Why spanking a child is not cruel but Christian

Irecently read a new book so steeped in self-righteousness that I contemplated watching a few Barack Obama speeches as a palate cleanser.

"The Myth of Good Christian Parenting," by Marissa Franks Burt and Kelsey Kramer McGinnis, is less a work of theology than a sermon for soft parents — a long sigh bound in paperback. Every page drips with condescension, assuring readers that discipline is outdated, obedience is oppressive, and spanking is somewhere between a sin and a war crime.

Children don’t need friends with car keys. They need moral architects. The parents who fear offending their children will soon be ruled by them.

Their thesis is that corporal punishment has no biblical or moral grounding. Modern parenting should replace the rod with reasoning, the command with conversation.