[forty-two]

Originally Posted by mommy2abigail

Can you tell me what ELCA stands for?

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

---------- Post added at 03:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:38 PM ----------

Grace-based parenting fits in *perfectly* with Lutheran doctrine - it's actually how I got my dh on board with GBD in the first place. He went from mainstream punitive to GBD through discussions of the underlying theology, and is just as against punitive Christian teachers as I am (they invariably distort the Gospel in their attempts to justify their position).

But, alas, while GBD is a great practical outworking of Lutheran theology - and certainly Lutheran pastors aren't preaching "Thou shalt spank" sermons - my experience as a life-long Lutheran (LCMS) is that we largely match the larger culture wrt to most culture-driven beliefs/traits (as opposed to having a deliberate counter-culture). And that, ime, has meant mainstream punitive, along with a general sense of approval of Dobson , which largely reflects the larger culture of the places in which I've lived. There seems to be this huge disconnect, where Lutherans preach grace so very, very well, but then just adopt the default Christian and/or conservative method of discipline, and *never* *ever* realize that the latter contradicts the former .

However, the grace-filled Lutheran theology has, ime, moderated greatly the actual practice of child-rearing. To hear my parents talk, they are straight up adversarial Dobson fans. But they actually pretty much GBD'd us . While I am in the minority at my church with GBD, no one looks down on me for it, and everyone agrees (to my face, at least) that it is a legitimate approach, even if they don't believe it to be the best approach, and I rarely see examples of punitive parenting at church, whatever their stated philosophy.