling. But more than that it's Biblically unfaithful and is once again a clear manifestation of Evangelicalism rejection of Scriptural Sufficiency. When it comes to ecclesiology and the Christian life, the Bible is not authoritative and for many Evangelicals it's as if it has almost nothing to say. So it is with Burt and McGinnis and in the second article, Tia Levings.
Concerning spanking I will freely admit that what one finds out there is a bit of a mess. I know of many who have become obsessive about 'rods' and implements - straining at a gnat and swallowing the camel. But in most cases I find spanking and disciplinary methods that are prone to failure due to inconsistent and ineffective application.
I continue to contend that spanking and things like slapping hands are of great utility when children are young - toddlers and young children. If the authority is firmly established during this time, you'll find that there's no need for a lot of spanking as they get older.
It's rather frustrating that they point to someone like Dobson as the villain because he wrote Dare to Discipline back in the 1970's. Dobson fought psychology with psychology. His methods and the totality of his thought was compromised. Far from being a disciplinarian his parenting methods were tepid, weak, and ineffective and I think the current train-wreck that is the Evangelical youth is (at least in part) due to his compromise. He's a villain to be sure but not for the reasons these pro-psychology feminist theologians seem to suggest. Their errors outstrip even his.
These authors additionally suggest Dobson was far too harsh. I don't know about you but when I'm out about in the world and in the Church, I wouldn't say that I'm seeing a lot of firm or principled parenting. I see a lot of bargaining, pleading, psychologized and misguided parents who insist on saying 'please' and 'thank you' to children who need to be commanded. I see some discipline that's often just laughable and does little more than undermine the parent's authority or in other cases it simply frustrates the child. I'm afraid my take on these issues is completely at odds with these authors. But I guess I'm not an expert. I'm just a Christian father who has raised my children - all of whom are still in the faith as adults.
Once again because the goalposts were moved by the culture, Dobson appears as a conservative. The truth is I think a large number of non- or nominally Christian parents of a previous generation knew far more about raising kids than Dobson did, let alone the psychologized parents of our day. Sure, given the fact that he was a reaction to Benjamin Spock, he seems not only conservative but (for some) a breath of fresh air. But the reference point in such thinking is wrong. One needs to go back to earlier generations.
There's no doubt Dobson was something of a huckster as were later people like Doug Phillips, Doug Wilson, and certainly Ken Ham. All of these ministry leaders cash in and get rich of their ministries and yes, it undermines their testimony. And in other cases, there's also more than a dash of unbiblical thinking in the mix.
And on one point I do agree with these authors. A lot of the motivation for their projects (parenting and otherwise) were political in nature and connected to the culture war. This same impetus has done much to undermine and corrupt the homeschooling movement - but this reality doesn't give any credence or standing to the psychologically-rooted critiques they offer, let alone the solutions.
But the answer isn't to turn to lost people and anthropological paradigms built on anti-Scriptural foundations.
I do not believe our children are programmable robots but at the same time I take grave exception to the Evangelical-decisionalist framing these authors offer. Incidentally this kind of decisionalist-conversion paradigm has also enjoyed quite a bit of give-and-take with psychology and the methods used by figures like Billy Graham and those who have built on his 'invitation' model have also turned to psychology and (due to the pervasive influence of American culture and the Christian confusion regarding its nature and status), we also find significant overlap with the methods and techniques of Madison Avenue. These too rely heavily on psychology and manipulation.
These women strike me as the types that would consider infant baptism and raising children in the faith as akin to being abusive. What we have is both unbiblical thinking and bad theology working in tandem. As such this debate isn't really about spanking. It's about more fundamental questions of what Christian parenting is and what it means to raise a child in the faith. Like many secularists, these Evangelical women seem to take umbrage at the notion that a parent will try to shape their child. They obviously have a low view of sin and man's fallen nature and their views seem to resonate more with a kind of Lockean understanding of anthropology, and certainly hyper-individualism which is not only unbiblical, it's basically unknown outside of the modern West. Their views are thus short-sighted from whichever vantage point one cares to look.
They condemn the idea that the child's experience of God is going to be mediated by the parent. Is it a leap to suggest they would say the same about the Church? Their thinking here is completely off base and they're using examples of abuse and corruption (of which there are plenty) to argue for a humanist paradigm which all serious Biblically rooted Christians must reject. We are called to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord - even if the experts say it's harmful and doesn't work.
I personally never based my thinking regarding spanking on penal substitutionary atonement. In fact I would intuitively respond that such thinking is erroneous and opens the door to the kind of foolish comments that the authors in question offer.
Spanking is not abuse - yet it certainly can be. I was most definitely abused by my father who beat me in rage and pure meanness at times. But unlike my father, I never whacked my children across the face with a hair brush, or flipped the dining room table over on top of them, or threw them into walls.
Again, I find that in most cases the way parents spank and discipline, nothing is accomplished apart from undermining parental authority, generating contempt, or everyone being frustrated. Thanks to psychology, too many parents are trying to be friends to their children. They don't need you to be their friend. They need you to be their parent. And if you do that - lo and behold when they are adults, you begin to be friends and the relationship can flourish and last a lifetime. Needless to say I ended up alienated from my father and never saw him again shortly after my eighteenth birthday. We spoke from time to time by telephone but never really reconciled and I only found out about his death nearly a year after it had occurred.
Someone might say - after a childhood like that, it's a wonder you spanked your children at all. By God's grace I was given some perspective, and as a parent I realized that there were many times I did deserve discipline - though not the way it was given or in the rage it was administered. Coming from a broken family, I was a very unhappy and disturbed child. I learned how not to be a husband and father and how not to be a son.
Ironically as bad as my father was, he honestly tried. Compared to his upbringing my own experience was probably mild. I know in his mind, his disciplinary style was lenient compared to what he had endured at the hands of his step-father who was not only abusive but depraved.
When it comes to something like blanket training - I too am frustrated. Children need to learn to obey. You cannot monitor them constantly and chase them around the house. Nothing will get done. They need to learn to sit and be content at times and keep themselves entertained. I've seen a lot of parents attempt blanket training and fail miserably - with many unable to do anything but spend every moment engaged with their child. The thing is - there's nothing in the Bible that says you must follow this method. This has nothing to do with 'experts' - Biblical or otherwise.
But there are some Christians who fall into legalism on these points. For example, to utilize a play-pen would be considered awful and less than sound Christian parenting. That's just plain rubbish. With a household of young children and toddlers, we used the play-pen without apology. No one ever accused our children of being unruly or disobedient and they certainly could stay on a blanket. But sometimes things were happening and it was both easier and safer to just take the younger child and put then in a play-pen. If someone wants to measure their children's conduct and character with mine (suggesting that we are somehow deficient because we used a play-pen) then by all means, I will entertain the challenge. The whole thing is silly and a distraction. But these issues are latched on to by those who embrace psychologized parenting and the debates just become all the more confused.
The bottom line for these authors is that the Bible's descriptions of parenting and its theology of children are not effective. By this they mean they will not foster the type of autonomous person that modern society deems healthy. The Bible in this case just doesn't work or is outdated. I hardly need to wonder how they would re-define what the Bible says about marriage or its calls for women to be submissive and shame-faced.
There
are many abuses of Biblical doctrine and many hucksters who despite
claims to Biblical fidelity, are not always so. It takes discernment
to work through these issues. And many of the Christian experts are
not that great - but you can be certain the experts these women rely
on are misguided and spiritually dangerous. In other cases, these are
people that are flirting with apostasy - and some are already there.
We are always fighting a multi-front war. If we forget this or lose
sight of it, we will quickly be overrun and on the defensive.
There
has to be a space for sober Biblical thinking and a modicum of
wisdom. This topic grieves me as I see young parents pulled in both
of these directions - both of which are so often leads to ruin. The
same is true of the masculinity debates. The one camp leads to the
Pete Hegseth type of masculinity which is actually anti-Scriptural
and evil. But on the other hand I do see a lot of passive men that
allow their women to rule the roost and set the tone for the
household and the type of parenting. I can only imagine what the
husbands of these women (in the linked articles) are like. Actually I
don't have to imagine. It's pretty clear.
I take great exception and offense at the notion that parents raised in a home governed by Biblical authority will therefore be all the more susceptible to authoritarian government and the likes of Donald Trump. The Christian embrace of Trump and fascism is rooted in other errors. There are perils on every side but the Enlightenment humanism advocated by these wayward Evangelicals and apostates is just as perilous.
I'm reminded of James Turner's 1985 book Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America. A fascinating if somewhat depressing work, Turner outlines the transformation of the Christian faith in the American context due to the outworking of the Enlightenment. Or we might say, it's a chronicle of how American values came to undermine historic orthodox expressions of the faith. As such it outlines the rise of things like Unitarianism and Theological Liberalism and how eventually the basic gospel message concerning sin and atonement became offensive not only to sensibilities and intuitions regarding decency, but was seen as barbaric. The God of Scripture had to be re-cast or rejected and the 20th century played out that struggle. Today's Evangelicals are more or less where the 'liberals' or modernists were at the end of the 19th century and we're witnessing both a re-casting and rejection of historic orthodoxy. It's no surprise to see so many Evangelicals falling into agnosticism or just outright becoming atheists.
Though it's so unpopular as to be almost unthinkable, the Church needs to teach in very clear terms that American ideology and idealism are not compatible with New Testament Christianity. Unfortunately those who are teaching such are using it as a justification for Christians to grab power by authoritarian means. This too is an aberration rooted in syncretist thinking and false doctrine. Again, there are perils on every side.