Christians react to Creflo Dollar arrest incident, share their experiences & offer Biblical principles in parenting
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CREFLO Dollar, one of the most prominent African-American preachers in the US with 30,000 members in the Atlanta area, got the rudest shock of his life when police swooped down on his house and hauled him up for allegedly punching and choking his youngest daughter on June 8.
His 15-year-old daughter Tiffany Dollar called emergency number 911 at about 1 am. According to the police report, Dollar’s daughter said he ‘put his hands around her throat and began to choke her … then slammed her to the ground, punched her and beat her with his shoe.’ There was a scratch on her neck, police said.
Trouble erupted after she and her father argued when he said she couldn’t go to a party. Police report said Dollar punched her and hit her with his shoe.
After corroborating the incident with Dollar’s 19-year-old daughter, who witnessed the attack, Dollar was arrested on charges of simple battery, family violence and child cruelty. He spent the night in Fayette County Jail before posting $5,000 bail. He was released later.
However, the following Sunday Dollar told churchgoers that he did not beat her.
“The truth is, she was not choked, she was not punched,” the pastor, said before delivering his Sunday sermon at World Changers Church International in Atlanta on June 10.
Dollar said he spanked his daughter and wrestled her to the kitchen floor after she raised her hand at him. “I never should have been arrested,” Dollar said.
Although we may not know what really happened at the Dollar household, the incident has brought parenting at Christian homes into focus. Like Dollar himself said of the incident later, “like all of us who are parents (know), there are times when discipline and training our kids can become pretty intense.” Without trying to be judgmental, The Christian Messenger tried to put the issue of Christian parenting in perspective by speaking to almost a dozen Christians many of whom are parents themselves. We raised seven questions with each one of them besides seeing if there were any Biblical solutions to the issue at hand.
Chandy Kurien, director E-carg Outsourced Services Pvt Ltd associated with Alpha Group of Institutions and a member St. Paul’s Marthoma Syrian Church in Adyar, Chennai, sympathizes with the Dollar family, “particularly Mrs. Dollar who is in a dilemma. She has to side her husband, though she is supposed to be a rock and refuge to her daughters.”
However, Chackochen Mathai, a marriage counselor, feels Dollar should not have been arrested. “Because it’s his child. Will the government discipline her,” he asks.
The incident made Preena Deepak, a freelance writer and the mother of a girl child, realize that “even those in the ministry could make mistakes.” She, however, justifies the police action. “I didn’t expect the police to be Christians or believers and so their action seems alright. After all, they are paid to handle the cases that come up on the line,” she says.
N Joshua, who works with The Hindu in Bangalore, feels the police action on Dollar was completely unwarranted. “All media houses would have chewed on the news that day. Very unfortunate,” he says.
Elwin Jesudas, a former media professional in Hyderabad, agrees with Joshua. “I think the police just overreacted without going through the facts of the case,” he says.
Ebenezer Lawrence, founder-director of De’Arc HRD a soft skills development and HR company, toes the neutral line when he says the police reaction would have differed in another country with another set of laws.
Asked if corporal punishment can be termed as cruelty to children as in the case of Dollar, C D Jebasingh of Galilean International Film and TV Service based in Mumbai, guffaws: “As a former airline official, I have known the US of A like the palm of my hand. It’s funny country with funny rules.”
Pastor Joshua Edwin of Chennai says: “Corporal punishment cannot be termed as cruelty. However, it can lead to it as it did in this case.”
Reuben Joseph, who lives in the US, says “if Dollar had choked his daughter, then it is definitely cruelty and not corporal punishment.”
However, Enoch Tamilselvan who lives with his wife and two children in Dubai, feels sparing the rod is the first step toward spoiling the child.
Kurien agrees with Tamilselvan. “Pastor Dollar has the right and responsibility to discipline his disobedient and disrespectful teenager. If he had said that she could not go for the party that should have been the end of the conversation.”
Dr. WMS Johnson, a medical teaching professional who has two teenage daughters, says although corporal punishment cannot be termed as cruelty, it works among school students.
Creflo Dollar in his Sunday sermon after the incident talked about the ‘difficulty in dealing with teenage children’ in a ‘culture of disrespect’. We asked our respondents what their experience had been.
“I have no daughters; however I have granddaughters. I did not spare the rod when my son was growing up. But it was not for disrespect or disobedience. It was more because I was not ‘saved’ then. I had not let Holy Spirit to have control over me,” says Kurien striking a penitent note.
Mathai, however, feels it is difficult to deal with the current generation. “There is no respect in this generation. Children take things for granted these days. They consider their teachers, elders and parents equals,” he says.
Pastor Edwin feels they can be handled well if parents give their teens sufficient space and understand the changes that happen within a teenager.
Although the culture and peer pressure are to blame for the behavior of teens, Reuben Joseph is sure children brought up in the Lord and His ways are not as disrespectful as the other children. “However, there are exceptions. No matter how well they are brought up, some kids do rebel.”
Although Preena Deepak’s daughter is not a teen yet, she says she has observed “a tendency in her to be disrespectful and defy authority even now. It kind of makes me shudder to think of her as a teenager.”
She says the trend of disrespect for elders and authority among teenagers is a growing concern not just for parents but for teachers also in schools. “Children no longer have respect for teachers or elders,” she adds.
While Joshua blames the malaise on the Western culture, Lawrence says bringing up children in God’s way by imparting them the Word of God from a young age is the solution.
We asked parents to tell us from their experience if corporal punishment works.
“Sometimes it does, especially when I take the time later to explain to my daughter and help her understand why she was punished. It also depends on the problem being addressed. Some issues do get resolved with corporal punishments but in some cases the issue explodes,” Deepak says.
Joshua reminisced about his own younger days and said: “It has worked. What I am today is because of the strict discipline at home.”
However, the child’s age matters too. “Corporal punishment doesn’t work on a teenager,” says Joseph.
Almost all the respondents we interviewed said they had been hit by their parents and all of them were grateful for the discipline.
Asked if he had been spanked by his father, Kurien said: “I have taken a lot of beatings from my dad.” Although he resented it then, later he realized that children represented their parents when they stepped out of their homes and their actions will be judged not on them but on their parents.
“By the time the realization sank into me, my father was dead and gone,” rues Kurien. “The biggest hurt is a hurt experienced by a parent when a child betrays him. Jesus touched me in later years, healed hearts and restored relationships.”
Although Pastor Edwin admits he too was hit as a child, he says: “A milder approach would have driven the folly out of me.”
The Tamilselvan couple who have taken their share of beatings as children say beating a child in public is detrimental to him. “Parents should not intimidate their children,” they say.
Jesudas is filled with gratitude when he thinks of his parents. “I thank the Lord and my parents for their disciplining made me a better person. I am also grateful to my teachers who were strict and resorted to corporal punishment when the need arose,” he says.
Some parents like Dr. Johnson rubbished recent studies that claimed harsh parenting can impair the emotional development of a child.
Asked what was the Biblical solution to the issue, Kurien had a verse each for children (“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you – Exodus 20:12) and parents alike (‘Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord – Ephesians 6:24).
Mathai wanted a strict enforcement of Proverbs 13:24 in all Christian families. The verse is quoted thus in NIV: ‘Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.’
Reuben Joseph said only constant and unrelenting prayer can tackle the issue.
Says Preena Deepak: “When I discipline my child, I also talk to her later on why I had to hit her and then I even apologize if I had been too rude. The next thing we do is both of us pray together. She prays for me and I pray for her. These are issues that really get settled and only when I do this I can see changes in my daughter. I believe that it’s our prayers that make all the difference and nothing else. God is the only one who can help a child from going astray and our prayers make this happen.”
Lawrence who quoted Deuteronomy 6: 7 (‘Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up’) and Proverbs 22: 6 (‘Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.’) said: “The best and forceful example of punishing children is recorded in Hebrews 12: 6-11 as God chastening us. It is because “He considers punishing only His children whom He loves” or else we are bastards. What a strong expression that we can hold on without getting confused.”
Realizing the pitfalls and challenges of parenting in a stressful and degenerate world, Elwin Jesudas points to Jesus Christ as the ultimate solution: “It is very difficult these days for the parents to control the teens, but we can take solace that we have a God who can help us. When He has blessed us with children, He will also provide the grace to bring them up in His fear and knowledge.”
