by Matthew Raley As a parent, I find it easy to think that my boys are rebelling against my rules. They don't like the limits I set, so they try to overturn them.

Until recently I have read the stories of Israel's rebellions against the Lord from the same perspective. The people hated the law, so they disregarded it. My misconception could stem from the definition of rebellion: it is the overthrow of authority. So the target of rebellion would seem to be law.

Yet, when Moses writes his song of witness against Israel's rebellions (Deuteronomy 31-32), the law of God is only a secondary focus.

Here is the song’s theme (32:4): “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” This teaching about the Lord’s name (32:1-3) should “drop as the rain” and “distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass.” The knowledge of God’s faithfulness renews the nation’s life, keeping it tender and green.

The witness Moses writes is not first concerned with the nation’s sin, but with God’s faithfulness.

Moses sings of it both in the past and the future.

The Lord found Jacob “in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness.” There the Lord kept Jacob “as the apple of his eye,” leading him into the fruitful land (32:10-14).

The Lord’s faithfulness will not change in coming generations, even after Jacob rebels against him. As a contrast to helpless idols (32:36-43), the Lord will “vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants.” God proclaims, “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me.” Ultimately, he “cleanses,” or atones for, the land.

Here is what I learned from the song about rebellion's target. Moses does not charge the people with rebelling against law, but against grace.

To be sure, Israel has broken God’s law, and no man can itemize the trespasses in greater detail than Moses. Yet Moses charges the people with rebellion against the Lord’s protection (32:11), guidance (32:12), and material gifts (32:13-14). He portrays the Lord as jealous, like a spurned lover (32:21). Israel's rebellion is perverse, in other words, because the people cast aside God's goodness.

This means that the four characteristics of rebellion all target God's faithfulness. Idolatry says that the living God cannot be trusted because we cannot manipulate him. The principal lies rebels tell are slanders against God's record of goodness. Rebels scoff at God's gifts, especially his forgiveness. A rebel's refusal to listen is driven by his bitter determination that God is against him.

Studying Moses' song has clarified my focus as a dad.

Rules matter. But I am not to be focused on them primarily. I am to call on my boys to trust me, and I am to demonstrate trustworthiness.

For instance, I have been deliberate about keeping my promises to the boys. But I want to go further. I want to gain their implicit confidence. I do this by taking the initiative to help them with problems, not just waiting for them to ask for help. I also nurture this confidence by helping them express themselves when they're having trouble, and by paying careful attention to their emotions. I want them to assume that I am for them, not against them.

Here's what I've found in applying this focus. When my boys trust me, the rules usually aren't an issue for them. They tend to comply readily.

In other words, this approach is a way to teach obedience toward God in faith. In Christ, God's authority is expressed toward us through grace.

by Matthew Raley We've been seeing that the sin of rebellion is, at its core, a refusal to deal with reality.

Moses' description of Israel in Deuteronomy 31-32 shows a nation unwilling to worship the real God, serving only their imagined deities. They were unwilling to face the real past and present truthfully, but fabricated bitter histories. And they were unwilling to face life with humility, preserving a deluded superiority with scoffing.

The fourth characteristic of rebellion in Deuteronomy is foolish obstinacy. Repeated experience of reality will not turn Israel from folly.

Moses calls the people “stubborn” (31:27), noting that their rebellion during his life will only intensify after his death. In his song, he dramatizes their refusal to listen, calling them “foolish and senseless,” and pleading (32:6-7), “[A]sk you father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.”

Yet again, this is a quality all too familiar in the nation’s history.

The Lord called the people “stiff-necked” after they made the golden calf (Exodus 32:9). Nothing had changed by Ezekiel’s time. The Lord warned him (Ezekiel 3:7), “But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me. Because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.”

Again, the logic of rebellion dictates this attitude. No rebel can admit having learned from anyone except himself. To learn from experience would be to admit that he was wrong. To listen to others would be to admit that their priorities matter. To be taught, by definition, is to be turned from one’s own way. None of these things are tolerable.

The rebel would rather self-destruct than submit.

Now, there is an important consideration for a parent in this regard. I worry about a child who has no fight.

One of the biggest reasons I am against authoritarian parenting systems that emphasize compliance -- systems like Michael Pearl's, for example -- is that they are designed to break a child's will. Not soften. Break. That is why Pearl describes his system in terms of conditioning animals.

It doesn't take too much acquaintance with life to realize that a child is going to need his or her will to be strong. Adults have to make decisions, and make their decisions stick. Christ calls us to persevere against the world's constant wickedness. A Christian's duty is frequently to stand alone.

In light of this, I am not raising compliant boys. I am fortifying their wills for the days ahead, when they will need every last bit of resolution for godliness.

Is there a difference between resolution and obstinacy?

I believe there is. I've noticed that resolute people are able to persist in moving toward their goals because they adapt. They are profound learners, and quick listeners. That is, they do not ignore reality, but find real ways around real barriers.

A resolute leader such as Lincoln offers a good example. He refused to consider any outcome of the Civil War but restoring the Union. But in his drive toward that goal, he adapted to circumstances constantly. He changed his generals, maintained political coalitions, and managed the timing of such pronouncements as the Emancipation Proclamation. He adapted.

So how do we foster a resolve that is tempered by a willingness to learn?

Teaching a high view of God is the answer once again. When our children are taught to listen to him, to learn his ways, and to pursue his goals, they inherit a balance of traits than can only come from reverence. Our awe of God teaches us both what is yet to be learned and what must never be compromised.

Next week, we'll discover from Deuteronomy what may be the most important point of all about rebellion.

by Matthew Raley Sarcasm is my default mode. My favorite form of literature is satire, and I bond quickly with anyone who has wit.

I am like much of my generation, which seems to have rejected the true believer's ardor in favor of irony. But in me, scoffing is also a tic that comes with being self-taught. Autodidacts don't submit. They too quickly dismiss what they've heard before because the notion wasn't original with them. These qualities made me a difficult boy to raise -- as my parents often affirm.

So the third characteristic of rebellion that we discovered in Deuteronomy 31-32, contempt, was uncomfortable for me to study.

The Lord foretells that the Israelites “will despise me,” having “grown fat” from the land’s fruit (31:20). Moses finishes that sketch in the song (32:15). “But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked; you grew fat, stout, and sleek; then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.”

Persistent scoffing was a feature of Israel’s camp life in the wilderness.

One thinks of Korah’s sarcastic jab at Moses, taking the phrase that described the land of Canaan and applying it to Egypt (Numbers 16:13). “Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also make yourself a prince over us?”

Scoffing would remain the scourge of Israel’s prophets right down to the last, as the Lord warned Ezekiel (2:6). “And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions. Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.”

I identify too closely with this kind of contempt.

As I said in another post, scoffing is like an energy drink. It gives a false feeling of superiority, of remaining unaffected by others, and of knowing people’s “real” motivations. And once you get hooked on it, weaning yourself off the security of sarcasm is difficult.

A pattern of scoffing, in this sense, is just like the patterns of idolatry and lying we've already seen: it breaks a person's contact with that unyielding master, reality. It fortifies him in rebellion, the exaltation of his subjective world over the claims of others.

The job of a parent is often to strengthen some of a child's ways against others.

In my case, Dad and Mom tamed my contempt for others, and for authority generally, by strengthening my sense of God's majesty and a reverence for truth. With a conviction that I must not lie, I was already sensitized to my own fakery. More than that, having already believed that God will not adapt to my priorities but that I must adapt to his, I was not going to venture any contempt for him.

These have helped me keep my flair for satire within a proper, narrow scope: puncturing self-regard, my own included, and exposing the folly of human hatred against God.

The most potent tool for parenting is not rules, which feed a scoffer's conceit, but a high view of God. That alone can humble the proud.

by Christopher Raley Boys on hay bales for benches, gripping rails, rocking with the wagon, squirming their rapture. Antique tractor sputter eases the anxious quiet.

No prancing horse, no joking driver, no jolly group singing. Parents rock with the wagon as if to sleep, while boys spy out green tangled humps of orange.

Boys will run when the ride is over, leaping down steps with arms raised high, running strides that crunch the gravel. They’ll fill cupped hands with cornmeal for the horse (who’s hayride days are over) and tingle at his whiskered lips, giggle at his rough tongue, listen when his half-fearing eyes speak.

Parents will linger on the rocks, kick them listlessly near ignored play things, stare off at the barn when conversations bow to the sovereignty of silence. Silence over the farm, silence over the orchards. Silence brought from the office in slit searching eyes where silent is the manager and silent is the phone.

But boys will run and laugh all the more for lack of laughter. Broken meal will spill over their fingers trailing to the aged beast, for in the wagon their restless legs flex the impatience of love.

by Matthew Raley So, I've been a little too stressed. On my 39th birthday last Saturday, I discovered I have shingles, as if Someone is underlining the end of my youth.

I do not like shingles.

The doctor who checked me out stopped the examination when he discovered I was pastor, and announced that he had gone to a Jesuit boarding school. He described this at some length, adding a critical analysis of the current papacy.

When by and by he was finished, he said I was extremely contagious. The nurse gave me something to sign, and when I handed back her pen, she refused to take it and said, "It's yours now. You should throw it away."

My right cheek is so swollen that my right eye can see it. There is sharp pain running down my face and neck. There are blisters inside my mouth and on my lips. I drink coffee through a straw.

Vicodin is bad. It keeps me from my scotch.

My boys stare at me. Malcolm (4) is particularly insightful about what I'm going through. This morning, huge blue eyes fixed on my blisters, he declares, "Bumps that make you sick are gross. You have a lot of bumps."

Through it all, I am thankful. At least I'm not yet 40.

by Matthew Raley The first moral precept I can remember learning is, "Do not lie."

The form it took was more specific: "Never lie to Dad." And its logic was compelling. If Dad finds out you lied to anybody else, the effect is the same as lying to Dad. Ergo, just don't.

From Deuteronomy 31-32, we have seen that there are four sinful patterns involved in rebellion, the disregard or overthrow of authority. The first is idolatry, inventing a god that is pliable. Idolatry makes war on reality by insisting that everything conform to our subjective demands, even God.

The second pattern of sin in rebellion, according to Deuteronomy, is deceit.

The Lord tells Moses that Israel will “break my covenant that I have made with them,” a phrase he repeats four verses later (31:16, 20). Israel’s oath-breaking is the specific reason God commands Moses to place the Book of the Law beside the ark “for a witness” (31:26). Every transaction with a lying people must be verified.

In his song in chapter 32, Moses declares that the people are “a crooked and twisted generation,” calling them “children in whom there is no faithfulness” (32:5, 20). He pointedly refers to the nation as “Jacob” (32:9), the grasping, usurping, deceitful patriarch whom the Lord blessed only through prolonged wrestling.

Lying was typical of the nation’s behavior under Moses.

There was deceit in the people’s fantasies about their life as slaves in Egypt (e.g. Exodus 16:3), where they imagined that they once “sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full.” The making of the golden calf was not only idolatry, but was the breaking of a promise made by the people in Exodus 19:8. “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” Deceit would also characterize future generations. In Joshua 24:19-22, the people explicitly confirmed the Lord’s covenant, only to break it throughout their history.

The perverse logic of rebellion is at work.

No rebel can acknowledge a duty to tell the truth or keep promises without undercutting his war against authority. The ultimate truth is the rebel’s own will. Anything binding his will must be cut, and accuracy becomes just one more shackle. The first casualty in the rebel’s war for control is the truth.

Our culture is uniquely decadent in world history, apparently committed to a principle that words do not matter. I see this at a number of levels.

We seem to have a legalistic view of oaths now, as if the precision of words allows one to escape telling the truth. "It depends on what is is." The more common view of oaths in human cultures down through the ages has been that words leaving lips are absolutely binding on the soul. Certainly every age has seen its share of infidelity, but few have indulged the nihilism of writing infidelity off as normal.

Furthermore, because words were seen as bonds, human cultures have consistently treated vows as a matter of prescription,  not invention. For instance, few people even fifty years ago contemplated that a couple should write their own wedding vows "so the ceremony will be more meaningful." There was a simple reason: if someone could write their own vows, then they could make marriage whatever they wanted it to be.

I see our decadence in seemingly smaller issues, such as usage. In our society, flippancy in using words can be found in people speaking of "humans," not "human beings," as if referring to a mere species, and in such published howlers as when the AP referred to Leviticus as a "chapter" in the Bible. Americans now operate at a deep level of illiteracy, and they do so because words do not matter to them.

Loose speech is an overlooked contributor to the mainstreaming of deceit. We now live in a society where a Standard & Poor's triple-A rating is near meaningless, where promises are merely strategic, and where leadership and sales are interchangeable terms.

So parents face monumental challenges in teaching a child to speak and act truly. But they should also understand the power of this training. When a child forms a resolution to tell the truth and to keep promises, he or she gains habits of discernment, self-control, and healthy submission that undermine the allure of rebellion.

In other words, when Dad and Mom confronted deceit in me, I believe they were installing in my heart-and-mind another powerful software for syncing with reality.

today.

by Matthew Raley Rebellion in a child is not a phase, and it doesn't just happen. Rebellion is the sin of disregarding or overthrowing authority, and as we saw last week, it is the convergence of four patterns.

These four are on display in Deuteronomy 31-32, where Israel's past and future rebellions are confronted. In chapter 31, the Lord commands Moses to draft a written witness against Israel to set beside the ark of the covenant. Chapter 32 contains the witness itself, a song about the Lord's faithfulness and the nation's twisted response.

Let's think in more detail about the first pattern described in these chapters, idolatry.

After Moses’s death, the Lord says (31:16), Israel “will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them . . . .” The sexual metaphor captures the intimacy of Israel’s coming betrayal: having taken God’s faithful love the people will reject any bond with him.

Moses dramatizes this unfaithfulness in the song of witness (32:16-18). “They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods . . . They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently.”

Rebellion through idolatry has been characteristic of Israel throughout Moses’s life. Most notoriously, the nation made the golden calf at Sinai (Exodus 32:1-6), calling it by the Lord’s name and proclaiming that it had brought them out of Egypt. Israel also worshiped Baal of Peor in Moab (Number 25:1-5).

Israel’s idolatry after Moses is well-documented in the Old Testament. The prophet Ezekiel, whom the Lord called to “nations of rebels” (Ezekiel 2:3), offers an important reference point. He gave repeated descriptions of the nation’s whoring after false gods, with abominations even brought into the temple (8:7-18). Inside, “engraved on the wall all around, was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel.”

So Israel's rebellion both under Moses and after him consistently involved the worship of false gods.

The close association between the scriptural concepts of rebellion and idolatry is no accident. Rebellion has a perverse logic. The Bible’s God is sovereign, making submission to him the only option. For the rebel to gain control of his life, he must fabricate a new god, a pliable deity whom he can manipulate through rituals and rationalizations. A woman who was leaving her husband put this rationale to me quite succinctly: “My god wants me to be free.”

People often grow up treating God like he’s made of Legos.

There’s a pile of ideas of about God on the carpet, and your job is to assemble God out of them. So you try different ideas and see how God looks. If an idea about God’s justice doesn’t work for you, it’s like a black Lego that looks out of place. Pull it off and try a red one, a piece of mercy perhaps, and see if it doesn’t look better. Or if a Bible verse seems like a “hard saying” to you, it’s nothing more than a block that’s too big. The Bible has other verses. Find a smaller block.

Whatever. They’re your Legos.

If you want to nurture your child in a way that prevents rebellion, that first thing you have to do is teach him about idolatry. Train him that the real God does not conform to his imagination.

One summer when Dylan was 2 years old, we stopped in Ashland, Oregon, one of neo-paganism's many little pleasure domes. In a store, I noticed a wall full of Buddhas and a sampling of Hindu gods. I walked Dylan over to a shelf at his eye-level, got down on one knee, pointed to a fat and happy Siddhartha, and said, "Son, this is an idol. Many people believe this is a god."

Knitted eyebrows.

"People pray to him, and even bring him food."

Laughter.

I pointed at the whole wall of shelves. "This store sells idols."

I did this more than once when Dylan was small. He is now 9, and has a deep aversion to idols. The other night, I was reading him The Lightning Thief, the well-written series opener by Rick Riordan that treats Greek mythology as if it were happening today. We enjoyed it enormously. After I closed the book, he knitted his eyebrows and said, "I can't understand why anyone would pray to those gods."

When we instill the truth early that God is God, and will not yield His being to the human imagination, we are building powerful categories for discerning reality from fantasy. Further, we are teaching a child to yield to reality -- the one thing a rebel will never do.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ex%2032.1-6&version=ESV

by Matthew Raley One day when I was 11, I stood eyes down in our family’s laundry room while Dad bawled me out. I don’t remember what I had done. But I do remember taking my eyes off a pile of dirty rags and giving Dad the sharpest look my face could make. And I remember the look as a conscious decision.

Dad changed. His voice dropped. “You are looking at me with defiance. Don’t you know that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft?”

He was quoting the verse we examined last week, 1 Samuel 15.23, in which the prophet defines rebellion as the overthrow or disregard of authority, and the search for power.

Rebellion is not a phase in a child's life. Identity formation is a phase; rebellion is a sin.

It takes strength for a child to maintain defiance against his parents -- moral and emotional strength. Morally, a child has to be convinced that his defiance is right. Emotionally, he has to be able to hold his course without parental approval.

Maintaining strength requires the child to twist his mind and habits with falsehoods.

The twisting is on display in Deuteronomy 31. The Lord and Moses confront the rebellions of Israel, both in the past and those coming in the future. The passage shows that rebellion is a close association of four distinct sins, all of which give rebels a feeling of empowerment.

1. Idolatry.

The Lord says (31:16) that after Moses' death Israel “will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them . . . .” That is, they will leave the true God who loves them, has brought them out of Egypt, and is giving them their own land, and will follow the gods of their imagination.

Rebels have to receive spiritual blessing from somewhere. They fabricate gods who will meet the need. A woman recently told me she was leaving her husband. "Your God wants me to be in bondage," she said. "My god wants me to be free."

2. Lying.

The Lord tells Moses that Israel will “break my covenant that I have made with them,” a phrase he repeats four verses later (31:16, 20). He is referring back to the covenant at Sinai and ahead to the renewal of that covenant in the land (Joshua 24.19-22). The nation is going to lie.

I have noticed a pattern in rebellious people, both young and old, of deceit. They create different personalities for different sets of people. They make up half-histories of ill treatment -- legitimate claims, but highly selective. And they tell outright falsehoods.

3. Scorn.

The Lord foretells that the Israelites “will despise me,” having “grown fat” from the land’s fruit (31:20).

A rebel’s emotional life needs the energy drink of scoffing. The feeling of superiority, of remaining unaffected by others, and of knowing people’s “real” motivations becomes the animating power of the rebel’s personality. There’s security in sarcasm.

4. Stubbornness.

Moses tells the people (31:27), “For I know how rebellious and stubborn you are. Behold, even today while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the Lord. How much more after my death!”

Rebels do not listen. They debate, rationalize, and shift blame. But they do not consider the points of view they don't agree with.

We will look at each of these characteristics in more detail over the next few weeks.

For now, here's the point. I do not think of my fatherly task as controlling my boys behavior at all levels so as to make them compliant. Instead, my task is to counter these four sins separately, before they join. My boys need to learn how to gain strength from the true God, Jesus Christ, strength from being personally truthful, from cultivating humility, and from a habit of listening to counsel. They need to draw strength from grace.

This is how my parents raised me. So, in our laundry room when I consciously attempted defiance, I did not have the toxic compound of sins to carry it off. My strength was already coming from good sources. I submitted sincerely, for the right reasons.

Looking back, it was a crucial moment in the formation of my identity as a man.

by Matthew Raley

I have found myself writing on parenting lately. The cloud that has settled in recent weeks over Michael Pearl's dangerous parenting system is one reason. Another reason is that I am working on a book about how God passes his fatherly virtues to men, and makes them sources of vitality for their families.

In developing this book, I've been interviewing my dad. I'm grateful for my parents and their firm, grace-filled love. So Dad and I have been talking about the trials of men in general, and how Christ transformed him through his struggles.

One of the issues that comes up repeatedly is Dad's colorful past as a rebel. In his youth, he rebelled against the Baptists -- a common enough target. But in the midst of his career among hippies, he realized that their counter-culture was just fundamentalist legalism on acid. He still had to look right and talk right and have acceptable opinions. So he rebelled against hippies too. After he began following Christ, he rebelled (in no particular order here) against contemporary worship songs, Arminianism, and Christian parenting books (irony duly noted).

He came by his rebellious tendencies honestly. His father was a professional baritone who seems to have fired a succession of voice coaches. Dad's mother found ways around church rules against playing cards and wine. His grandmother was shunned by the Amish for wearing straw hats. So the Raleys have a soft spot for rebels.

However, Dad told me in our interviews that his goal as a father was to lead my brother and me away from rebellion. He had two important intuitions. First, he saw that a father's role is to help each of his children form unique identities. But, second, he saw that all human identity has to be formed in response to God's authority. Rebellion perverts identity.

Dad recognized what most evangelicals have forgotten: rebellion is a sin.

Most evangelicals now think of it as a stage. Rebelling against authority is a necessary part of growing up. After the 1960s, many Christian parents feared they would make rebellion worse with too many rules, some almost abdicating their parental role when their kids turned 13. (12? 10?) To most evangelicals, the concept of rebellion as a sin is unmentionable -- as if it were uncouth to bring up the r-word in sophisticated company.

The Bible is clear on this subject. Samuel says (1 Samuel 15.23), "For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry."

Two fascinating things about this verse. First, the parallelism compares rebellion with presumption or insubordination as synonyms. Rebellion is the disregard or overthrow of authority. Second, Samuel compares rebellion with occult worship -- that is, with the attempt to control things that are only controlled by God. He is saying that a rebel strives through perverse means to gain power.

Rebellion in a child is no phase. It confuses personal identity with control. It is lawlessness animated by wounded pride.

There has been a change in parenting attitudes over the last couple of decades. A growing minority of young families are reasserting parental authority and influence. The increasing use of home schooling, and the rising popularity of replacing dating with courtship are evidence of this shift.

So are Michael Pearl's sales figures.

Parents who believe they should use the legitimate authority God has given them to nurture their children are absolutely right. Children need strong parents. Tools like home schooling can serve this aspiration well.

But parenting systems that employ behavior modification and promise total compliance are not the answer. Identity formation is a God-ordained process of maturing into adulthood. It is not rebellion. Parents need to recognize this process as a normal part of growth, and should not fear it or try to dominate it. There are profound differences between using authority and becoming an authoritarian -- differences of tone, methods, and goals.

We need to restore the r-word to our vocabulary because it clarifies many of these issues. The restoration needs to start with an examination of the sin of rebellion biblically -- what rebellion is, and what it is not. I will use the next several weeks here to lay out the case.

by Matthew Raley Here is a link to a local Action News special report in which I participated. "For the Children's Sake" addresses the parenting teachings of Michael Pearl in relation to the Schatz family. Many thanks to the news team for running this story!

by Matthew Raley Kenneth and Elizabeth Schatz pleaded not guilty last Thursday to charges of torture and murder in the death of their 7-year-old daughter Lydia. The D.A. cited an autopsy concluding that she died of "'blunt force trauma' over a period of hours on Feb. 5, which caused a breakdown of muscle tissue fatally damaging her kidneys and other vital organs." The defense attorney said he is "exploring extensively ... other explanations for the death of this child."

For me this is not a news item or an abstract legal issue, but a regional agony.

I do not know the Schatzes. But I know and love many of their friends, a group that includes some of our church's families. This wide circle of people is grieving for Lydia and for her surviving brothers and sisters, whose lives have been upended.

Friends of the Schatzes are also grieving for the parents, praying for them and trying to understand how they could have committed such crimes. These friends cannot match the picture of the Schatz home that has emerged in news reports with the family they thought they knew.

I can empathize with their sorrow, and I have no desire to add to it.

There is a larger group of local believers. The vast majority of Christians I know are sickened and enraged by Lydia's death, and by the "not guilty" plea. They have no personal acquaintance with Kenneth and Elizabeth Schatz, and feel at liberty to vent.

It is tempting to hold one perspective as more pure than the other. Friends might feel that they're maintaining love toward two sinners, no matter how extreme their sin. The wider community might feel that such love is twisted. Both perspectives have problems.

How should Christians conduct themselves in relation to the Schatz family? Some thoughts:

1. In their grief for the accused parents, the friends of Kenneth and Elizabeth Schatz are not defending or rationalizing child abuse. Anybody whose loved one has committed a crime knows the feelings of watching justice be done -- understanding that it must be done, but also mourning over the personal losses. Friends have a right to grieve over this couple without their motives being impugned.

2. The community's expressions of rage against the Schatzes are understandable but unhealthy. Comments that I have read on local news sites are frequently violent, profane, and hysterical. (If this describes you, don't bother venting off-topic here. I am now moderating all comments.) The surviving Schatz children will eventually be exposed to the community's rage against their mom and dad. The children can't be shielded from it. Their grief will be long and complex, and they will not feel in the least comforted by the braying of a mob. Christians in particular should not join in. Justice is cool and deliberate for a reason.

3. I would urge friends of the Schatzes that this is not a moment for wishful thinking. Some may offer conspiracy theories about trumped-up election-year indictments or persecution of Christians in the media. These speculations blur the issue. The defense attorney's suggestion that there could be a cause of death besides the beatings will stand or fall on evidence. But it in no way invalidates the claim that there were beatings. This grim reality, reportedly established by the autopsy, is not now in dispute. We have to face the horror of the abuse. The glare of media attention on it is right.

4. There is inevitably the foolish person who wants to find "the good that God is doing" through Lydia's death. If you are this person, let me advise you as a pastor, and as a firm believer in Romans 8.28, that this is an excellent opportunity to keep your folly to yourself. Flippant applications of that verse are never a balm to those in mourning. There are times to grieve, to feel the bite of loss. This is a time for our whole community to feel the loss of a 7-year-old girl -- a loss that will not be restored in this life. Grief is good for us.

Our hope for Lydia and for ourselves is not in some repair of this life, but in the redemption stored up in the next.

by Matthew Raley

So, I'm watching the ads on "mute" and I notice the repetitive cycling of images. One public service spot against smoking goes like this: parent takes a drag from a cigarette, kid puffs on his asthma inhaler, parent with smoke, kid with inhaler, smoke, inhaler, smoke, inhaler.

Soon, I'm fighting for breath myself.

This is the state of California spending yet more money it doesn't have to change the behavior of its citizenry, and using the time-honored marketing tactic of repetition. It will probably work. I feel guilty by the end it and I've never smoked a cigarette.

Our society is mad about behavior modification. It works.

B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) became one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century by applying a simple discovery. He observed that, if you wanted a rat to press a bar, prodding him with stimuli was less effective than rewarding him after he pressed it. Skinner taught how positive and negative reinforcement could change behavior.

The applications go well beyond marketing and management.

On June 25, 2006, the New York Times published an article called, "What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage." Author Amy Sutherland related that, in the course of researching a book about animal trainers, she had an epiphany. "I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband."

Could she get her husband to pick his dirty shirts off the floor and put them in the hamper? By rewarding small steps toward the desired outcome, she found that, lo, she could.

Her article was on the most-emailed list for a long while.

Evangelical parents are keen to train their kids in the right behaviors, and their focus is overwhelmingly on  modification strategies. Here is some advice on how to deal "creatively" with lying:

Draw up a contract with your child. After everyone agrees that lying, for example, is a cause for correction, establish and transcribe a reasonable punishment. Have you and your child sign and date the document. Then, whenever a situation comes up that would invite lying, gently remind him about the contract. Knowing that you will follow through on the penalty may be the extra incentive your child needs to choose to tell the truth.

Notice that the decision about lying is incentivized. The child makes a voluntary agreement about the punishment, and is reminded of it under temptation. If this scheme works, the child is not being taught to tell the truth, but to negotiate and weigh consequences. If I wanted to nurture a little pragmatist, this is exactly what I would do.

More from the same article:

Last week we ran into a few "heart" issues with Haven. It all came to a head when we caught her lying. Her correction has been to listen to the New Testament on tape. She usually gets to listen to an Adventures in Odyssey tape, but for the next 20 nights she will be filling her heart with the Truth.

Not the New Testament, Mom! Anything but that! Sentimentalizing the consequence with the words "filling her heart with Truth" doesn't cover up the fact that the Bible is being used as negative reinforcement.

Locally, we are dealing with the dark side of behavior modification in the killing of a 7-year-old girl. Michael Pearl's teaching on parenting is now under deserved scrutiny, not because he advocates child abuse (which he does not) but because of his extreme views about training children.

Pearl repeatedly compares children with animals, and uses the words training and conditioning interchangeably, as here (To Train Up a Child, p 12):

If the dog learns through conditioning (consistent behavior on the part of the trainer) that he will never be allowed to violate his master's command, he will always obey. If parents carefully and consistently train up a child, his or her performance will be as consistently satisfying as that rendered by a well trained seeing-eye dog.

"Performance." "Consistently satisfying." Even if that expansive claim were true, I wouldn't want my sons to obey like dogs. I want them to obey as respectful human beings.

Pearl makes an easy target, with this kind of irresponsible comparison and with his outlandish doctrine. But our culture as a whole is fixated on behavior modification. From marketing to management to relationships, we are profoundly manipulative. And evangelical Christians are little different.

I believe Christian parenting can demonstrate the power of Jesus Christ. Christ does not condition children for performance; he raises them up in new life. A parent's job is to guide a unique little person, made in the image of God, to his or her Savior.

This starts with recognizing that the child's soul and conscience are able to relate to God directly, apart from our control (Luke 1.39-45; Matthew 18.1-4; Mark 10.13-16). Further, a wise parent does not frame behavioral issues in terms of giving a satisfactory performance, but in terms of the new life Christ gives (Colossians 3.1-17).

Our parenting should be about Christ, not about us.

It's time to reject the degrading puppetry of behavior modification, regardless of whether the puppeteer is a fundamentalist or a psychologist. We need to engage firmly, humbly, and humanely with children's souls.

by Matthew Raley I just found this post by Rey Reynoso on Theologica. It is a thorough treatment of what Michael and Debi Pearl teach from a theological and exegetical perspective. Reynoso's discussion of the Pearls' use of Proverbs is particularly insightful.

For those who accept at face value the Pearls' claims to be biblical, this is a post to spend time on.

by Matthew Raley

After I criticized Michael Pearl's teaching on parenting last week (here and here), I've heard a recurring question. Should we throw out a teaching that has helped so many struggling parents just because some points of doctrine are wrong?

Christian parents today are indeed struggling, often desperate to prevent their children's falling away from Christ. Especially in the last twenty years, many have heeded the claims that righteousness is a matter of training. They want a system that yields results.

Please read this opening sentence from A. W. Tozer's The Root of the Righteous with care:

One marked difference between the faith of our fathers as conceived by the fathers and the same faith as understood and lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day descendants seem concerned only with the fruit.

In the criticism of Pearl's teaching over the last several weeks, there has been a focus on the fruits of his system. But there has been a dearth of pastoral leadership calling believers back to the root of the matter.

I want to appeal to those parents who say they've seen fruit in applying Pearl's teaching. I understand that you don't want to throw the baby out with the bath. But you can't ignore the connection between Pearl's doctrine and practice.

A child cannot relate to God, he says. Before the "age of accountability," a child is "too young to fathom God," and needs a "surrogate god" in the form of a parent "until he is old enough to submit himself to The Eternal God."

The parent, as God's "surrogate," purifies a child's guilt through spanking. Pearl teaches this point in detail under the heading, "The rod purges the soul of guilt," in his "Defense of Biblical Chastisement, Part 1." Pearl states, "The properly administered rod is restorative as nothing else can be. It is indispensable to the removal of guilt in your child. His very conscience (nature) demands punishment, and the rod supplies the needs of his soul, releasing him from his guilt and self-condemnation."

In this section specifically devoted to the nature of guilt and its remedy, Pearl does not mention anything about the cross of Jesus Christ. Not a single word. He says nothing about Christ purging our sin and cleansing our conscience, finally and eternally.

If you admire Pearl's fruit, I need to ask you, "How do you believe your child is saved from sin? Can your child, right now, approach the Eternal God's throne blameless by faith in Jesus Christ, the high priest? Or are you responsible before that throne for driving sin out of your child and making him or her righteous through training?"

To spank rightly in practice, you have to reject this teaching. If there is a baby in Pearl's bath, she has drowned.

I also feel the need to appeal to other parents -- a growing chorus -- who are shocked by Pearl's fruit.

Some of the fruit is indeed shocking. The killing of a child by people who apparently took the teaching to a logical extreme is a horror.

But what if Pearl's fruit did not appear so vile? What if Pearl's adherents all stayed perfectly within his stated limits for spanking? What if their fruit consisted solely of compliant, pleasant children who were helpful and never got in anyone's way? What would we say then?

I would say this.

Those most resistant to the gospel of forgiveness by faith alone in Christ alone are the compliant people whose childhood guilt was purged by many spankings, and who never depart in adulthood from the way in which they were trained up. As Pearl himself says (in the same section cited above), a child relates "to his parents in the same manner that he will later relate to God." Just try convincing a man trained this way that he needs, or could ever have, a Savior.

I urge my fellow critics of Pearl's teaching to talk about the Gospel. This is the moment to contrast Pharisaical legalism with the power of Jesus Christ.

I waited too long to research Michael Pearl. I'm grieved that I reacted to fruit instead of studying more deeply. Pastors, it's time for us to declare ourselves on the root of the matter. Our numbers are too small today (cf. this list). Join us!

Here is the root question I believe we have to raise with our congregations: "Is there any training that replaces Christ's all-sufficient righteousness?"

Our people need to see the great price of following Pearl.

by Matthew Raley Here is Michael Pearl's response to those who have been warning about his teachings: laughter. You'd never know from his post that a girl had been killed. This is all about him, apparently.

By the way, what's up with this "our children" thing? Does he think he has millions of children?

You can read a devastating take-down of Pearl's statement to the Paradise Post at TulipGirl, who has been doing serious work on this issue.

by Matthew Raley A few weeks ago, a prayer request went out at church for a family whose child had died suddenly. We later learned that the unnamed family was that of Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz, now charged with the torture and murder of their 7-year-old adopted daughter Lydia.

The couple will enter pleas on March 18th.

Many of our people know the Schatzes personally through home school groups, so the story has already hit them hard. Could the couple really have done this? What could have motivated them?

But Butte County D.A. Mike Ramsey asserts a "direct connection" between Lydia's killing and the teachings of Michael Pearl, raising the killing to another level. The story has been picked up by Salon, which had already run a critical examination of Michael and Debi Pearl in 2006.

Many of our people read the Pearls. Privately, I have been asked several times over the years about the Pearls' teachings, and my answer has always been, "They're authoritarians. Run away." I give the same answer about Bill Gothard and Gary Ezzo, other child-rearing gurus. Since Lydia's death, however, I have been looking more closely at the Pearls' teaching, and I need to make my views public.

Before doing so, I want to be specific about where I think Michael Pearl's responsibility lies in relation to Lydia's death. Local law enforcement investigators and national journalists have not accused the Pearls of advocating child abuse, being careful to quote Pearl's warnings against doing physical harm to children.

These critics are making a different argument, namely that Michael Pearl irresponsibly encourages abusers, even if the encouragement is unintentional.

I agree, and I want to show you that the encouragement toward abuse is in Pearl's theology. His false gospel imposes mandates on parents that go far beyond what God requires.

1. Michael Pearl does not believe in the imputation of Adam's sin to all human beings.

He writes, "When a descendent of Adam reaches a level of moral understanding (sometime in his youth) he becomes fully, personally accountable to God and has sin imputed to him, resulting in the peril of eternal damnation." Pearl adds, "When man reaches his state of moral accountability, and, by virtue of his personal transgression, becomes blameworthy, his only hope is a work of grace by God alone."

This seems like a minor quibble, but it is profound. The Bible's teaching that all human beings have an inherited sin nature means that no human institution has the ability to purge sin and do away with guilt. Only Christ can change our nature. Throughout history, teachers consistently attack this doctrine in order to tell their followers, "If you put yourselves under my authority, you can learn the secret to getting rid of your sins."

Pearl imposes on parents the mandate to form godliness in a child before the "age of accountability." Pearl believes that parents have a direct role in saving children. The "hope" he offers in "a work of grace by God alone" is for those whose parents failed.

2. Michael Pearl believes that spanking delivers a child from guilt.

Because Pearl does not believe you inherit a sin nature, he articulates a new doctrine of salvation that is dependent on a parent's will. In his article, "In Defense of Biblical Chastisement", he writes,

When a child is bound in self-blame and low self-esteem, parents are not helpless. God has given them the gift of the rod. The rod can bring repentance, but it goes much deeper than that. The rod in the hands of a righteous authority will supply the child’s soul with that moment of judgment that he feels he so deserves. Properly applied, with instruction, it will absolve the child of guilt, cleanse his soul, and give him a fresh start through a confidence that all indebtedness is paid [my italics].

That simply annuls the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Notice that forgiveness is granted only on the basis of the punishment of the sinner, and that a human "righteous authority" is the source of this "gift." "All indebtedness is paid," Pearl says, not by Christ, but by the rod. No parent can believe this statement without also believing that he or she has the authority to cleanse a child of guilt.

Pearl goes much further:

To the child, a righteous parent is a surrogate god, representing the rule of law and the bar of justice. When the child is yet too young to fathom God, he is nonetheless able to relate to his parents in the same manner that he will later relate to God. The properly administered rod is restorative as nothing else can be. It is indispensable to the removal of guilt in your child. His very conscience (nature) demands punishment, and the rod supplies the needs of his soul, releasing him from his guilt and self-condemnation. It is the ultimate enforcer, preserving the child in authority and discipline until he is old enough to submit himself to The Eternal God.

These statements are the logical and inevitable application of his semi-Pelagian view of sin. Before the age of accountability, O parent, thou art a god.

(For another detailed treatment of Pearl's teachings, cf this analysis.)

To spank a child as a reasoned limitation on his or her behavior is one thing. But to imagine that you are purging the child of the guilt of sin, and that the pain is psychologically purifying, is to cross into another rationale entirely. In the wrong mind, it forms the imperative to "give" more and more pain. Such a mind would ignore Pearl's warnings against abuse, to be sure, but not necessarily his logic.

The news accounts of "quarter-inch plumbing supply line" sold by Pearl are chilling, but nowhere near as disturbing as the doctrine he sells.

by Matthew Raley The religious right asserts that America must be turned back to biblical values through legislation and judicial decisions. It assumes that correcting the laws will free a godly citizenry to restore American culture. Thus, today's social conservatism tends to be defined by what politicians will do.

Over a series of posts (starting here), I have rejected all three points.

Start with the assumption that evangelical Americans are godly, and therefore have the capacity to restore the nation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Evangelicals have shown little capacity even to restore their own churches, much less America.

If the assumption about a godly citizenry is mistaken, then the religious right's whole strategy is flawed. Without citizens who actually follow Christ, the legislative and judicial changes sought by the religious right will not restore our culture.

Even further, what the religious right proposes is not conservatism.

Anglo-American traditionalism of the Burkean variety does not put up with abstract principles. Genuine social conservatism says, "The state must deal with the culture it actually governs, not the theoretical culture it desires." The ethics and ways of the people rule the nation. This is not only the view of conservatives from Burke to Eliot, it is the basic view of the state taught in the Bible.

Conservatives know that healthy cultures change through strong mediatorial institutions, especially families and churches. Conservatives call them mediatorial because they stand between the individual and the government. These institutions pass on and enforce ethics. They nurture relationships that mold people through influence rather than punishment. If the state tries to change a culture by force -- and the law is force -- it will only twist people's ways.

In this analysis, the ruinous effect of political liberalism has not been to impose sinful patterns on a citizenry that would never otherwise choose them, but to weaken the mediatorial institutions that, for evangelicals, pass on the Gospel. The pastor has been replaced by the therapist, the church by the welfare agency, and the family by the social worker.

I agree that our nation needs to return to the biblical worldview. But it will never do so until those who profess the name of Christ actually follow him, and follow him institutionally. If evangelicals want a political impact, they need to do what the founders of America envisioned: they need to govern themselves.

Therefore, I see two political goals for churches in American society.

1. Churches and families must campaign and vote for the preservation of their liberties. Aggressively, they should make the case that freedom of association is foundational to a healthy, peaceful society. No faction should be allowed to impose its principles on the consciences of others. The approach has complications. But if we base our arguments about specific issues on this principle, we will find broader agreement, and we will preserve our local spheres of influence.

2. Churches must not only grow, they must govern themselves with the Gospel. They should stop trying to be malls, and return to their natural mandate, both from the New Testament and from Western culture at large, of being strong mediatorial institutions. If churches return to the calling Christ has given them, a cultural and political impact will follow.

The religious right's populist tactic of blaming elites for our cultural problems is tempting, but it is not conservatism. Conservative Christians must come to grips with the fact that the departure of the nation from a biblical worldview is not a failure of the federal government, but of self-government. If we govern ourselves once again, there can be a return of our culture to Christianity.

by Matthew Raley The tired line on ministry is that it's not our job to produce results, only to be faithful. Unfortunately, I hear this most often from people who agree with me theologically.

I am convinced that God alone produces spiritual life. I hold and teach the reformed understanding of salvation, that Jesus Christ has purchased a finished redemption for his people, and that he sovereignly works out this redemption in their lives. This includes opening our eyes to his truth and enabling us to believe him.

Life is God's alone to give.

But some pastors in this doctrinal camp, when discussing the practice of ministry, misapply these truths. They're too quick to explain a lack of spiritual growth in their churches as God's problem, not theirs. Many failings of craft can be responsible for people not growing in Christ. If a pastor doesn't make truths clear but masks them in technical language, people will not grow. If he purposefully opens the Bible to both mind and emotions, life will blossom in most.

The sovereignty of God should not be twisted into an excuse for inattentive, self-satisfied workmanship.

God has given congregations tasks to do. He declares that he will give spiritual life in Christ through specific methods, like preaching. Devoting ourselves to these tasks with fervency is at the heart of what I am calling the Colossians 1.28 plan. I am so crass as to call it a business plan: we can direct resources into this toil and expect a return on the investment, namely, maturity in Christ. We should be bold in this expectation because God has declared that he is in this business.

So, I have laid out five outcomes for which we should toil (here and here), sketching the nature of the resources that need to be directed to toward them. I believe that, without these outcomes, church life is mere words.

Here is the final outcome I see as essential:

6. Public integrity in spiritual governance.

Spiritual governance consists of the actions and systems by which elders help restore people from specific sins. Jesus teaches his process for restoring people in Matthew 18.10-35. The purpose of confronting a sinful action or pattern is to arrive at forgiveness and repentance. The purpose is not to punish (which is why I increasingly feel the common label "church discipline" is inaccurate).

When spiritual governance is effective, the average church member understands his or her responsibility to keep relationships clear of breaches, lies, and grudges, doing everything possible to give and seek forgiveness. In this atmosphere, there is an informal ethic that limits gossip. Individuals seek counsel how to resolve their conflicts respectfully. Personal conflicts, in the vast majority of cases, do not break out into public feuds.

I am not talking about theory. In ten years here at Orland, this is the ethic the congregation has demonstrated over and over. Our life together has never been without conflict. But we have seen continuous restoration.

This is long-term, constant, exhausting work. In Orland, it has the been fruit of many senior pastors striving against bitterness over many decades. I teach on this issue regularly, and the elders are constantly advising people about conflict resolution. The counseling and discipleship systems I described last week are essential.

Because churches have committed so many resources to entertainment, they have no time or energy left for this labor. They simply are not governing in the way Christ called them. Pastors are continually "putting out fires" rather than teaching people how to keep from starting them.

The outcome of governance has to be public integrity. Part of this integrity is the leadership's record of discretion and achievement in helping people be restored to each other in Christ. Another part of it is simple justice. Known sins that go unaddressed, hasty judgments, inaccurate public statements, vendettas, and ignorance of Scriptural application will harm the leadership's public integrity. The aim of governance to build a confidence, even amid many imperfections and mistakes, that leaders are going to initiate restoration in appropriate ways, at the right levels.

The word for this is trust. Without it, the whole spiritual life of the church degrades into mere words.

Here is the heart of what I have been saying over the past few months.

Local churches have been fooling themselves that they can accomplish God's business by toiling in politics and entertainment. As a result of this confused planning, churches are closing. Let churches toil at God's business again, and we will see amazing results.

A final thought about how this relates to genuine conservatism next week.

by Matthew Raley I believe churches need to have a business plan to reverse their decline, a plan that directs resources toward the New Testament goal of moving people to maturity in Christ (Colossians 1.28-29).

The reason local churches are in decline is that they have confused goals, and incoherent business plans. They direct resources toward activities and programs that contribute nothing to a person's spiritual maturity -- even detract from it. Consequently they get zero New Testament return on investment.

Last post, I gave three outcomes that a church business plan needs to produce. I think we either "toil" to produce this kind of maturity in Christ, "struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works" within us, or else admit that our church life is nothing but words.

1. Submission of heart-and-mind to the Bible. Evangelical churches say they want this outcome, but mere pep talks will never produce it. Significant resources have to go to preaching. A pastor has to labor in scholarship, and in honing his rhetorical craft.

2. An individual, daily practice of worship. Again, churches say they want this. But ask leaders what operations they have put in place to produce it and the response tends to be vague.

3. Obedience to the fifth commandment. Many evangelicals don't want to honor older people. There is little emphasis on it, much less any clear operational thinking on how to teach it, much less any resources devoted to it. Indeed, I've never heard an evangelical leader say that honoring parents is a decisive part of nurturing healthy congregational life.

I also promised additional outcomes. And here are two:

4. Daily faith in God financially.

The people I know who are gaining Christ-like maturity are trusting God economically. I have found that people who want godliness without growing in their practice of work, giving, and spending restraint are deluded.

People must be apprenticed in trusting God with money, and this can't be done solely in a classroom. Trusting God economically is learned through counseling, or through a trusted friendship, or through that great but neglected teacher, an employer. I am convinced that churches need to become junctions of faith, work, and entrepreneurship.

Much of our discipleship in Orland actually happens on the job. Our leaders invest their personal time and finances heavily in job creation. Many of our people, some profoundly weak in crucial skills, have been trained by our employers spiritually. These employers do not put up with excuses. The process takes hard, daily, purposeful, prayerful work. It can only be done by employers who believe Christ transforms people.

A promising young guy named Matt moved to Orland without a job several years ago to attend our church with his new wife. We were just starting WestHaven Assisted Living, and our hard-nosed-employer-in-chief, Wade, offered Matt a job. After a few short years, Matt is a skilled manager, churchman, husband, and father. He is a self-controlled director his time and money, and a multi-generational asset to this community. He will tell you that God's power working through his boss is a major factor in his growth.

Building a community to provide this kind of organic discipleship costs money, hundreds of hours of paid and volunteer time, expertise, and requires a willingness to say no to many decent but ultimately frivolous activities that dissipate energy. It is also slow going. But ...

Return on investment: By apprenticing people economically, the church gains disciplined volunteer workers and generous financial givers. Capacity for ministry expands here.

5. Gospel-focused spirituality within the trials of divorce.

Divorce is today what slavery was in the 1st century: a common form of servitude for Christians. But if a church uses its resources wisely, it can toil in the power of the Spirit and succeed at producing godly people even amid the emotional, sexual, and financial losses of divorce.

To accomplish this, a church must reject the lie that divorced people are hopeless, and believe that Christ will use them to build his Kingdom. A church must deploy staff both to offer intensive crisis counseling and to train people in the congregation to equip each other biblically. Orland began putting resources into this kind of equipping system years ago, even putting one of our women through a M.A. program in biblical counseling. The work is slow and costly, but ...

Return on investment: we have a growing team of lay disciple-makers, a documented crisis intervention system that has successfully interacted with welfare and court systems, and a lengthening roster of saved marriages. And we are a small church.

More outcomes next week.