Christian Domestic Discipline

Why talk about this?

While not by any means mainstream, the practice of wife-beating, disciplining, or spanking, is a reality in subcurrents of various patriarchal churches and denominations, including small followings in fundamentalist and reformed circles. 

This practice is often referred to as “Christian Domestic Discipline”, and while not all proponents of the idea will take this label, many do. I will be referring to the lifestyle and concept of wife disciplining or spanking from now on in this article by this label, abbreviated “CDD”. 

Recently, author Tia Levings, from the Shiny Happy People documentary, talked about her experience with CDD in a reformed church affiliated with Moscow pastor Douglas Wilson. She shared her experience being coerced into signing a contract claiming the behavior was consensual and shares how she was aware many of the other families in their church were also practicing this lifestyle behind closed doors. 

In the past few weeks, Steven Anderson, a controversial fundamentalist pastor known for his outspoken and hateful rhetoric toward the LGBTQ+ community, has recently garnered attention again, after multiple of Anderson’s adult children testified to horrible physical and emotional abuse in the Anderson household. 

Multiple of Steven’s children alleged that he practiced wife discipline, or CDD, in his home and Steven has made multiple statements saying that he doesn’t think the practice is wrong and defending the way he used corporal punishment on his children and his wife. 

NIFB Pastors are scrambling to address the issues, with multiple NIFB pastors preaching sermons on what the Bible says about ‘wife spanking’ or ‘Christian Domestic Discipline’. Anderson has still manage to rally a few supporters, such as NIFB pastor Jonathan Shelley going on his podcast, The Baptist Bias, to defend the practice.

For me this subject is painfully close to home. This is something I’ve held back from talking about in my life, because it’s so painful, but I’ve felt increasingly led to speak out about it in the recent weeks. 

Part of the reason for my decision is because if you google CDD, you will find ton of websites and blogs promoting this lifestyle, but I have yet to come across anyone sharing how this lifestyle has hurt them. I’ve found a few articles mentioning this and telling people that it is a “thing” but most of them just dismissed it as so ridiculous it wasn’t worth their time to refute. 

I want to write this so that when people google “Christian Domestic Discipline”, something else will come up–the truth. 

I can’t write any of this without crying and I’ve spent several weeks typing and backspacing, trying to get up the courage to put these words on a page and release them into the universe. 

When I felt like I couldn’t write this anymore, I reminded myself who I was writing this for. 

I’m writing this for “Jeni” who commented on one of these blogs, terrified and afraid…five days postpartum. Her husband is going to discipline her for being “disrespectful” to him during labor. He also regulates her nursing times and won’t let her feed her baby when she needs to. He’s insisting on resuming sex in just a few days. because he thinks he knows her body better than the doctor. She commented, terrified, saying that’s she kindly asked him to reconsider or at least delay her punishment but that he has ordered her not to speak to him about it again. She wanted to know if it would be wrong to talk to their pastor about it and worries that God is “testing her through fear” and she is failing. 

I’m also writing for “Ariel”, whose husband is forcing her to become pregnant at a very young age and telling her he’s going to discipline her if she refuses. She says this: 

“I don’t think I can handle being spanked. He said he’d do it whether I thought I could handle it or not. I know he means it. He’s strong enough to overpower me, and I’m just scared. How is this right? I’ve prayed over it, and I found this website, but fear is all I can feel right now. I don’t want to be afraid of my husband, and I don’t think I deserve to be punished for making a mistake or for arguing with him. How is pain and fear part of a loving marriage?” (emphasis added)

She got told that it was perfectly within her husband’s rights to do this to her, that she should have a baby even if she didn’t want to, and that her husband was saving their marriage by starting this lifestyle. She was told that “it (CDD) will be very fulfilling…once you let go of your desires and come to be more grounded in Christ.” 

Both men and women sweet talk young explorers who find their way to these sites, taking advantage of the childhood trauma that stirs these desires in them, and exploiting it. Hurting, vulnerable young women and disillusioned, restless young men get told that they were created to embrace a lifestyle where husbands make lists of rules and then punish their wives for breaking them. “You wouldn’t have googled this if you didn’t know inside that you want this,” they get told. “You’re curious about this because it’s what you were designed for. Let go of your hesitations. Embrace God’s design for marriage!” 

I was young and vulnerable and hurting. I was curious and traumatized and overwhelmed by a curiosity and obsession I’d felt since I was a toddler. The lies and the empty promises almost sucked me in. If you googled “Christian Domestic Discipline” and came to this page, I implore you to stay and read my story. 

“I was born like this.” 

Like many parents in IFB, my parents practiced regular and harsh corporal punishment, that involved a variety of concepts from abusive parenting ‘experts’ like Michael and Debi Pearl. Obviously, I don’t remember everything that happened to me when I was 1 and 2. But I remember the books we had on our bookshelves, the things our pastors would say, and what happened to my younger siblings. 

We did blanket training, where an infant is placed on a blanket and spanked every time they move off of it. We were taught never to say no, even if we were afraid. As a little child, my biggest fear was spiders. I was terrified of them. There was this creepy black spider cutout, as large as the palm of my hand, that was stuck to our fridge for some reason. I was terrified of it. My mother felt the need for me to conquer my fear, at the tender age of 4 or 5, so she ordered me to touch the spider. I was petrified and cried and begged, refusing to do it. When I wouldn’t, she spanked me till I did. 

There are memories I can’t share because it hurts too bad to share them in a public space. What I’ve chosen to share is very carefully worded and intentionally vague for the sake of protecting my family and myself. 

Let me just put it this way. Remember “To Train Up a Child?” by Michael and Debi Pearl? We did all that. The blanket training. Our little wills were ‘broken’. The extreme interpretations of Bible verses to justify disciplining a child to the point of leaving bruises or marks. All of it. And it was all done with the best of intentions. 

It seemed to work. I was obedient…and scarred internally. But behind the obedient, broken facade, there was something else that my parents couldn’t see. As long as I can remember back, even at 3 and 4, I had an obsession with ‘spanking’. I would wait till everyone was asleep at night and line up my dolls and beat them with a tiny little toy pink belt. I created entire universes with complicated characters and storylines that had pornographic, highly fetishized plots that were frighteningly identical to adult novels. I remember this very clearly from when I was 4. At the same time, I was terrified of my parents’ discipline which would cause me nightmares and a myriad of incidents I still can’t think about today without crying. The fantasies were filled with a tension of shame and arousal, reliving what I felt whenever my parents ‘disciplined’ me.

I now understand that at a very young age my brain was trying to cope with the trauma by sexualizing it, a very common occurrence in childhood abuse. I didn’t understand that when I was 4, or when I was 5, or when I was 11. I don’t fully understand it now. While I don’t want to debate whether child corporal punishment is always wrong, I think the way we practiced it in IFB was wrong and harmful and often abusive. And done inappropriately or abusively, it can definitely lead to sexual feelings in young children. I’d encourage to check out this article by Sheila Gregoire to understand what I’m saying a little better. I’d encourage you to read this article and then come back to mine– it will help you understand it better! 

I’ll share more of my story later, and how I uncovered the world of CDD and was sucked into it, but I was in my mid teens when I started to understand how my attraction towards an abusive lifestyle was connected to my early childhood. When I realized it, I felt so broken. I knew I was broken. I suddenly felt a strong empathy towards people with same sex attraction and their stories about having been “born this way”. I was wrecked, because I had been this way as long as I could remember, and it didn’t seem fair. 

Before I go any farther, I want to clarify something. My early childhood trauma and attraction towards this was not my choice or my fault. It was a psychological and biological response to trauma that I had no control over. I was too young to understand it, much less have any control over it. However, my choice later in life to pursue this brokenness as lifestyle was my choice and I take responsibility for it. It didn’t make things better, it only made things worse. 

Again, it is very painful for me to talk about this and share this, I’m only doing it because I know I’m not the only one in the world, and maybe someone can read this and leave an abusive relationship or understand their attraction towards this lifestyle and get help. 

What does the Bible teach about CDD? 

There are a lot of specific arguments that CDD proponents pull from the Bible, all of which involve picking random verses and stringing them together, wildly out of context. I’m happy to refute any specific argument anyone gives me. But I want to speak to the biggest and most compelling reason that I don’t think Christians can practice this or condone it: CDD makes a mockery of the Gospel. 

While I can’t speak for every person practicing this, very common themes circulate as part of the rationale behind this practice. I cannot count the myriad of women who have said that being disciplined ‘cleanses’ them from their ‘guilt’ or ‘sin’, or used similar language to state that they need to be disciplined to pay for whatever offense they committed, in order to forgive themselves. This is not just commonly talked about by people in the movement, it is taught by the proponents of it. 

Proponents would use passages like Ephesians 5:26 and say that the husband is “washing her with the word” and “making her holy” by disciplining her to make her behave better. 

Here are some quotes illustrating this. 

• “A husband should know he is working with a wife’s inner being, and healing her heart. He both chastises the badly behaved wife, and reshapes her inside.”

•  “Yet by the end of the correction, and when she is restored by her husband, she returns to the beautiful and unashamed body we know in the light of Jesus. She is clothed again in righteousness.” 

• “While she fears the (discipline), she almost wants it to come, because she knows she needs it. She knows it is her best chance to hear the words of correction and say her own words that heal her. Between the humble experience of being spanked, her man’s words, and her own words, she knows the guilt is in the past, and her deed will be forgotten. She feels clean. She knows inside that she is.”

• “I believe cleansing the guilt, especially, is spiritual, among other things.” (context is referring to the act of wife-spanking)

• Every stroke is a payment for her wrongdoing, and she should understand that pain as washing her clean

I’ve chosen not to link to the website, because I really hope you don’t go check this out since it’s so dark, but this is from a very prominent website by a Christian man promoting this. He has a Gospel presentation on his website that is theologically normal and sound, yet he promotes the worst kind of abuse and describes beating his wife over things like forgetting to do certain chores. There are numerous other websites very similar to this, all calling themselves “Christian” and saying they are just promoting Biblical concepts about gender and family and husband/wife roles. 

Note: While this is whole separate discussion, I want to note that most of the proponents of CDD would also promote ‘sexual submission’, which is nothing more than marital rape in its lowest form. They would justify this with their distorted view of gender roles and authority within marriage, and some would go so far as to even say that a husband can forcibly rape his wife and there is nothing sinful about that. Most of them would agree that a husband can compel his wife to do anything he wants her to do, and that if she refuses, he can discipline her for it. Again, this is a whole different topic, but I did want to mention that these things usually go hand in hand in the CDD world, due to the twisted teaching on gender and submission. I also want to note that families living a CDD lifestyle often practice this as a ‘whole family’ thing, and don’t keep it confined to their marriage. CDD often involves very abusive punishment of little children and the abuse will often continue into adulthood, with adolescent and adult daughters being subjected to this till they marry. Again, not everyone who practices CDD does this, but it is sadly not uncommon. 

This brings me to the main thing I want to say about CDD. CDD distorts the Gospel by making Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross ineffectual and insufficient while encouraging behaviors in both men and women that do not reflect the fruit of an experience with the grace of Jesus Christ. 

The truth is that Jesus has already paid for our sins, and if you can’t find sufficient cleansing in his blood, there is nothing else that can take your guilt from you. Being free from sin and walking in Christ is not Jesus’s atonement+being cleansed any other way. 

CDD appeals to our bent towards works righteousness. It is attractive because all of us struggle to rest in the mercy of Jesus and believe that is enough for us. It provides something else to take guilt away in addition to Jesus, which basically means that no one who practices this really believes the Gospel is enough. 

I want to be very clear, I think there are genuine Christians who have fallen into this trap, or experienced trauma that makes this lifestyle attractive to them, and I’m not saying that if you struggle with this that you have never believed the Gospel. Believing the Gospel for the first time saves you. But to live for Jesus and experience the abundant life he has promised, we need to keep believing the Gospel, moment by moment, day by day. For myself, when I struggle with this, it’s because in that moment, I am not believing the Gospel. In that moment, I don’t believe Jesus paid for it enough, that he forgave me enough, that he made me righteous enough. I want to add to it. 

In those moments, I’m choosing to believe that I need to pay for my sins, instead of believing the Gospel: that Jesus paid it all. 

It’s tempting. Even if you don’t practice CDD, we all have ways of trying to absolve our guilt apart from the Gospel. Some of us want to pay for it. Some of us want to be distracted from it. Some of us try to forget it. But without the Good News, it is still there, always lurking in the background, ready to swallow us. 

Does Ephesians 5:22-33 teach CDD or allow for it?

CDD mocks the Gospel because marriage is supposed to be a picture of Christ’s relationship with the church, his bride. Proponents of CDD will argue that since the husband is told to relate to the wife as Christ does to the church, this includes discipline because God also disciplines his children. However, a careful reader will notice that God’s chastening of his children is only ever spoken about in the Bible in a ‘father-son’ relationship. 

Furthermore, Ephesians does not tell husbands to treat their wife like Christ does the church in every aspect. That would make husbands to be play acting God. It says one specific way a husband is supposed to model Christ: he is supposed to love his wife and give himself for her, just like Christ gave himself for the church. That’s it. It doesn’t go farther than that. It doesn’t say, “Husbands, discipline your wife like Christ does the church.” It doesn’t say, “Husbands, be responsible for sanctifying your wife and ridding her of her faults.” It doesn’t say, “Husbands, be to your wife like Christ is to the church in every possible way.” 

It doesn’t say that husbands are responsible for making their wives holy–it is simply describing what Jesus has already done for us in the Gospel. If this was telling husbands that it is their responsibility to sanctify their wives, then where does that leave us single women? What about men, how are they sanctified? To take the description of what Christ has already accomplished for the church in the Gospel and attempt to add to it by saying that husbands are responsible for bringing about this sanctification in their wives, is ridiculous and belittles the finished work of Christ. There are numerous passages in the NT that point to Christ as the one who begins and completes our sanctification, by his own power, due to his own sacrifice. (1 Thes 5:23-24, Phil 1:6 & 2:12-13). 

Proponents of CDD would use passages like Ephesians 5:26 and say that the husband is “washing her with the word” and “making her holy” by disciplining her to make her behave better. But just like we saw, this part of the passage is not prescriptive action for husbands and is merely a description of what Christ has already accomplished in the church, through his fully effectual work. Even if someone was to take that view–that it is a husband’s job to make his wife holy and sanctify her–they would still be ignoring how the passage says Christ accomplishes this. 

The passage makes things clear by describing how Christ accomplishes this work of sanctification in his bride–hint: it is not by beating her. In fact, it says the way that Christ made the church holy and clean is by giving himself for her. 

Furthermore, vs. 28-29 say that a husband is to love his wife as his own body. If you are really going to use this passage to justify CDD, you would have to argue that a husband should beat himself when he sins too. Otherwise, he has a double standard and is not really treating her body the same way he treats his. Obviously, that is ridiculous. 

Point is, this entire passage, which is one of the most common ones used to justify this lifestyle, not only doesn’t support it but makes it out of the question for any couple who claims to be following Jesus. 

Worst of all, CDD spits in the face of Jesus and says that what he has done on the cross was not enough. It mocks the Holy Spirit and says His indwelling for our sanctification is not enough. It mocks God the Father and says that he’s not really powerful enough to bring a wife’s sanctification to completion, without the help of her husband beating on her. It mocks the Gospel in the grossest imaginable way. 

Here’s the gospel: Jesus was beaten and tortured in my place. He gave himself for me, for my sins. That is the Gospel. 

That is what Christian marriage should look like– selfless love and protection and giving, not the husband beating his wife to punish her for her sins. There is no way you can read that passage in context and truthfully say that a husband who is imitating Christ will punish his wife for her faults, in any way. To say that takes the point Paul is making and flips it on its head. 

The passage is saying that the husband should imitate Christ’s love and the example of Christ’s love he gives is that Christ gave his life for the church. It’s saying the way husbands and wives should relate to each other should be based on the love and sacrifice Jesus has shown us in the Gospel. 

CDD emasculates the Gospel and tells women that simply because of their gender, they cannot be fully restored or forgiven till they are punished through a grotesque act of abuse, at the hands of their husbands. The Gospel is the same for women as it is for men. We all are forgiven the same way, through the same sacrifice of Jesus. There is nothing else. 

If you can’t accept that you are forgiven by God without being punished by your husband, you do not understand how much love God has for you. 

Perfect love casts out fear.”

1 John 4 gives clear, beautiful instructions on how Christians should love each other. The famous passage focuses on two things: How God has loved us and how we should show that love to each other. 

Vs 10: “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.” 

Here, like all throughout the Bible, Jesus’s sacrifice and selfless death is connected to how we should exemplify love for each other throughout the body of Christ, which most definitely includes husbands and wives. 

We should love each other because we are in awe of the love we  have received from God when he sent his Son to atone for our sins. This is love. And how we interact with each other should be based on the fact that God has already paid for our sins in Christ and that we have been the undeserving recipients of this great gift.

But it doesn’t stop there. Vs. 18: “There is no fear in love; instead perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. We love because he first loved us.”

This should be very clear, but follow the logic here with me anyway. Here’s the progression: 

1. Perfect love does not have fear of punishment as a motivation. 

2. If you are afraid of punishment, you are not experiencing perfect love. 

3. Our motivation for loving God is not that he’s going to punish us, but that he loved us first. 

If you are living in a CDD relationship or think you want to be in one, I want you to know that CDD is not real love. It involves fear. It involves punishment. You will never be completely loved in such a relationship. You never can. 

The love that Jesus is offering you is complete. There’s nothing you have to add to it. It’s free. It’s perfect. 

We do deserve to be punished for our sins. But when you believe the Gospel, you are acknowledging that Jesus was whipped and humiliated and tortured in your place, and because he did that, your guilt is gone.

You husband cannot punish you for sins that God already punished Jesus for. It’s not fair. 

You cannot punish yourself for sins that God already punished Jesus for. It’s not fair. 

You are righteous just like Jesus is righteous. If you have believed the Gospel, you are risen and raised with Christ and there is NO one, not even Satan himself, who can dare to bring an accusation against you. Jesus has already taken care of all of it. 

“If God is for us, who is against us? He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all…Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies…Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised, he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.” (Romans 8:31-34)

It is an insult to Jesus to say that his torture and death was not enough to pay for your sins, and you still need to be punished more for it.

The Gospel is what your heart is craving, and you can have it, for free. It’s the only thing that can heal the wounds of your past. It’s the only thing that can heal you from the damage your sin has caused. It’s the only thing that can restore you, in this life and the next. 

So this?: “A husband should know he is working with a wife’s inner being, and healing her heart. He both chastises the badly behaved wife, and reshapes her inside.” This is blasphemy. 

Jesus is the only one who can reshape you and change your inner being. Jesus is the only one who can heal you. Jesus is the only one who can wash away your sins and make you righteous before a Holy God. In the famous words of Robert Lowery:

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

For my pardon this I see:

nothing but the blood of Jesus.

For my cleansing this my plea:

nothing but the blood of Jesus.

This is all my hope and peace:

nothing but the blood of Jesus.

This is all my righteousness:

nothing but the blood of Jesus.

I get it…

If you are reading this and you are confused because you have always been attracted to this and it brings you satisfaction, whether emotionally or sexually, I want to say I understand. 

I grew up in a home where I was regularly and harshly spanked, sometimes crossing the line into physical abuse, and I sexualized it at a very young age. The memories from my past hurt too much for me to talk about, but I understand now that my brain was processing trauma in the only way it knew how. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember. I remember being 4 and 5 years old and fantasizing about things that were just as awful as anything from a fetish novel or blog. When I got older and discovered CDD, it felt like I had found something I had been searching for for a long time. I felt seen and understood. I felt relieved that I wasn’t the only person in the world who wanted this. 

I was lied to and told that the reason I wanted this was because it was God’s design for marriage and family. I was told that I would never be happy till I was in a relationship like this because it was what I was created for and my desires were just proof of that. 

I knew inside that it wasn’t true. I knew it was disgusting and abusive. I knew that I just wanted it because I was traumatized from my childhood experiences. I knew that there was nothing remotely ‘Christian’ about it. But I let myself be deceived because I thought “I have been this way as long as I can remember, this is just who I am now.” 

My best friend tried to talk me out of it because she could see the only reason I wanted it was because I was hurting. She told me the same things I’ve written in this article, over and over again. “Jesus already paid for your sins.” “This is not real love, this is abuse.” “You need to heal from your past, not exploit it.” 

I didn’t listen and would get very angry at her and verbally and emotionally abuse her, all while she was trying to help me. 

But later, it got worse. I hurt her horribly and when I realized what I had done, I was overcome with guilt. She wouldn’t forgive me and I couldn’t believe that God would either. I thought I had to pay for it. I was desperate, hurting and vulnerable. I was facing homelessness and didn’t have any money. I thought a quick marriage into a CDD relationship would solve lots of problems. Maybe I would finally be happy. 

I knew that being in an abusive marriage would hurt me. But I thought I deserved to be hurt. I deserved to have a miserable life. I did NOT deserve to be forgiven. 

After years of reading CDD blogs, I got dangerously close to practicing it in real life. There were several men I talked to. Some of them were interested in marrying me. Some lived close to my home. They all claimed to be good Christians, even Baptists. One of them was a doctor who was in his 50’s. I didn’t care. 

I was flirting with death. I knew it. But I was so convinced that if I didn’t try this, I would never be happy. I couldn’t bring myself to accept that I had been abused. The only way I knew to cope was to tell myself what had happened to me was okay and it was okay for that to happen again in the future. 

I wasn’t really sure about anything and I was drowning in pain and trauma, but one day I decided to try believing the Gospel. I sent this email to cut off a relationship with one of the men I had been talking to. I want to share it with you.  

The person I wrote this to was 12 years older than me and told me that all he wanted from a marriage was good food and sex, he didn’t want to love his wife or have to spend time with her. I was so hurt and broken that I told him it was fine, he didn’t have to love me. I wrote him this letter when I finally came to my senses. 

“Jacob (name changed): 

I’m sorry for putting my ad out online. Christian Domestic Discipline has been a fantasy of mine for a long time, but as hard as I try, I cannot reconcile it with the life and character of the Lord Jesus. While it is something I really want to pursue, it’s only because I don’t truly believe the love Jesus has for me and am looking to still atone for my own sins by someone holding me responsible for them. I’m not a very good Christian, but God has convicted me so much the past few days about chasing after something that will only bring spiritual death and destruction. To embrace CDD, I would have to turn my back on the Gospel. I am struggling to believe it, but I know it is that Jesus paid for my sins and I can never pay for them myself. Marriage is supposed to be a picture of Gospel love–Jesus who bought his bride with his own blood. Rather than punishing us for the sins we’ve committed, he was tortured in our place. Husbands are called to love their wives with this kind of sacrifice, not beat them. 

You said I was a rare person. I’m not. I’m as broken as the rest of us, if not more. I’m the most broken person I know. And I’m running from Jesus’s love and trying to find it in the unhealthiest ways possible. I didn’t tell you anything last night that wasn’t true. You were talking to the real me. But I need to change. And as much as I want CDD, I know that Jesus has something better planned for me, married or single. I’m incredibly humbled to have to write this but I owe you an apology and an explanation. I understand you might be very angry with me and I probably deserve it. I accept full responsibility for my reckless actions and any pain I might have caused you.

Sincerely, 

Thea

I finally let go of my delusion that it was ok and that it could make me happy, and when I did, I started to heal and grow in my relationship with the Lord. 

While I can’t pretend that I’m not still attracted to it, I completely denounce CDD as unbiblical and abusive and recognize that the reason I am attracted to it stems from childhood abuse that I’m now actively trying to heal from. 

Just because I was “born this way” doesn’t mean I have to live this way, and I’m praying for God to heal my brokenness on this earth, but even if he doesn’t, I know that I will be healed in heaven. 

I have come to know and believe the love that God has for me, and my goal is to keep believing it every day. I really hope you come to know that love too. 

It’s real and it’s free and you don’t have to be afraid of it. It’s a love that’s so amazing and strong that it’s almost terrifying to step into when you haven’t known anything else. But it’s a real love, a love that can satisfy the never ending thirst inside of you for something more. I know for myself and others, we are attracted to CDD because it promises intimacy and love. I’m not going to deny that it does seem that way. Many of the people living this lifestyle would say that they have a better marriage than before and they are closer to their spouse than they have ever been. I thought it could be the same for me. 

What I discovered was the love of Jesus makes CDD an illusion in comparison. The love of Jesus is real. It can give you a forgiveness and cleansing that will wash away all of your sins for eternity and is strong enough to bring you safely to heaven. It’s a love that is without fear–a perfect love. And if you believe the Gospel, it is yours. Forever.

When you feel the love of Jesus for your soul, you quickly realize that what CDD promises and seems to offer is fake. It’s not real. But you have to feel that love for yourself first to know what real is, just like a blind person who does not truly know what colors are till he sees them for the first time. 

If you read this and you are angry at me and think you have a wonderful marriage and love the way your life is going, I would point you to Jesus, who loves you more than you could dream of and wants to show you the depths of his compassion towards you. Don’t listen to me, just run to Jesus. Feel his love. See how he bled and died for you. Believe the Gospel! 

If you read this and you are hurting and broken and know you are being abused or being an abuser, I would tell you the same thing: believe the Gospel. There is hope there and forgiveness. You can start life over again, today. 

I would also encourage you to call 1800--799–7233 and check out Domestic Violence Support | National Domestic Violence Hotline (thehotline.org). I also welcome anyone reaching out to me for support or to discuss this subject further. Please fill out the contact form on this website and I will be in touch with you, confidentially. There are many resources I can connect you with to help support you, wherever you are on this journey.

I also want to recognize that I have not addressed every possible argument for CDD that it’s proponents use. There are many and they all rely on taking scripture out of context and applying a poor hermeneutic. While I am willing to address any of them that proponents bring up in response to this article, I fully believe that it does not matter how many arguments I address: people who want to practice this will justify it however they can, however unsound their premises may be. That’s why I’m appealing to the heart: we all run after brokenness, in its various forms, in an attempt to satisfy a longing in ourselves that nothing else can fill but Jesus. 

So I would ask you one more time, look to Jesus. Look to Jesus to quench your insatiable thirst for more and more darkness. Look to Jesus to find healing from your abuse and childhood trauma. Look to Jesus to find forgiveness for how you’ve hurt yourself or others. 

I promise, when you look to him, everything else will fade away. 

“And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6:11)