Children, obey your children in all things, as is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children, lest they become discouraged.
The Greek root word translated "obey" is υπακουο (Latin: hupakouo) and refers to secure, vulnerable rest and security in the love and grace of parents in the form of providing custody, receiving everything they need, being able to tell parents anything and not expect punishment, owing absolutely nothing to parents, yet listening to parents nonetheless as a token of gratitude for respectful and loving treatment. Love is a form of sacrifice for children, just as Christ sacrificed Himself for His own children, expecting absolutely nothing in return. Parents are entitled to nothing from children. The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and is one of the Greek words that, here, refers to the offenses in under the Mosaic Law, which include here assault and battery in the Old Testament law, and are summed up in the New Testament as the slightest of personal slights against your child inflicted in a willful or negligent manner, with parental entitlement here being denoted by the Greek root word πλεονέκτης (Latin: pleonektés) and refers to wanting things from children to the point of seeking to impose want on a child, leading to theft/abuse as referred to as a provocation to anger. Parenting in ancient Hebrew culture, like many ancient cultures, endorsed attachment parenting as a normative mode of parenting. Children were close to mothers especially until late childhood, and attachment parenting methods such as co-sleeping
This theology can be incorporated into any Christian theology. There is progress being made with several churches, such as the United Methodist Church and the Church of God positing statements against the corporal punishment children, with the Church of God being a moderate, Calvinistic organization (my theology is Calvinistic). Several fundamentalist churches, such as the Watchtower Society and Adventist Church, have removed ordinances mandating the use of corporal punishment, as have many Anabaptist denominations, while these churches still don't prohibit corporal punishment, and many pastors still preach it. There is also certain awareness in conservative Christian churches about the concept of a "prodigal son", by their understanding, which is a child with special needs to the point where they are extremely oppositional and defiant, in which case the advice is to give them less structure, so that they have less triggers for upsets or defiance. This can mean do not overschedule them at all. These denominations do not understand that all children work like that, meaning all children need to be cut a break. This denominational tenet allows for parents of children with disorders such as autism, ADHD, or ODD to refrain from punitive practices, with many regarding punishing a child with autism to be overly harsh and abuse due to the autism itself. We at gentle parenting find that children with autism are not too different from other children, so don't punish any child. Churches, due to taking in children with special needs, with that issue being made more aware to pastors and church counselors. Certain children do not respond to spanking at all, whereas others "fake it to make it", and I was one of them.
The awareness of the harm of punitive parenting is reaching the Christian churches here in the United States, and once the church is reformed from within, and then the church will reform society from without. Certain historical injustices, such as slavery and Jim Crow, were backed up by religion, and discredited by religious teaching. The oppression against children in the United States is extreme. Go to any children's rights country and you'll get the idea - I was in Iceland just to get away from the riff-raff in America. My goal is "rally around the flag" type children's rights, meaning it fits right in with our culture, meaning our core Judaeo-Christian family values. The core religious values of this country are based on original sin. Original sin, in the realm of family life, has long been used to single out children. The idea behind children's rights is to flip the scripts on parents and other adults, as every single adult is guilty for their mere existence in relation to children, and must atone for all their abuse and sin that they direct towards children.
Let the depraved and entitled parents BURN! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!
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