At its General Conference in Pittsburgh, the
United Methodist Church passed two resolutions against corporal punishment
offered by me and other members of Grace United Methodist Church in Sioux
City, Iowa.
We began planning the resolutions early in 2003. Years earlier I had read
Philip Greven's book, Spare the Child: the Religious Roots of Punishment.
Greven quotes extensively from Methodist Church founder, John Wesley,
and his mother Susanna. The Wesleys believed corporal punishment of children,
even of infants, was essential to break their rebellious will and save
their souls. Greven shows that some fundamentalist spokesmen use exactly
the same argument for corporal punishment today and identifies it as part
of "the Protestant temperament."
The Inquirers Sunday School class and the Church and Society Ministry
Team at Grace UMC felt it was important for the Methodist Church to separate
itself from those ideas and not provide, even passively, a justification
for them. Methodists honor John Wesley as a brilliant evangelist, administrator,
and teacher with many good insights on social policy for today, but he
also gave Methodists a way to respond to the advance of knowledge. His
Wesleyan quadrilateral sets forth four bases for analysis and decision-making:
scripture, tradition, experience, and reason.
We prepared separate resolutions on corporal punishment in institutions
and in families. We called for laws prohibiting corporal punishment in
schools, day cares, and residential child care facilities. Within families,
however, we called only for the church to "encourage" parents
and guardians to use other methods of discipline than corporal punishment
and to offer opportunities for education on discipline.
We buttressed the resolutions with points on the disadvantages of corporal
punishment and the value of non-violent methods of training children.
We pointed out that the purpose of corporal punishment is to cause pain
while the purpose of discipline is to teach. We stated that it was "difficult
to imagine Jesus of Nazareth condoning any action that is intended to
hurt children physically or psychologically."
After we submitted our resolutions to General Conference, Grace UMC's
Program Director Sarah Stevens promoted them to Iowa delegates to General
Conference. There was general agreement that they were reasonable and
worthwhile positions for the Methodist Church to take, and they passed
easily at General Conference.
Twenty-eight states have laws banning corporal punishment in public schools,
but only Iowa and New Jersey ban it in private and parochial schools as
well. Many states prohibit corporal punishment in state-licensed day cares
and residential institutions for children, but some states, such as Missouri,
allow church-run day care centers, boarding schools, and reformatories
to operate without licensure and virtually without state oversight.
The Methodist Church has received high praise for its stand from organizations
such as the Center for Effective Discipline in Columbus, Ohio, and the
California-based Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education. The
Methodist Church is the first Christian denomination to take a stand against
corporal punishment of children.
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