My immediate reaction upon learning of the existence of God, the rod, and your child's bod: The art of loving correction for Christian parents, a Christian parenting book by Larry Tomczak from 1982, was a brief bit of vomit in the mouth. I assumed it was another weird Christian punitive penile thing — like how Mike Johnson and his kid deal with one another's johnsons.
Naturally, I was relieved to find out that this was not the case. But that relief was short-lived once I peered inside the pages of the book and discovered it was really just a lavish Christian excuse for child abuse.
The nausea in my stomach turned once again as I scrolled down through the Amazon reviews, claiming things like:
The importance of this book can not be over emphasized with so many parents today frustrated with the conventional thinking of "no spanking" and instead use redirecting their children's behavior or some other method to stop the behavior. Willful children, especially little boys, don't fare well with redirection and cause the children various problems later in life as well.
Some readers, however, were less enthusiastic about beating their child whilst feeling very very bad about it:
I was given this book by my pastor. He says that, if you parent right, you will not have any problems with the terrible twos or the teenage years. This is not Biblical, as even the parents that walked with God (Adam and Eve) still had imperfect children (Cain). And, this author, in no uncertain terms states that, not only does the Bible teach spanking, it commands it as well. Well, like most punitive authors in Christian circles, he provides no scholarly base for his idea. It is dangerous to state that the Bible commands spanking because some parents should not spank their kids because they would be tempted with an anger problem. I am a conservative Christian and believe the Bible is the authority, but I was very disappointed in the way that this author presents his ideas and claims they are Biblical.
And of course:
I bought this book along with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish thinking that I'd be in for an evening of awesome light-hearted rhymes, but unfortunately this book doesn't rhyme at all, except in the deceptive title, and is all about spankings for Jesus, which is just weird. Frankly, the only reason to read this book would be if it had rhymed and had fun illustrations, but instead of that it just teaches folks to beat their kids in a very prosaic style.
Unsurprisingly, the book's author, Larry Tomczak is a prominent supporter of Trump's election fraud claims, who has written extensively about "unnatural" mental illness of homosexuality. And of course, the Evangelical mega-church that he founded collapsed under the weight of a sex abuse scandal. No charges were ultimately brought in the cases, due to a combination of the statute of limitations, and/or an alleged cover-up. The accusations against Tomczak himself included, according to USA Today:
Tomczak also is accused of repeatedly assaulting a woman, who is given the pseudonym Carla Coe, with plastic and wooden sticks. The alleged abuse began when she was a child and lasted more than two decades. When the woman was an adult, the lawsuit claims, Tomczak beat her bare backside.
The author of God, the rod, and your child's bod: The art of loving correction for Christian parents further explained the situation to Charisma News by saying that it was simply a "disciplinary parental issue" involving a "troubled family member."
God, the rod, and your child's bod: The art of loving correction for Christian parents [Larry Tomczak]
