Gospel Prism

Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, said she plans to introduce a bill this week outlawing anyone from swatting children age 3 and younger. Violators could face up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine. I guess that would put the many Christians in the State of California, should the bill be passed and made law, into the position of being 1) a lawbreaker or 2) leave the state of California. Ultimately, I don’t think this bill will pass muster because of the 1st Amendment protections for the free exercise of religion. But should it pass, it will be interesting how the state could enforce such a law. Only if the state puts webcams in the homes all Christians, could this bill truly be enforced. But we will have many Christians who will choose to neglect Scripture’s clear teaching on this subject, or we will have many more law-breakers in this country.

The article also states that there are 17 countries who make corporal punishment by parents illegal:

Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Ukraine.

This is an interesting list of countries, because if we were also to do a comparison with those countries where the Gospel’s witness has been diminishing, these countries might be up there as well.