A step-by-step guide to beating children, by ACE
Last week, I finally got my hands on something I’ve been trying to get for more than ten years. This.
This is the correct way to beat a child
Yes, that’s a picture of a kid being bent over a chair so he can be beaten. This picture is from page 118 of the School of Tomorrow Procedures Manual (part 1, 1998 revision). That’s the guide that all Accelerated Christian Education schools are required to follow in running their schools. I was 13 the first time I saw this picture, and I found it shocking even though, as a good Bible-believing Christian, I knew it was God’s will for children to be spanked.
Critics of my blog often tell me that I am wrong to highlight instances of child abuse in ACE schools. “Child abuse happens in all kinds of schools”, they tell me. “You’re just trying to smear ACE”.
To those critics I say: Look at this picture, and then tell me that. Yes, child abuse happens in all kinds of places. But most of those places don’t consider it to be one of their main selling points.
When I left ACE, I thought about that picture all the time. If I could just get a copy of it to a newspaper, I thought, I could bring ACE down. All hell would break loose. After all, 1998 was the year the law changed in the UK, banning corporal punishment in private schools.
But I couldn’t get a copy. The School of Tomorrow Procedures Manual is not sold to the general public. It’s only available to schools and home schooling parents directly from ACE. The only place to find this picture is in an ACE school, and they were hardly likely to let me go in and get a photocopy.
Last month, after years of searching, I finally found an online retailer with a copy for sale. And I’ve got it. Turns out, my memory played tricks on me. The picture above is far larger than the picture appears in print. In the book, it’s no larger than 3 x 5 cm. I’ve blown it up to that size because that’s how big it was in my memory. I don’t think you need to be a psychoanalyst to see what that says about how it affected me. But anyway, I’ve finally got the picture, and I can expose ACE.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, I’m too late.
That photo is from the 1998 revision of the procedures manual. The latest edition is from 2010, and on page 52, it says “Corporal discipline should never be used in school”. That’s a hell of a turnaround. In 1998, they said, “to omit spanking is to leave out a key ingredient in discipline”, and cited four Scriptures in support of this claim.
So this is great news. It means that horrific experiences like Aram McLean’s won’t happen again, right? Right?
I’m not convinced.
For a start, there are still a bunch of ACE schools that clearly advertise spanking on their websites, using verbatim the wording from the 1998 edition of the ACE manual. Here are a few I found with a casual google search.
ACE Websites That Still Publicly Advertise Spanking
- Victory Christian Academy, Florida (in their student manual, downloadable here)
- Gateway Christian School, San Antonio, TX requires parents to sign a slip giving the school permission to spank their child
- Alive Christian Academy, Toronto, (page 7 of this school policy booklet)
- Central Baptist School, Hattiesburg, Mississippi (page 13 of this pdf)
- Pleasant View Christian School, Bromley, Kentucky (page 15 of their student handbook)
- Cornerstone Acadamy, Amarillo, TX (pp. 47-48, CAA handbook [not updated since 2009])
- Seed of Wisdom (to be fair, this website doesn’t look particularly active, but it does have an interesting list of offences that warrant spanking)
- Christian Academy of Bacolod (last updated 2010)
- Emmanuel Private School, South Africa (handbook page 16)
- Grayson Christian School, Sherman, TX (discipline agreement)
Well, that’s ten, and I’ll stop there because I’m bored. You can find more yourself by simply googling a phrase from ACE’s discipline policy, like “a simple, flat paddle” or “the offense will be clearly discussed with your child“.
But even if ACE aren’t paddling in schools anymore, you can bet your life that they’re still doing it at home. Here are all three pages from ACE’s guide to spanking (again from the School of Tomorrow Procedures Manual, copyright 1994, 1998 revision)
Click to enlarge. You’ll see that ACE, even back then, said that the ideal solution was for parents to spank their own children. You can be confident that’s exactly what they’re saying now. When the law changed in 1999, so that ACE schools in Britain could no longer paddle the kids, my school just made it a condition of attendance that parents were required to do it instead.
Christian Education Europe responded by holding a protest rally in London, and by joining with the Christian Schools Trust in a legal battle to reinstate spanking, arguing that it was central to their religious beliefs. At my school, I heard murmurs of people being willing to go to prison over this, just as St. Paul and his companion Silas went to prison for preaching the Gospel.
Spanking was absolutely central to life at an ACE school. My teacher used to take us aside regularly to read Scriptures about how vital it was for our moral well-being. There is no way these people have simply changed their minds after decades of fighting for corporal punishment. In my opinion, the wording in the 2010 edition of the Procedures Manual is simply there because the law has changed in most of the territories where ACE materials are sold. Note the sneaky wording: “Corporal discipline should never be used in school“.
J. Richard Fugate, former Vice President of Finance at Accelerated Christian Education, has this to say about spanking in his book, What the Bible Says About Child Training:
I believe that the issue of corporal punishment may be the test of Christian conviction in the next generation. American Christians have never had their beliefs tested by the threat of dying in the arena. Already, some Christians have had to testify their commitment to corporal punishment as their testimony to obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29). What the Bible Says About Child Training has been used in several court cases as these parents’ Biblical reason and justification for corporal punishment.
These are not the words of someone who is likely to change his mind. Fugate goes on to advocate that parents keep their ‘disciplining’ private, just to be safe.
Today, Christian Education Europe’s website has only this to say about discipline:
IV. Control and discipline
The Bible has some unfashionable but necessary teaching in this area…
Someone from CEE is welcome to correct me if I’m wrong, but the way I see it, ‘unfashionable’ can only be a reference to spanking. After all, there’s nothing unfashionable about appropriate forms of discipline, like time outs, and generally ensuring that children grow up to be pleasant, moral individuals.
So that’s my case: I don’t think the ACE leopard is doing any spot-changing. This is a system that prides itself in not believing in evolution or moral progress. If it was good in 1000 BC, it’s good now.
Please click on the three images above and read what ACE has to say (if you don’t find it too distressing). I’ve gone to the trouble of providing the whole thing, so no one can say I’m taking this out of context, and it’s there you’ll find the step-by-step guide mentioned in this post’s title.
Related posts:
Posted on February 11, 2013, in Accelerated Christian Education, Faith Schools, Fundamentalism, School of Tomorrow and tagged Accelerated Christian Education, Child abuse, corporal punishment, paddling, School of Tomorrow, spanking. Bookmark the permalink. 55 Comments.
Leaving Fundamentalism 
My god, the sexism. Father this. father that.
And the subtle “DON’T TELL ANYONE ELSE WE DO THIS” (when sending academic records of a child who transfers from your school, DO NOT include Corporal Correction Report forms)
Yeah, the sexism is a whole other post. It’s absolutely patriarchal.
Hi Jonny, could you provide a bit more clarification on the statement of this being being one of ACE’s main selling point. Also, on how this is different from correctional behaviour that can be found in other cultures. I guess one point is how’s it’s tied into their belief system and seen as a ‘moral’ duty rather than a discipline course. In case please do comment. Is the point one of child abuse by ACE or is it that beating is promoted in ACE schools?
Hi Shone,
Well, the “main selling point” line was slightly facetious, but historically it was one of the main reasons parents chose this type of education – so they could follow what they saw as God’s command to use physical punishment on their children.
As for how it’s different from other cultures, well, I can’t think of any situation where it would be right to hit a child. I don’t know what cultures you have in mind, but I’m not a moral relativist, so if you’re talking about spanking, I’m probably against it.
One thing is that ACE does advocate spanking for children of all ages and for quite minor offences, so even if you were in favour of spanking, you might think ACE takes it too far. But as for your final question, I don’t see any distinction.
I only remember one instance from my ACE school of someone getting physically punished, and I heard about it second hand (he was a teen boy at the time).
My mom, however during my homeschool years was fond of physical and psychological abuse, her favorite tactics were slapping me across the face, and threatening me with fists and belts:
http://www.mysecretatheistblog.com/2013/01/guest-post-sheldon-cooper-confronting.html
Would you like some more instances of child beating for Jesus? Here: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Christian+child+beating
It’s rather difficult to document if those involved, including the child, are sworn to secrecy, don’t you think?
The Pearl book, “To Train up A Child” promotes vicious child abuse and is being touted by charismatic churches around the country, specifically marketed to Christian homeschool families: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=To+Train+Up+a+child
P.S. Not to rub salt in an open would (I know what it is to be abused as a child)… but this behavior needs to be addressed. Abusers rarely display their abuse in front of an audience.
Incredible to read this now and to know that the ‘adults’ were filling these forms out without a second thought. Makes me feel somehow even more abused, like I was just some sort of test guinea pig to these cult leaders. Documenting the number of strokes and all; clarifying the position of the wee ones’ body; letting them know they need God’s forgiveness for being such wretched sinners; and so on. It’s bizarre because I totally remember all these guidelines coming from the other end (no pun intended) as a kid, yet never suspected they were ACTUAL guidelines. What a bunch of brainwashed monkeys. Damn
I was a guinea pig for a school cult that practiced corporeal punishment. Have you heard of Warren Jeffs’s F.L.D.S.Cult before?…I was beat in school by teachers, and at home from family,on the road from companions, and at work from mentors.It was the default treatment of children when they did something once. There was no warnings.I had no life except for their church and they put such a fear of the world into people it took an enormous courage to face the world.. I was worked from the time i could hold a rake at 4 until I left at 16 in 1992.Abused from the time I was born, and I could never hit or strike a child. I Love the world, in spite of them all. peace.
As a former ACE student, the memories of folks getting in trouble in the school are many. Corporal punishment is Biblical. Even in public school, corporal punishment was dealt until quite recently. We had an option to sign to allow for corporal punishment at my children’s primary school in Akron OH in the early 1990s.
WHY do educators still feel it is appropriate to strike a child?
All educators do not! Competent ones can discipline without hitting. Same is true for parents.
I was an ACE student beginning in 3rd grade and remember clearly the fear of physical punishment. I remember that many of us went to school with our underwear padded with thick layers of toilet paper, hoping it would help! My teacher did NOT limit herself to paddling.
Exactly my same experience… I can remember wearing several pairs of underwear because I’d gotten in trouble the day before and was scared to death there would be “swats” coming the next day. I got the most painful spanking I can remember at about the age of 13 or 14… I wish I could remember what I even did wrong, but I can’t. I do remember the pastor, who was also the principal (of course) telling me I was getting 5 swats, then I assumed the position just like in this disturbing photo. After the second one, I was pretty sure I would never survive 5 of them…it was a large wooden paddle with holes drilled in it. After the 3rd one, I fell off the desk and lost it – then somehow he decided that was enough. I was embarrassed that my friends could tell I had been crying… some of them got paddled frequently and never seemed to cry, which is something I still can’t figure out. What a horrible school experience.
Oh, and it was okay for sex offenders to be principals of ACE schools…
No it is not, but it is not ok to label all ACE schools as bad because of certain situations. Just like they don’t close down all the Catholic Churches because of Priests who have molested young boys, or closed public schools because certain teachers had affairs and even children with their students.
No, but ACE could do more to make sure things like this don’t happen, and it doesn’t. Unsurprisingly, ACE’s headquarters and International Institute were themselves hotbeds of abuse in the ’80s and early ’90s.
WOW…It still shocks me to see this and I can say with 100 percent accuracy that although they may have changed their policy regarding the physical abuse of children in their schools, they absolutely still require it of the parents. I know for a fact that anyone looking into homeschooling their children using the ACE program is required to sign a form stating they will beat their children. How sad and disgusting. So many young and impressionable lives being ruined.
There is nothing wrong with spanking, if it is appropriate, and there is a world of difference between spanking and abuse. However it appears that these ACE “schools” have taken things way too far. They should all be shut down.
I spent Grade 1 to Grade 7 in an ACE program through Abbott Loop Christian Center in Anchorage, Alaska, where daily “beatings” with a large board with holes drilled in it I(Paddle) were administered by a fat little man with an inferiority complex., we were told that if we our parents knew that they would be disappointed in us, am I bitter? Hell Yes, I can’t even walk into a church at 47 years old and not be angry. I suffered from learning difficulties and had a hard time with the “self teaching program”, I feel a little better knowing that there are others out there that may be pissed off too. (sorry about lambasting the name of the church but its about time!)
Studies show that children who are spanked tend to have lowers IQ’s.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090924231749.htm
Another recent study reviewed 2 decades of research showing children who are spanked had symptoms of PTSD and are more likely to exhibit depression, aggression, anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, and general psychological maladjustment.
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2012/02/06/cmaj.101314.full.pdf+html
Imaging studies also showed differences in the brains of children who are punished physically. Children who are spanked have less gray matter in regions of the brain connected with IQ.
In other words, ACE’s step-by-step guide to spanking was a step-by-step guide to increase brain atrophy, depression, aggression, anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, and general psychological maladjustment in children. No wonder you were shocked by that image.
Proverbs 13:24, Proverbs 22:15, Proverbs 23:13-14, Proverbs 29:15
If this is ‘God’s will’, then what does that say about their god?
Great post, Jonny. Thanks for bringing awareness about an important topic that needs exposure.
lower*
God is God and every man is a liar. I am looking for the picture of a child getting abused?
Interesting how everyone is always so concerned about the way Christian schools enforce discipline, but when we have incidents like columbine, people are wondering why nothing was done to prevent it. It’s fine to drug up the children because they are diagnosed with ADD or ADHD but don’t correct disobedient behavior.
What part of those studies did you not understand? What makes you think nothing was done to prevent Columbine? Your comment shows you know little if anything about pre-Columbine.
Remember Ed, the Bible is full of psychopathic behavior, condoned and commanded by your god. Those boys didn’t do anything your god wouldn’t do or command others to do.
The fact that the boys walked around shooting and everyone thought it was just another Senior prank shows that there is no discipline being enforced. I don’t know of any ACE schools or Christian Schools that allow pranks to be pulled that this would have even been confused with. If there are schools that allow certain matters to be allowed as Public Schools do then they are probably not following much of the ACE Procedures. The journal from one of the boys that stated how he hated the whole ?!?! world shows how parents need to be aware of what is going on in the hearts and lives of their children. It shows that young people have a lot of hate issues, which is clear even on this blog and that discipline is necessary and we must have rules or there is chaos. My GOD cannot and will not condone sin or He would be just like you and me. He is a perfect GOD and a loving merciful God or He never would have allowed Jesus to pay for your sins. The fact that He lets you make the choice where you spend eternity proves His love. He doesn’t force anyone to choose Him, which is why you are still breathing, even when you say hateful things about Him. He still loves you and allows you to make your own choice. He doesn’t need you or I to believe in Him to make Him Almighty God, it only helps us.
Eric Klebold wrote in Dylan Harris’s 1998 yearbook:
“My wrath from January’s incident will be Godlike!”
You see, the god of the Bible provided Eric and Dylan many, many ‘godly’ examples of killing and mass murder. The Bible is one of the most bloodiest and violent books ever published, and the ACE uses the Bible as their guide.
Inflicting pain on your children, for the sake of discipline, is unethical; and has many negative side-effects, as numerous studies have shown. The phrase “Spare the rod and spoil the child” came from a 17th Century satirical poem, “Hudibras” by Samuel Butler. The phrase was a modification of a Biblical injunction about child-rearing given in the Book of Proverbs. Both the poem and his novel, “The Way of All Flesh” exposed and denounces violence against children, yet we hear that phrase used today to justify corporal punishment in schools and homes.
“10 Reasons Not To Hit Your Kids”
http://www.naturalchild.org/jan_hunt/tenreasons.html
Jonny, I responded to Ed’s recent reply to me, but I believe my response may have gone to your spam file. It does that sometimes when links are posted. Would you please check your spam? Thank you.
Funny you should mention Columbine because the same supposedly Jesus-loving conservatives who are so fond of mercilessly beating children into submission are also in favor of promoting guns on school grounds as well as in church:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Christian+right+guns+in+schools
It’s showing now. Thank you. =)
First of all the God of the Bible (my God) is perfect and sinless, unlike Eric and Dylan or any other human being from the beginning of mankind. God did not commit the first murder, man did, when Cain killed Abel which shows the human nature of man being that if something doesn’t go our way or we aren’t happy with the consequences of our own actions, then anger which can often lead to some type of violence usually follows. As I have said before, we have been given the ability to make our own choices in life, God doesn’t make us choose Him or force us to believe in what He did for us, which was to send Jesus to pay penalty for the sins of the world. If God was just ready to kill people every time they sinned, the human race would have never even started after Adam and Eve sinned because He would have just killed them. He wouldn’t have let anyone survive the flood, and He certainly wouldn’t have let his Son die on a cross for us. You have said a couple of times that studies have shown the Biblical principles that ACE follows to be negative, which isn’t surprising when many people don’t like what the Bible has to say or they pick and choose what they like from the Bible. The Bible says parents are to train up a child in the way they should go, and as a parent and school supervisor I take that very seriously. I will be accountable for what I choose to ignore when it comes to following the Word of God. I don’t enjoy when I have had to spank my children, and I have never once felt that I am beating them as you all choose to put it. I enforce discipline the same way I was raised in my home and I have a very close relationship with my parents to this day. It isn’t about showing the child your power but rather the love you have for them . My children understand that if I didn’t love them or care for them I would just let them do whatever they want, watch whatever they want, go wherever they want, act however they want, but I want them to mature into a prosperous and genuine individual with morals and standards that will be beneficial not just themselves but to others in society.
Ed, I realize you think you mean well, but you are hitting your children based on one dude from the Bible (King Solomon) who had approximately 700 wives, and 300 concubines, was addicted to power and history shows he was an oppressive ruler. His kid, Rehoboam, turn out to be an even more oppressive ruler.
I am a parent. I never hit my child, and she is an empathic, compassionate, and law abiding young adult now. I raised her via positive reinforcement. One has to be indoctrinated (programmed) to think it’s OK to hit their children. You don’t teach children to be non-aggressive by being aggressive yourself. You don’t teach children to be peaceful, by being non-peaceful yourself. You would not want others to hit you, so you should not hit others.
Dr. Ralph Welsh, who has given psychological exams to over 2,000 delinquents has said:
American Medical Association:
I don’t base my parental guidance on what one ‘dude’ from the Bible says to do, unless you refer to the Holy Spirit as dude. It will not make sense to someone that doesn’t believe the Bible to be the final authority on what truth is and believes that it is just a book of stories. It sounds as though you have heard scripture and that you have made your decision as to how you view the Word of God. I would like to state that I am not encouraging abuse or aggressive behavior towards children, but the need for discipline is necessary in every person. There is no such thing as a perfect child, and if you are saying that you never had to correct your child then you would probably be the first parent in history to have been spared the parental responsibility of teaching a child not to touch things that can hurt them, or that we are to be kind to others and share, or that lying is wrong etc. I have had to teach these things to my children and though I have had a different method with each, because not all methods work the same, I have learned that certain child rearing methods are more helpful than others. I can say that thankfully I have never spanked any of my children in anger nor do I spank them aggressively. They get bruised playing soccer, basketball, Skateboarding, playing football and doing stunts on the playground, not getting a swat that I only give after trying various other forms of discipline. I know that physical discipline is not always necessary which is why I said that there are other methods I try first. To say that spanking is a form of terrorism is just absurd and I see why there are parents who have actually become afraid to discipline their child as they don’t want to risk being turned in for child abuse.
Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? Hebrews 12:9
Not all children who were spanked grow up to show aggressive behavior, just as not all children who grew up never having been spanked grow up to be aggressive. Again, life is about making choices and I have seen just as many children who were abused and mistreated grow up to be abusive and violent as I have seen children who were raised in a home with positive reinforcement mature into abusive and violent adults.
For years, mental health professionals were trained to see children as mere products of their environment who were intrinsically good until influenced otherwise; where there is chronic bad behavior, must be a bad parent behind it.
But while I do not mean to let bad parents off the hook — sadly, there are all too many of them, from malignant to merely apathetic — the fact remains that perfectly decent parents can produce toxic children.
When I say “toxic,” I don’t mean psychopathic — those children who blossom into petty criminals, killers and everything in between. Much has been written about psychopaths in the scientific literature, including their frequent histories of childhood abuse, their early penchant for violating rules and their cruelty toward peers and animals. There are even some interesting studies suggesting that such antisocial behavior can be modified with parental coaching.
But there is little, if anything, in peer-reviewed journals about the paradox of good parents with toxic children.
Not everyone is going to turn out to be brilliant — any more than everyone will turn out nice and loving. And that is not necessarily because of parental failure or an impoverished environment. It is because everyday character traits, like all human behavior, have hard-wired and genetic components that cannot be molded entirely by the best environment, let alone the best psychotherapists.
“The central pitch of any child psychiatrist now is that the illness is often in the child and that the family responses may aggravate the scene but not wholly create it,” said my colleague Dr. Theodore Shapiro, a child psychiatrist at Weill Cornell Medical College. “The era of ‘there are no bad children, only bad parents’ is gone.”
I recall one patient who told me that she had given up trying to have a relationship with her 24-year-old daughter, whose relentless criticism she could no longer bear. “I still love and miss her,” she said sadly. “But I really don’t like her.”
For better or worse, parents have limited power to influence their children. That is why they should not be so fast to take all the blame — or credit — for everything that their children become. Richard A Friedman. M.D..
Dr. Richard A. Friedman is a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan.
Alice Miller, Ph.D states that she never has seen a commandment calling for respect of a child, but God’s Word says that we are not to provoke our children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Eph 6:4
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11
Of course this only applies to those who trust God’s method over their own. It will seem foolish to those who have chosen to deem the Bible as just someone’s opinions or theories, rather than the final word on what is truth. Just as I know that God is the one who blessed me with children, He is the one I choose to listen to when it comes to raising them.
Ed, Why do you believe that all of the bible is the Word of God?
For example, do you really believe the best way to attempt to cure a leper is to follow the advice in Leviticus 14 rather than use modern medicine?
Jon
Jon,
I serve a God who is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent so I can accept that I will never fully understand all that there is to Him and for that matter neither will any living being, because He alone is the Sovereign Creator of the Universe and merciful redeemer of mankind. If Man claims to know everything about God, then that isn’t much of a God and it certainly isn’t the God of the Bible. I choose to focus on the fact that my salvation has nothing to do with anything I have done, anything I am doing now, or anything I will do. My salvation is a gift from my God which came by Grace (Jesus) and is mine through Faith, which He also gave me, because I choose to believe that His Word is truth. Just as many people can choose to believe all the scientific experiments that have tried to prove that there is no God, even though they were not present for those nor do they know whether the person writing all the books on the subject was actually writing the truth, I choose to believe that the Word of God is true, simply because it has proven to be true throughout history and since I believe that everything we do in life is a choice, I choose not to call the God of the Bible a liar.
1 John 5:7-10
For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the winess in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a LIAR: because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
I have seen that you have much knowledge but lack wisdom and I pray that you are willing to receive the wisdom that comes from God and use the gift of knowledge to glorify Him. You would be able to lead many to the truth. Don’t dwell on things that don’t have influence in the Kingdom of God, but look to the hope we have in Jesus Christ.
I believe that the Word is truth because before he chose to come to earth and die for us, the word was Jesus and he is the way, the TRUTH and the life.
John 1:1-4 and 1:14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him: and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life: and the life was the light of men.
And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Deuteronomy 4:2 ESV /
You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.
Jeremiah 1:9
Then the LORD stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me, “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.”
2 Timothy 3:6
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
2 Peter 1:21
“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Blessings to you
As for the cure for leprosy you refer to in Lev 14, I know that many times when we read the Bible without wisdom and guidance from the Holy Ghost, it conflicts or doesn’t make sense to us. We are to rightly divide the Word of God and discern when certain events were for a specific time and place and for specific people, if that is not done, then one can choose to say that only certain parts of the Bible are true which would be to say that God is a liar. I choose to believe that what the Bible says is true, All healing comes from God, whether he uses miracles or medicine, it comes from him.
Exodus15:26
…. for I am the LORD that healeth thee.
Psalm 103:3
….who healeth all thy diseases.
Yes, God can heal through modern medicine, but not everyone chooses to believe he is the healer. The sun will shine on non-believers just the same as it does on believers and Christians can and will die of certain diseases just as non-Christians do, it will be this way until our salvation is complete and Christ returns.
Your commets suggest that you serve yourself and make use of certain portions of the Bible you find suitable as an excuse for ill behavior.
I am a teacher and have worked with students of various religious backgrounds, including fundamentalist Christian children. I can tell you from experience that fundamentalist Christian children are the most obnoxious kids I have ever worked with. Too often, spanking makes the kids angry and they are more likely than other kids to belittle and humiliate other students and teachers, often in a very cutting, passive-aggressive way. I am not the only person who feels that way. A fundamentalist school in my hometown is notorious for having ill-mannered students who treat waitresses at nearby restaurants rudely and act like jerks. For that reason, many parents refuse to send their kids there. For all you Fundamentalists out there, spanking makes your children obey you, but it also makes them vent their anger on other, more helpless people.
Wow I don’t remember this picture at all. I guess I never saw it. Horribly frightening.
And they are doing it I suits too. So fundie and so misleading. Educated people can be abusive too.
Would sending that policy book from Alive Christian Academy to the authorities be productive? I don’t know if “school policy is to administer illegal corporal punishment if the student misbehaves” is enough evidence, but it might trigger an investigation.
Would you do it Christine? People suggest things that I could do like this from time to time, but at the moment my hands are quite full and it would be great to have some people adding their voices to mine. Also it will probably be more effective coming from someone who lives nearer.
Can do. I don’t know if it’s likely to do any good, but I’ll see about dropping a line to Children’s Aid.
Awesome. Let me know what happens.
Called up, gave them the link. He wasn’t sure what they can do (because it’s not “child X is at risk”, it’s just the policy manual), but he’ll forward it to his supervisor. I figure that even if they can’t investigate because of this, the school might get a call reminding them of the laws against physical abuse, and/or there might be some sort of red flag against the school, so if there’s a complaint regarding a child who attends there, it’s one more data point.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Of course, there’s unlikely to be a complaint regarding a child, because parents sign up to the school’s policies.
Well if the doctor or a neighbour does say something, I figure that CAS will need all of the help they can get, because they’re dealing with a family that considers the child abuse laws to be persecution. That was really what motivated me to call, because while I technically have a legal obligation to report, there are no penalties, even if something this vague was covered.
Reblogged this on The Dixie Flatline and commented:
Distressing reading, but somebody has to point this shit out. Thanks Jonny.
My ACE experience in grade school, I preferred to be hit rather than take isometric squat holds, the longest I got was to hold it for 1 hour. It was pretty frequent because I did not like my school headmaster’s idea of signing forms detailing how I use my time at home, i.e. invasion of privacy.
Those were the days.
I graduated from Gateway Christian School in San Antonio, TX. Getting paddled wasn’t as bad as learning about the terrors of hell in 1st-2nd grade.
The SHAME that’s being inflicted on the poor child is worse than the pain! The same hypocritical adults who want God to be patient with THEM refuse to show mercy to small children. Solomon, the ONLY biblical advocate of child beating, was an idolater who built child-eating idols Molech and Chemosh to please his heathen wives. The ACE program doesn’t sound too child-friendly to me. Education should be a delight, not a force-feed of facts into a frightened little brain, a child who’s afraid he’ll be beaten for whispering or showing lack of attention.
I think every school has its case. Theres always a form of abuse to children and its unacceptable. The thing that has the School of Tomorrow so bad is the education. My school has Paces that are older than I am! Theres thing that have changed that I haven’t learned and in every paragraph they mention God not science.
Beating your child into submission is being taught in right-wing evangelical/dominionist circles throughout the US… you may thank us for this as well:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Christian+child+beating
A large portion of notorious American criminals came from abusive homes. There is enough violence in the world, we do not have to bring it into our homes or churches or
schools. I believe the Bible quotations used to approve physical punishment come from the Old Testament. We Christians are supposed to be New Testament church people. A Pastor Phelps intimated that a very yoing rape victim who he publicly humiliate in his church because she became pregnant should have been stoned to death. I understand that the girl was forced yo apologize to the rapist’s wife and yo her congregation and posdibly to the rapist as well. I understand that she ead eventually kicked out of her church but the rapist was not. I also understand that he may have been a deacon and that he was able to evade legal punishment because he and his family.moved yo another state. CAN WE SAY HYPOCRITE!
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