Monday 23 April
raised by the hand of god: hidden lives (4/6) 21.00–22.00
According to Reverend Paul Bucknall, “if a parent does not chastise a child, a parent does not love a child.” Paul, who lives with his family in Pittsburgh, is one of a significant number of parents in the US whose ideas on the upbringing and disciplining of their children are directly informed by the Bible. In this latest in Five’s revealing and thought-provoking Hidden Lives strand, Paul and his family, together with two other families – one American, one English – talk candidly about their Biblical Parenting methods. In an age when the smacking of children is becoming increasingly taboo, does their belief in corporal punishment as the best form of discipline have any place?
Paul and his wife Linda raise their ten children according to strict guidelines, which they believe are supported by passages from the Bible. The Bucknall children are schooled at home using textbooks such as ‘Observing God’s World’, and come together twice a day for ‘devotion’ – a session involving prayer, singing and the recital of Biblical passages. They are also responsible for a number of household chores, and their access to television is largely limited to watching videos about the adventures of the Buttercream Gang, which carry clear moral messages. But the most controversial tenet is their insistence on physically chastising their offspring, usually using wooden ‘rods’ (“Scripture uses the word rods”, Paul points out) which are taken from bushes in the garden. For Paul, who sells Biblical Parenting manuals on-line, the approach is “new, modern and the way we should go. It’s exciting.”
Families like the Bucknalls are widespread in the States, but in the UK, Dover residents the Englands are still relatively unusual. Like the Bucknalls, Kevin and Beverley England school their children in their home, where Beverley has set up ‘offices’, separated from each other by makeshift partitions, where each child can work without distraction, pausing occasionally to raise a flag if they need assistance. And like the Bucknalls, Kevin and Beverley believe that children are inherently disobedient, and that corporal punishment is the best way of checking this tendency. Beverley, who uses a spatula to deliver punishments “because it’s flexible” sees her role as “pointing [the children] in the right direction.”
Joey Salvati, who lives in a small town in Pennsylvania, takes his belief in Biblical Parenting further than either the Bucknalls or the Englands. Following instructions he says he received from God while praying in the shower, Joey and his daughter use their carpentry skills to make paddles that parents can use on their children, and distributes them by the roadside. He claims to have even received rules on how many strokes are necessary for different levels of disobedience.
Smacking, although still legal in England and the US, has been outlawed in a number of countries. Should it become illegal in the UK, the Englands’ respect for authority means that they would stop using it on their children, but Beverley says that they would “lobby and fight and not just go along with it.” Their determination to maintain this way of life is so firm because they believe the alternative would be, in the words of the 21-year-old daughter Holly, “catastrophic.”
The children in all three families share the convictions of their parents, and see the chaotic world of their peers, who drink, take drugs, get arrested and have multiple partners, as the result of a failure to correctly discipline children. As far as Holly is concerned, while her family may be out of step with prevailing mores, “as a Christian, you believe that the Bible doesn’t change, and God doesn’t change.”
Bradley
Lots of Christians don't feel the need to pick up sticks and hit people with them. Hitting people with sticks is not "Christian" behavior. It's violence. There's lots of violence, rape, stonings, slavery in the Bible and we should learn from it, not repeat it. Jesus gave people a good example, and nowhere does he say to hit anyone with sticks.
Bradley
Lots of Christians don't feel the need to pick up sticks and hit people with them. Hitting people with sticks is not "Christian" behavior. It's violence. There's lots of violence, rape, stonings, slavery in the Bible and we should learn from it, not repeat it. Jesus gave people a good example, and nowhere does he say to hit anyone with sticks.
cynthia
This is for all of you who think the Bible is outdated, a falsehood, doesn't apply today, You're Wrong! Read a bible then make you're comments. Half of the people making comments about Christians don't know anything about Jesus (God) or the bible. All you know is what seems right to you. God's thoughts aren't our thoughts and you can't mold God into who you want Him to be. He said, "I Am that I AM!" He gave us His Word (the Bible), Biblical Instructions Before Leaving Earth (B.I.B.L.E.)
Cynthia
The is to the moralatheist. If you want to believe you're just here to live and to die, then go ahead. Why even bother calling yourself moral. Did you know morals come from the bible? Why live morally it's not like you have a conscience.
Cynthia
Are you crazy? You are spewing so much anger and hate. You have not researched the Bible at all cause if you did you would become a believer. Many have tried to defunct the Bible, to know avail. If the Bible is fallacy why has it been around for so long, why is our money stamped w/"In God We Trust", where did we get BC/AD, why do people spend so much time trying disprove the Bible if it is wrong. I could keep going. Jesus is not dead, He is risen and seated at the right hand of God the Father. Believers in Christ put Him first in life, above all! It's not about us feeling superior or better than the unsaved, it's about love and forgiveness. Man is evil and he cannot save himself from eternal damnation. But God through His love and sacrifice has made a way for us to escape. If you want to keep believing you got it altogether and that you're just a mere happenstance, no more than a fly on a wall, it's your choice. You're born, go to school, get a job, retire then die all while dealing with life's crap, does that make sense? If that's all it is to life then go out and do anything and everything you want to do for tomorrow you may die. Then What? Then What? The Judgment of God. God loves you and suffered and died for you, even when we didn't love Him or know Him and some us even hated Him, yet he still did it. I pray for you my lost friend that someday you will know Him as Lord of your life.
Cynthia
Who is the government to tell people how to discipline their children? So when they grow up and break the law they end up in jail or dead. People like to discount the bible as fallacy but even when I wasn't a believer I couldn't argue with what made sense.
Now, I'm not talking about abrusing or disrespecting the child (as in punching, kicking, or slapping), but a spanking on the bottom or hand. Sometimes taking priviledges away or time-outs will work but at other times spankings are definitely necessary. Our children's discipline is of the utmost. It protects them from harm later in life, i.e. to listen, to think before doing, responsibility and accountability. It we don't discipline our children life will, and we all know life is not kind.
Debbie
I would also like to know if there is a download available for this programme - I'm in Ireland and we don't recieve the channel 5.
Anonymous
im not a christian but wen i was watching the show i was very upset about the woman hitting him in the room i understand it is discipline bt come on u could hear him cry i was saddened i think smacking should be banned and not used 2 express ure anger AT ALL!
bt 1 thing i didnt not understand was wy was the gurl hu was getting married not allowed 2 hold her boyfriends hand until they married?
Anonymous
Ah, but desere, let me remind you of something.
It is also written that "When Lucy looked back, the wardrobe was no longer there". Therefore you can tell that God approves of spanking, and hates homosexuals and abortions.
See what I did there? I took a random quote from a fictional book, and made it into something that it clearly wasn't, just to fit my own ends. Just like you do.
Your kind are so fast to talk about others who, as you put it, "feels they have the knowledge to take up God", but you're so blinded by your own hubris and bullshit that you never realise that this is EXACTLY what you're doing.
You want to learn about consequences, look at the natural world. A child wants to touch a hot stove - let it. It will learn far quicker not to touch it again. You smack it, it will not learn, because it doesn't experience real consequences. The only reason you choose to indulge in such a practice is to cement your own position of fear and power.
Fear and power is a recurring theme in the mental illness you call a 'religion'. I've read your bible, I've researched and understand your demented fanaticism, I've seen firsthand your obsessive glorification of the 'End Days' and your reverence for the Left Behind types of books. You imagine that Jesus will ride down to Earth and murder all those who disagree with you. You count that as justifiable homicide. You think that would be 'divine punishment'. And yet you DARE to stand and accuse others of having poor morals?
Your kith and kin do little more than spout your own personal opinions, without thought or intellect. You take what you (in your own infinite arrogance) demand is the word of God and spout it from your own lips. You declair yourself as 'clensed of sin' by your own dead God. Yet you decry others for elevating themselves equal to God, without the intellectual capacity to even notice that this is EXACTLY what you are doing.
And rather than admit that you are angry at what I'm saying, you will don a facade of superiority and grumble that you will 'pray for me', because you are on such a high level with your God. Praying for someone allows you to be angry with them, without having to admit that you are. You are weak people, too weak to even embrace your own emotions. All you can do is cry "It'll be better when Jesus comes" and go back to counting days, too deluded, too proud and too insane to realise that it will never happen.
People like you had full rein of the world once. We called that time 'the dark ages'. This documentary is an excellent example as to WHY that was so. You're pathetic, you're repulsive, you're demented, and you're as much a relic of old times as the pathetic corpse of a dead God that you cling to. Maybe one day you'll encounter a renaissance of the mind and leave such deadwood behind you. But I doubt your kind has the intelligence and strength of character to accomplish it.
Anonymous
It's very strange when people say "if god existed he wouldn't do such and such" How exactly do you know? that is exactly the problem with modern society, man has become so pumped up in his self that he actually starts to believe he is god. I am a Christian who was striked growing up, and it is a foolish person who feels they have the knowledge to take up God. Proverbs 23 does state that hitting a child will steer him in the right way. This is a fundamental way of life, it is only by trial that we realise things have consequences. Consequences being the operative word. I can't say I agree with everything that was said, but the children are the fruits of their discipline, they weren't the ones hanging out and pulling their pants down. Abuse is unjustified, hitting is a justified action if done for the better, which as we can see it was (if the woman smiled i question her motives). If a Christian decides it is better not to hit, then that is obviously the correct way for them to live. However, it is blasphemous to contradict the unchanging word of God which is the same as it was yesterday and will be until the end. I very much pray people will stop being ignorant of God. Approach the bible as a humble servant of God and Jesus Christ will surely bless you. Pride is a great barrier between God and the ones he loves. God Bless you all.
MoralAtheist
No it isn't children are not posessions they have rights and should be protected from abusers like your self by the state.
MoralAtheist
Anybody know if there is a download of the show ? Or if it's showing again?
Niki
I just watched a re-run of the show and I must admit I am really impressed with the way these parents are training their children to be sensible God fearing adults. Being a Christian and a mother of two myself, I think it's very important that we listen to what God says about how to live our lives and to take every word literally.
Watching the way these parents were discipling and talking to their children you got a real sense of how successful parenting should be. only hope that my girls grow up to be half as obedient and respectful as the children in the film.
Thi programme has really inspied me and helped me to realise that eventhough I was smacking and my kids, I wasn't doing it with love. This is crucial.
As for the guy who was making and giving away the paddles. I must admit I did flinch at the first sight of it but having done some research and read the testimonials of other parents who have used it, I'm going to give it a go.
Thank you channel 5 for such an informative life-changing programme!
paddles available at www.spare-rods.com
Olivia
Couldn't agree more strongly about the cricket bat - whatever anyone's personal opinions about smacking, I can't believe anyone would think it was alright to hit a child with something of that size!
Cort
apparently i was on this show flipping at the beach WTF wen did i say i can be on TV! sum 1 call me agent! sorry if i just make a mockery of your TV show wen is it on again i love u all xxxx
Anonymous
Let me define the word 'discipline.' To nurture a behavioural pattern. This would involve encouraging a child to carry out the desired behaviour such as doing their homework, waking up in the morning, brushing their teeth, saying 'please' and 'thank you.' The aim of 'discipline' is to raise a child who will eventually carry out the desired behaviour without a second thought BECAUSE IT IS OF BENEFIT TO THEM. But how low does anyone's IQ have to be in order to think that 'discipline' means battering your offspring for doing things that children do - (like the three year old being battered with the twig)? Where is the logic in this? Is the rest of the world really so stupid that I actually have to DEFINE the word 'discipline'? Or are they just sadistic and power-hungry? TAKE THE KIDS AWAY FROM THEM!!!!
lara
I watched this show and i was so upset about it, i am a mother of 4 and a christian and there is no way i would treat my children like this mother did.If as she said she never hit them in anger than she in my mind is perfectly capable of talking to them ,and reasoning with them about their behaviour .
I have completed a course on practical parenting done through our church and not once do we promote smacking its all about building up a child into a thoughtful adult with good morals,reinforcing good behaviour .
I could say so much about this programme but in my eyes it was bullying , and the fact she woke them to do chores while she watched well what more can i say.
lesley
Asi said in my last entry, i think smacking should be a last resort and NEVER EVER with an impliment.
Olivia, you are fair in your comment that the baby was only tapped with the twig, but surely rather than punish the baby for going near the fire, they could like many millions of other parents,install a safety device which keeps the baby safe, from the heat and also from tapping twigs?
I disagree completely though with the possibility that a child could be 'evil'. Dear god, what a horrible thing to bestow on a baby who knows nothing of the bad things in the world in which it has been born, and yet is seen as having 'evil' in them from the very ones in this world who should love them the most. I am sorry, i cannot understand how someone could possibly think that this could be true.
Also,hitting a child with what is nothing better than a cricket bat is a lot more extreme than smacking.I do not follow any particular religion, it is i believe up to the individual what he wants to believe in this world and should live their life accordingly.
I raise my children to be helpful, friendly, respectful and also to question anything that they do not understand or agree with. This includes those in authority, why should we just go along with things just because someone says so? (as long as it is done respectfully and with good reason).
We should all question things we are unsure of and we should not feel that we have to go along with the crowd, do we not live in a so called democratic society? These children are brought up only to beleive in what their parents believe in, it is so sad. There is no room for idividuality amongst these people.
Anonymous
I am a christian, But no way does the Jesus I know and Love, want a three year old little girl to be beaten with a tree branch. It utterley shocked desturbed and saddened me. I can't beleive those insane parents abuse those poor children in the name of the lord. I used to believe that when I have children a smack on the backside wouldn't do any harm, That progamme has put me off the smacking of children altogether. Those hateful parents need locking up. Please don't beleive that all christians are like that.
Olivia
I am a Christian, and although I think it is up to the parents to decide whether to smack or not, there are several things I want to clarify from a Christian and personal point of view.
-To the person who thinks smacking should be a last resort, this is exactly when abuse happens - you are so angry with your child and have tried everything else and are so frustrated that you fly out at them. That kind of physical punishment is dangerous. What these families were trying to emphasise is that you should never hit a child when you are angry, which is why they may have come across as cold.
-The reason that the families used implements to smack their children is the verse I'm sure you all know "He that spareth his rod hateth
his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." and several other well known verses that popped up in the programme. The more fundamentalist christians take this to literally mean a rod of some sort."Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." "Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." "The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." What is more important to a Christian than that his children should be saved by God from hell?
-Tapping a baby's hand with a twig (for they were no more than that) is not going to damage it for life and is better than it hurting itself. Try explaining to a baby that is shouldn't touch the fire.
-The idea of children being inherently evil shouldn't be so shocking: have you ever heard of original sin?
I was never smacked as a child and as yet am unsure whether I will smack my children. I just honestly think that the thought of smacking has become so old-fashioned that people immediately think that a family who smacks, regularly hit their children hard and without thinking, for any little thing they do. I think, and hope, that the reality is unlike that, and that they are just normal families with a slightly more unusual method of disciplining, but one which, like all consistent methods, only has to be used occasionally. I am 17.
Charlotte from kent
People like the SO CALLED PARENTS on last nights show utterly discusted me. Im only 18 and to be quite honest they were evil people. the words that came out of there mouth discusted me. I cannot believe they were aloud on tv they should be locked tiny cell an have the key thrown away... They do not desserve children... If they have beleifs in a certain religion then fine but, they are destroying there kids all because of a BOOK!!! If god is such a great, loving, caring Person then he would not beleive in this. I would like to see them get wacked with Baseball bat!! see how they like it. they are brain washing there kids into a lifestyle they want themselfs, each kid is diiferent and desserves to have choices on how he/she wants to grow up. Im gay and i would hate to think what i would of gone through if they were my parents.. I would love to meet them in person and explain how there imprisoning there children they will never have any common sense they caged in there little houses and treated as slaves.
HUMANS WE BORN TO BE FREE!
MAKE YOUR OWN CHOICES! OF COURSE THE ONES THAT WE SMACKED WHEN THEY WERE YOUNGER WILL AGREE ON IT! THE DONT KNOW ANY DIFFERENT!
ALCHOL WE MADE TO BE DRANK! DRUGS WERE MADE TO BE TAKEN!
MEN & WOMEN ARE MADE TO BE SEXULALLY ATTRACTED TO ONE ANOTHER
IM NOT SAYING YOU HAVE TO DO THESE THINGS BUT YOU SHOULD HAVE CHOICES!
YOU LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES!
FINALLY I PERSONALLY REKON ALL THE PEOPLE ON LAST NIGHTS SHOW WILL DEFINATLY END UP IN HELL...
AMD I WILL LAUGH AT THEM ALL YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH OF FREAKS!
AND A SHAME TO SOCIETY....LIFE.....SPIRIT N SO ON (R.I.H) CHARLOTTE
Una Owen
In addition to all the topics listed for research below, please also look into 'blanket training'.
Anonymous
After watching raised by the hand of god last night i wanted nothing more than a good cry what sort of lives are them poor children living in america each time the mother got the stick or the leather to BEAT because that is what it is a huge grin spread across her face, dont get me wrong i got a smack as a child never with anythink other than a hand though and i turned out to be a well rounded individual. Where are the child protection agengiencies people like that dugger mother should not be allowed near children let alone have her own 8. What is wrong with the world today is people like her lets hope her children grow up to disown her. people like her need to look at themselves before looking at the evil around her children because its only the evil she is that her children are subject to.
Una Owen
I, too, wrote a long reply, but it seems to have evaporated into the ether. However, I can strongly recommend that anyone equally appalled at the attitudes on show in this programme research into the following (nowhere near all-inclusive, but you'll get the drift):
Duggar family; fundie; prairie muffin; Hyles-Anderson university; Patrick Henry university; godly play; modest clothing; Lydia of Purple; patriarch movement; fundamentalist LDS; dominionism; zion birth; quiverful movement; Colorado City, Arizona; Andrea Yates; Elisabeth Slater; battered women syndrome; Bill Gothard; fundamentalist forums; inside polygamy; biblical ideal betrothal; unschooling; wisdom booklets.
All fundamentalism strives for power and control . Research and learn; knowledge is power and let's hope that the pen remains mightier than the sword.
Anonymous
And your proof for your final comment regarding the number of Christian fundementalists is what?
I assume you have accurate numbers to justify your claims?
Please dont forget to include all those suicide bombers over past wks and months that many seem to overlook daily? Christianity by the way does not portray them this way, their actions do.
However, numbers are irrelavent and one person carrying out the atrocities we see on the news daily due to religious fanatisism is as bad as a 1000 people doing so and the state of the world today is evidence enough.
More to the point, It is wrong whether carried out by Christians or Muslims or by any other religion.
Lee
I agree with this statement. These "Christian" parents are clearly trying to hide the realities of society from their children.They do not want them mixing with people who are not "good" enough. Did Jesus not mix with the outcasts of society? Prostitutes, leppers and the like? These people have an extremely poor grasp of reality, of scripture and of what it actually means to be a "christian" person in todays society. Did God not create us freely for freedom? To be human is to be free. These kids are not free to choose anything in life - they are being indoctrinated by a poor grasp of what it means to be a christian. They should be allowed to encounter life on their own terms. Their children are being moulded into fundamentalists and told to accept everything in scripture literally. Do these people accept "slavery" as it is written in scripture? As for beating your child with a rod or wooden instrument for telling a fib or being naughty - what is Christian about that pray tell!? The bible recognises that we are a mixture of good and bad. We are not perfect beings. I sincerely hope people with that type of undertanding of christianity are few and far between. It really gives Christianity a bad press!
Abi
I wrote a whole huge big rant about this and i've just deleted it all cos to be honest nothing really sums up just how bad i think this all is.
I will never hit a child. ever.
I'm glad so many other people agree.
How that woman can call herself a mother i dont know. she is utterly deluded if she thinks God will praise her for hitting a six month old baby.
Not that i believe in god... but live and let live right?
Anonymous
That's simply because in western culture, Christianity is an important part of history. Christianity is the means by which Kings have been overthrown, empires destroyed, and in more recent times responsible for things like the founding of violent nation-states and the endorsement of black slavery through the 'descendants of Ham' excuse.
Christianity has always coloured other religions as evil, and therefore portrays them as violent, close-minded and fanatical. And while there ARE some religions that are like that, the label applies far better to Christianity.
Nowadays, much of that fear lingers in media portrayals of other cultures, like Muslims. Remember that there are far, far more Christian fundamentalists than there are Muslim fundamentalists. The fear is created through social viewpoints.
Shane
Mohammed,
Thats a fantastic example of the pot calling the kettle! Its interesting that you refer to yourself as an ordinary Muslim. Are you then admitting that some Muslims are unordinary, and if so, maybe you should start by pointing this out to them and stop taking it personally and getting defensive?
Your religious beliefs are irrelevant when it results in the barbaric and unjustifiable behaviour which is often the result of religious fanatisism......
Please note that I refer to all religions that bring about this behaviour. Maybe the best thing ever written in the Bible refers to one looking at oneself before pointing the finger. A contradiction I know, but also common sense one would like to think....
Anonymous
These so called christians are bonkers and should be smacked very hard with a cricket bat!