Is Conservative Christian Group, No Greater Joy Ministries, Pushing Parents to Beat Kids to Death?

By: Kevin Hayes
Topics: Daily Blotter

(CBS/KOVR)

(No Greater Joy Ministries)

Paradise, Calif. (CBS/AP) Prosecutors say that earlier this month Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz of Paradise, Calif., beat their 7-year-old daughter to death with quarter-inch plastic tubing because she mispronounced a word. They say the girl's parents held her down and whipped her for hours causing massive tissue damage that resulted in her death.

Photo: Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz

"It was torture," says Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. The girl's sister was also allegedly beaten with tubing. She survived.

On February 26, 2006, 4-year-old Sean Paddock died in Raleigh, N.C. He had been beaten with plastic tubing as a punishment. When that didn't work, his mother Lynn wrapped him in blankets so tightly that he suffocated. She was found guilty of murder.

Photo: Web site of No Greater Joy Ministries.
These two families don't seem to have come up with their notions of discipline on their own. Both say they were inspired by a Christian group with nonprofit tax status, No Greater Joy Ministries.

No Greater Joy Ministries takes the Bible's notion that "He that spareth his rod hateth his son" as an edict for child-raising, or, as the ministry's website phrases it, "child training" via "biblical chastisement."

The Ministry's website says that "Proper application of the rod is indispensable to communicating the divine principle of retributive justice," and that people who avoid using the rod might be "emotional coward[s]."

An e-mail to No Greater Joy Ministries by Crimesider was not returned.

Run by Michael Pearl, a pastor in Tennessee, and his wife Debi, the ministry's website boasts that the Pearls' first book on how to properly beat children, "To Train Up a Child," has over 450,000 copies in print.

The ministry's website is quick to point out that beatings should not be administered when parents are angry or to the extremes allegedly found in the Schatz case, but given these two deaths, perhaps No Greater Joy Ministries could take some time to dwell on another Bible verse: "Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?"

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

MORE ON CRIMESIDER:
February 22, 2010 - DA: Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz Killed Daughter With "Religious Whips" for Mispronouncing Word

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by debyf September 30, 2011 7:28 PM EDT: BACK UP!! Who thought this family was appropriate for adoption and how much did they make off this evaluation? Start naming the names of the organizationss who allow this to happen; Reply to this comment


by moonpebble July 9, 2010 8:57 AM EDT: If a policeman is found guilty of committing a crime, do we condemn and shut down the police departmant? Or do we in fact write the guy off as a bad apple. He was given the same training as the other policemen so why not blame the department? Did they "make" him do it? Or could it be that it was his OWN evil that caused him to act criminally?

The same people who want to take away all the guns from american citizens are the ones who want to take a case like this and lay blame somewhere besides the only place it belongs. And the only place blame belongs is squarely on the shoulders of the Shatz.

These parents acted independently DESPITE sound biblical advice, just as a criminally minded police officer would. If No Greater Joy Ministry is to blame, then a pencil mispells words. I have read the Pearl's materials and they are wholesome and biblical and advocate more than ANY other thing to LOVE your children. Not beat them.

The same way a gun doesn't kill people, the Pearl's books are not to blame for what the Shatz did. The Shatz stand alone in their crimes and must face their fate alone. Let us pray for them and God's will be done in their lives.; Reply to this comment


by rev411 May 26, 2010 10:11 AM EDT: This article is so slanted it's sickening. Whoever wrote this: find a different job!; Reply to this comment


by yisskah May 8, 2010 10:51 AM EDT: P.S. If these parents actually followed the advice of NGJ not only would their child be unharmed and the incident never taken place as it did, she would not have even gotten the mildest of spanking for something like mispronouncing a word. A mispronounced word is not a disobedience or rebellion, but simply a mistake a child makes as they are learning language. I just can't imagine what sort of twisted anger causes a parent to pummel their child with unrelenting mercy over what amounts to nothing. It's very sad that they did not actually follow the teachings they claimed to.; Reply to this comment


by yisskah May 8, 2010 10:10 AM EDT: I was spanked with a belt by my father as a child, and in anger too. (NGJ advocates for spanking but against the combo of spanking and anger.) But I am so greatful that my parents cared enough about me to spank me when I clearly needed it. It has made me a better person. There is spanking because a child needs direction and a motivation to not do what ever he did again (like running into the street) and then there is beating a child and hurting them because you the parent are out of control. Two very different things.

For those of you who think their is no difference, consider a husband and wife. If the husband flirts with his wife by giving her a friendly smack on the behind, is he a wife beater. Hardly. Your motivation, the severity of the smack, intentions and the relationship itself play a great part in how the two are different.; Reply to this comment


by yisskah May 8, 2010 9:41 AM EDT: What these parents have done is truly terrible and unthinkable. I must speak up and say, if you have read No Greater Joys books and news letters you will find that though they do advocate spanking, what they promote does not in any way, shape or form resemble what these parents have done. Put it to the test and read their writings. Their news letter is free and you can sigh up for it at their website.; Reply to this comment


by jpbowser May 3, 2010 7:34 PM EDT: Great journalism Kevin Hayes. Yeah, uhh, two idiots killed their kids. Uhhh, it's no greater joy's fault. You've established your credibility.; Reply to this comment


by jpbowser May 3, 2010 7:31 PM EDT: Great journalism Kevin Hayes. Yeah, uhh, two idiots killed their kids. Uhhh, it's no greater joy's fault. Yep, you've established your credibility.; Reply to this comment


by KoolaidZombies April 5, 2010 3:53 PM EDT: Yeah, I'm with homeboy. Why do people keep doing this?; Reply to this comment


by Good_without_God March 31, 2010 1:32 PM EDT: Hey this sucks. All these posts were REPLIES. Why are they all on the first page?; Reply to this comment