Spare the rod....?
A favourite singer/comedian/preacher of mine is a lady by the name of Vickie Winans. This soulful, beautiful African-American lady stole my heart way back in 2001 when I first saw her music video, As Long as I got King Jesus , and since then I have been a big fan of hers. Referring to her songs and preaching often in my own sermons or anecdotes. One particular teaching of hers is when she talks about her own upbringing in a large, poor family and then that of her experience of being a parents with her own children. She talks of the need for discipline, particularly among children in areas where there is so much temptation towards drugs, violence, crime, gangs, and more often a combination of all four. Her philosophy is simple, and her expression - little graphic but one has to temper this by remembering who she is, where she is from, and the culture in which she exists - is that someone has to discipline the children, to paraphrase slightly, 'They either get beat at home, beat b...