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Sir,

 

In provocative fashion, Alistair McBay of the National Secular Society (Letter 25 October) suggests that Christians who cite biblical grounds for their objection to the proposed ban on the smacking of children in Scotland could be engaging in a form of deception. He floats the idea that their use of scriptural arguments may be just a cover, with their “real motives” being the physical abuse of children.

 

To begin with, it ought to be said that the smacking of children by their parents is more than a ‘biblical right.’ When the occasion requires it, smacking is surely a parental duty. The book of Proverbs contains a number of verses on the subject, including the following:

Letter:  Wrong to ban parents from smacking   

27 Oct 2017

“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” (13:24)

 

“Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.” (19:18)

 

“Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” (22:15)

 

It is a common tactic of the opponents of smacking to insinuate that a parent smacking a young son or daughter in the family home is akin to someone launching a violent attack on a stranger in the street. However these verses paint a very different picture. They tell us that parents who fail to discipline their disobedient children appropriately are actually withholding love from them, for they are failing to direct their children away from forms of behaviour which are sinful and destructive in their nature.

 

In his second letter (26 October) Mr McBay wants us to view the proposed smacking ban as a government “intervening to stop physical abuse of children.”  If only the Scottish government was interested in dealing with real abuse! Then, instead of this unwarranted infringement on family life, we might be seeing legislation to prevent such things as the sexualisation of children in our country, including our schools, with the harmful results, emotional as well as physical, that are now all too apparent. We would certainly be seeing the repeal of the scandalous and shameful abortion law, abortion being the ultimate in the physical abuse of children (does Mr McBay agree?).

 

If these things are to happen, and we fervently hope and pray that they will, then there will need to be repentance on the part of our politicians and the nation as a whole, and a resolve to end what has led to these tragic developments, namely the rejection of the authority of the Bible on the part of church and state and a determined effort by a small but vocal minority to secularise our society.

 

Rev. David Blunt

17 Knockline

Isle of North Uist