When Beating Children Was Called Faithfulness

My Time in Ethnos360

One of the most deeply troubling things about New Tribes Mission—now known as Ethnos360—is the widespread and normalized use of physical abuse against children.
Last year, someone called to tell me that a missionary in Missouri had gotten in trouble for abusing his foster child. I sat with it. Then I said something that still disturbs me: "If it was bad enough to get him in trouble, it probably wasn’t physical. It must’ve been sexual."
And I was right—it was sexual abuse.
But the fact that my mind automatically ruled out physical abuse as something the mission would even care about? That is terrifying. And telling.
Because physical abuse was not only common in the mission—it was taught. It was praised. It was spiritualized.

We were told to start spanking our children when they were babies. Six months old was the recommended starting point. The expectation was that you'd spank them repeatedly—on four or five swats at a time. For every little thing. So this might happen 15 times a day. And if they didn’t seem fully “submitted”—if their will wasn’t clearly broken—you were supposed to do it again. And again. And again. Until they were.

I’ve known five-year-olds who received 50 to 70 swats a day. With objects like wooden spoons, glue sticks, rulers.

When I entered the third year of training, the very first thing we were told was that spanking was illegal in that state—so we needed to be careful. We were advised to use code words around our kids so they wouldn’t accidentally say anything incriminating if CPS asked them.

Let that sink in: the concern wasn’t for the children, it was for the parents getting caught. It's just the first of many times that this organization has shown that they think they are above the law.

In that environment, the only way to be considered a “godly” parent was to spank consistently and harshly. If you didn’t spank every time your child misbehaved, you were told you were being disobedient to God—and in sin yourself. Parents who spanked their children to the point of submission were praised, even held up as examples during training.

It is relentless, institutionalized abuse.

And this isn’t something from the distant past. These kids are just now becoming adults. Many have not even realized yet how abusive their own parents were.
What happened—and is still happening—is not loving parenting. It’s violence disguised as obedience. And it needs to be named for what it is.

~unsigned