32 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 1, No. 1, 2010
Child Corporal Punishment in
Protestantism
If Hall had believed that the accounts of either
Mills or Reiterman with Jacobs were inaccurate,
then he could have criticized or qualified their
statements, as he did on other issues (see Hall,
1987: 167 [criticizing Reiterman with Jacobs],
338 n. 13 [qualifying Mills]). Instead, when he
discussed the physical child-abuse incidents that
they had reported, Hall dramatically downplayed
their extensiveness, their severity, and their
variability. As I have indicated, therefore, his
downplaying and under-representation of
various abuses is my first criticism of his use of
Peoples Temple and Jonestown’s child-abuse
incidents. By using them, however, he could
putatively locate the abuses within the context of
historical and contemporary Protestantism.
Locating them in this manner was crucial for his
argument, which was that most of the evils of
Jones and Jonestown “were widespread and
sometimes institutionalized practices in the
wider society” (Hall, 1987: 309 see xviii also
see Hall, 1982: 49 2000: 42 B. Moore, 1989:
551 Rigney 1988: 468). The anticult movement
focused on “Temple methods, healings, money-
making schemes, glorification of a prophet,
intimidation and punishment, public relations,
and political manipulations” (Hall, 1987: 309)
but (Hall asserted) these issues were similar to
what went on within society at large, and in that
broad societal context did not receive scrutiny
from the anticult movement.
Herein lies the second major problem with
Hall’s account: He minimized the extreme and
damaging punishments against children by
trying to equate them with the punishments that
various historic and contemporary Protestants
and modern Christian-related sects inflicted
upon their own children. The section in which he
attempted the comparison between Jonestown
and Protestantism is worth quoting at length:
Physical punishment in the [Peoples]
Temple certainly exceeded normative
standards of the modern middle class,
but Temple members were not
predominantly middle class.
Disciplinary practices of Peoples
Temple more resembled those of stern
Protestants, from the Puritans of
seventeenth century New England to
some modern fundamentalist sects. The
extremes of Protestant discipline are
marked by a Michigan sect whose
members accidentally beat a child to
death for his sins in 1984. More
representative of the sensibility is [the]
Northeast Kingdom Community, a
contemporaneous Christian religious
community in Island Pond, Vermont,
whose members had no apologies for
using rods and switches for ‘loving
correction’ of children, even if it left
marks on their bodies.
By a Puritan standard like that of Island
Pond, Temple discipline was not
excessive. (Hall, 1987: 125)
Worth noting, however, about Hall’s analogy
between Peoples Temple and Puritan and
fundamentalist Protestant punishments is that,
by minimizing their severity, he replicated a
criticism that he had made of the anticult
movement. He had criticized that movement for
ignoring issues of coercion in mainstream
religion, but he downplayed the severity of the
physical and emotional child abuse that brutal
corporal punishment entailed in the Peoples
Temple by analogizing it with Protestant child-
rearing practices.
Hall was at least correct in pointing out that the
beatings Jones oversaw on children bore some
resemblance to ones that children suffered in
various forms of fundamentalist and sectarian
Protestantism (see, for example, Ellison, 1996
Ellison, Bartkowski, and Segal, 1996). For
example, the groundbreaking book on Protestant
punishment techniques was Philip Greven’s
Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of
Punishment and the Psychological Impact of
Physical Abuse, and it appeared in 1991, which
was two years after Hall’s Jonestown study. On
the issue of beating children, Greven was
unequivocal in identifying “the pervasiveness of
such views about physical punishment among
fundamentalist, evangelical, and Pentecostal
Protestants, as well as many Americans of other
persuasions, both religious and secular” (Greven
1991: 40). Among those groups, “Puritan
Child Corporal Punishment in
Protestantism
If Hall had believed that the accounts of either
Mills or Reiterman with Jacobs were inaccurate,
then he could have criticized or qualified their
statements, as he did on other issues (see Hall,
1987: 167 [criticizing Reiterman with Jacobs],
338 n. 13 [qualifying Mills]). Instead, when he
discussed the physical child-abuse incidents that
they had reported, Hall dramatically downplayed
their extensiveness, their severity, and their
variability. As I have indicated, therefore, his
downplaying and under-representation of
various abuses is my first criticism of his use of
Peoples Temple and Jonestown’s child-abuse
incidents. By using them, however, he could
putatively locate the abuses within the context of
historical and contemporary Protestantism.
Locating them in this manner was crucial for his
argument, which was that most of the evils of
Jones and Jonestown “were widespread and
sometimes institutionalized practices in the
wider society” (Hall, 1987: 309 see xviii also
see Hall, 1982: 49 2000: 42 B. Moore, 1989:
551 Rigney 1988: 468). The anticult movement
focused on “Temple methods, healings, money-
making schemes, glorification of a prophet,
intimidation and punishment, public relations,
and political manipulations” (Hall, 1987: 309)
but (Hall asserted) these issues were similar to
what went on within society at large, and in that
broad societal context did not receive scrutiny
from the anticult movement.
Herein lies the second major problem with
Hall’s account: He minimized the extreme and
damaging punishments against children by
trying to equate them with the punishments that
various historic and contemporary Protestants
and modern Christian-related sects inflicted
upon their own children. The section in which he
attempted the comparison between Jonestown
and Protestantism is worth quoting at length:
Physical punishment in the [Peoples]
Temple certainly exceeded normative
standards of the modern middle class,
but Temple members were not
predominantly middle class.
Disciplinary practices of Peoples
Temple more resembled those of stern
Protestants, from the Puritans of
seventeenth century New England to
some modern fundamentalist sects. The
extremes of Protestant discipline are
marked by a Michigan sect whose
members accidentally beat a child to
death for his sins in 1984. More
representative of the sensibility is [the]
Northeast Kingdom Community, a
contemporaneous Christian religious
community in Island Pond, Vermont,
whose members had no apologies for
using rods and switches for ‘loving
correction’ of children, even if it left
marks on their bodies.
By a Puritan standard like that of Island
Pond, Temple discipline was not
excessive. (Hall, 1987: 125)
Worth noting, however, about Hall’s analogy
between Peoples Temple and Puritan and
fundamentalist Protestant punishments is that,
by minimizing their severity, he replicated a
criticism that he had made of the anticult
movement. He had criticized that movement for
ignoring issues of coercion in mainstream
religion, but he downplayed the severity of the
physical and emotional child abuse that brutal
corporal punishment entailed in the Peoples
Temple by analogizing it with Protestant child-
rearing practices.
Hall was at least correct in pointing out that the
beatings Jones oversaw on children bore some
resemblance to ones that children suffered in
various forms of fundamentalist and sectarian
Protestantism (see, for example, Ellison, 1996
Ellison, Bartkowski, and Segal, 1996). For
example, the groundbreaking book on Protestant
punishment techniques was Philip Greven’s
Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of
Punishment and the Psychological Impact of
Physical Abuse, and it appeared in 1991, which
was two years after Hall’s Jonestown study. On
the issue of beating children, Greven was
unequivocal in identifying “the pervasiveness of
such views about physical punishment among
fundamentalist, evangelical, and Pentecostal
Protestants, as well as many Americans of other
persuasions, both religious and secular” (Greven
1991: 40). Among those groups, “Puritan
