Has the world gone completely mad??

[IrnBruTheNoo]

What's with all the shocking stories?? Bloody hell, you couldn't even make this up :(

And they're making money out of it. The dark side to freedom of speech....

www.examiner.com/article/another-couple-found-guilty-of-murder-for-parenting-by-to-train-up-a-child

[BackOnlyBriefly]

ProfPlumSpeaking I know you had to say something but saying it's "suis generis" is very nearly saying nothing.

The bible is actually just one of many religious books written and is itself just a compilation. If it were truly unique that would be irrelevant anyway. You may as well have replied that it has words in it.

What it does have is exhortations to abuse and murder. Which allowed me to point out that the vast majority of people do not think that books encouraging abuse should be banned if they are popular.

[ProfPlumSpeaking]

back the Bible is utterly "suis generis".

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

The article linked to above is by Kathryn Joyce. I have read her book referenced in the article. It is very compelling:
The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption

I also recommend her earlier book: Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement.

[MissMiniTheMinx]

You ignore the national and racial elements and you miss why this is happening and why these children are being tortured and killed thank you TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy

I am sorry if I offended anyone, that was not my intention.

I think it short sighted to separate the evangelical/radical Christian church from the political right wing and imperialism. It is all part of the same ideology of Christian Nationalism and capitalism. Although I'm certain a lot of the mainstream converts are told to worship god and keep their mind on less material matters, the leaders have other deities, mainly money. many of these patriarchal, capitalist christians have money tied up in prostitution and pornography and by extension drugs and other unholy activities.

I have signed the petition to try and get amazon to stop selling the book but as with the Radical/church/imperialists...money is their god.

I hope the poor little girl is at peace and those sick bastards that spread this message that child abuse is sanctioned by G_d rot in hell.

[hardboiledpossum]

shepherding a child's heart is fairly common in evangelical Christian churches in the UK. I was given the book myself by family friends. this is why smacking needs to be made illegal- there is too much grey area.

[BerstieSpotts]

Paul I think you are very brave to have come out of that and put an end to it in your family. I must admit I didn't realise it was happening in the UK - I had (naively) assumed it was all fundamentalist American Christians. I suppose it's kept more private here? The US seems more open to the idea of corporal punishment in general, especially in some states.

Last time all of this Pearl stuff came up in the news, I read a heartbreaking blog by a woman who had always followed this type of teaching/discipline with her children and then one day realised (through a conversation I think, I can't remember) that the "rod" referred to in the bible was actually something to ward off predators and keep the children safe in that way. She was so horrified by this and resolved to change, but the description of how she felt having realised what she'd been doing was so sad.

[BackOnlyBriefly]

ProfPlumSpeaking I know a place you can buy a book that tells you to cut bits off of babies and kill pregnant women.

It's called 'The Holy Bible', you may have heard of it.

Amazon is a shop. If you want something banned you need to get the government to do it - and if it's that bad why wouldn't they?. You can't expect retailers to act as judge and jury.

[LegoAcupuncture]

I had no idea books like this even existed . What a disgusting "method" of child rearing. Blanket training a baby by beating it with an instrument if it tries to leave the blanket :(

PailMcGann pleased to hear you managed to break free from all of this.

[ProfPlumSpeaking]

Actually, like I said earlier, I think its sale might well be illegal in the same way that producing a manual on how to make a bomb would be. It is giving instructions on how to commit a crime (in this case abusing children) and advocating doing so.

[ProfPlumSpeaking]

backon

"As for Amazon selling it, what do you want them to do? Ban books you don't like? "

No, not ban books I don't like but yes to banning books that encourage child abuse.

[PaulMcGannsMistress]

I've had a number of NNs, bsc not sure which one you might mean.

[bsc]

Paul- did you used to be a 'very good looking' poster?

[Lilka]

I followed the trial from the beginning, it took weeks. Was waiting for sentencing

That book is dangerous, abusive and stupid and I wish Amazon would stop selling it

There wasn't any sign that they could be abusive before they adopted Hanna and Immanuel. I personally think they were totally unprepared for the reality of parenting older children from abroad, had very unrealistic expectations, either did not receive or did not listen to guidance on parenting older traumatised children from other countries (its nothing like parenting secure birth children so you can't say 'oh but i've already raised 3/4 children, i know what I'm doing' because you probably don't know what you're doing actually) and then failed to bond or attach to them quickly in addition to whatever issues the children had (none of which sound at all extreme to me, but nonetheless would not be things the Williams would know how to deal with appropriately), so they started going down a path of trying to use ever more punitive discipline methods and then withdrawing emotionally and accepting the lack of attachment/bond.

It is a small problem in adoption in the US - affects a very small proportion of adoptions, but it's very worrying - which is that the fundamentalist movements are very big on international adoption, and tout it as 'true religion' (based on the Bible at James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress"), saving children so they know Jesus Christ and become Christians, rescuing them from wherever they used to live so they can have all the trappings of life in America (or Europe or wherever), etc etc. A small number of fundamentalists don't go into adoption because they have a genuine deep desire to raise another child, but because they believe it's something they really should do and they are being called to do by God as an expression of true religion and God's adoption of them into the flock. They often get little or no training at all on the issues of the children they will adopt, and may expect their (older) child to be grateful, happy to embrace Christianity, and they will expect to quickly love and adore their new child and will NOT expect the issues the children actually have, which could include challenging behaviour, PTSD, attachment disorder, sensory issues and so on. Combine this with the certain groups of fundamentalists who believe in more punitive discipline methods, and you have a total recipe for disaster. Quote from the article below - "With so many adoptees going to families for which attachment and love were defined as immediate obedience, it was a mismatch of children's needs and parents' propensities on an epic scale"

On this subject, I recommend this article - www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/christian-evangelical-adoption-liberia 3 pages to it

And of course I stress the words 'some, 'some' and 'a few'. This isn't a castigation of ALL very religious who feel called to adopt, but this is a very real problem which requires addressing.

[ShowMeYourTARDIS]

The Duggars (American couple with fifty bajillion biological children and a reality show) endorse the book.

[madhairday]

I feel so sick at this.

This is why those of us who may self describe as 'evangelical' yet in the original sense of the word are slowly backing off using such a label, a label which also describes such sick and twisted practise.

I'm so glad you found your way out of this, Paul - 'patriarchal Christianity', the 'quiverful' movement and anyone using the verse 'spare the rod, spoil the child' in this utterly twisted way (a verse which means nothing like what they advocate, in fact) all make me shiver.

I'm a christian, btw, but about as far on the other side of this as you can get, and would say these practises are completely anti christian, and should be ashamed of using the name. :(

[BackOnlyBriefly]

It may be crap, but in that case don't buy it.

As for Amazon selling it, what do you want them to do? Ban books you don't like?

I have a long list I'd like to ban, but that solution is worse than the problem.

[TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy]

No one is saying that only Americans do this. But this book is American, this movement originates in America, this girl died in America after being adopted from abroad purely for the purpose of putting her through this to kill her culture and "save" her, and the American evangelical movement has political power in America that cannot be ignored if we're going to ask how tragedies like this happen and how they can be prevented.

The American exceptionalism indoctrination that has become embedded within the American evangelical movement has resulted in fanatics that think adopting kids from abroad or from 'lesser' ethnicity groups like mine and beating Christ and White American nationalism into them makes them pure souls and turns children into Christian soldiers. The treatment is straight of our forced residential schooling.

I am American from an evangelical background. I have family members who are evangelical ministers, their culture and identities stripped and reduced to a horrible family secret to ensure they fit in with the nationalistic ideology of the American evangelical movement. They may advertise their violent parenting methods or their financial prosperity BS abroad, but the main thing that killed this poor child and so many like her who are adopted from abroad to fill this saint image is the ideology that these kids are less than human. The methods used on these adopted children are even more extreme than in the book, they include having the child live outside like an animal to discipline them, which is what happened here. When this and several other cases came forward, it was blown that there are forums filled with people trying to be more and more extreme specifically to these adopted children and encouraging their white birth children and white children from their churches to bully them, to beat them into submission to break them. I myself have had American evangelicals threaten to kidnap my children because of my beliefs and because I reconnected with my ethnicity and its culture in order to put my kids through this. You ignore the national and racial elements and you miss why this is happening and why these children are being tortured and killed. This is an extension of the boarding school movement. It's coming over here but the elements that caused this girls' death and caused the threats on my kids are not here yet.

It's like Operation Christmas Child - it started in America and the American and British versions have two very different faces, the trickle of the underlying problems only come through later once better established.

[AliceinWinterWonderland]

Yes, I've heard the quiverfull movement follows this teaching.

[PaulMcGannsMistress]

I was evangelised into it. Come from a bit of a broken background and I found it comforting for a time to have such a black and white view of the world. Got involved with a number of 'ministries', like Vision Forum (the leader of which has just owned up to having an affair) and got suckered into something called 'Quiverfull' which is related to all of this and advocates no contraception. Was heavily into the wifely submission thing.

Joining MN led me to be challenged, on any number of different things, and introduced me to different ideas that helped me to understand I didn't have to be the perfect domestic slave and baby machine, and that I actually didn't have to view myself as the moon, orbiting around my husband's vision.

[IrnBruTheNoo]

It all started from the US, just like the evangelical religion is flowing over to the UK and becoming more and more popular....

[hopskipandthump]

PaulMcGannsMistress - if you don't mind me asking, how did you get into Patriarchal Christianity? Were you born into it, or evangelised? I am happy to hear the MN was instrumental in you getting out of it - how did that hpapen?

[NandH]

Speechless...


I can't believe a book has been made on how to abuse babies and children, and how has that book not been banned :-O


Awful.

[PaulMcGannsMistress]

I can confirm it's not just a US thing. We went to a conference about the book we followed and it was utterly jam packed.

[AliceinWinterWonderland]

Yes, I think pinning it on the US is a bit ridiculous and crosses the line IMO. There are nutters in the US just like there are in the UK. That doesn't mean everyone in the US is okay with child abuse any more than it means everyone in the UK is okay with child abuse.

Stick to the facts. Please don't cloud the issue by bringing nationality into it.

[LEMisafucker]

Really pleased to read that PMM