Damaged: Weaponizing The Gospel on Our Kids

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger but bring

them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Ephesians 4:6

So often we quote the 5th commandment from Exodus "Honor your mother and father..." without a second thought because it's very straightforward. Sadly though, many parents who also identify as believers have taken this word out of its appropriate context and have abused it to excuse sometimes abusive or unfair treatment of their children. Parents will use that 5th commandment to overwork their kids with chores and if the child complains the initial response would be something like "stop talking back! I'm the parent your the kid, you're supposed to respect and do what I say." Or what's even worse sometimes is parents will actually discipline their children by forcing them to read the bible or adhere to some religious act. This is not how it's supposed to be done. Every action, good or bad has a consequence. The consequence of disciplining children with the bible or even abusing scripture to justify bad parenting will cause the child to ultimately hate the Bible, the gospel, Christians, and God. 

Even the scripture used at the beginning of the blog can be taken out of context. A lot of parents overlook where it says "...but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." Parents may read this as "punish your kid by making them read the word of God, punish them by making them pray, punish them by making them fast with you, etc." The Gospel is a learning and growing tool for life, not a disciplinary yardstick to smack people around with. The discipline of God is exactly that, God's! A lot of parents or parental figures like to presume it's their responsibility to unravel discipline on God's behalf. There's parental discipline and God's discipline. God doesn't need your help in disciplining his people, let alone children who are still growing in the faith. We may see kids or young teenagers who are phenomenal in scripture recitations, bible knowledge and more but what we don't know is that sometimes the reason they know so much is that it has been burned in their brain by their parents/parental figures as punishment.

Please don't misunderstand this, it's fantastic to raise your kids in the Gospel. However, there is a difference between raising a child and punishing a child. Again, if you're a parent you should not use the word of God as a means of discipline because while at face value you may think you're embedding the Gospel in your child, in reality, what you may be also doing is setting up a slow cooker full of bitterness and anger towards God. As a matter of fact, many atheists are atheists because there was some sort of abuse of religion in the home. They were forced to read the bible, forced to pray, etc the result was men and women who grew to be cold and callous towards the church, the gospel, and God. I'm not saying this is gonna happen with your children but it's something that can't be ruled out. Sometimes we think because we're older and have kids we know it all but the truth is no matter how old or accomplished we become in life (in finances, health and yes even family) we still need wisdom in this life including wisdom on how we raise her kids in the Gospel.

Do you agree or disagree?

Is the Bible actually a good form of discipline?

Do potential benefits outweigh the potential risks?

Should biblically abusive parents be disciplined by the church they attend?

Should parents who use religion abusively have social services called on them?

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