In this episode of The Fresh Start Family Show, Wendy talks with authors Kelsey McGinnis and Marissa Burt about their new book, The Myth of Good Christian Parenting. Together they explore how spanking culture took root in many church communities, what Scripture really says (and doesnโt say), and how parents can move toward a faith-aligned, compassionate approach to discipline.
This conversation is full of hope, healing, and encouragement. Youโll walk away with tools to release old fears, respond with calm and connection, and build the kind of legacy your kids will carry with joy.
Raising A Strong Willed, Intense or Sensitive Child? If yes, I have a FREE gift for you!
This free bundle comes with an extensive learning guide & FREE workshop with me, where Iโll teach you ways to build connection & methods to work WITH your strong willed kids instead of trying to MAKE THEM change.
Youโll learn:
*Firm & kind strategies to navigate challenging behavior with firm kindness & connection (vs. fear, force, yelling, threats & bribery)
*Ways to build connection instead of pushing your child away w/ heavy handed โhand me down parenting tacticsโ
*How to work WITH your kids instead of forcing them to comply or trying to MAKE them change
Grab your FREE bundle now & start learning today!
Episode Highlights:
- The belief that hitting children is godly has been ingrained in many Christian families.
- Parents often feel pressure from their communities to conform to traditional parenting methods.
- Compassionate discipline is more effective than punitive measures.
- First-time obedience is an unrealistic expectation for children.
- The Bible does not mandate corporal punishment.
- Parents can find freedom from the burden of traditional teachings.
- Community support is crucial for parents seeking alternative methods.
- Challenging the belief that children deserve pain can lead to healthier family dynamics.
- Emotional safety is essential for both parents and children.
- Understanding the impact of one’s upbringing can help in breaking generational cycles.
Resources Mentioned:
Marissa’s Substack
Marissa’s Instagram
Kelsey’s Substack
Kelsey’s Instagram
Grab a copy of The Myth of Good Christian Parenting
Catch the full episode on YouTube!
Catch the live on YouTube
Unable to listen or prefer to read along? Here’s the transcript!
Wendy (00:03)
Hello families and welcome back to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family Show. I am thrilled to be here today with Miss Kelsey McGinnis and Marissa Burt who are co-authors of the new book, The Myth of Good Christian Parenting. Welcome to the show ladies.
Kelsey McGinnis (00:19)
Thanks so much for having us.
Marissa Burt (00:21)
Yes, we’re
delighted to be here, thank you.
Wendy (00:23)
Yeah, this has been a long time in the making. I have admired your guys’ work for a long time now. I feel like I might have met you online or through the Gram probably about a year ago. And as soon as I saw you guys were writing this book, I was, do you remember? I was like, hi, you must be on my show. You’re gonna come be on the show. And then here I actually have the book in my hands. It’s beautiful. I love the cover. Yeah. Yeah.
Kelsey McGinnis (00:46)
You have it in your hand. Yeah. Yeah, we’re so
Marissa Burt (00:48)
Thank you.
Kelsey McGinnis (00:50)
excited. I do remember that distinctly because anytime someone who sort of interacted with our stuff who is kind of like in the parenting world, I’m always kind of like looking through the page like what kind of advice this person giving you never know. And so I was so thrilled that you were interested in our work and to see what you were doing. And so so glad that you found us.
Wendy (01:05)
Yeah, โ
Marissa Burt (01:13)
Hmm.
Wendy (01:13)
Yeah,
awesome. Yeah, I have been kind of inter it’s been interesting. My own journey is like been I’ve always been very passionate about having so I created Fresh Start family. I think we’re on our eighth year now. So about eight years ago, and I always had this passion to have like a very diverse organization that’s not just for Christians like that was just my world. I think it’s the way I love to live life. I just love diversity. I love everyone is welcome at this table and
Because I’m of Christian faith, I’m able, so many people are able to connect with that and we have our own, โ we have a program called Jesus Guided Parenting that’s like a full four module program. So it’s been so interesting through the years to kind of โ be able to help everyone understand the commonalities of the work but then also really dive deep into helping the Christian families because in my world, they are the ones who this work is hardest to implement because of the nervous system.
conditioning and really damage that gets done in that first decade by some of the โ more evangelical or high control teaching. So yeah, your guys’ work is really important in our world. โ today we’re going to dive into our topic of the day is intense, but it’s good. Smear the Rods, Strengthen the Child, Understanding and Overcoming the Spanking Culture. And chapter seven of your new book, you go into โ
Marissa Burt (02:35)
Hmm.
Wendy (02:42)
all the ways parents can understand how did we get to this place where hitting and harming has become normalized and a large section of Christian parents over the last 50 years have really โ been conditioned to believe that hitting and harming children is godly. so.
We’re gonna have a conversation today around that and what we can do to unwind that, overcome the spanking culture. we chose five of the things that you guys speak about to kind of speak into. So I just can’t wait to hear your thoughts on all of this. It’s really gonna help โ people kind of unlearn some of the things that might have been ingrained in their nervous system and it’s gonna help a lot of children.
First, as we always do, I’m gonna start off with you, Kelsey. Could you just tell us a little bit about yourself? Where do you live? โ How many kids you got? And what made you passionate about this topic? Because I think both of you are like, do a lot of worship music stuff, right? And then you were like, I’m gonna dive deep into this topic. So Kelsey, start us off with you.
Marissa Burt (03:41)
You
Kelsey McGinnis (03:44)
Yeah. my goodness. I’m always
joking with my colleagues that this is the strangest like first book for me imaginable. โ So โ I live in Iowa. I am the worship correspondent for Christianity Today. So most of the public facing writing I do is about church life and musical culture and worship practices. I do a little bit of writing outside of that too, but that’s kind of that’s my area of academic training. I have a PhD in historical music
So I study and write about music history, particularly within the church. So that’s my… nice. Female drummers, man, we need so many more. Like playing like trap set or is she, what’s she doing these days?
Wendy (04:16)
So cool.
My daughter’s a drummer, so we admire musicians and those who respect music.
Marissa Burt (04:23)
Hmm.
You
Wendy (04:32)
She is
actually a metal drummer. So she is like literally legit. Like she started drumming in when she was a kindergartener. And yeah, we were not raised in like high control religion. So we never got the like, oh drumming is from Satan. So we were like, heck yes. She was a kinesthetic kid, strong-willed kid. And so we put her on a drum set at age five and she just thrived.
Kelsey McGinnis (04:38)
Amazing.
Marissa Burt (04:56)
you
Wendy (04:57)
later turned into a high level beach volleyball player. So always very kinesthetic, but the drumming was just right up her alley. And then as a family, we just love rock and roll. So she really took to it and she’s at a concert in New York City with daddy right now. She’s a senior in high school. So yeah, big music family.
Kelsey McGinnis (05:04)
Amazing.
Okay,
that’s incredible. I won’t like go down that rabbit trail and ask a bunch more questions, but I want to. So anyway, that’s my academic training. โ And I had my first child when I was still in grad school, I was finishing my PhD. I around the time she was one, she’s almost eight now, โ I started
Wendy (05:17)
I
Marissa Burt (05:19)
No!
Kelsey McGinnis (05:34)
looking into parenting resources. had never, was never a big babysitter. had never, parenthood was not something that I as a young person looked forward to. It just wasn’t something I ever thought about. So I think as a lot of parents do, you get to, you know, toddler years and you’re like, I could maybe use some advice here. And so I picked up some books that either my parents had given me or friends had recommended. And I found myself just reeling as I looked at these resources like Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Ted Tripp. And I
I read that book and I just something is not right here. It was so confused by how โ Ted Tripp talks about children and sin nature and the role of parents. โ And then I went looking for mainstream resources and found this well of information about child development and what developmentally appropriate behavior was. I had never had someone tell me that a tantrum is developmentally appropriate and I didn’t need to try to fix my child if she was
melting down. Like the only grid I had ever been given for that was sort of like, this is their sin nature coming out. And so at first it was really alarming. I was like, I felt like I was needing to decide in the moment. Okay. If I, if by
believing that that there are certain things that are developmentally appropriate. Am I like accidentally going to like backslide and start giving sin a path and do all the things I’ve always been warned about? And I just I found myself sort of flailing for a while. And so my husband and I started keeping this like running list and even like for a while started thinking about doing a podcast because we were just like, how do we how do we get this information all in one place, process it together and try to
do something about this, there’s nothing out there. And then we were both like, well, we aren’t the people to do that. So we’ll just sort of do this for ourselves and move on. And so that’s what we did. โ And then, know, years later, two years ago, I see Marissa posting on Twitter, X, about writing a book about the bad Christian parenting resources out there. And I reached out and was like, hey, I write for Christianity Today about music. This is not my beat or anything, but…
I’ve been doing all this random digging for years. If you ever want a conversation partner or ever have anything you want to talk about, I would love to. And that is how the book came about.
Marissa Burt (07:50)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (07:51)
Amazing. That’s so cool. And she was like, heck yeah, hi, great to meet you. Let’s become best friends.
Kelsey McGinnis (07:51)
Isn’t that wild?
Marissa Burt (07:56)
Of course.
It was great. mean, it was one of the happiest things about social media. We connected and we had a conversation and then we were like, should we try it? Should we do it? It’s been a wonderful experience. And in many ways, โ I think the book is so much stronger with both of our perspectives than it would be as individuals because, know, Kelsey brings this, this breadth of experience and background.
with as a historian, cultural historian, and I come to it with a background in theology and church history. So that was really of interest to me. I have a master’s in theology and studied sociology in undergrad, so I love the sociology of religion. So I was kind of interested in this topic because of that, but alongside, I’m married to a pastor, so I’ve been in church ministry for a couple decades. So seeing the ways…
โ high control religion, bad theology have real life impact that this isn’t theoretical and โ certainly over a number of years seeing the impact this sort of teaching has had on families made me curious and to think about how can we connect dots for people because a lot of times I think you read a parenting book
when your children are young and I’m the mom to six, so I’ve read a fair number of parenting books over two decades as well. And โ then you set it aside and you maybe don’t revisit it or you move out of that season of parenting, but as we have read over 100 at this point now and resources, you pick up.
Stowaway, we call them Stowaway theological doctrines. A lot of this teaching is spiritually formative for the children and also for parents and families. โ certainly, well, there’s so much we could talk about in any of these directions, but yes, spanking and corporal punishment is an integral piece across popular Christian parenting resources and a really formative one as well.
Wendy (09:57)
Yes, and so Marissa, thank you both for sharing just a little bit about how you got here and your family and all the things. โ Marissa, being…
you know, โ having a partner in ministry and being involved in ministry for so long. Was your church circle, do you feel like looking back you were never entrenched in that? was it, because I’m realizing after I spent about 13, 14 years in the evangelical world, megachurch world here in San Diego, and then we…
Left and are now like in a different environment. So we’re in a disciples of Christ Church And I’ve noticed that like the United Methodist operate different The Episcopalians operate different the Lutherans around here. They’re like they’re bringing in social emotional learning for the kids. They’re not punishment like they’re more in line and I never knew that but were you were you just always in a healthy circle or were you guys entrenched in that too and then you after a while you were like, we’re gonna change
Marissa Burt (11:00)
Yeah, that’s a good question. So personally speaking, I was raised in kind of evangelical, non-denominational churches. I also went to Catholic school, so kind of โ a mash-up there. And then my husband’s an Anglican priest. So that’s kind of the tradition, the corner of the church we’ve been in. And โ as a result, no. I mean, certainly the children’s ministry and things was more godly play, was child-centric.
Wendy (11:09)
Right?
Marissa Burt (11:24)
in the parishes we’ve been in. However, when I first became a mother, this was back in South Carolina, we lived in the South, we were at an Anglican parish and at the time we moved away shortly after that and began to do some church planting work, but they were taking families through Growing Kids God’s Way. So I’ve often reflected back on that and thought, I would have just gone right into that.
you know, because that was in my church community as a new parent, you don’t necessarily have a sense of a framework to think critically about a lot of resources, particularly if older parents in your faith community are recommending it. โ And so that hasn’t really brushed up against my own story as a parent. โ
personally speaking, though Christian marriage resources. Whew, I’ve written about that. Maybe because as a newlywed, I imbibed so much of that and then it was a disaster. And two years later, I was kind of like, nope, that I was more reticent. But I also think it was just fortunate circumstances that because we ended up out in the Northwest church planting, there just wasn’t a lot of that in the water the way it was. So I say all that to say Anglican tradition.
but it’s not that it’s not in my tradition, right? And I think that tracks with a lot of people’s experience. Like if it’s in your community, especially as a new convert or a new parent, it can be really appealing. And before you maybe even have a sense of your bearings as a parent, sometimes it even starts prenatally, you’re being given these frameworks and asked to commit to them in a certain way.
Wendy (13:07)
Yeah. And Marissa, forgive me. What does that mean, Anglican? Like, is there a certain denomination that is? Like, I’m not thinking in my area of any Anglican churches.
Marissa Burt (13:14)
Yeah, so sure, sure,
sure. a lot of so the Anglican denomination is the global communion โ associated with the Anglican Church. It’s the largest ecumenical denomination globally โ in America. A lot of times it’s referred to as the Episcopal Church because when it started here, they didn’t understandably Americans didn’t want to call themselves Anglican because of independence. But โ
Wendy (13:33)
Got it. Okay.
Marissa Burt (13:42)
Typically in the US, if you hear someone referring to the Anglican denomination, it’s a more conservative โ strain than the Episcopal Church. Yeah, yeah.
Wendy (13:50)
That’s so helpful.
Okay, for a while I was like, I didn’t grow up in the church at all. I came to my faith at 19 and for a while I was just like, I hear the big words and I’m like, I feel, you know, I wouldn’t ask. Now I just ask. And now I’m just like, help me understand. What does this mean? And I’ve learned so much over the past 10 years. But Kelsey, before we get into our speaking points today, you did touch on something around when you first started this process of just challenging some of these books.
Marissa Burt (13:55)
Mm-hmm.
It’s great. Yeah.
Wendy (14:20)
that have been put in your lap and thank God, like you got that divine calling and that you were able to listen to it and find that courage and had some type of nervous system safety to still explore and ask those questions and go down a different route. โ But we find in our community that so many parents, I mean, I can just think of like three clients that I’ve just coached in the last week that are in like my high level full mastery program, who they are still, and especially in the beginning, they,
that feeling of like danger of when you start going outside of those books โ feels so heavy on your nervous system. And I think so many people stop there. I’ve really been, it’s been very interesting to me to watch, especially since November, I guess over the last eight years, to really expand my understanding of.
Kelsey McGinnis (14:52)
Hmm.
Wendy (15:14)
the nervous system combined with what happens when you are raised in a heavy fear environment, โ what happens to a human and how getting curious and โ questioning authority and doing it in like a kind, respectful way and then coming to your own thought patterns and like especially things like following what I would say, following your heart when you have been raised in a world where the heart is.
โ deemed wicked and you’re not supposed to trust your emotions and empathy is bad and it’s going to take you down this this hard route like what was it do you think that you and your husband had that allowed you to move through that and go forward in your own way instead of freezing and just staying in line with these books that had been handed to you?
Kelsey McGinnis (16:00)
That’s a great question. think a number of things helped with that. One is that my husband did not come to faith until he was 14, 15 years old. So he was not raised in a religious household. He had no attachment to any of these ideas. So him reading Shepherding a Child’s Heart was the first time he had ever encountered Christian parenting teaching. And he was appalled. The copy of Shepherding a Child’s Heart we have has pages of notes that he
Wendy (16:14)
Yes.
Right.
Kelsey McGinnis (16:30)
wrote in it as he was reading it. โ It just tripped everything for him. โ The other piece of my story there is that at the time in grad school I worked at a think tank called the Center for Human Rights. It’s a think tank at the Law School of the University of Iowa and it does social justice and human rights advocacy teaching and research and we were working on a child labor grant at the time. So I was very familiar with language of
you know, rights of the child and autonomy and was used to thinking about these ideas around child liberation. And so the disconnect between the language of that and the language in these books really struck me at that moment.
And when I think about my own family systems, I mean, some of this comes down to luck. I grew up in what I would call very normie evangelicalism, โ SBC Church in North Carolina, and then some โ evangelical Free Church of America churches in the Midwest, where this heavy-handed parenting practice was there. But I have two parents who are not authoritarian personalities. My dad is not the like. โ
Wendy (17:35)
Okay, yes.
Kelsey McGinnis (17:36)
overbearing
loud. I’ve never heard my dad yell in my life. โ He and my mom were on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, but my dad’s parents, my mom, his mom is a politician. She was a U.S. ambassador. She was the leader in that household. He had a dad who was like totally comfortable with that, you know, just being the like, you know, the counterpart to this high powered woman. There were just this confluence of things. And in my background, I think
Wendy (18:05)
Interesting.
Kelsey McGinnis (18:06)
primed me for seeing that things could be done differently. I had enough people in my life who were not overly attached to the really authoritarian model of family. Under other circumstances, it could have gone another way. In some ways, I’m as drawn to extreme thinking as anybody else, but I think they’re just that combination of things really helped that when it got there, it was still scary. I still had this question of like,
what if I’m walking away from the right way? Like what if I’m walking away from the one right way? โ But there was a lot less fear and trepidation and people around me who felt safe enough to have those conversations with. So I’m really thankful for that.
Wendy (18:50)
Yeah, I am too. Yeah, there’s there it is a higher degree of difficulty for people not only to start educating themselves and going that way and we just hear it all the time is this immense fear that you are going to be led astray by a false prophet and then of course we know that shuts down education we know that the
the biggest, successful authoritarian groups โ have used the restriction of education to control people, right? So it’s just like so historically sound and then fear, feels like keeps people stuck in like not learning the different way and then they just keep doing what’s been done. And in our line of work, we call that passing down painful generational cycles and it just makes sense.
And so, yeah, it’s been interesting to see the world through a lens now where I’m like, it makes sense why people respond to authoritarian leadership based in fear, because that’s what they’ve known their whole life. So it makes sense that you had a lesser version, much less, like, barely existent, and then hearing that your husband came to faith โ later in life is really interesting. I find with my students, the ones…
โ that came later. Like I have a client that I’m thinking of. She grew up in Russia where it was kind of, it was kind of not banned totally, but you weren’t really supposed to be a Christian, right? So she didn’t find her faith till later. And she doesn’t have this like fear mechanism. And then my other clients who like from birth, they had all the check marks, check marks of the traditional evangelical teachings. They have it strong. And it is like, it’s not only hard for them to learn, like feel safe learning.
but then when it’s actually time to implement the strategies, their knee jerk, โ it just really kicks in. So especially when it comes to discipline. So I’m thinking of โ a particular client who really thick like, and also what a crazy time to be recording this episode a week after the death of Dobson who was like the grandfather of the most, in my opinion, the most awful legacy. โ it’s just.
Heartbreaking again thousands of students at this point that have been under my umbrella of care that I’ve watched and nurtured as they have healed from the harm that man did but โ specifically one of the biggest areas we know that type of influence is with the corporal punishment is with this concept of thinking that the Bible really does Demand and command you to discipline your children through hurt
that that is godly. And yeah, some of my clients just, you I have one in particular that I’m thinking of. I mean, she just shows up with such tenacity year after year and she reverts quite often because it’s just such a thick nervous system setting. So as we head into this next part of our conversation around overcoming the spanking culture, โ understanding it and like moving into these
these points of like helping people understand how they can find the safety to go in a different direction. My goal is to just increase that safety, right? Like hopefully my prayer is that by listeners hearing you two of these incredibly wise educated women who have chosen to go a different way than a lot of these, that it is safe. That really is safe. Even though your mother-in-law or your parent or your Bible study pal is like,
Marissa Burt (21:58)
you
Wendy (22:22)
circulating the gentle parenting is from the devil articles. It’s like it really is safe. There’s a lot of people who are wise, educated people who are going to help you understand a different way. So will you guys let’s let’s go to Marissa first when it comes to understanding and overcoming the spanking culture. We’re going to go through some of these steps, but like just set us up on like what does that feel like for you as far as like
When it went, let’s just start with understanding spanking culture. And the book goes through such a great like kind of like timeline of like, here’s how it all went down and here’s why it became the dominant force.
Marissa Burt (23:06)
Yes, well, and I think for Christian families in particular, โ they received a very specific kind of speaking culture, one that says, one, God wants you to do this, God requires you to do this, or the Bible requires you to do this. So there’s a spiritual incentive there, often that comes with pretty significant stakes, eternal stakes, like we’ve talked about, like this is the right way that…
It matters that your children learn to obey instantly so they can obey God. Or if you fail to do this, your child will be outside of God’s blessing somehow. And often very fearful โ anecdotes are given. So this could be like societal dangers, or it could just be they’re gonna be rebellious. So there’s incredibly high stakes. And then spanking is presented, we call it liturgized spanking. So it’s not simply โ maybe what
A number of cultures have done historically of just parents beating their children or kind of just wanting to inflict pain. Parents are told, well, this is somehow distinct from that. What you’re going to do as a godly Christian, you are going to be โ taking them through the quote unquote right way to spank. So calm, pray, pray first, be detached, spank, pray afterwards, reconciled. There’s there’s all these really made up steps that are offered to parents, but
they’ve circulated since Dobson on as don’t worry parents, if your intuition is flaring up, if this feels bad for you to do this, if it puts you in fight or flight to try and hit your child, you should ignore that because God wants you to spank in this way and this is the way you can do it. So I think the first, you can’t trust your emotions. Exactly, that is weakness.
Wendy (24:52)
can’t trust your emotions, you can’t trust your body.
Marissa Burt (24:58)
And a lot of times it comes paired with theological messaging that already says emotions are probably sin. So people are already suspicious. And that also says you should be suspicious of voices outside of your trusted Christian community. So rather than a framework that says all truth is God’s truth. So we can hear from social scientists researching, child development professionals researching. It says, nope, it has to be your trusted
voice of spiritual authority who often speaks with the voice of God and says, look, this isn’t my opinion. This is the clear, plain truth of the Bible, which can be very compelling for devout people who โ respect scripture, right? They respect that. So I would say the first and probably the biggest hurdle for people is โ to be reminded. And I will say this, I will always engage this conversation because I think it’s such a
a deeply rooted myth. Nowhere does the Bible require parents to spank small children. Nowhere. This is not a biblical principle. Christian parents, if I could speak directly to you, I would say, I’m so sorry you have been misled on this front because it has come, that messaging has come again and again from all kinds of avenues. It’s simply not true. โ
God does not require this of you. Like this is the message that is often given. And I think Christians need to hear from other Christians. That is a falsehood. And โ the way that…
handful of verses from the Proverbs or from Hebrews 12 has been presented as though this is some sort of mandate for American evangelical practices of spanking is not exegetically or hermeneutically. It’s not sound as far as Bible interpretation goes. It’s not โ sound as far as what we know about โ the one anothering verses and the teaching life and ministry of Jesus. I’ve, I can talk about
that if you’d like but I just want to say directly too like we we can be free of that heavy
burden that often puts parents under this pressure cooker, this feeling of like, I don’t do this, I’m disobeying God, you know? And instead we often will say there’s tremendous freedom for the Christian parent, tremendous freedom. The Bible is not a parenting manual. And so I would just love to free parents up from that roadblock so then they can begin to consider.
the research, can listen to adult children, can look at other tools, etc., etc., because that first one often is the hurdle some people just can’t get over.
Wendy (27:49)
Yeah, and you say that, I just love the way when you guys teach and present material, and I’m always seeing it through the Instagram lens, and now I’m seeing it through the book. โ It is so comforting and โ compassionate and clear with very firm kindness, like, kind firmness. And I love that because I just hear that with such conviction, Marissa. โ
Kelsey, and so what you did was you just hit on our first point, which is examine what’s really biblical and what’s cultural. If you have a desire to understand and overcome the spanking culture, and really that means not just stop thinking, be able to choose compassionate discipline, understand why it’s โ really psychologically backed up with research and data and all the things, but actually feel safe in exploring and educating yourself, right?
But one of the things I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten to know you girls is, and I’m gonna ask you this, Kelsey, is like, how have you handled, and I guess this is just a sidebar, but I just really wanted to ask you this, and then we’ll move on to point number two, is like how, I actually have trouble watching you guys sometimes when you so eloquently move into what I would call, I don’t know how to say it best, it’s like a clap back, it’s like.
someone will be like, here’s this literally like, even hearing you speak, Marissa, like I’m such an empath that I just, I think of these children and I think of like, I can’t believe that this is like a thing. And so at this age, I’m 48 now, I get like sick to my stomach when I think of this. How have you been able to like write about this and read these words that we know is affected? Like.
hundreds of thousands of children, how have you found that safety to just be like, hi, so today we’re gonna talk about the way James stops and like, how has that been for you? Let’s, know Marissa, that was such a beautiful answer. So we’ll let you, well, answer this one, Kelsey.
Kelsey McGinnis (29:46)
Mm-hmm.
I would say personally, I benefit from the experience of getting distance through research and reporting. I mean, there’s a little bit of when we started working on this book, there was a choice we had to make about what kind of book we wanted it to be. And we deeply wanted it to be a book that did not push people away who needed to read it. And
as much as I might have my share of snarky words or harsh words to give on the internet, which I can. I don’t like to give them on the internet. It never ends well. But I think we so badly wanted this to be a book that felt safe for people to reach for and to fully engage with. We wanted to feel like trustworthy people and to actually be trust not like we’re putting on the front one to actually be trustworthy people. โ
that if someone was still like, this is something that I do and I feel like it’s the right thing. tell me I’m wrong. You know, I want that person to talk to me without the fear that I’m going to be like, how dare you someone in your life should call child protective services? You know, like I don’t, โ I want to be a safe person. And I think because I’m also still deeply embedded in communities where these resources circulate. So I do truly
truly empathize with and feel for children who I know who are in households where some of this is practiced. โ And I also love their parents and know their parents and that’s just a hard place to be. So some of it is being able to kind of put on reporter researcher hat and treat it as a topic of inquiry. And the other piece of it is wanting to be safe more than wanting to get to air all of my
thoughts and opinions, even though I think I’m right, you know?
Wendy (32:03)
So yeah, and you probably through โ your training, like, did you mention, you mentioned like you’re a historian, basically your training is in, yeah, so I can see how that really benefited you. And then God took this divine gift and calling and then allowed you both to just be like, okay, today, welcome to class. We’re gonna talk about this, where I’m like, โ my God, this is so, you know, hey, obviously my skill set isn’t teaching the how to, right? Like I’m like, hey, sit down.
Marissa Burt (32:32)
You
Wendy (32:33)
So happy you’re here now. I’m gonna like really help you understand how to do it differently But yeah, just the whole like speaking to what’s been taught has just been pretty gnarly. I had a student yesterday She said โ hey, here’s a thing. That’s my mother sent me and this is the same โ Amazing student who had said she was spanked at
three years old, โ and her parents laugh about this. They tell it around the Christmas table 32 times in one day. And how they laugh that they still didn’t think it broke her will. โ And so she said, hey, I would love to see you do more of these clap backs. And I was like, I love you, and I just can’t do it. Go see Kelsey and Marissa.
Marissa Burt (33:17)
Thank
Wendy (33:18)
back as the harsh word like you know like a really you guys do it in a way that is a kind analysis and that’s the way you do write your book like it is it is a welcoming conversation piece and so great job because that is that is a skill set but I know you both have invested in to be able to learn how to do that okay number two of our points if we’re gonna support a family who wants to understand and overcome the spanking culture is notice where the pressure is coming from so I’ll come back to you Marissa
to answer this one.
Marissa Burt (33:51)
Yeah, I mean, we hear from a number of people how much community pressure they have to spank. Like maybe they welcomed a baby and said, I don’t feel good about this, but their extended family has put a lot of pressure on them or they feel pressure from their church community. We’ve heard from people who’ve been excommunicated from churches because they chose not to spank. I think there’s some regional.
distinctives here, like we are from a lot of people in the Bible Belt that it’s like they are the lone person they feel like in their community who is maybe choosing a different way because the spanking culture, it’s a useful term, is so ingrained. So I think there’s that external pressure. I think it can come through parasocial relationships online, right? People find an influencer they like.
for whatever reason, or they’re in Christian influencer circles, and that can create a kind of echo chamber, this feeling of culture warring that comes into it, of like you mentioned, Wendy, the like, gentle parenting isn’t biblical. So you can kind of get a steady content of that, and you can hear those voices over your shoulder, even in the privacy of your own home. And then I think as we touched on a little bit, there’s internal pressure, like parenting is triggering.
it’s inevitably triggering. And so if someone grew up in a home where it wasn’t safe to do anything but instantly obey without question, then if their child doesn’t obey without question, it’s going to trigger that. often, sometimes in ways that they can’t overcome. So they may think to themselves, I don’t want to spank. And then in those triggered moments, that is what they are reaching for. So there’s a lot of…
complex and again it’s as unique as every person is, as every family culture is, how these things might manifest. But those all add up to significant, significant layers that I think keep people feeling stuck in this. โ when we wrote our book, we also hoped it would be accessible.
to people outside the evangelical community like therapists or spiritual directors or even pastors from different corners of the church. Because I think without either being part of that community or really reading a lot of these resources, I think it’s very difficult to understand how immersive that is. It can feel like, why can’t people just leave this behind? Or why are Christians…
digging their heels in on this. Like why are they some of the last people defending this? It can feel very confusing if that’s not part of your subculture. So, because I think, yeah, it really is that ingrained. And two, challenge that โ can feel like pulling out one of those bottom cards in a house of cards, you know, a tower. can really shake some foundations, some theological foundations, some…
ideas about anthropology of humans, about God’s perspective on people, a number of things. And so I think a lot of people will kind of double down in resistance. And also, if that is someone’s own childhood story, it requires a dethroning of their own parents. And that can be very vulnerable to revisit, to say, well, what if my parents didn’t need to do that? How do I make sense of that? And I think that can be really painful for a lot of people. โ
Anecdotally, I certainly see this in almost every resource. The person advocating for this kind of ritualized liturgical spanking will recount anecdotes from their own childhood that reveal it was a piece of their experience. So I think, what did you call it? Generational cycles? Right. I think that absolutely is a significant piece that often the people in most need of deconstructing some of that are
Wendy (37:45)
Yeah, painful generational cycles.
Marissa Burt (37:57)
the most fearful of deconstruction or the least equipped to begin to do that work because this has been their community. For all the things you mentioned earlier, the curiosities, the fear, all of that makes it really difficult, I think, to begin to remove that piece and see what happens can feel very scary or can feel like if I screw this up, is there like a cosmic punishment awaiting me?
Wendy (38:23)
Yes, yeah. so noticing where the pressure is coming from at least gives you the awareness and the clarity, right? And I think, again, like all those years that I was in, like the deep evangelical spaces, I just thought this was Christian culture.
And now what I would just like to add is like when you become clear, okay, it’s coming from this particular, let’s just say if it’s coming from within your church culture, โ knowing that you actually do have a choice. It feels like you don’t when you’re so entrenched in it. You feel like, this is just what it takes to be a Christian. And then you start to realize like, โ I got like asked to step down from volunteering at my last, the last time we left it. Now I’m like in a fully affirming, fully inclusive justice joy.
inclusion like church. It’s amazing. I’m so happy. I’ve never been happier. But when I got asked to step down from leadership because they were like, oh, you you’re going to confuse people or you’re going to scare people or whatever it may be. I was so shocked that within I happened, I happened to have like a post go viral that I didn’t mean to go viral. But through that people educated me and I was like, Hey, you know, there’s a million spaces that you could go to.
And I know that’s me coming from a big city, right? Like I know if you’re in a small town, that’s not necessarily true, but I was shocked to find out that there was five churches within two miles from me that operated totally different and didn’t have this like internal pressure, right? Like now I’m at a church where a lot of things are different, but one of them is like, I came to my, which is where I rent my office to at my church, but I came to my pastors when they, saw they had created this new little,
booklet for new people. And I was like, I love this. And I get my whole thing on like, hey, I believe children are the most depressed group in the world. And I’m like, what if we stood for like safety of children too? And they’re like, OK, great. Just give us what you want us to write and we’ll put it in there. And I’m like, really? Because I spent 10 years teaching in the evangelical church world. And I was like, it was like a miracle that I would be allowed to teach. And it was just, you could feel this like heaviness of like, most people got their eye on you.
What are you teaching? Compassion and discipline? Okay. And I’ve even had students, I remember I had one student, who was that? And I’m trying to think of, okay, I know who it was in my head. And she shared in a podcast interview that we did with Christina Dronin, who runs Gentle Christian Parenting, coolest, like, Facebook group. And she’s just done some wonderful work. She’s amazing and brings people together who have an interest to learn more.
And our podcast episode was on parenting with the fruits of the spirit. And she shared that with her Bible study group and they called her in for a meeting and her father, because they were, the words were they were concerned that she was worshiping the devil. And we were like, really? And she was like, yeah. And she’s gone on to do amazing work. Like she just, she was able to press in and,
still be amidst this group. can’t be her father is still her father. And I know it’s not that easy for everybody, right? Like to have that type of heat on you and still choose a different way, but maybe just normalizing the stories that this does happen quite often โ and that it doesn’t mean that it’s accurate truth. It just means that for some odd reason that I cannot explain with all of my understanding of human behavior and child development and psychology, I
do not understand why they press people so hard on this. Like you would think it would just be one of those things that they were like, okay, you’re gonna choose not to hit your kid, but they come in aggressive in some circles. So yeah, I like the idea of Where is where?
Marissa Burt (42:13)
They really do. for some, yeah. Yeah. Awareness.
And some people we hear from a number of them may need to hear it. This can be an issue where maybe you do need to find a different community, church community, especially, will often say, especially if this is getting preached about from the pulpit, joked about by other adults. Like these are also flags that this is not a safe community for children. Period.
like not just like if you’re deciding not to do this, but can still stick it out there. Like there is not an ability to safeguard children if that is happening. And the trickle down of that is it also won’t be a safe place for you as an adult either, because the way children in church parenting doctrine are treated is the way individual parishioners will be treated in the church family system. sometimes these can be markers that like it’s time to go.
Wendy (43:10)
Yeah, nobody always, we all want the in-person space, but I will say that these days, like, if you just want to experiment with like, what does church from home feel like? And there is a million online resources that stream live now that you can still feel like you are. And I have a friend โ when that whole thing shook out with that last evangelical church when we finally left, she, she,
texted me within minutes and I would have never known that she had gone through this type of similar thing before where she was like, my gosh, same thing happened to us and we just, we decided to form our own little small group and she’s up in Santa Barbara and she’s like, we’ve now been meeting for like a year, it’s like 10 or 12 of us, we all have young kids, we get together, we do church, like online.
and we just made it work, you know? And that was a cool message to hear of like, there are different ways to do it and it can feel really scary. Okay, let’s move on to this next one. Kelsey, I’ll pass the mic to you on this one, is โ rethinking the obsession with first time obedience. What can you add there as far as like helping people exit that conditioning?
Kelsey McGinnis (44:18)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, that is such a recurring idea. I, over the last couple months even, I’ve seen a couple like pretty high performing posts on social media about first time obedience and how in our household, you know, if it’s not the first time, it doesn’t count. You know, there’s a real, yeah, with a happy heart. Right, yeah.
Wendy (44:44)
and with a happy heart, not just obedience, but with a happy heart. So if you’re a little
Marissa Burt (44:46)
I know.
Wendy (44:50)
pissed about it as a kid, you’re still going to pay the price.
Marissa Burt (44:54)
Mm-hmm.
Kelsey McGinnis (44:54)
Yeah, yeah, it doesn’t
count. doesn’t count. That’s not real obedience, right? So I think like that for me, this is one of those like easiest ones to bring the wind out of because I feel like I can as someone who is not a theologian by training, I feel like I can pretty comfortably look at people and say, does God ask that of you? Does does God ask that of me? Did Jesus?
ask that of his disciples. How many times do we see Jesus teaching the same lesson over and over or God dealing with his children teaching the same thing over and over? That willingness to teach the same thing over and over is, I think, something that we see. And I find it so strange that a lot of these resources basically hold children to a standard of performance in a relationship that we do not hold.
Wendy (45:21)
you
Kelsey McGinnis (45:45)
any other human being. We do not hold our spouses to these kinds of standards, right? Like, and it’s a different kind of relationship, but at the same time, I think there’s this really wishful, magical thinking that if I can do that right, maybe my child will turn out as this just amazing, godly person. I can condition them to be this kind of person who is first time obedient to God always and always walking in full obedience. I don’t know what that magical thinking is because
There is not one relationship in my life I have that expectation for with another adult. And in a lot of ways, it’s treating children like machines that they are programmable in some way, โ which I truly abhor that way of thinking about children or that they’re kind of like pets to be trained. Yeah, I just I think that sitting with that thought for a minute and just being first of all, so grateful that I
in my walking with God throughout my life have been shown more grace than that. That my husband shows me more grace. Not that my husband orders me around, but if he asks something of me and I say no, or we are having an argument. Like, you know, just think about what kind of relational standard that is. What kind of… โ
What kind of authentic relationship can you have with someone who has that kind of expectation of you and a series of punitive actions they will take if you don’t measure up or they can take every time you don’t measure up?
Wendy (47:20)
Absolutely. Yeah, the instant obedience trap is, I remember sitting around a table one or I was out to dinner actually with these two women and she was she knew I was a teacher at the time they were from church and she knows a teacher of this work and she was like, Well, what about this instant obedience things because we had dinner last week with it was at church at that big evangelical church we were at for a long time and she’s like, we set at this table.
And dad was a doctor, so was like this clout, this respect was there. And she was like, and these, they had five kids. And I’m telling you, they were perfectly behaved at that table. And he let us know that like, yeah, he had to break their will young. And she went on to just admire this obedience. it’s like on one hand, you really understand as a parent. You’re like.
does sound like the dream. It really does. Just be able to have a meal where you’re five children. Don’t fight with each other. But also on the other side, like I know as an educator what that takes to get that. the asking yourself, are you willing to use that type of fear and force in your home and make that the North Star? And is that what you want? Right? So lots to unpack there.
Marissa Burt (48:44)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (48:44)
knowing that yes, that is a thing and there is a lot that you you guys do so much in the book to help people understand that they can take a different path and that that is wise and smart and when you look at human development and the way God designed us with free will, it makes more sense to offer grace and repeat the lesson sometimes and do it, I will add, with my work because then you’re gonna have more effectiveness, right? I think โ
Kelsey McGinnis (49:06)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (49:13)
There’s an ineffectiveness to the classic ways that parents are scratching their head thinking, it’s not working. I’ve told him five times to not touch his, well, because there are different ways that you can use to influence your kid that don’t involve overpowering, that don’t involve fear and force, that don’t involve modeling what you don’t want your child to do. That’s where obviously my work comes in, that I can help people get their child to learn the lesson, maybe after two, three mistakes.
Versus 27, right? Which is what we see long term, actually, with a lot of times, like what people, when they believe in the first time obedience myth, so to speak, the lesson long term isn’t learned. It’s just hidden well. Like it’s why you see, think a lot of teenagers end up rebelling, but they do it really well behind closed doors. They’re real good at lying and like not telling the truth and then feeling awful about themselves if they get caught. So.
Marissa Burt (49:48)
Right.
Kelsey McGinnis (50:03)
you
Marissa Burt (50:04)
I know.
Kelsey McGinnis (50:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marissa Burt (50:12)
Yeah.
Kelsey McGinnis (50:12)
โ
Marissa Burt (50:12)
And just the setup for long-term relationship. mean, we spoke with a number of people who experience inauthentic connection or estrangement as adults with their parents. And I do think instant obedience can work quote unquote in the young years, if you’re willing to, as you said, what are you willing to do there when children are small and you can still.
force compliance, but at a certain point the receipt for that comes due and โ the ability to have an authentic relationship has been short-circuited and also parents have kind of day in and day out trained themselves to expect instant compliance in all things and there’s really not an off-ramp for that if that is your belief that you’re owed that and it really โ it’s really tragic, it’s really sad.
Kelsey McGinnis (51:03)
Mm-hmm.
Marissa Burt (51:07)
how it has robbed so many families of connection that could be theirs and relationship that could be theirs because none of this is without kind of natural consequences in that sense. It does have impact down the road as well.
Kelsey McGinnis (51:17)
Mm-hmm.
And I would
Wendy (51:21)
It’s true. know there’s a million
people, sorry Kelsey, to say like, I’m fine. Just yesterday I had someone in my DMs who’s so sweet. She’s like an older parent who showed up and she’s like, thank you for all that you’ve shared. โ She said, I’ve been a kindergarten teacher for 22 years. First of all, I’m like, I love you. Thank you for your service. And then she said, I did follow these teachings, these Dobson teachings, and I regret it with all my heart. And she said, I now have adult children and they haven’t spoken to me in two years. And it’s like, I just
told her I’m like how can I help you know like I can help you get to a place that maybe we can help you repair the relationship because I really admire the people who have the humility to come in later and say Yikes darn it you know which we we know a lot of people some people go to their grave saying nope I am that is godly and that is nope yep no my kids are fine โ
Marissa Burt (52:11)
Right, yeah. โ
Wendy (52:18)
are able to find the humility later in life and my prayer is that they will be able to make amends and have the true relationship where your kids actually want to come home for Christmas, not because they have to. What were you gonna say, Kelsey? I’ll you off.
Marissa Burt (52:28)
Yeah.
Kelsey McGinnis (52:30)
Yeah.
Well, I was just going to say, I would also caution parents against looking at behavior around a dinner table at some or something, looking at other and believing, yes, my children sat through this dinner with no problems because we require first time, we’ve taught them that, you know, the expectation is first time obedience. That could have very well been luck of one night. You know what I mean? โ You do not see what happens in their home. โ
You don’t know how involved this dad actually is in the day in and day out of all of this. There are just a million questions I would have that, you know, there’s just no way for me to know. I would hope I would want people to feel free to not look at families with parents who say we implement these and this is why my children are so well behaved. โ They may have gotten lucky and gotten children with temperaments or maybe children who
figured out earlier on that I need to be afraid of my parents. better, you know, there could be a lot happening and I don’t in some families, maybe not in some families, maybe yes, but just don’t don’t put yourself in that position of feeling, feeling self doubt because of what you think you see in outcomes with other people’s children. think.
Marissa Burt (53:48)
Mm-hmm.
Wendy (53:49)
Yeah, I think a lot of those air quotes successful incident obedience families, I’m like, you probably didn’t get a strong-willed kid to the level that because they are just the best at raising the red flag and being like, no, we are going to get this out of our family legacy. I’m going to edit this out. Are you guys OK โ to go 10 more minutes? If not, we can wrap now. OK, then we’ll do our last two points here.
Kelsey McGinnis (54:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m good. Mm-hmm. Totally.
Yeah, totally.
Wendy (54:15)
โ
Okay, so that helps ladies. Thank you so much for answering that one. Let’s move on to the next one I think I might have done Kelsey on that one. So let’s put this one to you Marissa Challenge the belief that children deserve pain if we want to understand and overcome the culture How do we step into challenging this belief that? โ Which is really like an overarching belief that we deserve โ pain, but specifically for children
Marissa Burt (54:43)
Yes, โ I would say a couple things. โ One, I would say to everybody from every background, like we have good research that shows this is just not effective. Like if you’re looking for an effective way to teach or instruct or even correct, we’ve good 50 plus years of good research saying this isn’t effective. It’s correlated with increased behavioral problems, with more difficulty regulating, et cetera.
โ That’s set aside from the conversation about is it ethical, which is an important conversation to have. know, like do we inflict pain on other people who are under our care? Like do we inflict pain on people with cognitive disabilities or on elderly people under our care who can’t maybe understand? Because that’s often an excuse given. Well, children who are too little to understand or reason with, we should hit them.
But we simply don’t do this with other people who maybe don’t have the capacity to understand instruction or understand the reasons given. So there’s an ethical question there. And then I think given how we’re in some respects speaking specifically to Christian parents as well, I would say, look, this is not in alignment with the life and teaching of Jesus. Certainly, he had very strong words for people who hurt children or put stumbling blocks into the…
in front of their faith, both of which I think this teaching does. โ When he interacted with children, he welcomed them directly and personally and related to them. His interaction with them felt like a blessing on them. And his correction, his indignation, actually, it’s the only time he gets indignant with his disciples, is with the adults who would keep children from getting to him. โ Also, hitting children is at odds with the only explicit.
instruction Christian parents get in the New Testament, which is repeated twice for emphasis. Fathers do not provoke or embitter your children to anger. So I think for people looking for biblical kind of principles, that’s a good one. Like is the practice I’m doing embittering my child? Then I should not do that. I should find a different way. I should look to the other relational principles, one another in principles. Be patient, be long suffering, be forbearing, restore the one who sins gently. There’s a number of them. Love your…
neighbors, including your smallest and newest neighbors. Like, they’re just as such a wealth in the Christian tradition to say it’s the kindness of God that brings us to repentance. He defines himself as compassionate and long-suffering, slow to anger. So there’s much there for devout parents to consider. And I think it really invites the next question, which is what is it in me and my view of God or something about the world that believes when people
are underperforming or are misbehaving or made a mistake, that they need to be punished for that. what, because I really do think that’s at the root of it. This idea that we have, whether it’s parents venting their own anger, they’re so overwhelmed and frustrated and feel like that’s gonna feel, resolve something here, or this idea that what a child has done is so offensive to my parental authority and to God himself that it needs to be punished. And I’d say this is,
a pagan idea, this is not a Christian idea. So I think there’s a lot to challenge there and it does stir up tender spaces, but there’s an invitation there because if that’s not true, what does it mean that God so loves us that when he decides to show us what he’s like, he doesn’t come with punishment, he comes to be with us, to draw near to us, to connect with us, he becomes incarnate. And this invitation to love in that
Christlike way can be an invitation for ourselves to receive that radical grace and love of God. โ yeah, it often makes me think, last thing I’ll say on this point is it often makes me think there’s a story in the New Testament Jesus told of a man who had done things wrong and was expecting this kind of ruthless punishment from his master and expected that. he’s surprisingly forgiven.
Off the hook, set free, does not have this disastrous consequences on him and his family. And as he’s like leaving, he turns around and to someone under his care owes much less, has made much smaller mistake. And he decides to react with this exacting and ruthless way and says, throw him in jail. And I think that story, if we would let it settle with us is so…
says so much about the human condition, the way we’re so eager to see the specs in other people’s eyes, the way we are desperate to receive grace and compassion for ourselves, and yet so poorly equipped to turn around and extend that to other people. And yet that is the Christian invitation. That is the simplicity of the task given us to love God and love others in the way that he has loved us. I really think…
And I see it, we see it when we hear from people as they begin to consider an invitation out of this, they find deep places of themselves inside themselves healed as well, particularly if this is part of their story or something they’ve been trapped in. really, it really can set people free because when we say this teaching betrayed entire families, we mean that like, yes, children bear the brunt of this. also betrayed parents and everyone’s operating under this heavy yoke.
that says God is just waiting to pounce on us. And that is not good news. That is not the gospel of good news. โ So yeah, think, I can’t even remember the original question, but that’s where I meandered to get to. yeah.
Wendy (1:00:44)
I love it. Challenging
the belief that children deserve pain. And that’s what’s so interesting. seems, it feels like to me, โ it’s there seems to be like a splitting of the sea, so to speak, in Christian communities where there is a section of Christianity that is going harder than ever โ into culture that they are like.
Marissa Burt (1:00:48)
Yeah.
Yes.
Wendy (1:01:06)
going further down to confirm and justify that people do need, do deserve pain, including children. โ And the eye for an eye mentality and revenge, I mean, it’s just, is hard to understand how a section of Christianity could really feel good about that. And we see that it really is happening. โ And so just.
leading into that, โ knowing that there is a whole different section. I love your words. You said different corners of Christianity. You know, it feels like these different corners that are teaching different things and believing different things are so small. But when you add them up, they are big. And sometimes the loudest voices that come from these like very, very large accounts or mega churches. โ
It feels so scary, but just I think โ knowing that there are a lot of Christians who this is the basis of our faith that like once Jesus came into the picture, this was this this just things changed, you know, โ and compassion was the way. And so, yeah, God is waiting to pounce is something that is still I see by my students is really that they struggle through just yesterday with my full mastery students were having a conversation around like.
does God let bad things happen? And you can see some of the clients again who were raised deep in the evangelical circles. really are just, โ they really almost do believe that we have to endure the suffering. Life for them is a lot about the suffering and the pain. โ And yes, that is what we need. And so re-examining this, I love what you said about. โ
that can be such an invitation and that’s what my faith journey has looked like is it feels like it’s evolving it feels like it’s getting stronger as I start to release some of those things that I might have picked up that 12 years that I was in that world โ so thank you ladies I’m gonna leave it at four today because I feel like four ways that parents can understand and overcome the spanking culture that we discussed there are so many more ways that you guys cover in your book there are so many
โ More, like even more important, like different important points that you guys cover. โ But thank you. Thank you for just pouring into my community today. Thank you for sharing all of your thoughts and your wisdom and your experience and your education and your opinions on this. I know a lot of people are gonna be blessed through this book. I know a lot of children are gonna have a much different future because their parents now have more confidence and more safety.
to go that different route, the fork in the road that is before them, that they have more courage now because of this book. So let everybody know, I think I’ll pass it back to Kelsey now. Kelsey, let everyone know where they can find the book. โ And I think it’ll be out by the time this episode airs. โ Let us know, please, and where they can come find you guys. Follow your incredible work and even the music staff.
Kelsey McGinnis (1:04:22)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, yeah, you can find my writing at Christianity Today, but for this, the book comes out from Baker. You can, we’ll send you a link to put in the show notes where people can, if this show is going to come out after the book is out, that’s fine. We’ll send you just the regular, the link where it will be. You can pre-order it if it comes out before. It comes out October 14th. October 14th. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Wendy (1:04:46)
When does it drop again? October 14th. Okay, yeah.
Kelsey McGinnis (1:04:51)
So we’ll send you a link for the show notes for that. โ You can find both of us on Substack. both publish there โ and a lot of our content, as you said, Wendy, is on Instagram. โ I’m Kelsey K. McGinnis there. โ
And we love when people find us there and engage with stuff. We love finding you there, Wendy, and so appreciate the work that you’re doing with individuals to unpack this in their sort of personal context. That’s just work that I don’t get to do as a historian and a writer. And so I’m so grateful that there people who are doing that.
Marissa Burt (1:05:10)
you
Wendy (1:05:26)
Thank you. And how about you Marissa?
Marissa Burt (1:05:28)
Yes,
same. You can find me across social media at Embert Writes, and we talk about all these things and more, and would love to connect with you there. And if you do pre-order, we have some pre-order bonuses that tie into this topic, kind of making the Christian case against corporal punishment. reach out if that’s of interest to you.
Wendy (1:05:50)
That’s so good. And I will just add one more thing, Kelsey and Marissa, thank you for the mothering work you are doing with your human souls as this episode, we were recording it today after โ a day that was really hard in America. Yesterday we had our 57th, I think it was, in 2025 mass shooting at a school K through 12. And of course, as all of our hearts are breaking, โ thank you. Everything that you are teaching in this book and that you
advocating for is literally preventing this type of thing in the future and in a world that feels like it’s just so scary right now. Just thank you for raising your human souls in a different way where they’re not growing up with a and thinking that that’s the way that it’s get better and that it’s godly to punish and do these type of things. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for that.
Thanks for being on the show and thanks for listening, everybody.
