Smacking Of Children To Be Banned
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For years now, South Africa has refused to allow corporal punishment in schools. This was bad enough. But now, if a new bill is signed into law by President Mbeki, as it looks almost certain to be, parents will no longer be permitted to use corporal punishment in the home! It is the latest assault on parental duties by the ruling ANC/Communist government, and yet another grave threat to Christian parents, who are commanded in the Word of God to discipline their children.
In late May 2007, the Children’s Amendment Bill was passed by the National Council of Provinces. Its purpose was to widen the ban on corporal punishment from schools to the home. The bill will now go back to the National Assembly for approval, before it can be signed into law by the president. The bill states, “No child may be subjected to corporal punishment or be punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way.” It adds, “Prosecution of a parent or person holding parental responsibilities and rights… may be instituted if the punishment constitutes abuse of the child.”
This means that if a parent uses corporal punishment in a proper manner to discipline a child, he or she will have no defence available in law.
All decent-minded people would agree with the statement that a child should not be punished in a way that is cruel, inhuman or degrading. Any form of child abuse is to be abhorred, and punished by the civil authorities. Children whose limbs are damaged or broken, or who are burned, or who are whipped across their backs, or who are beaten in any way so badly that they bleed, etc., etc. - such heinous outrages deserve punishment. But these abuses are a very far cry from smacking a child on the bottom. No parent who loves his or her child will abuse them, but every parent who loves his or her child will discipline them: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Prov. 13:24). Ever since the human race began, all over the world and in all kinds of societies, corporal punishment has been used by parents to discipline children, and it was understood to be right, just, and necessary. And it worked! Previous generations were better disciplined, more respectful and obedient to parents and to authority in general, and - contrary to what psychologists, those priests of the new religion of psychobabble, have been telling the world for decades now - children in general did not suffer any ill effects from such punishment, they were not “traumatised” and did not grow up hating their parents as a result, or unable to adjust to being parents themselves, or all the other nonsense society has been fed by these false priests. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Just look around at the youth of today. What has psychology unleashed on the world, with its doctrine of anti-smacking? Generations of young people with no discipline, no respect, no decency. We have had decades in which to test the man-made theories of the psychologists; and they have been found, not just wanting, but utterly bankrupt. The world is not a better place since multitudes of parents bought into the child-rearing “wisdom” of so-called “experts” who claim to know better than all the generations of the human race before them, and better than God the Creator Himself.
Such arrogance is nauseating in the extreme. But it is to be expected from the ANC, made up as it is of men and women of extreme arrogance, convinced that they, and they alone, know what is best for every man, woman and child in South Africa. And so they seek to impose their own warped and perverted morality on the entire country, by means of legislation. This is always how Communists work: they believe themselves to be of superior wisdom and knowledge to everyone else, who have the absolute right to order everyone else to conform to their ideas and philosophy, and to punish those who dare to refuse.
The ANC chairwoman of the select committee on Social Services, Joyce Masilo, described the bill’s passing as “wonderful”. “We worked long and hard on this and believe it will make a huge difference in the lives of children, especially in rural areas,” she said.
To which we reply, simply: just who do these people think they are? They are not God, they are not infallible, they are not experts, they do not have greater wisdom than the generations before them. They are arrogant, power-drunk people, full of their own self-importance.
This same government, years ago, legalised abortion in South Africa, and hundreds of thousands of babies have since then been legally murdered in their mothers’ wombs. The obscene irony here is that a mother is allowed by law to murder her unborn child by abortion, and yet, once the child is born, she is not allowed to smack him! It is now going to be a crime to raise one’s hand, or a rod, to a child and smack him on the bottom, and yet it is entirely legal to insert instruments into the womb of a woman and to painfully snuff out the life of an unborn child! Legal to violently murder a child, illegal to reasonably smack his bottom! Truly, the world is insane. The ANC government is passing insane legislation. But we are not surprised. We can expect nothing less from this terrorist organisation.
The Bible, of course, in the book of Proverbs, directly commands parents to use the rod in disciplining their children. “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Prov. 13:24). “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying” (Prov. 19:18). “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him” (Prov. 22:15). “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell” (Prov. 23:13,14). “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Prov. 29:15).
Now in South Africa, Christian parents will be faced with obeying the Lord in this matter, or obeying man. And there can be absolutely no question of what every Christian parent has to do: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). The Lord in His Word has taught us the right way of raising children. No man, and no government, has the authority to forbid us from doing that which the Lord God has commanded! We are to obey God in this matter, even if it means disobeying man. There is no ambiguity about this, no uncertainty, no question mark. To do anything less would be to sin against our Lord, and to sin against the children the Lord has given to us.
Furthermore, according to aspects of the Children’s Act which came into effect this year, children as young as 12 have now been granted access to contraceptives!
The Social Development Department defended this, saying, “The Act provides that children should be provided with access to contraceptives. This is in realisation of the fact that children are sexually active at a very young age, even though the legal age of consent is 16.” And it said that given HIV/Aids among teenagers, it would be unwise to deny children access to condoms. What’s more, a young teenage girl is legally entitled to an abortion without parental knowledge!
Let us analyse this piece of insane legislation for a moment. The legal age of consent is 16, yet a child of 12 now has access to contraceptives. The legal age for purchasing cigarettes is 16, yet a child of 12 may now legally obtain condoms. An adult may not remove a protected tree from his yard without government permission, yet a young girl may remove a baby from her womb (murder!) without parental knowledge.
This is the kind of crazy “logic” which dictates the ANC government’s response to the sexual promiscuity of the youth! This “logic” goes like this: “They’re going to have sexual relations anyway, so we might as well dish out contraceptives. Oh, and if that doesn’t work and the girl falls pregnant, she can always abort her baby without her parents’ knowledge.” Instead of encouraging abstinence before marriage, it throws up its hands in resignation and says, “The kids are going to do these things anyway, so we might as well make it as ‘safe’ and easy for them as possible.”
What a nightmare world this is! Has it gone stark, staring mad? Yes! It has, because the heart of man is desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9), and he is totally depraved, and has no concept of right and wrong once he rejects the Word of the Lord. Children, instead of being protected by adults, are now being encouraged to sin by adults. May the Lord yet have mercy on this land!
Recommended reading: Parental Use of the Rod, by Shaun Willcock (pamphlet). To order, see here.
July 2007
Filed under: south africa