© 2015Redbutt Books

Wazoo, Texas 710%$ Disclaimer:

This work is a satirical expose′ of the hypocrisy and cruelty behind the “Bible discipline” of helpless children. The Ghostwriter definitely does not endorse the doctrinal insanity of the imaginary interviewee, who is currently unavailable for further interviews because he’s become even more of a self-righteous recluse than he was before.

Watch video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JhGeuZLyzE

GHOSTWRITER’S NOTE: Before Dr. Ernest Jurassic Whipple would consent to the publication of this series of interviews, he insisted I begin by sharing his overall impression of the experience. But the following comments must be taken with a grain of salt.

Dr. Whipple: I firmly believe suffering sanctifies a Christian, but I’ve been through the tortures of the damned. As the legendary Ghostwriter sat in MY favorite recliner petting MY angora cat, sipping MY ice water and picking my tired old brain with loaded questions, I felt like I was being tried at the Spanish Inquisition. Persecution is alive and well not only in THE BIBLE BELT, but way up here in my northern hideaway. Very, very reluctantly I subjected myself to this interrogation so skeptics can get to the bottom of why their own hearts are so corrupt they oppose Biblical child rearing. By the time you finish this book, you’ll not only feel spiritually refreshed, you’ll feel so sorry for me you’ll order my punitive priestly products, which currently are available ONLY in the Dream Dimension.

If you aren’t too chicken, take a Ghostwriter journey into every Christian child’s theological nightmare.

* * * * * *

Chapter One

Weird Wednesday

Our first interview was conducted on Wednesday, August 12, 2015, 2 p.m., at Dr. Whipple’s summer residence near Butte, Montana. All interviews were secretly recorded by spy bugs, in order to provide source material for this book.

I felt like I’d crossed a time warp back to the 70’s as Maria, the tired-looking Hispanic maid, escorted me into the ranch-style den, with its varnished split log walls and sprawling bearskin rug. Although the bright sunny day filled me with cheer, the second I entered this home, a heavy shroud of gloom fell on me like a choking L.A. smog. Maria politely asked me to take a seat and wait. My overall impression of the place was Gothic Western paranormal paraphernalia amalgamated with Seventies chic and Jesus Revolution relics. Pastel colors clashed with fusty old furniture. Despite the comical collage before me, a profound sadness weighed me down. Nevertheless, there was plenty of nostalgia to look at, if not elegance. Beady macramé planters lived in harmony with peace pipes and war bonnets from some Indian reservation. Homey patchwork quilts hung from the railing of the overhead catwalk, which was accessible via a wooden stairway.

My eyes roved around the room. The den’s décor was as eccentric as my interviewee portended to be. The conical floor lamps looked like they’d been salvaged from some funeral home. The brocade wingback chairs belonged in a musty museum. Two kitschy ‘60’s bucket chairs languished near a beanbag futon strewn with dolls and toys. But no tiny hands were around to play with them. An angora cat brushed its silky fur against a carved table covered with outdated church flyers. A yellow smiley face exhorted told the world to “Smile! Jesus loves you!”

I stood transfixed by the massive family portrait which dominated one wall. Two crew-cut boys trussed up in blue suits smiled shyly, with averted eyes, clearly ill at ease. The main focal point of the picture, a much younger Dr. Whipple, towered over the rest, his brows knit in a vinegary smile, powerfully built in a conservative suit, hands spread protectively on adjoining shoulders. Below him sat a weary woman with wan, lined face and dark circles under her doleful eyes. A blond girl in pigtails and checkered dress solemnly sat holding twin toddlers. The sinister picture spoke volumes.

Massive oaken shelves abounded with old tomes and paperbacks. But I noticed no TV of any kind, just an antique Apple Mac system next to musty piles of perforated printouts. Dr. Whipple’s stereo system must

have been half a century old. A music rack bulged with dusty cassettes. Cheesy Jesus Revolution posters hung alongside flowery tapestries stitched with scriptural adages. An antique spinning wheel was adorned with housewifely admonitions from Proverbs 31. The flickering flames of the imposing Victorian fireplace sent ominous shadows dancing on the rustic walls, and chills up my spine. I already felt fidgety as a chicken in a fox house, when any remaining doubts were quashed by the monstrosity mounted above the fireplace mantel: A gigantic paddle, long enough to steer a canoe, strategically studded with holes. Beneath was an intricately wrought tapestry, with Dr. Whipple’s memorable ministry motto:

As my melancholy spirits were further depressed by a weepy hymn wafting from a scratchy vinyl record, the grimly smiling Christian guru himself finally emerged through the door leading to his adjacent prayer room/study. He shook my hand and eyed me quizzically, mumbling under his breath about ‘lefties’. We introduced ourselves. He asked me to be seated. When I broke the ice by saying the fierce heat had left me feeling parched, the maid fetched a glass of ice water.

Ghostwriter: First off, I’d like to thank you for inviting me to your home today. It is a rare privilege to meet a man of your professional caliber, Dr. Whipple.

Dr. Whipple: The feeling’s mutual. I hope you had a pleasant trip.

Ghostwriter (grinning): I sure did.

Dr. Whipple: Hot day. Did you find a shady spot to park your car?

Ghostwriter: I’m a city dweller who gets around without driving.

Dr. Whipple: Then how’d you get all the way out here?

Ghostwriter: The Ghostship brought me.

Dr. Whipple: You’re joking. If you don’t drive, I bet you paid plenty for a taxi, and that’s how you’ll get back to your hotel.

Ghostwriter: If that’s what you think, you’re entitled to your opinion.

Dr. Whipple: Bet you feel like you’re way out in the sticks.

Ghostwriter: I must confess, this is one of the remotest locations I’ve ever visited. So you prefer the big sky country to the big city?

Dr. Whipple: Yes, indeed. A man feels much closer to God out here, far away from sinful sodoms like Holly-weird and Lost Vegas.

Ghostwriter: So you have a sharp sense of humor. Can’t blame you for living where life’s a breath of fresh air, Dr. Whipple. Such a lovely home, too. This room in particular, so cozy, bright and airy. I love your old-fashioned veranda with its porch swing, and the hanging flowers. I notice you keep horses on your property.

Dr. Whipple is a tall but lean man with a craggy profile tanned by hours spent outdoors. I still recall his slow, searching smile, his chilly, narrow eyes and the cold creepiness I felt whenever he looked at me.

Dr. Whipple: Like most West Coast liberals, you seem to hero-worship mother earth and all its beauties, instead of setting your sights on heavenly glories, Ghostwriter. But outward appearances can be very deceiving. He grinned like a fox.

Ghostwriter: I’m an artist as well as a writer, Dr. Whipple. I’ve had to develop a trained eye. If beauty’s all around us, we might as well enjoy it while we have it. I’ll enjoy heaven when my time comes.

For an eternal moment Dr. Whipple stared at me, flashing a Pharisee smile. Apparently he doubted I’d made reservations there.

Dr. Whipple: Yes, Ghostwriter. Our God gives us richly all things to enjoy. But God is a God of order, and nothing He does is done without a reason. The sweetly singing birds serve as food for wild coyotes. Coyotes keep the deer population down to prevent overgrazing and starvation. Beautiful flowers are ground up for fertilizer. I’m just as practical-minded as our Creator. Those magnificent horses earn their keep by mowing my grass and producing manure to sell to local farmers. And they’re patiently waiting for riders.

Ghostwriter: Riders? So you have visitors, perhaps grandchildren, who come here and ride them?

Dr. Whipple (crestfallen): I don’t see much of my grandchildren, or even my children. Ever. My witchy wife betrayed me after she left me, poisoned the children’s minds against me.

I never saw anybody look so sad. For one fleeting moment I felt sorry for him.

Ghostwriter: Before we proceed further, I’d like you to sign this contract. Take a moment to go over it if you wish. Essentially it grants me literary freedom to use material from our forthcoming conversations in our book project The Punitive Paternal Priesthood. As you can see, I’ve brought with me a notepad to take short notes on key points covered during our interviews. I have a sharp memory and objective mind, but this agreement absolves me of all liability in case minor flaws are found in the book after it’s released.

Dr. Whipple: At this point in my career, even bad publicity would be better than no publicity at all. So yes, I’ll sign it.

Ghostwriter (depositing the document in a briefcase): Thank you very much, Dr. Whipple. Now that’s out of the way, care to talk more about the sad day your family split up and the spiritual cause behind it?

Dr. Whipple: Matt.10:36 teaches that a man’s foes will be those in his own house. After years of being treated like a queen, my wife Willow rebelled against God, moved back to her mothers’ with my children, and filed for divorce. An atheist judge found in her favor and granted

her a divorce with sole custody of the children. I got no visitation rights because Willow and her friends swore on oath that I’d physically and emotionally abused the children. They coached the kids to attest to those allegations as fact. Not to mention the fact Willow’s lawyer was a shifty snake who never lost a case. Apparently the devil won because they obtained a court order to keep me from coming within 500 miles of them. But I’ve got faith in God that the day will come when I’ll finally get to meet my grandkids…or great grandkids. Faith in the head is useless. It has to be acted out. So as a step of faith, I bought all the toys you see over there by the beanbag futon. They’re waiting for little hands to play with them. Although by now, the grandchildren are way too old to play with them, and might have kids of their own soon. Willow took me to the cleaners after our divorce and she’s broken my heart in a thousand pieces. The spiteful witch.

Ghostwriter: Unbelievable, never heard of such a thing! What specific allegations were presented to the court?

Dr. Whipple: The most sensational one was I’d used Spanky as a guinea pig to perfect the prototypes of my patented Woody Woodshed® Digital Discipline system. It was alleged that I spanked him on some trumped-up charge so I could try out the gauge on my Misery Monitor. The Misery Monitor accurately measures the intensity and spiritual significance of escalating gradations of pain intensity.

Ghostwriter (grimly): Beg pardon if I look confused, but visions of the Grand Inquisitor are dancing in my head. What other alleged abuse was presented before the judge?

Dr. Whipple: That I made Blastus kneel on a pile of pinto beans for two hours because he peeked when I was saying grace over dinner.

Ghostwriter: Any way you served it up, that punishment would be humiliating, but were those pinto beans cooked or dried?

Dr. Whipple (with a peppery grin): I’ll leave that to your imagination...or rather, to Willow’s. But that she-devil fabricated false evidence to falsely incriminate me and bear false witness against me. She presented airbrushed photos of alleged injuries to the unjust judge, probably doctored up with her eye shadow. My wife’s family bribed Blastus’ head shrinker to swear that I’d emotionally emasculated his mentality for life. Talk about the boils of Job, Ghostwriter. I suffered through the bitterest kangaroo court divorce in human history, and I never found another woman worthy enough to start a new family with. Ever since then, time has stood still for me.

Ghostwriter (poker-faced): Sounds like you’ve been through hell and have a lot of personal issues to sort through. But for now, mind if we delve a little deeper? I’m already fascinated.

Dr. Whipple: Sure. Fire away.

Ghostwriter: You’re the author of Daddy’s Discipline which was a best seller way back in the 70’s especially.

Dr. Whipple: Yes, indeed. Daddy’s Discipline is the crowning achievement of my lifetime.

Ghostwriter: So how are sales now?

Dr. Whipple (frowning): Abysmal. This generation is going to hell in a bushel basket. The Bible warns of a great falling away from the faith in the latter days. Professing Christians have lost all awareness of the holiness of God, so they could care less about correcting their children. They’re so obsessed with earning money, they have little time and energy left to learn the deeper truths of the Word of God, and even less time to train up their own children in the paths of holiness.

Ghostwriter: And since then you’ve developed your patented Woody Woodshed® Digital Discipline System to help harried parents cope with their children’s misbehavior. Any feedback on this product range, either positive or negative?

Dr. Whipple (wistfully): Sales soared when I first introduced my Woody Woodshed® products. But business has tapered off, despite the fact I’ve demonstrated that the Woody Woodshed® Digital Paddle also makes a terrific meat tenderizer. I made a magnificent crock pot rump roast with it for one Sunday dinner. My children went wild over it.

Ghostwriter: Was rump roast one of your favorite Sunday meals?

Dr. Whipple: Absolutely. Another of our favorites was Boston butt pork roast with crabapple sauce. That tough pig posterior got the devil drummed out of it down in my Inner Spanktum before it got roasted in the oven. Great exercise to get rid of your frustrations! What with me being a minister, and my wife not working outside the home, we had to subsist on cheaper cuts of meat.

Ghostwriter: Evidently you’ve weathered many hard times, so you were crestfallen when sales fell.

Dr. Whipple: If I could sink more money into advertising, perhaps they’d pick up again. People are so spoiled these days they go out to McDonald’s after church instead of slaving in the kitchen, so they don’t need the meat tenderizer. Also, modern parents have no appetite for tenderizing their children’s rumps with the rod, as the Bible commands. Today’s typical dad would rather be a good buddy with his son than a dutiful disciplinarian. So they let their kids run wild. I tell you, Ghostwriter, there’d be far less juvenile delinquency in society if modern fathers followed my patented punitive system, which combines the power of prayer with the power of the paddle.

Ghostwriter: If this isn’t too painful a subject to broach, I’d like to know more about your own kids. Have any photos of them?

Dr. Whipple: None besides the one you see on the wall. When she stormed out of our home, Willow stole all our family photo albums. So I won’t be able to share any pictures with you during your visits.

Ghostwriter: Sorry to hear that. Maybe you could find your kids on Facebook. Oh, sorry! You did say you’ve got no use for modern technology that wasn’t available in the seventies.

Dr. Whipple: Wouldn’t do any good even if I did. At least some of my kids are reportedly so unhinged they change their name like I change my shirts. They’re so scared I might track them down, they move every few months, I heard from reliable sources.

Ghostwriter: A sad, sad situation. But could you please tell our readers the names of your children, and about how old were they when you wrote Daddy’s Discipline?

Dr. Whipple: My oldest son Spanky was…ah…fifteen when I began work on that particular project.

Ghostwriter: Why’d you call him Spanky?

Dr. Whipple: My wife’s sister married a Greek, so we named our first son after his Uncle Spankanopolous, a great guy. Naturally it was more convenient to use a nickname. Besides, Spanky needed to be reminded of what would befall his butt if he disobeyed me. This planet is one great big rowdy RUMP-us room where God whips the devil out of sinful believers, so they’d better mind their P’s and Q’s.

Ghostwriter: Evidently. Did the other kids give Spanky grief over his name?

Dr. Whipple: The teachers at his Christian school sure did. They wore out more paddles on him than any other child. I thanked the teachers for treating Spanky impartially, though he had the most famous father. And believe you me, Spanky didn’t want to tell me about those whippings, or he would have gotten a second helping when he got home.

Ghostwriter: Don’t you think it’s unfair, forcing a child to pay twice for a sin? Especially when Jesus went to the Cross for his sins?

Dr. Whipple: One sin begets another. The very fact Spanky sinned so much in school by chewing gum or making noise, or taking his eyes off his work was a bad reflection on his family upbringing. Spanky’s sins brought shame and humiliation on me, and for that sin I would spank him a second time.

Ghostwriter: I hope you prayed God would be more merciful toward you than you were with him.

Dr. Whipple: If you think God goes easy on His own kids, read Hebrews 12 and Job. It’ll burst your bubble if you’re expecting an easy ride in this life.

Ghostwriter: Enough of the doom and gloom. Where did Spanky go to school? It’s a wonder he didn’t hop a freight train to escape those tyrannical teachers.

Dr. Whipple: I’ll try to overlook that belligerent comment, but the name of Spanky’s school was Rearview Christian Academy. An exemplary institution. My children were fortunate to go there.

Ghostwriter: Rearview Christian Academy?

Dr. Whipple: In case your thoughts are drifting downstream, they named the school ‘Rearview’ because the campus’ football field overlooked a big cow pasture.

Ghostwriter (sheepishly): Oh! Thanks for educating me on that point.

Dr. Whipple: We couldn’t have found a more excellent nurturing environment for tiny disciples in need of discipline, Ghostwriter. Rearview’s staff firmly believed in Holy Inhibitor Teaching, HIT for short. They’d make the little monkeys work at maximum efficiency in their own private walled-off booths so they couldn’t see any distractions. The children’s carnal desire to socialize during work hours would be inhibited with strong exhortations to holy diligence and threats of The Rod. Sort of like a mule would wear blinders and get lashed to keep his eye on the road and off the tempting berry bush.

Ghostwriter: I seriously doubt Jesus would force a small child to sit all day staring at the walls of a booth. Enforced sensory deprivation and isolation do not contribute to a well-rounded education, and could stunt intellectual development, even in bright kids. The type of education you describe could help cause claustrophobia and social anxiety.

Dr. Whipple: I take issue with that. My kids were fine till Willow took them out of my life. Since then, they’ve turned their back on holy things. God is a god of order, and nothing is more orderly than a neat little cubicle with a video monitor feeding increments of information into tiny brains and testing them every five minutes till the final factoid of each lesson set sinks in and they can progress to the next level.

Ghostwriter: Zechariah 8:5 says that the streets of Jerusalem shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets, not imprisoned in a booth where they can’t interact with other children.

Dr. Whipple: The Rearview Christian Academy has always been in the business of preparing kids for the real world of adults, where they expect to sit in their cubicles all day long typing and filling out reports. That’s why Rearview’s pupils are trussed up in suits and ties every day, to prepare them for the no-nonsense business world.

Ghostwriter: But why waste childhood practicing for the worrywart world of the workplace? Kids grow up so fast, and all the headache and misery of slaving all day and fretting over bills comes soon enough. Let children enjoy five golden moments lying on their back in the grass, staring up at fluffy clouds and daydreaming of butterflies.

Dr. Whipple: Nonsense! All children want to do all day is play, play, play! God wants us to use our time profitably in this world, and the more we get done the bigger our reward in heaven will be.

Ghostwriter: Aside from that, the main focus of that school seems to be to prematurely turn children into tiny adults who work till they drop to gain adult approval, to practice for that glad day when they’ll stop being happy children and start being slaves to their bosses.

Dr. Whipple: Paul the apostle pressed forward toward greater things.

Ghostwriter: Jesus seems to have thought that children were complete and beautiful little beings even in their immature state. He enjoyed them as tiny friends who spoke simple, sincere words and unselfconsciously smiled big smiles. Jesus wasn’t worried that they weren’t grown-ups yet, fretting about jobs and dozens of church

activities. He said, ‘Let the little children come unto Me, for of such is the Kingdom of God.’

Dr. Whipple: I agree with you, a small child is cute, but he often gets up to no good. Little hands make big mischief.

Ghostwriter: And little hands can make the most adorable keepsakes out of cardboard and paper to delight their loved ones. The way you view the world, you’d prefer a Rembrandt painting to a rainbow drawn by a five-year-old child who loves you and wants to give you a present. I’d find it very understandable if those pupils at Rearview Christian School were just aching to break out of their prisons and just enjoy being kids like the good Lord intended.

Dr. Whipple: They all knew what would happen if they even pulled their heads out of their cubicles without the teacher’s permission. They’d get rear-ended with the Rod of Correction. Ghostwriter (laughing bitterly): Getting to hit kids was a fringe benefit of working at Rearview Christian Academy, I suppose.

Dr. Whipple: Proverbs promises that if you beat the hell out of your kid, he won’t go there. Either a boy catches hell here on earth or he’ll dwell in hell for all eternity. Spanky got spanked so much he got scorch marks on his britches. But he still rebelled against my authority by reading a Superman comic book during one of my sermons. What kind of a sorry testimony to a lost and dying world is it, when a pastor’s own son won’t focus on the ministry of the Word of God? It was an exciting sermon, too, about Samson slaying an army of Philistines with the jawbone of an ass!

Ghostwriter: How could Superman seduce Spanky away from Samson if you, and those overzealous teachers, had already beaten the fear of god into his gluteous maximus?

Dr. Whipple: I suspected some New Age infiltrator must have cast a spell on my spanking equipment. I had to fast and cast a legion of demons out of all my rods of correction before my children would respect my authority again.

Ghostwriter (struggling to keep a straight face): So you really believe satan can possess a paddle?

Dr. Whipple: Certainly. Didn’t satan enter into Judas Iscariot? I had to fast and pray three days to drive the devil out of my Cadillac carburetor. Satan doesn’t want our cars to work, our paddles to work,

or our families to function the way God intended. The stomach is the seat of food, the heart is the seat of romantic love, the brain is the seat of confusion, and the seat of the pants is the portal to personal purification. Sometimes it takes a holey paddle to drive the enema…uh, enemy! out of a child’s seat of education.

Ghostwriter (faking a cough to stifle a laugh): Sorry, my throat’s been itchy since I gave that speech yesterday.

Peevishly, Dr. Whipple rang his tiny church bell for Maria the maid. He suggested some bearberry tea with honey and lemon might cure my cough.

Ghostwriter: That’d be nice, thanks. Dr. Whipple, you mentioned having problems with Spanky’s misbehavior. Does any particular incident stand out in your memory?

Dr. Whipple: Oh, children can be so ornery! One night, I was rudely awoken by a million motorcycles tearing into our front yard. Seems like Spanky had got himself plastered and the Hell’s Angels had given him a lift home. When I staggered downstairs in my bathrobe, Spanky had the effrontery to try to introduce his new pals. When I refused to let them in for a glass of lemonade, he lowered his pants to show some vulgar tattoo and dared me to do anything about it. After I chased the gang away with a garden hose, Spanky and me, we had a little POW! wow out in the garage. I spanked Spanky with an old fan belt because the kids buried my pants belt in the backyard. He didn’t even cry. His brain was so pickled he giggled. The only good thing that came out of that episode was I remembered we needed burger buns for next day’s lunch.

Dr. Whipple cackled, very pleased with his pun. Only the suffering of other people could elicit laughter from this grim old grouse.

Ghostwriter: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry myself. You have a penchant for casting bizarre events in a humorous light. So the preacher’s kid raised a little hell in front of the Hell’s Angels to prove he was a normal teenager, not some Little Lord Fauntleroy. What were your other kids’ names? You’re America’s holiest family expert, so I’ll be asking plenty of questions about yours.

Dr. Whipple: Besides Spanky, there were Blastus, Fanny Mae, and my twin daughters Grace and Mercy. Five in all. Not a very big family, but my wife Willow rebelled against God and walked out on me one night after I corrected her car with a broom handle to drive satan out of its accelerator. So I got out of the begetting business.

Ghostwriter (coughing): What? Why did you suspect Lucifer might be lurking in her accelerator?

Dr. Whipple: She’d just had the car checked out and it was given a clean bill of health. Then she lost control of the car one snowy night when she drove to town for groceries. She struggled with her brakes, but the car raced down the hill because satan seized control of the vehicle.

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, how deep would you say the snow was on that particular night, and was ice a major problem?

Dr. Whipple: The snow was only six or seven inches deep, and I wasn’t there to inspect the roads for ice.

Ghostwriter: Why did Willow drive on a snowy road at night? Why didn’t you go instead?

Dr. Whipple: I gave the orders around my own home and she had to take them. Even if I told her to jump off a cliff, she had to submit to my authority. That’s what the Bible teaches.

Ghostwriter: We’ll reserve that discussion for a future session. But what could have been more important than looking after your own wife’s safety on a cold, snowy night?

Dr. Whipple: The Bible teaches us to serve God without petty distractions. I was busy preparing my fasting message, so it would have been a major distraction to wander through a wonderland of Twinkies and taco chips. Spiritual matters are far weighter in the sight of God than earthly concerns.

Ghostwriter: I’d say Twinkies add more weight than fasting messages. But weren’t you at all concerned about Willow driving in a blizzard?

Dr. Whipple: Before she left we prayed that God would watch over her all the way. But despite our fervent prayers, the accelerator acted up and the brakes rebelled. On top of that, the state trooper clocked Willow speeding down the hill at 120 miles per hour. She was shaking like a leaf but that devil was so mean he slapped a ticket on her anyway. I gave that car the whipping of a lifetime to cast the devil out of it, but Willow ran back in the house screaming that I was a nutcase and that was the last nail in the coffin of our marriage. Before I could stop her, she locked me out of the house and called her brothers to

come get her and the children, because she was way too scared to sleep in the same house with me.

Ghostwriter (tongue-in-cheek) Sometimes people misconstrue other people’s motives, don’t they? It must have been very traumatic when she left and took your children out of your life.

Dr. Whipple: God’s perfect will was sabotaged by satan on that fateful night. If only she’d stayed and done her duty, we might have had ten times as many kids to rear up in the faith, because I was a red-blooded Romeo.

What you mean is, a cold-blooded brute, I thought.

Ghostwriter: So there was, at least in the beginning, a great deal of romance in your relationship with Willow?

Dr. Whipple: You bet. Willow cried for joy when I bought her a lovely gift for her first baby shower, even though I was between pastorates and we were too poor to pay the rent.

Ghostwriter: So what was that particular present, where did you get it, and how much did it cost?

Dr. Whipple: I’ll give you a hint: It was for the nursery, it was from an exclusive shop, and it was a priceless, one-of-a-kind item.

Ghostwriter: So you bought Willow a diamond-studded bassinet from Saks Fifth Avenue?

Dr. Whipple: Ha ha, very funny. I did better than that. Our local Save the Snails Second Hand Store was located on Sixth Avenue, so I got her prezzie at Saks Sixth Avenue. Paid just two bucks for it, and it’s a treasure. Willow forgot to take it when she left. I’ve saved it in that keepsake cabinet over there. Just a sec and I’ll fish it out for you.

A beastly baby blanket from the deep abyss. What a sicko!

Ghostwriter (incredulously): Remarkable! If Willow wept when she opened this exquisite gift , why do you think they were tears of joy, if she didn’t like it enough to take it with her to pass on to her first grandchild?

Dr. Whipple: Well, maybe she liked it better than the prezzie I got for her birthday; a broken bun warmer I salvaged from the junkyard. She cried and called me ‘cheapskate’. I told her I didn’t even have two cents in my pocket and it was better than nothing, and I could fix it.

Ghostwriter (with deadpan disgust): Perhaps Willow failed to fathom that it’s the thought that counts at gift-giving time. Some people never adapt to the tastes of their spouses, and that could have been one catalyst which triggered off the irreconcilable differences which induced Willow to desert you and prejudice the children against you.

Dr. Whipple: Every good thing I ever accomplished in those children’s souls, Willow and Sherwood sabotaged. They turned those kids into freaks. Spanky changed his name to “Sparrow” and joined some ‘save the trees’ cult. Their motto is: ‘Make love, not paddles.’ Blastus developed a strange phobia of DIY lumber. Hardwood floors make him break out in hives. Blastus also developed food allergies because he grew up without my tender oversight. Beets, whipped cream and pound cake give him paranormal flashbacks. Rumor has it he even

hates butter. Can you imagine, Willow’s drifted so far away from God she can’t even drive the devil out of a stick of butter? And my other boy, Spanky, got out of the army on a Section 8 when Colonel Crabtree caught him in the kitchen beating Beelzebub out of a rack of burger buns with his belt.

It burst out. I laughed so hard I cried, and my ribs ached.

Dr. Whipple (tight-lipped): What on earth are you laughing about? My ex has spiritually ruined Blastus and all my other kids! She and her leftie liberal wimpy excuse for a second husband were unable to make Blastus walk the Way of the Cross! Thanks to him, they’re all on Prozac, the most dysfunctional, depressed people on the planet!

Ghostwriter: I’ll tell you in a minute. But first, could you please clarify for our readers exactly what you mean by ‘the Way of the Cross’?

Dr. Whipple: I’ll give a detailed explanation of this vital spiritual principle. The Way of the Cross is the path of self-sacrificing love. Sometimes it hurts to love. Every time I paddled one of my children, I had to sacrifice my desire to see them smiling and free of pain. They had to pay the sacrifice of pain for many hours after the punishment was finished. They had to sacrifice tears. They had to sacrifice their desire to cry and sulk all day long as they rubbed their sore bottoms. I had to sacrifice personal tranquility as I fought with the devil, the accuser of the brethren, who accused me of being cruel. I had to sacrifice many luxuries I might have had, in order to support my wife and children. I had to sacrifice sleep time when the children were babies and demanded night feedings. Just as Jesus was perfected through suffering, so I have been prepared for heaven by suffering my hell here on earth. Far from being carried up to Paradise on flowery beds of ease, Christians find that the Way of the Cross is a rocky road riddled with rattlesnakes ready to strike as you painfully struggle to climb the steep, thorny hill to the gates of heaven.

Ghostwriter: Sounds terrible. So that’s your take on the joys of following Christ, eh?

Dr. Whipple: Sorry you see it that way. Paul said ‘I count everything as loss and gladly suffer all things in order that I may win Christ’.

Ghostwriter: Well, Paul didn’t have any kids to beat, so his sacrifices must have been different from yours. Speaking of kids, I can’t believe you actually named one of your kids ‘Blastus’!

Dr. Whipple (poker faced): Sure did. It’s in your Bible. Look it up. ‘Blastus’ in Greek means a growing sprout. You’re the one with the twisted mind if you can’t see the beauty in that.

Ghostwriter: Did all the guys at school razz Blastus about his name?

Dr. Whipple: Most of the time, no. Just called him ‘Blastoff’.

Ghostwriter (reviewing notes) And what about ‘Fanny Mae’? Mae’s okay, but ‘Fanny’ is quite antiquated (cough!) Excuse me.

Dr. Whipple: Your brain needs a bath!

Ghostwriter: I never said what you’re thinking.

I sipped more tea and slipped out. When I got back from the bathroom, the freak show started up again.

Ghostwriter: Oh, where were we? Why’d you name your daughter ‘Fanny’, since that name might be misconstrued by modern minds?

Dr. Whipple: I wanted to remind my daughter that she has to behave, no if, and or buts.

Ghostwriter: Did your wife help you pick out those names?

Dr. Whipple: Each succeeding birth gave my wife another opportunity to adapt herself to her husband’s wishes. Willow cried when I told her she had to submit to me and abide by my choice of names.

Ghostwriter (sarcastically): But you’ll have to admit, Willow did the hard part when she suffered through five births. Didn’t that give her some say in the matter?

Dr. Whipple: Quite the contrary. The pains of childbirth were good spiritual discipline for my wife, and when she had the twins she did get two kids for only nine months of barfing up her breakfast, instead of the usual eighteen. God cursed women in the garden because it was Eve who transgressed first. The punishment fits the crime. That’s why men get off easier.

Ghostwriter: So God is only pleased with women if they suffer enough? That’s news to me.

Dr. Whipple: Men must also go the Way of the Cross, and lead the way for their wives to share in the suffering of Christ. God has sanctified suffering as the ONLY path to Christian perfection.

Ghostwriter: We’ll debate that prickly point later. Women do have to suffer, that’s life. But at least they don’t get party invitations from their local draft board whenever America goes to war. Adam must have eaten a whole carload of cranberries to earn that kind of punishment. You don’t look too pleased with what I said. So what denomination do you represent?

Dr. Whipple: I’m an ordained rector of the Epistlepaddle faith, and I pastored one of the oldest, most prestigious churches in America.

Ghostwriter: Care to name the church?

Dr. Whipple: St. Beatrice’s Basilica.

Ghostwriter: So you’re retired from the pastorate now?

Dr. Whipple (head bowed): Unfortunately, yes. The Archbishop decided I’d outlived my usefulness and put me out to pasture.

Ghostwriter (tongue in cheek) It’s his loss, not yours.

Dr. Whipple: Can’t complain, though. I’ve amassed sufficient book royalties and other assets to ensure a very comfortable retirement. But the fact I’m still here on earth at age 86 is a sure sign God must have further work for me to do. Hence, the horses.

Ghostwriter: What about the horses? What part do they play in your life purpose?

Dr. Whipple: American youth are rotten to the core. Parents are unable to cope with the disrespect and godlessness of this generation. I’m sure you must have heard about correctional camps for brats where they have to learn responsibility by working on a ranch and cleaning up after horses. Nothing like old-fashioned horse manure to purge wickedness out of teenagers and instill patience and humility in their souls. Wayward souls only learn obedience through suffering, and my horses can surely provide it.

I gagged and nodded, wondering how this elderly gentleman could handle such a formidable workload.

Ghostwriter: I take it you’d like to start a brat ranch yourself. I know your horses can teach Humility 101 without much help, but what other humans could help you run such a place?

Dr. Whipple: I’d hire like-minded people who not only know the basics of ranching, but who would be willing for me to disciple them and train them in my vision of God’s ideal Christian home. And once they’ve caught the vision and learned how to break a child’s will like you break a wild horse, I could start straightening out rebellious souls at Paddle Pony Ranch.

Ghostwriter: Hmmm. Break a child’s will. Another touchy topic on our agenda. I suppose you may have read about Rev. Lucifer Ripoff back in the 70’s, Dr. Whipple. He ran a chain of Christian correctional facilities for wayward youth in Texas. There was plenty of controversy surrounding him. Quite a few survivors of his homes testify to being brutally beaten and tortured for minor offenses.

Dr. Whipple: Yes, I was personally acquainted with Lucifer Ripoff, though I didn’t share all his doctrinal viewpoints. Perhaps he may, at times, have been somewhat overzealous in his application of the spanking Proverbs. But Brother Lucifer must have been a very godly man to have undertaken such a challenging ministry. Think of all the teenagers he delivered from hell by combining the power of prayer with the power of the paddle.

Ghostwriter: He died in the early 80’s, I think. In a plane crash.

Dr. Whipple: And all the angels of heaven rolled out the red carpet for this blessed saint of God. What a grand entrance this man earned by saving so many souls!

Ghostwriter: And blistering so many bottoms?

Dr. Whipple: I take it you don’t believe in corporal punishment.

Ghostwriter: Even the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Some of Ripoff’s victims testify to being bound by duct tape and locked in a room without bathroom privileges. One girl allegedly got 50-odd licks for saying a swear word when a bird bit her finger. One boy got tortured by Ripoff and his goons for being a “pretty boy”, then they locked him up in a closet for weeks.

Dr. Whipple: Nonsense, that’s just hearsay.

Ghostwriter: Your book indicates that you spanked your own children every time they fouled up.

Dr. Whipple (crossly): So what? It gets the job done, doesn’t it?

Ghostwriter: Some people get executed for murders they didn’t commit. And some kids get paddled when they didn’t do anything wrong. Miscarriages of justice do occasionally occur.

Dr. Whipple’s steely blue eyes sparkled. Here was a topic he could sink his fangs into.

Dr. Whipple: Unfortunately they do, Ghostwriter. That’s life. Even though she protested her innocence, I fanned Fanny’s fanny for allegedly stealing a dollar from her mother’s purse. Only after Fanny was forced to confess this sordid sin to Jesus did my wife rush into my Inner Spanktum to try to stop the execution, but too late. Seems like the dollar had fallen out of her handbag and lodged itself under the car mat. I gave Fanny a kiss and a dollar and sent her to 7-11 to buy some candy to soothe her hurt feelings.

Ghostwriter: Unbelievable. Man, you got off cheap. Apparently, you don’t believe in “innocent till proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt”.

Dr. Whipple: We’re all sinners, myself included.

Ghostwriter (sarcastically): Hey, don’t beat yourself up over that.

Dr. Whipple: Believe me, Ghostwriter, the trials I suffer in daily life are punishment enough.

Ghostwriter: Can you think of any other occasion a child got unjustly spanked in your home?

Dr. Whipple: Let’s see… Mercy and Grace, my twin daughters, got in trouble when they were five. My other children were outside playing when I heard a loud crash in the living room. Out the corner of my eye I saw them frolicking so fast I couldn’t focus on which was which. I saw one of them knock a glass of milk off a coffee table, as they kept running around in circles. Both lookalike girls were dressed alike, wore their hair alike, even sounded alike. When they saw me, they ran out of the room and I chased them upstairs and cornered them in the attic.

“Which one of you spilled the milk?” I asked them. They both stared at me, terrified. Neither twin would tell on the other. But justice had to be done. Somebody had to pay for the spilt milk, which was worth twenty licks. So I gave each girl ten taps on the caboose to satisfy their sin debt. When they stopped crying I ordered each of them to ask Jesus for forgiveness, to wash their milk…I mean, sin, away.

Ghostwriter: Do you think prayer can be a forced façade, like all the church conversions the Crusaders made at the point of a sword?

Dr. Whipple (reddening) I always taught my children prayer is a joyous privilege!

Ghostwriter: You’re obfuscating the issue. But I’m just curious. Would it have been okay with you if your kids had prayed and asked Jesus to forgive them before you pounded them with the paddle?

Dr. Whipple: Certainly not! If you have ears to hear, I’ll set forth my theological viewpoint. God has appointed the father of the family as its intermediary priest between Christ and his family. Children need their earthly dad to confess their sins to, so he can bridge the gap between them and an angry God. Apart from the priestly ministrations of the father, Christ Jesus cannot reconcile his children with the Father in heaven. And such a man had better make darn sure he gets to the bottom of his child’s sin first before God gets the chance to wash it away. If God got rid of the guilt before the child’s dad beat the devil out of him, that would be an improper breach of priestly protocol!

Ghostwriter: And it would make the dad feel like a creep, wouldn’t it? And what about I Tim.2:5? There is only one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus. Nothing is said about a paddle-wielding dad standing between a child and Christ. Apparently the little children went straight to Christ without asking His disciples’ permission. Jesus didn’t ask anybody to beat the sin out of them before He laid hands on them and blessed them. Jesus didn’t agree with His disciples that the kids were pesky little nuisances and should be sent away. Instead of calling them little vipers, as one famous preacher did, Jesus said in Matthew 18:3 that it was necessary to become like little children to qualify for entry into His Kingdom.

Dr. Whipple: I suppose Jesus meant you had to become like them in the sense of meekly submitting yourself to God’s chastisement.

Talk about a one-track mind, I thought.

Ghostwriter: We’ll agree to disagree on that one, but three verses later, Jesus warns it would be safer to have a millstone tied around your neck and thrown in the ocean to drown than to offend a little child. That word ‘offend’ means ‘cause to stumble’. So we’d better be mighty careful what we teach little children, and how we teach it.

Dr. Whipple: I still maintain that the gluteous maximus is the seat of a child’s religious training, and any father who refuses to fan junior’s fanny with a paddle in one hand and a Bible in the other is a wimp. That man is failing God and will one day end up in hell to take his own whipping! And so will the child. Better to be disciplined with a paddle in the here and now than to be poked with a pitchfork down in hell.

Ghostwriter: So how about the Prodigal Son? Is he roasting down in hell because he didn’t get clobbered with a belt?

Dr. Whipple: Of course not!

Ghostwriter: Well, according to your theology, somebody should have whaled the daylights out of that sinful son before his father ran up the road and kissed him. Your own practice was first, to beat a kid, secondly, make that child beg God for mercy, and only then did Daddy hug and kiss him.

Dr. Whipple: I’d say life gave the Prodigal Son the spanking he deserved. He lost all his friends after he blew all his dad’s money, he smelled like a commode from working in a pig pen, and he was half dead from hunger when he got home.

Ghostwriter: So what you’re essentially implying is, if the Prodigal Son had boogied back to his father’s house repentant, but hardly the worse for wear, his dad might not have been happy to see him because he wouldn’t look like he’d taken his lumps for wasting Daddy’s dough.

Dr. Whipple: That’s a pretty crude way of expressing it, Ghostwriter, but I’m of that opinion. First the punishment, then the reconciliation.

Ghostwriter: So for all this talk about Jesus already having satisfied the debt for our sins, the truth behind the truth is we have to pay for our sins before the atonement of Christ is able to take effect in our lives, especially the life of a tiny child. That’s nonsense, Dr. Whipple.

Dr. Whipple: Okay, I’ll give you another example if you can’t grasp the deeper things of God. As I postulate in my book Daddy’s Discipline, suppose a prison convict is sentenced to die for his crime. The day before his scheduled execution, that criminal has a conversion experience and comes to know Christ as Savior. That evildoer has been transformed by the power of God. All his sins have been washed away as far as east is from west. He is a new man. God declares this man to be blameless and just in His sight. But the penalty for his sin must still be enforced because that’s the law of the land. The same principle applies to the law of your home. Even if God did manage to satisfy HIS standard of justice and wash your child’s sins away BEFORE the paddling is carried out, your child still owes a debt of pain and shame to pay for his crime against the rules of the house. He must still satisfy your criteria for justice because he’s under your roof.

Ghostwriter: Criminal? You can hardly equate spilt milk with murder. The irony doesn’t escape me. Why couldn’t you have shown mercy to Mercy and grace to Grace, or, rather, grace to Mercy and mercy to Grace? Why not ask Jesus to clean up their sin and allow Him to pay for their spilt milk before you beat it out of their hide? Unless Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross wasn’t sufficient to pay for their frailties, and they had to pay matching funds! But their over-your-head interaction with Jesus would threaten your own power position, wouldn’t it?

Dr. Whipple (visibly annoyed): I can do without your sacrilege and sarcasm, Ghostwriter! Discipline must be maintained in the home. The grace of God is free, but it is never cheap.

Ghostwriter: So it’s the parent’s job to make sure kids pay for God’s allegedly free grace.

Dr. Whipple: I never said that!

Ghostwriter: We’ve hit a brick wall. Just drop it for now or we’ll get nowhere. Let’s don’t rattle sabers at each other, or we’ll never get your precious punitive project off the ground so you can expose the idiocy of skeptics. Remember any other incident where you spanked an innocent kid?

Dr. Whipple: Early one morning (and we always crawled out of bed before six!) I was leading family devotions. My wife started praying very softly. As she lifted her lovely face toward heaven, her glorious countenance was illuminated by the golden rays of the dawning sun. She looked like an angel. Suddenly this holy moment was shattered by a rude noise, and my olfactory nerves came under assault.

Ghostwriter (blushing): Yes, I know what ‘olfactory’ means (cough!)

Dr. Whipple: Good. No need to elaborate, but no one fessed up to the desecration of our devotions. So I administered the spanking sacrament to all five prime suspects. Only later did my embarrassed wife tearfully confess to the offense. I love-tapped my wife with a Frisbee and took the whole family to the zoo to make amends.

Ghostwriter (incredulous): So you never even suspected your wife was human enough to succumb to such a sordid sin!

Dr. Whipple: The ideal Christian wife and mother is the closest thing on earth to an angel. She should rise above such satanic temptations. Satan entered into Judas, and he can lodge in any part of the anatomy.

Ghostwriter: Please, Dr. Whipple, you’ll have me rolling on the floor, I’m trying to conduct a serious interview here. What I was trying to say was, women aren’t made of fairy dust. They give birth, they…

Dr. Whipple (waving his hand): Yes! I realize that now. But I still stand by everything else I’ve always believed and taught. Can we please change the subject to clear the air? Because…Roscoe! (shouting at the lethargic bird dog lying at his feet). The devil made you do that, you nasty old ****! Shoo! Get out of here before I tan your tail!

Ghostwriter: Temper, temper, Dr. Whipple. God made His creatures out of dirt, and living, breathing bodies don’t always act like angels. Are

you a perfect man, Dr. Whipple? Do you ever sin against God in thought, word or deed?

Dr. Whipple: Occasionally, I, like most humans, throw darts at my mother-in-law’s picture (God rest her soul) or cuss at the cat when it scratches me. Itty-bitty peccadilloes like that.

Ghostwriter: I’ll keep that in mind, but I need to dig deeper, which we’ll do tomorrow. My, this is so fascinating! Thanks for your time, Dr. Whipple.

Dr. Whipple: Care for another drink while you wait for your ride?

Ghostwriter: No time, my phone’s flashing right now. They’re already outside waiting for me.

Before Dr. Whipple could reach the window to part the curtains for a peek, Roscoe jumped on the coffee table and spilled what was left of my tea. The draconian disciplinarian dashed after the dog with a rolled-up magazine, away from the den windows toward the kitchen.

I hurried away, wondering what future sessions might reveal.

Chapter Two

Dad Blast It!

Thursday, August 13, 2015, 2:11 p.m.

Eagerly anticipating more theological theatrics, I could hardly wait to hear more of Dr. Whipple’s fascinating life story. I shook hands with Dr. Whipple, took a seat, and got started on a spirited discussion.

Ghostwriter: Yesterday you related at least one occasion where a child got spanked for an offense they didn’t commit. Can you recall any other similar incidents?

Dr. Whipple (brightening): Oh, yes! One day I noticed a cooked chicken leg lying on the floor. The only child home that day was Blastus. I called him into the kitchen, and it went like this:

“Blastus! Why did you throw that chicken on the floor! Pick it up right now and throw it in the garbage!”

“But Daddy, I didn’t…”

“Don’t lie to me, boy!”

“I ain’t lying!”

“All right, kid!” I shouted. “Now you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’ and achin’ for a breakin’! My Bible teaches that every liar will end up roasting in the Lake of Fire for all eternity, so I’d better burn up your britches to make you repent so you won’t get your buns toasted there!”

I whipped off my belt and blistered Blastus’ butt. And when it was over, I warned him to stop crying or he’d get some more, because continued crying is a sure sign of rebellion against parental authority. I knelt down with him and ordered him to beg Jesus to forgive him for throwing food on the floor and lying about it. And I told Blastus he’d get his can corrected again if he refused to do this.

After I beat Blastus, I couldn’t make him pray. Blastus blasted off. He didn’t want to ask Jesus’ forgiveness. Blastus didn’t want me to bless him after blistering him! As he ran away, Blastus bellowed that I couldn’t force him to tell a lie to Jesus or he’d burn in hell for it. At that moment the dog sashayed into the kitchen with my wife, and she had this to say:

“Ernest, I put that cold chicken on the counter to cut it up for lunch. Comet snuck up and grabbed it, and he ripped off one leg before I could reach him. I tried to get our lunch back, but he ran upstairs and gobbled it up in the bathroom. Hey, why is Blastus blubbering?”

“I beat Blastus for a sin Comet committed, Willow.”

“Don’t you think you spanked the wrong kid?” She looked a little miffed at me.

“Well, I couldn’t correct Comet so I had to beat Blastus. The humane society would lock me up if I chastised him like a child. Besides, Comet’s too old to learn any new tricks, so he doesn’t know how to kneel down and pray for Jesus to forgive him. I know the Lord can understand English, but I don’t think He has a dog dialect dictionary.”

“Ernest Whipple, I’ve got no time for your corny comedy! It’s too bad the humane society doesn’t defend Blastus like it cares for Comet! if you don’t make things right with him, I’ll have a headache tonight.”

Just then Blastus got back from bawling in the bathroom and told me it was the dog that dunnit. Since I couldn’t sire more souls to save if my wife had a headache, I ate crow and apologized to Comet for punishing his best pal.

Or, more butts to beat, I thought.

Essentially I told Blastus too bad I couldn’t un-spank him, but at least he wasn’t guilty of lying to Jesus about some sin he wasn’t guilty of. I asked if he’d forgive me.

“Sure, Dad, can I have a hot dog?”

“Fine, here’s ten bucks. Go treat your pals to McDonald’s.”

Blastus blasted off, leaping and praising God for his windfall and my conscience didn’t eat at me so bad after that, ‘cause I figured each lick was worth one buck. But on later reflection, I realized I was practicing bad theology by paying the devil off and made him mow the grass for free later.

Ghostwriter: But surely Blastus deserved some compensation for his battered butt. If you do twenty years for a crime you didn’t commit, you can sue the system for false imprisonment.

Dr. Whipple: Actually, I bestowed a blessing upon Blastus. God is able to use seemingly bad things for our greater good. I gave Blastus an opportunity to meekly endure unjust suffering and forgive the one who inflicted it. Spiritual growth is a painful process, Ghostwriter.

Ghostwriter: Well, at least it was for your children. It’s easy to take other people’s pain with a grain of salt. Sure, you can learn from anything, even a mad monkey. Miscarriages of justice still aren’t fair.

Dr. Whipple: Hmmm, I’d say it all comes out in the wash. What about all those times Blastus fed his liver to the dog under the table and I didn’t catch him? An undeserved spanking can be credited to a child’s Spanking Spread Sheet up in heaven to pay for those times justice didn’t catch up with them.

Ghostwriter: Spanking Spread Sheet? How’d you come up with that concept?

Dr. Whipple. Easy. God bottles up all our tears in heaven, so He must keep track of why they were shed, and part of that reason would be the spankings we get in life.

Ghostwriter: Don’t you think some tears are shed needlessly?

Dr. Whipple: Well, it makes up for those times when eyes stay stubbornly dry when they could be crying from sorrow for sin.

Ghostwriter: Did God create us to cry or to be joyful?

Dr. Whipple: You can’t have deep abiding joy without holiness, and the price of holiness is pain, as Hebrews 12 teaches. If only my children had learned to be thankful for all the spankings I gave them to teach

them obedience and godly humility. But they became quite adept at camouflaging hidden resentment behind a meek countenance, so this buried resentment ate at their insides like corrosive acid until they unravelled emotionally and spiritually. See how destructive rebellion and resentment are? These sins create their own punishment.

Ghostwriter: Do you think that sometimes the pain you inflicted exceeded the severity of the offense, and maybe that could be why the children harbored secret resentment until they grew up and could express it without fear of further punishment?

Dr. Whipple: All those years I was fairly certain God had given me special gifts of discernment to detect any hidden spirits of rebellion. As priest over my own household, God expected me to pick up on my children’s innermost thoughts. The boys were by far the worst. If I even suspected Spanky might be fantasizing about Superman on a Sunday, I’d drag him down to the Inner Spanktum and wear him out real good.

Ghostwriter: That’s one of the future’s worst nightmares: a Thought Court where you don’t even have to murder your mother-in-law, but you’re executed for merely being tempted to do it.

Dr. Whipple: Jesus said it’s a sin to think bad thoughts.

Ghostwriter: I don’t get it, Dr. Whipple. How can you decide in advance what thoughts you’re going to think? They just appear out of nowhere.

Dr. Whipple: Solomon said, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you might die.’

Ghostwriter: Hey, isn’t this the same guy who butchers billions of bullocks a year to feed his royal court, and he’s preaching at us about moderation in eating? But back to my other point. You contend that it’s a sin if a bad thought invades your head from out of nowhere. So is it a sin to be tempted to do something wrong, even if you say ‘no’ to the temptation?

Dr. Whipple: The very fact you’re even tempted to do something bad means your heart is rotten to the core.

Ghostwriter: What about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness? Or Hebrews 4:15, which states that Jesus was tempted in every way we’ve been tempted, and was still without sin?

Dr. Whipple: The fact remains that God chose me to detect hidden rebellion in the hearts of my children and crack down hard on it, then lead them back to God whenever they went astray.

Ghostwriter: So, essentially, you set yourself up as judge, jury, and executioner in your own Thought Court, even when no outward offenses were committed. Even a grown-up accused of a real crime is entitled to a defense lawyer before he’s tried, convicted and punished. And even if he’s convicted, he’s entitled to lodge an appeal against his conviction and have his sentence overturned if finally acquitted.Jesus said, ‘I judge no man.’

Dr. Whipple: You’re comparing apples and oranges! You’re talking about some godless secular legal system which is at odds with God and His Holy Word. I ran a home of love, where Bible discipline was strictly taught and enforced. If I ignored my gift of discernment and allowed Spanky’s root of bitterness to flourish instead of punishing him to purge it out, I’d have been answerable to God for it. God expected me to know the hearts of my children inside out and deal with them accordingly.

Ghostwriter: This might not interest you, but Solomon, your favorite Bible teacher, said that only God knows the hearts of the children of men. That was part of his prayer to dedicate the Temple. Here. I found it in my concordance. 2 Chronicles 6:30. As for that one greater than Solomon, Jesus, He said in John 8:15, ‘I judge no man’. And what’s one of His best-known sayings? Judge not, lest ye be judged. And why do you notice the speck in your brother’s eye while there’s a big plank in your own?

Dr. Whipple (self-righteously stonewalling): The natural mind cannot comprehend the deep mysteries of God. Proverbs warns that those who refuse to be taught sound doctrine and rebel against godly reproof will die. If you’re looking for manifestations of mischief in my children, they were far too numerous to enumerate. I’ll cite one example too scandalous for me to ever forget.

Ghostwriter: So what was this sordid sin?

Dr. Whipple: One Sunday during our church altar call, Blastus burst out belching real loud. Naturally I couldn’t call him out from the pulpit. I had to wait till his mom marched him up front to confront him. ‘Blastus,’ I said to him, ‘I’ve spanked you so many times the seat of your pants is worn out. Why would you run the risk of getting another spanking if your blessed assurance is still aching from the last one?’

He looked up at me with tears in his eyes. ‘I don’t know, Dad. The devil told me he’d turn my innards to jelly if I didn’t burp him out of my belly! I’m scared of him! Oh, please save me from satan, Dad, or he’ll turn me into Fungus the infernal frog!Ordinarily, in such a case, I couldn’t blame Blastus. But I caught a glimpse of his buddies in the back pew egging him on. I was on to him. Blastus was hopping on his knees, his eyes were rolling and he was croaking like a frog. I clobbered his can with my belt and shouted, ‘Fungus the Frog, I rebuke you! Get out of Blastus’ life forever! You came through the front door of the church, so leave out the back door! Go back to hell from whence you came!’One more noisome noise and Blastus begged for mercy at the altar. Only when Blastus was all grown up did he tell somebody his friends had paid him to pull that stunt, just to test his old man’s smarts to see if I’d fall for it. But I sure fooled him!

Ghostwriter: I guess you got plenty of exorcise that morning, and everybody talked about it for weeks on end!

Dr. Whipple: Blastus caused me a great deal of embarrassment no matter how much I disciplined him. He only made my job as a father more difficult. Why didn’t he return my love by showing me more respect? Why didn’t Blastus respond to my faithful fathering?

Ghostwriter: No offense intended, but the more you beat a dog the greater his hostility, and it can’t be suppressed forever. The day comes when that dog bites back. Sorry to have to be so blunt.

Dr. Whipple: I know you don’t understand me, Ghostwriter, and perhaps you never will. It takes deep discernment to understand God’s deeper truths. One of the most important lessons a Christian must learn is to walk in the death of Christ. That means you must die daily to what is pleasing to yourself, and endure harshness every day for His Name’s sake. This life might not be a bed of roses, but you get your share of stickers everywhere you turn. Some fathers boast about their children being their crown of glory. But Blastus and Spanky in particular were my crown of thorns. They made me die inside every single day, and their backslidden spiritual lives never saw any resurrection to faith in the truth.

Ghostwriter: Did the girls give you any real problems?

Dr. Whipple: Only when they started dating, and I didn’t permit that till they were seventeen. Even then they had to double-date and restrict their dates to church activities. Every guy the girls went out with had to get my approval. Most of the boys I met didn’t pass muster because

they weren’t spiritual enough. One of Mercy’s admirers acted antsy when I asked him if his father spanked him.

Ghostwriter: About how old was the guy when you asked him that?

Dr. Whipple (with a straight face) Must have been at least eighteen. I got him on the subject of church and tried to convince him of the true meaning of discipleship. A disciple is a ‘disciplined one’, a Christian who is constantly suffering hardship and pain from the spiritual warfare he wages against satan. A person who gets minimal sleep, fasts often, weeps often, is always tired because his devotion to Christ makes him a workaholic who labors around the clock to serve Him. I told the young man God doesn’t need sissy pew potatoes. He needs real men for His kingdom, and any prospective son-in-law of mine had better remember these things. Well, he mumbled something and left shortly after that.

Ghostwriter: So the only way a person can please God is if they’re constantly in a state of pain? What sort of good news is that for the sinner?

Dr. Whipple (smugly): I’d expect you to say something like that. Unless God passes out Mars Bars to bring people into His Kingdom, most folks don’t seem too interested. That’s how far we as a nation have fallen from God.

Ghostwriter: Do you believe a father must lead by example, Dr. Whipple?

Dr. Whipple: Definitely. The man of the house must go the Way of the Cross first and lead his family down that dark pathway to glory.

Ghostwriter: When you spanked Blastus for something he didn’t do, you asked his dog to forgive you. And that was your face-saving way of asking Blastus to forgive you as well. Right?

Dr. Whipple: Well, what of it?

Ghostwriter: What about “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”? Throughout this session you’ve maintained that a child owes a debt of suffering even if Jesus forgives him. Shouldn’t you have gotten a spanking too, even if Blastus forgave you? The Unmerciful Servant in Matthew 18 got forgiven for owing his master a million bucks, only to turn around and grab his fellow-servant by the throat for owing him a quarter. When did you ever forgive your children for something without demanding that they be punished for it first? If

you’ll bother to read the story, you’ll notice that the unjust servant got forgiven by his master without first taking a whipping. It was only after the unmerciful servant refused to forgive the other guy that his master sent him down to his Inner Spanktum to be tortured for his sin. When you prayed to God to forgive you for a sin, I doubt you asked Him to give you a whipping for what you did. Why couldn’t you dish out the same mercy you got from God?

Dr. Whipple (pouting): How dare you call my Inner Spanktum a torture chamber! I detect a ROOT OF BITTERNESS in your life, Ghostwriter. IF YOU LOVED JESUS you wouldn’t even allow such sacrilegious demons of doubt and derision to possess your head.

Ghostwriter: If someone owes you a quarter and you owe God a billion bucks, who’s more entitled to mercy?

Dr. Whipple: Instead of criticizing my life, you should search your own heart first. Maybe you can’t make peace with your own past, so…

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, you’re the one throwing up defensive walls with typical religious guilt triggers. I sense your reluctance to answer my sticky point. You maintain that the father should lead the way in godly suffering. As you said, discipline must be maintained in the home even if Jesus forgives you and wipes the slate clean. Besides beating Blastus, on other occasions you paddled a child when they’d done nothing to merit that punishment. Since you couldn’t discipline yourself, don’t you think you should have asked your wife to spank you for those miscarriages of justice? Don’t you think you should get one lick for every dart you threw at her deceased mother’s picture? After all, the poor woman isn’t around to defend herself.

Dr. Whipple sputtered a load of bull and stonewalled and finally said, “But Solomon said_”

Ghostwriter: We’ll discuss that dude next time, since he’s the firm foundation you’ve built your ministry on. But before I go, I’d like to explore something you said earlier. You contend that unless the father spanks the child first, Jesus is unable to complete His atoning work in the life of a little child. Is that truly your heart-felt belief?

Dr. Whipple: It certainly is. John the Baptist said to make restitution if you’re serious about repentance. Otherwise, your repentance is false. A child makes restitution by getting spanked. Period.

Ghostwriter: The law of your house stipulated that a guilty child always got spanked, regardless of any sorrow or repentance happening in his heart. The Law of Moses operated the very same way. Regardless of whether or not the sinner was contrite, the penalty still had to be paid. The woman caught in adultery was brought to Jesus by a crowd of men determined to see that she paid the full price of her sin, which meant being stoned to death. But Jesus showed those men that none of them was sinless enough to cast the first stone. Are you without sin, Dr. Whipple, and were you without sin when you dragged your children down to the Inner Spanktum?

Dr. Whipple (tersely) Oh I suppose not, but they had to learn to mind!

Ghostwriter (referring to notes): Bear with me awhile, and I’ll explain my position. Your contention that Christ is unable to save a child’s soul unless you first beat that child is erroneous. The apostles never taught such a thing, and neither did Jesus. The Catholics teach that going to purgatory, and having someone pay for indulgences to get a soul out of Purgatory, is necessary before that soul can enter heaven. To this day, many monks and nuns wear sackcloth against their skin or beat themselves with little whips to chastise themselves for sin. Some people fast to expiate their guilt for sins. Punishing yourself, or a little child, to help Jesus pay the price for their sins reveals an inherent lack of faith in the all-sufficiency of the atonement Christ made on Calvary. Paul teaches in Galatians 5:4 that if we try to save ourselves by works, we’re in danger of falling from the grace of God.

Dr. Whipple: But as I pointed out in my book Daddy’s Discipline, John Wesley’s mother believed in spanking little babies, and that man turned out to be one of the greatest preachers in history!

Ghostwriter: We are not to base our beliefs on historical hearsay, but only on what the scriptures teach. Isaiah 28:9 says that God can teach

those who are weaned off the breast. In primitive societies, children don’t get weaned till they’re at least two or three. In Mrs. Wesley’s day, baby Methodists couldn’t use modern methods to drink milk, so they had to breastfeed till they could chew solids. In Deuteronomy 1:39 God says little kids can’t tell good from evil. And if they don’t know right from wrong, how could Mrs. Wesley’s punishment of breastfeeding babies be justified in the light of this revelation?

Dr. Whipple: You’re just being rebellious!

Ghostwriter: Rebellious against religious bondages! ‘You’re being rebellious’ is another favorite Christian catchphrase to stonewall away the truth. Did you know there were times in Scripture God went easy on adults for not being able to tell right from wrong? God spared the city of Nineveh, and it made Jonah mad because he wanted to see that city nuked. God asked Jonah why He shouldn’t spare that great city, where so many people (including adults, I presume) couldn’t tell their right hand from their left. And when Christ was on the Cross, He said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ Jesus did not say, ‘Father, forgive them, but be sure to fan their bottoms first.’ Those were grownup crucifiers of Christ who didn’t know what they were doing, not tiny toddlers! Wouldn’t a baby or child be entitled to at least as much mercy for making a far less serious mistake?

Dr. Whipple: Mrs. Wesley would spank her children as young as nine months old, but that didn’t seem to do John Wesley any harm. That woman must have done something right to produce such a godly son.

Ghostwriter (referring to notes): Sometimes God’s grace is great enough to overcome mistakes parents make, and God uses their

children in spite of the parents’ child-rearing methods, not because of them. In the New Testament, Paul emphasizes obedience to authority. But he also teaches that the Christian life is one of liberty in the Spirit, not rigid law. Apparently John Wesley was raised in a very legalistic household. If he got hungry between meals, he risked being punished if he tried to get something to eat. I guess Wesley’s parents didn’t know a growing boy needs extra calories.

Dr. Whipple: Maybe their being such a large family had something to do with it. Too many mouths consuming a limited amount of food.

Ghostwriter: Sorry to disagree, but any household which employs servants can’t be too poor. The servants of the Wesley household were forbidden to feed John, or they’d get scolded and he’d get worse. So much for Christ’s admonition to feed the hungry. But if it’s a sin to eat between meals, even Jesus is guilty of it. Some Christian homes run on strictly regimented schedules. But in the case of Christ, His and the disciples’ mealtimes tended to be irregular because of ministry demands, as Mark 6:31 indicates. One day Jesus stopped at a fig tree to find some fruit to stave off hunger pangs. He didn’t say, ‘If I find figs on this barren-looking fig tree, it will count as my official lunch; otherwise it’s a sin for me to eat.’ But you know the rest of the story: there was no fruit for Him to eat for either a snack or a meal.One day Jesus’ disciples grazed through a grain field and picked their own snack, threshing it in their hands. And guess what? The religious rulers took them to task for breaking their Law about not working on the Sabbath. It was only by the grace of God that Wesley survived such a rigidly legalistic upbringing and accomplished so much for God.

Dr. Whipple: Wesley was a well of wisdom. As I stated in Daddy’s Discipline, he taught this principle: ‘Let the little child learn to fear the rod. Let him learn to cry very softly. Let his will be utterly broken.’

Ghostwriter: Break his will. Well, you need a big boulder to crack an egg. Might makes right. The only people Jesus threatened to pulverize were enemies who rejected and killed God’s Son. It was they who would fall on the rock and be broken. Read all four gospels. Not once does Jesus threaten to break a child.

Dr. Whipple: I didn’t say ‘break the child himself.’ Just his will!

Ghostwriter: Christ didn’t say that either. In fact, ‘break the will’ doesn’t occur even ONCE in all Scripture! The closest I found was Psalms 119:20, where the author states that his soul breaks for the longing he has for the Word of God. It doesn’t say his daddy beat that longing into him. It happened on its own, or God inspired that reaction to holy things.

Dr. Whipple: A spiritual giant like John Wesley can’t be wrong.

Ghostwriter: A lot of Baptists would disagree with Wesley on baptism by sprinkling instead of immersion. It still follows that to break something you need a heavy hammer to crush something weaker and force it into compliance. John Wesley’s hammer was the rod, and that’s open to interpretation. So was that a tree limb or a 2X4?

Dr. Whipple: The Rod is a stick, plain and simple. Not a board.

Ghostwriter: How big does the stick have to be to ‘train’ a child to love Jesus? Before women won equal status as human beings, the law allowed a husband to beat his wife with a stick no wider than his thumb. But give satan an inch, he’ll grab a mile. ‘The Rod’ has inspired satanic instruments of torture to ‘correct’ rebellion against bad religion. Essentially what ‘breaking a child’s will’ means is, if you break a few capillaries in his hindquarters, you’ll break the sin in his soul so he earns entry into heaven. Jesus said of children: ‘Of such are (present tense) the Kingdom of God’, not ‘could become worthy of the Kingdom if they’re beaten enough’. Jesus did threaten to severely beat

His servants who abused their fellow servants. But He never taught people to beat holiness into kids, and if He did, I see it nowhere in the New Testament. Only in Solomon’s writings.

Dr. Whipple: Whatever it takes! The parent’s job is to rein in his wild colt and control him, even if it takes stripes which cleanse away sin in the inner parts of the belly, as Proverbs 20:30 teaches. And Solomon teaches in Proverbs 23:14: If you beat your son with the rod, you’ll deliver his soul from hell.

Ghostwriter: There you go again, wise King Solomon, history’s greatest family expert, who partied with a thousand sexy babes while urging husbands to stay faithful to the wife of their youth, and telling wives to work till they dropped in Proverbs 31. Family expert Solomon, the wisest man in all of history. Too wise to beat his own royal hiney out of hell after he built satanic idols for his heathen wives.

Dr. Whipple: Be that as it may, God, in His infinite wisdom, used imperfect people to record His words.

Ghostwriter: That’s putting it mildly, Dr. Whipple. If all you have to do to keep your kids out of hell is beat their bongos, there’s no need for the Gospel of Grace. A large proportion of hard core criminals had abusive fathers who firmly believed in The Rod, which might take the form of a cowhide belt, a garden hose, a broom handle. You name it, it’s open to interpretation because there’s no laws to specify what a parent is allowed to use, how many times to hit for what, and how hard to hit which kid of which age, gender or size. To top it all off, in every context where Jesus warned about the horrors of hell, NOT ONCE did He repeat Solomon’s advice on how to guarantee your kids won’t go there: Beat the crap out of them!

Dr. Whipple: You’re blabbering a bunch of baloney! You can’t teach a kid the fear of God till you destroy his own contrary will down first, so you can mold his soul into something better.

Ghostwriter: That’s the philosophy of totalitarian dictators. Take the nation’s youth, make them feel like maggots and strip them of their individuality. Tear down their old personality, with all its aspirations, wants and needs, to make that person a blank sheet of paper to write their own will on. And Christians justify using this same tyranny on children by passing it off as God’s will. Recreate God in your own image so you can rubberstamp His Name on any policy you like! Destroy another individual’s capacity to exercise free will. A good recipe for creating dysfunctional, neurotic androids who fear authority

figures so much they can’t function adequately in the competitive world of work once they grow into adults.

Dr. Whipple (petulantly): It’s still the Word of God!

Ghostwriter: So are those passages about going up to the Land of Canaan to slaughter all the inhabitants thereof, including babies and children. Are those words just as binding on modern believers?

Dr. Whipple: You know darn well that God expects only a spiritual application of such scriptures! When a Christian goes up to possess his spiritual Canaan and cast out the giants in the Land, he doesn’t use an AK-47 to take out the enemy. The Christian applies those warfare passages by using the Word of God to cast down invisible powers and strongholds. Christians use spiritual weapons to win a spiritual victory.

Ghostwriter: So why isn’t spanking spiritualized away like all those scary scriptures commanding genocide, forced marriage of virgin war captives, capital punishment for adulterers, and so on? Are certain scriptures given a literal application for the convenience of Christians who need to take their frustrations out on little kids? It takes a lot less brains to pound respect out of your kid than to earn his respect by treating him with human empathy and gentleness. Beatings and whippings can’t force a child to love you for a lifetime.

Dr. Whipple: Ghostwriter, if you’re alluding to my severed ties with my own children, satan is using you to discourage me! I was faithful to the Word of God, which commanded me to beat my sons and daughters with the rod, and Solomon promised they wouldn’t go to hell. And if they aren’t headed for hell, they’ll want to come home to me one of these days. But you must get it in your thick skull that you cannot win spiritual wars by using carnal intellectual weapons! Individual will is a sin against God and must be broken!

Ghostwriter: If it’s a sin to have an intelligent brain capable of deciding what’s sane and what’s stupid, why didn’t God give us the brain of a bumblebee? All the great leaders of history had to have a strong will to get anything done in a world full of boot licker conformists who refused to rock the boat. Can you imagine Winston Churchill surrendering to Hitler because someone broke his will to win? Or Joan of Arc acquiescing to the atrocities of English invaders? What would this planet be like without those few brave hearts who have the iron will, and the guts, to fight social and religious evils which crush weaker people underfoot?

Dr. Whipple: You’re just being rebellious, Ghostwriter. You’ll never be a tender-hearted, meekly submissive John Wesley.

Ghostwriter: No disrespect intended, but if I’d rather be me than anybody else. That’s what God called me to be. If I’d suffered half of what Wesley did in his childhood, I would have run away to the Indians to get something to eat without being beaten for it.

Dr. Whipple: I believe Wesley was English, not American.

Ghostwriter (laughing): I would have had a long way to paddle to get to those Indians then. In a canoe, I mean!

Dr. Whipple (grimly): Discipline is no laughing matter. How heavy a burden is carried by a Christian father, who must deny his own human sentiments, and enforce the penalty of a child’s disobedience, that he might take further steps to prepare that youngster to enter the hallowed Presence of Almighty God to ask for forgiveness. If such a saint as John Wesley taught spanking, I must do the same.

Ghostwriter: Is John Wesley your master, or Christ?

Dr. Whipple: John Wesley set an example of holiness for all generations of Christians who would follow down the annals of time. Everything John Wesley believed and taught was rock solid.

He’d barely finished saying this when Maria appeared with a cookie tray. Dr. Whipple accepted an Oreo.

Ghostwriter: You don’t intend to eat that now, do you, Dr. Whipple?

Dr. Whipple: What else would I do with a cookie? Feed it to the dog?

It was gone in two bites.

Ghostwriter: Shame, shame, shame! You just broke one of John Wesley’s cardinal laws, Dr. Whipple, a statute his own mother taught him as a child and enforced with the Rod of Correction.

Dr. Whipple: Huh?

Ghostwriter: Unless that counts as your dinner, you just ate between meals! Why isn’t John Wesley’s anti-snacking ordinance just as binding on believers as his spanking doctrine?

Dr. Whipple: That Oreo Cookie probably won’t send my soul to hell, but if I lie to Christians and say God doesn’t require a child to be spanked before Jesus can forgive them, I’ll be down there shoveling coal with Judas!

Ghostwriter (referring to notes): I still strongly believe that if a misguided parent teaches their child that spanking is necessary before Jesus is able to forgive them, they’re saying to that little child: ‘It wasn’t enough that Jesus took a whipping from the Romans and was crucified for your sins. You have to suffer too or it won’t be enough to save your soul.’ That puts a dent in the child’s faith in Christ. That makes the child wonder what other Bible teaching might be shot full of holes. That’s what I mean by making a child stumble out of the Way to Life, Dr. Whipple. To be guilty of that runs the risk of turning a child away from Christ altogether, and making him think that unless Daddy fans his tail, Christ cannot keep His promise to save him to the uttermost, as Hebrews 7:25 teaches. It makes a lie out of Christ’s own declaration from the cross: ‘It is FINISHED!’For these reasons and more, I’m firmly convinced that any parent who teaches a child they have to be beaten before Jesus is able to forgive them, is teaching a dangerous heresy. A heresy I call ‘Spankianity’.

Dr. Whipple grunted something unintelligible, fed a forbidden snack to Roscoe, glanced at his watch and yawned. I took the hint.

Ghostwriter: Guess we’d better wrap it up now. But talking with you was such an education! My, but you learn something new every day!

Dr. Whipple (smiling eerily): As I said before, this planet is one big classroom where you learn how to live. You must be very thirsty after all that talking. I remember some orange Koolaid in the fridge. Can I get you some before you hit the dry, dusty road?

Ghostwriter: Sorry, you said we needed to finish early today. Gotta run, fascinating session. Thanks for your time. Hasta mañana! Au Revoir. Sayonara.

Dr. Whipple: Huh? I can’t speak Chinese. Need to call your taxi?

Ghostwriter (glancing at my cell phone): No, I see lights flashing on my screen. My ride’s out there waiting for me. Gotta go, bye.

Chapter Three

Solomon Sez

Friday, August 14, 2015 2:12 p.m.

I felt like I’d barely scratched the surface of this amazing man’s life. After waving farewell to my sky pilot, I strolled across the manicured yard, then up the plank steps to the sunny porch. I rang the doorbell and waited for the maid to escort me in. She stared sullenly at me.

Ghostwriter: Hi, Maria, how are you today?

Maria: Okay, I guess. But after you left yesterday, the boss took it out on me and the dog. He rebuked Roscoe till he howled for mercy. Then he made me beat the rugs, polish his paddle collection, wax the woodwork with Q-tips, and darn his damned socks.

She looked utterly chastened.

Ghostwriter: I’m so sorry, Maria. Here’s a few bucks to say thanks for the great tea you made yesterday…and for your other work.

Maria (deeply moved) Awesome!

Ghostwriter (whispering) Don’t forget, Maria, when we’re alone, you can just call me “Ghostwriter”. If I had to do your job, I’d want folks to be nice to me too. I know what it’s like to work for overbearing bosses.

Maria: Oh well, just glad you’re here. Mucho gracias, Ghostwriter. Guess we’d better go in. He’s waiting for you.

Dr. Whipple sat in semi-darkness, spectacles on, perusing a worn-out Bible. When he heard my footsteps on the gleaming wood floor, he looked up, forced a smile, gestured for me to sit down. Maria politely asked if I preferred tea or coffee. I chose sweet coffee with cream.

Dr. Whipple (to the maid): You can fetch a few Fig Newtons, or whatever’s left in the cupboard. As for myself, I’ve started a 3-day fast. Do you fast, Ghostwriter?

Ghostwriter: Only when I’m too poor to feed my face. Any special reason for your abstinence?

Dr. Whipple: Three reasons. Firstly, I want my sales to pick up again. Secondly, I want my family back. Thirdly, I want to see you repent of your erroneous doctrinal positions so you’ll escape hell. If you want a miracle from God, you must pay the price. No pain, no gain.

Ghostwriter: So what if God deems it best not to grant your petition?

Dr. Whipple: Sometimes satan blocks God’s answers to prayer, like he blocked Daniel’s answer for three whole weeks. If God’s too busy to answer ordinary prayer, I’ll get his attention by fasting. That’s the way to send priority mail to God. Heaven knows people enjoy eating so much, even God sits up and notices when they quit.

Ghostwriter: Sounds more like a hunger strike to me.

Dr. Whipple: It’s great discipline for the fallen flesh, just like when I sent my children to bed without supper for neglecting to do their chores. God will not hear my prayers unless I keep my body under subjection with suffering. Jesus died for me so the least I can do is starve for Him every now and then. Failure to fast ties God’s hands. As we abstain from food and focus only on Him, it strengthens Him to achieve greater victories against satan.

Ghostwriter: Actually, I’m enough of a student of scripture to know Colossians 2:15 teaches Jesus has already defeated satan and all the principalities and powers of the universe, publicly humiliating them. Verse 23 of the same chapter teaches that treating the body harshly

doesn’t make a person more spiritual. As for God’s hands being tied unless people fast their fat to fuel His activities, Almighty God was able to create heaven and earth before the birth of any faster in human history. Paul never commanded Christians to fast. Nor did he spell out any rules on such particulars as how to break a fast, how many fasting points you score for each day’s abstinence, how many points it takes to earn what type of miracle, what to do if you accidentally ingest a peanut during your fast. The crucial question in that case would be: Do the five calories in the peanut officially break your fast? Is God ticked off at you for your absent-minded nibble? Will He punish you for that peanut? After all, the rest of the church is suffering but you enjoyed one stolen moment of illicit pleasure.

Dr. Whipple: A moment on the lips, forever in satan’s barbecue pit. He who lives in pleasure is spiritually dead. We pay the price of suffering now so we can enjoy life after we die.

Ghostwriter: Speaking of death, there’s one hope you’ve fought to keep alive. Getting your family back. Does that include the former Mrs. Whipple?

Dr. Whipple: With God all things are possible. If Sherwood dies of distemper or some other deadly disease, the door will open for Willow and myself to reconcile. If she fasts a whole month in sackcloth and ashes to show how sorry she is.

Ghostwriter: Willow’s penance would be tough enough, but do you really want Sherwood to die of distemper?

Dr. Whipple: For the sake of Willow’s soul. She’s the one living in sin, and she needs to see that sin carries terrible consequences. I never remarried after she forced this divorce.

Who’d have you anyway? I thought.

Ghostwriter: So you wouldn’t care if Sherwood died like a diseased dog before receiving Christ as Savior?

Dr. Whipple: There’s a special place in hell for wife-stealers.

Ghostwriter: Did Willow ever have any more children…with him?

Dr. Whipple: Two, I heard. A boy, Robin, and a girl, Lotus.

Ghostwriter: What kind of stepdad would you make if they were part of your life?

Dr. Whipple: They’d be treated no different than my own kids were.

Poor kids, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Have you ever met them?

Dr. Whipple: Nope, and I wouldn’t care to. Besides, I haven’t lived within a thousand miles of Willow or my own kids for 40-odd years. But I had to pay for their support, even after Willow got hitched again. If I fast God is able to set her free from that illicit union. I pray every day that He teaches her obedience through suffering, and breaks her stubbornness with the hammer of hard trials. Like Paul committed an unrepentant enemy to satan for the destruction of his sinful flesh so that his spirit would be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus, so I have turned Willow over to the devil, that her bed of adultery might become a sickbed to break her will and humble her before God Almighty. If Sherwood gets sick and dies, the sorrow that brings Willow would wilt her will and make her heart pliable putty in the Hand of God.

Ghostwriter: My original intent had been to hold a special session on ‘the breaking of the will’, but you’ve already said enough to freak me out and satisfy all my curiosity on that point. I’d prefer not to delve into what you’re petitioning God to do, but I hope you can live with yourself afterward if you do get the desires of your heart and Willow gets worms or Sherwood shrivels up from distemper. As for fasting itself,

none of the New Testament apostles ever taught Christians to fast. Every fasting doctrine taught in the church is derived either from extra-Biblical church tradition or Old Testament examples of Jews under law fasting to win God’s forgiveness or bail them out of some mess. In Matthew 9 Jesus, who defended his disciples for eating instead of fasting, linked fasting with mourning, not with the joy which is supposed to characterize the normal condition of a Christian. Paul commanded Christians to pray continually and love one another, but Paul never said you had to punish your body to pry a miracle out of God. The way I see it, if God’s way too weak to clobber satan unless I skip my Hershey Bar, this world is going down the toilet in one flush.

Dr. Whipple (smiling smugly): I’ve driven out batallions of devils by sacrificing pork chops and gravy, but you can have your devil’s food cake if you prefer it to the heavenly manna. Admittedly I had hoped you’d take the bait and spend this session jawing with me about fasting, a subject you can really sink your teeth into. I could have made mincemeat out of you with my superior knowledge on the history of, and importance of, religious fasting. But who am I to call the shots? For all your phony flattery, you fancy yourself my teacher. So instead of letting God guide our sessions, you’d prefer to stick to your preplanned syllabus and make a meal of my favorite Bible hero.

Ghostwriter (accepting a Fig Newton): To each his own. If you feel fasting fans satan’s fanny, fine, have at it. But now I’d like to know, since you’re a take-charge kind of guy. Were you a military man?

Dr. Whipple (pompously): I served six years in the navy before studying divinity at Glory Road Seminary. I come from a relatively

impoverished background, but my Uncle Lumpy passed away and left me a lump sum toward my higher education.

Ghostwriter: Fascinating. So was it hard, deciding how to use it? Dr. Whipple: Oh, my career choice was a challenge. I almost flew over to England to go to butler school. What an adventure it would have been to mix and mingle with mannerly, genteel gentlefolk! Oh, to be a butler, dishing out discipline down in the servants’ quarters to maintain the smooth running of the entire estate!

Ghostwriter: And how, pray tell, would you have undertaken that intimidating task?

Dr. Whipple: Let’s see…I would have chided the chambermaid if she left dust on the dresser. I would have scolded the scullery maid if she left fingerprints on the flatware. I would have corrected the kitchen maid with a withering word if she didn’t peel the potatoes properly. I would have flogged the footman with a feather duster if he came in late from a date. I would have corrected the cook with a wire whip if her petit fours flopped.

Ghostwriter (laughing): What a sharp wit you have, Dr. Whipple. But a cantankerous old cook needs more TLC than that. She might retaliate with a rolling pin.

Dr. Whipple: Some sinners refuse to submit meekly to correction.

Ghostwriter: So what was behind your preference for the ministry?

Dr. Whipple: I detected a sad lack of discipline in the Christian Church. Most ministers preach pusillanimous platitudes instead of salty sermons against sin. God blessed me with the Ministry of Rebuke, and I was afraid He would call me on the carpet if I didn’t dish it out.

Always third-party the blame for your devilishness, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Back to your scholastic career. So how did you do in divinity school?

Dr. Whipple: Other, more pressing commitments, prevented me from achieving all my highest educational aspirations, but I was awarded an honorary doctorate for my exemplary exegesis of the imprecatory Psalms.

Ghostwriter: Honorary doctorate, a remarkable achievement. And, you did mention a brief career in the Navy. So what rank did you achieve during your tour of duty?

Dr. Whipple: Rear admiral, for being such a courageous captain.

Ghostwriter: What an omen…uh…honor! From captain to rear admiral! Hmmm. Mind if I explore this subject a bit further?

Dr. Whipple. Shoot.

Ghostwriter: Did you ever rise above the rank of rear admiral?

Dr. Whipple (Grimacing): No, some rich kid fresh from the naval academy bribed the top brass to install him in the top job. He was ten years younger, but I had to call him “sir”! And that persnickety punk rubbed my nose in it. ‘Launder, starch, and iron my undershorts, rear admiral! Scrub my throne till you can eat off it, rear admiral!’

Ghostwriter: Did this humiliation hurt your ego and make you resentful?

Dr. Whipple: Not in the slightest. God used this trial of affliction to enhance the deep humility He’d already instilled in my soul. But He more than made it up to me. The honor and respect I was denied out in the world, I gained in my family home. Before they were out of diapers my family knew I was the rear admiral of admonition, the commander of correction, the captain of my own canoe, and most importantly, the Hallowed High Priest of Punitive Paddles, who held inspirational spanking ceremonies down in my own “inner spanktum”.

Ghostwriter: Which brings us back to the firm foundation of most of your child-rearing theology: King Solomon and his Proverbs.

Dr. Whipple: Solomon’s proverbs? I beg to differ. They’re God’s proverbs, not Solomon’s, and everything that godly man ever wrote is binding on believers today.

I felt like Dr. Whipple had already shot himself in the foot.

Ghostwriter: It will take considerable time to hash through all the ramifications of what you just said, Dr. Whipple. But I disagree that Old Testament admonitions are ‘binding’ on God’s New Covenant children, who are described by Paul the apostle as being free. How could Christians be bound by what Solomon, a polygamous playboy

living under Mosaic Law, wrote? Romans and Galatians teaches that Christians are free children of God who are not bound by the Old Law.

Dr. Whipple: God laid down a tough law and He means for His kids to keep it or pay the piper!

Ghostwriter: Then you don’t agree with what Peter and James taught in Acts 15, when the apostles met to decide whether Gentile converts had to keep the Law of Moses. Acts 15: 28 states that they, and the Holy Ghost, agreed that non-Jews are not to be circumcised and keep the Law. And oddly enough, they didn’t split hairs on the issue by differentiating between the so-called ‘moral laws’ and ‘religious laws’ of the Jews. Nothing was said by these apostles about Proverbs being binding on Gentile believers. If that’s so, equal authority must be given to Esther, a book which never mentions God at all and advocates the total annihilation of enemies and their families instead of granting enemies a fair trial and forgiveness.

Dr. Whipple: Even if Old Testament warfare was barbaric, the Proverbs were authored by God Himself, Who gave Solomon wisdom in all matters.

Ghostwriter: What’s wise for one may not be wise for another. It was wise for Old Testament Jews to sacrifice animals and keep Jewish rituals. It’s not wise for us. As to your assertion that the Proverbs are God’s rather than Solomon’s, my Bible states in three different verses that they were Solomon’s proverbs, and these references don’t make any claims to divine authorship.

As Dr. Whipple fidgeted, I read out loud Proverbs 1:1, 10:1 and 25:1.

Ghostwriter: If God were the actual writer, or should I say, ghostwriter of Proverbs, wouldn’t these verses give God’s invisible authorship at least a passing mention, instead of letting Solomon hog all the credit for writing them? God will not share His glory with anyone.

Dr. Whipple: Surely Jesus approved of Proverbs.

Ghostwriter: Jesus mentioned the Psalms of David numerous times, as well as other prophets. But He never once incorporated Proverbs in His teaching. Not once. The only proverb of Solomon in the New Testament was quoted by Peter, and it wasn’t a spanking proverb. He quoted that one about a dog returning to its own vomit.

Dr. Whipple: Surely Jesus said something about Solomon himself. Surely his teachings must be authoritative for believers today.

Ghostwriter: The name ‘Solomon’ occurs ten times in the New Testament, but Jesus mentioned him in only four verses. Not to extol the greatness and wisdom of Solomon, but to compare Solomon unfavorably with Himself. The last mention of Solomon’s name in the Bible is in Acts 7:47, spoken by Stephen just before the Jews stoned him to death. Personally, I believe God finished dealing with the nation of Israel after the death of Stephen, and He didn’t choose to enforce the Proverbs of an apostate Jewish king on Gentile believers through the ministry of Paul, or any other apostle of the mostly Gentile church thereafter. Except for Peter denouncing the dog for swallowing his own vomit, not one epistle to the churches quotes from Solomon’s literature or binds it on believers as law. Not even James, the most legalistic apostle, ever appeals to Solomon as a moral authority, although modern preachers promote their pet doctrines by appealing to Proverbs. And any Proverbs which don’t make preachers richer or more powerful tend to be passed over in sermons.

Dr. Whipple: So you’re denying divine inspiration of the scriptures?

Ghostwriter: That’s an unfair extrapolation. I never questioned the inspiration of everything in the Bible. One example of doubtful canonicity is the Book of Esther, which was a very late addition to the Christian Bible. Esther was only accepted after centuries of rejection, and as the result of a vote by Catholic clergy in the Middle Ages. Esther’s authenticity was not accepted as historically accurate by conscientious Jewish scholars at all. Instead, it was considered a fable. Esther was taken seriously by the Jews only when they decided to use that book to empower themselves as an ethnic group. And as for everything in the Bible being directly inspired by God, that broad controversy would fill enough space for its own book. One reference has satan provoking David to number Israel, while another verse claims God provoked David to do it. There are errors of numerical translation too. In 2 Samuel 24:13 God offers David a choice of punishments, one of which is seven years of famine. But a parallel verse in I Chronicles 21:12 has God offering David just three years of famine to punish him for the same sin. One mistake is enough to give the reader the right to question the inerrancy of Biblical translations. Anything short of absolute perfection is still imperfect.

Dr. Whipple: But you have hundreds of secular humanist translations circulating in churches these days. Cartoon Bibles, hippie jargon Bibles, American mumbo-jumbo Bibles, Bedtime Bibles, bah! At least the good old King James Version came along before religion got dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. I’ve got no reason

to question the content of the Bible or its traditional interpretation, even when you crunch all those numbers in it that don’t add up.

Ghostwriter: Learned theologians have debated for centuries about correct interpretation of Holy Writ, dispensational division of its doctrinal applications, the inclusion of or exclusion of books from the canon of scripture. Did you know that medieval Catholic Church councils decided which books would be included in the original compilation of the scriptures, and before they bound these books together into one volume, there was no Bible Christians could read for daily devotions? Some of the church officials who voted on which books to include in the Bible led less than exemplary lives, and translated scripture under the watchful eye of kings who had a vested interest in maintaining their power over the populace.

Dr. Whipple: Yes, I do admit some of your prickly points were mentioned at the seminary. Prior to the Protestant Reformation of the 1500’s, church people were indebted to Catholic prelates and Catholic translators for whatever Bibles they had.

Ghostwriter: And most folks were illiterate. Only the upper crust could read scripture in the original Biblical languages. Centuries ago, it was illegal for a common peasant to own a copy of scripture, and it was a capital crime to translate scripture into the vernacular of the general populace. William Tyndale got burnt to death for translating the Bible into English. Scripture could only be read to the people in Latin by priests if they chose to share it at all, and the priests only taught the people what Rome wanted them to believe.

Dr. Whipple: At least those people had some teacher, even if it had to be a Catholic priest. God has anointed better-educated Christians to be the teachers of less advantaged sheep, so it behooves believers to bow to the authority of those who keep watch over their souls.

Ghostwriter: Like a fox watches over a hen house. John 7:15 confirms my suspicion that Christ, a peasant’s foster son, never had the benefit of a formal higher education, though all village boys were taught basic reading, writing and scripture memorization. Jesus never wrote a book or even a pamphlet to pass on to future generations. But He is the most important Man Who ever lived. The alleged authority of seminary-educated eggheads is no excuse for their foisting false doctrine and ignorance on impressionable souls. The Holy Spirit is the Christian’s teacher, as Jesus Himself says in John 14:26.

Dr. Whipple: I still maintain that ALL scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for doctrine and instruction in righteousness, as 2 Tim.3:16 states.

Ghostwriter: My own application of “all scripture is profitable” is God can take what He wants to teach you out of the scriptures and breathe life into a specific text to make it relevant to your own life. Only then does it truly become God’s living Word to you instead of dead text on a page. Truthfully, I can’t spiritually digest any scripture which does not reveal Christ to me, or help me walk in His Spirit of love.

Dr. Whipple: But ancient Jews were required to meditate on the Law of Moses day in and day out.

Ghostwriter: In 2 Corinthians 3 Paul calls the LAW THE MINISTRATION OF DEATH. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. As Paul teaches, I’m under grace, not Jewish law.

Dr. Whipple: Apparently you’re an antinomian. You don’t like being ruled by every verse in the Bible.

Ghostwriter: So what if I read “Judas went out and hanged himself” and then “Go thou and do likewise? Should I literally apply that to my own life?

Dr. Whipple: You’re serious, aren’t you? You think you can spiritualize away the ‘All scripture is profitable’ rule.

Ghostwriter (referring to notes): Bear with me awhile and I’ll clarify my position. Verses about family incest and murder may be useful for warning us not to live that way, but not all scripture is binding on me. Some of Christ’s teachings conflict with what Moses taught. For example, Jesus warned His disciples not to avenge themselves with the sword. Moses taught the Israelites to go into the Promised Land and commit genocide to take over that territory. But God does not command me to kill Canaanites so I can grab the Promised Land for myself and my descendants. God doesn’t care if I eat a pork chop. Paul taught that Moses’ food laws aren’t binding on us. No decent Christian would apply that scripture in Exodus 21 which allows cash-strapped fathers to sell their daughters as sex slaves with the option to buy them back if they fail to please their new masters. If they did, they’d be prosecuted by the vice squad for sex trafficking. No serious follower of Christ would obey that verse in Deuteronomy 22 which commands parents to stone a daughter to death if she’s raped and didn’t scream for help. So what if the attacker held a knife to the girl’s throat and threatened to kill her if she did scream, would she be

executed anyway? In Deuteronomy 22 Moses commands Israelites to execute non-virgin brides. No mention of executing a man for failure to be a virgin! Do you smell a double standard there? If Christians kept this law today, they’d be tried for first-degree murder! Jesus worked on the Sabbath even though God forbade people to do that. Jesus knew the Law inside out. But He still refused to sanction the stoning of a woman caught in adultery, though the Bible commanded that punishment. And, by the way, why didn’t that crowd of enraged men seize the man too, as Deuteronomy 22:24 commands? God does not command modern Christians to pick up stones and help execute an adulteress. Jesus didn’t even give the repentant adulteress a spanking!

Dr. Whipple: Be that as it may, if you’ll read Revelation 2:22, Jesus threatens to discipline an adulteress on a bed of affliction.

Ghostwriter: If the woman wouldn’t repent, Christ would have taken that extreme measure, Dr. Whipple. If you’d read the earlier part of the context, you’d discover Jesus’ objective was to save this wayward woman, not wreak vengeance on her. Jesus gave her space to repent so He wouldn’t have to punish her. But you insisted on spanking your children even if they had a repentant heart. Very few fundamentalist Christian parents ever follow Christ’s own example in Revelations 2 when they make the mad dash for the paddle.

Dr. Whipple (smugly): You can’t think of any other applicable example.

Ghostwriter: I was ready for that one! In Matthew chapter 18 Jesus gives His disciples instructions for how to deal with an erring church brother. Step number one: confront the brother about his sin against you. If he doesn’t listen, step two: Next time you go to confront him, take other church brethren with you as witnesses, and if he still acts stubborn and won’t repent, expose his sin before the whole church. And, if the jerk won’t repent after that, stop relating to him as a brother and treat him like a sinner. By the way, those same paddle-waving Christians would never even dream of standing up in the congregation and hollering about Sister Susie flirting with Sister June’s husband. That just isn’t done, because grownup Christians deserve more courtesy and delicate handling than children. Not once, in any of those verses, does Christ instruct His disciples to spank the sinning brother. The worst penalty to be inflicted by the church is excommunication. But if the wayward brother does repent, it’s all done and dusted, and no spanking!

Dr. Whipple: Nevertheless, Proverbs 23:13-14 gives clear instructions on how to rear-end the rebellion in a rug rat. Solomon, the godliest

parent in all human history, commanded parents to beat their children with the Rod of Correction.

Ghostwriter: Search all four gospels. Nowhere did Jesus teach that you turn a child into a saint by beating him with a stick, anymore than you should beat your dog to make him holier.

Dr. Whipple: Are you challenging the wisest man in all human history?

Ghostwriter: If you’ll bear with me a few minutes, I’ll clarify my position. 2 Peter 1:21 states that holy men of God spoke as they were led by the Holy Ghost. The key word here is holy, which means to be sanctified, or set apart unto God. Is an idolater sanctified? Is he a holy man? Solomon was sanctified in the beginning, but his heart was led astray by his huge harem of heathen wives.

Dr. Whipple: For all his human flaws, Solomon must have been smart as a whip.

Ghostwriter: Even if Solomon was a rocket scientist, I doubt very much he ended his life as a sanctified man. Christians exalt Solomon as the godliest child rearing expert in human history. So what sort of example did “godly” King Solomon set for family life? One wife, ten wives, weren’t enough. So he married a thousand women! What kind of Christian family home is that? In I Kings 11 you’ll see a fine example for Christian living. Not only does Solomon, the world’s wisest child rear-ing expert break God’s commandment by marrying a multitude of heathen wives, he builds altars to Molech and Chemosh, who are abominations, or disgusting, in the sight of the Lord. Those dudes weren’t harmless dust collectors, either. They were big ugly man-eating monsters with fat fiery furnace bellies which had to be regularly fed. They didn’t live on baloney sandwiches. Little children and infants were sacrificed to these so-called gods. Even if Solomon didn’t personally feed a child to the flames, he enabled others to kill children. Idolaters fed idols out of fear, not love. So Solomon sponsored spirits of fear when he financed the construction of those idols. So fear and death were the fruit of Solomon’s idolatrous life. So where does Solomon, baby-killer enabler, get the moral authority to tell modern followers of Christ how to raise their kids?

Dr. Whipple: But surely Solomon repented before his death, and that would restore his credibility. The book of Ecclesiastes is full of regrets for his wasted life.

Ghostwriter: Regrets aren’t necessarily the same as repentance, Dr. Whipple. Solomon didn’t apologize for beating his forced laborers.

Solomon didn’t apologize for taxing his people to death. Solomon merely regretted that his self-indulgent lifetime had brought him no satisfaction, much the same as if a womanizer with a long string of divorces might sing “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”. In every case where serious sin was committed and the perpetrator repented, the Holy Spirit never failed to mention that fact. David repented, even wicked Manasseh repented. Even Judas repented (though it didn’t save his soul). Last we hear of Solomon he tries to kill Jeroboam, the man God is using as a chastening rod to punish Solomon for his sins. In Daddy’s Discipline you greatly emphasized the need of little children to meekly submit to the Rod of Correction. Well, Solomon didn’t receive his punishment with meekness. There is no record of Solomon’s repentance anywhere in the Bible.

Dr. Whipple: The Bible doesn’t mention cell phones or computers either, but you and I know they’re real. By the same token, while scripture doesn’t specifically say Solomon reconciled with God, neither does scripture deny that Solomon repented before he drew his final breath. Only eternity will reveal the truth.

Ghostwriter: John the Baptist said true repentance results in changed behavior, or fruits of repentance. Fruits such as: Give back what you stole. Share with the less fortunate. Be content with your wages. Don’t cheat people. Make restitution for wrong-doing, where possible.

Dr. Whipple: But the Book of Ecclesiastes ends by urging young people to remember their Creator in the days of their youth. Doesn’t that imply that Solomon had a change of heart?

Ghostwriter: What you do speaks louder than what you say or write. 2 Kings 23:13 specifically says that King Josiah, who by the way, was Solomon’s descendant, destroyed idols that were built by Solomon. Included among them was the sex goddess Ashtoreth, an abomination to the Lord. And Chemosh, an abominable Moabite child-eating idol. Now if Solomon truly repented before he died, why on earth didn’t he destroy those filthy idols while he was still living? If you love God you’ll hate evil, as Psalms 97:10 teaches. If Solomon did repent, it must have been a very apathetic repentance.

Dr. Whipple: We’re saved by grace alone, Ghostwriter. So Solomon made it to heaven even if he never demolished a single idol.

Ghostwriter: I doubt that’s so. Paul’s Gospel of Grace wasn’t available until Jesus died for our sins. Even in the New Testament epistles you read warnings that idolaters won’t inherit the Kingdom of God.

Dr. Whipple: Once saved, always saved. I’ve always taught that.

Ghostwriter: God’s grace is not a license to sin, as Paul himself teaches in Romans 6. Do you really believe, Dr. Whipple, that Jesus will lift backsliders up to heaven from a bed of adultery when He returns for the Church?

Dr. Whipple: You still keep your salvation, even if you go out and paint the town red. All you lose is the cherry on the sundae. Maybe you won’t get to rule over ten cities if you continue in sin, but you’ll still suffer punitive loss for your sin, even in heaven. You might end up like poor Maria, cleaning my bathroom up there and polishing the jewels in my giant crown.

Maria (sharply): Hey! I heard that!

Ghostwriter: Hey, sorry, Maria, I don’t agree. Let’s get to the bottom of your concept of heaven, Dr. Whipple. Do you seriously think we’ll even need bathrooms up there?

Dr. Whipple: Seriously, no. Our bodies will be perfect up there, so that eliminates that problem. God would surely find some other way to punish second-class inhabitants of heaven who’ve lost their reward.

Ghostwriter: You could clean a billion bathrooms for a billion years with a billion brushes and a scudillion cans of Comet and it still wouldn’t cleanse away the sin of idolatry. Returning to our main topic, surely the Christian’s goal must be to follow Christ’s example in how we treat others. Whenever Solomon’s example conflicts with Christ’s, it must not be followed. What I’m trying to say, Dr. Whipple, is if God insists we follow one of Solomon’s commandments, we’re also bound to follow all Solomon’s other examples. not just in the area of child rearing. Which brings us to the proof of the pudding: How did Solomon’s own kids turn out, assuming he followed his own advice and raised them under the rod?

Dr. Whipple: If Solomon hit ‘em hard enough, it must have beat the fear of God into their seats…I mean, souls. Ghostwriter: But it sure as heck didn’t beat the love of God into their heart. One example sticks out like a sore rump: In 2 Chronicles 10, the Israelite elders begged Solomon’s successor, the freshly crowned King Rehoboam, to ease up on the taxes Solomon had put on them. All Rehoboam did was promise to make their burden heavier. Whereas Solomon had beat his people with whips, Rehoboam would chastise

them with scorpions. That’s fear, not the love of Christ toward your neighbor. Violence always begets violence.

Dr. Whipple: Even Paul said we’re supposed to fear the authorities who carry the sword of justice because they’re ministers of God’s vengeance. My children always knew who spoke softly and carried a big stick. The devil might have tempted them to formulate a contrary opinion, but they all knew my word was final.

Ghostwriter: If a parent clobbers his kids every time they express an opinion instead of interacting with them in a rational, loving manner, kids will be psychologically and emotionally crippled when they’re grown up and have to go out into the world on their own to make their own decisions about their own lives. Why? Because they never were allowed to think with their own brains.What’s more, those poor children will treat others the same way they were treated. They’ll beat up other children on the playground, beat their wives, abuse their kids, mistreat their employees, act like a Frankenstein control freak on steriods. Apparently Solomon’s beatings did nothing to instill love for God and neighbor in crude, rude Rehoboam. Based on scripture, Rehoboam turned out to be an arrogant, cruel tyrant who tried once in awhile to do something decent for the sake of appearances, like modern politicians do. But the dark side of the force dominated his life and he always reverted to type like a dog returns to his vomit. Rehoboam ended up forsaking the Lord like his dad Solomon did. Like father, like son. Rehoboam ended up with a D- in God’s School of Faithfulness, even if he didn’t get an F.

Dr. Whipple: Ghostwriter! This book is supposed to be about me and my fathomless wisdom! Can I please get a word in edgewise? What was Solomon supposed to be like? A hippie in a Snoopy T-shirt with barely a quarter to his name? It costs money to run a government. Solomon needed his taxes. Solomon had to dress in designer duds and butcher a billion bullocks to feed his fancy court. Somebody had to sweat to earn the tax money to finance Solomon’s fancy frills, just so he could keep up appearances in front of foreign dignitaries.

Ghostwriter: But why should the poor get poorer so the rich can live luxuriously? I bet Solomon never worked with his hands one day in his life. I bet he had a slave put the toothpaste on his brush.

Dr. Whipple: Solomon couldn’t punch a time clock and mop floors at the Bagel Barn. Can you imagine the most powerful potentate of the Middle East dressed up in bib overalls shoveling manure out of his own horse stables? Can you picture Solomon wearing a hard hat and toting a lunch pail? He would have been the laughingstock of the ancient

world! What kind of a king would work with his own hands, or appear in humble garb to his own people, much less his foreign foes?

Ghostwriter: Jesus would, and He did. I can’t imagine Solomon hammering and sawing in a peasant’s carpenter shop, wearing a sweaty robe and fueling his body on barley bread. But I get the feeling you’re steering the discussion away from today’s topic because you’re grasping at straws trying to defend Solomon’s moral right to teach followers of Christ to beat the crap out of folks smaller than themselves. Paul asked the Corinthians in I Corinthians 4:21: Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness? The key word here, Brother Whipple, is “or”. It either has to be the rod OR love and the spirit of meekness. It can’t be both, so they must be incompatible. Fear of The Rod must proceed from some other spirit.

Dr. Whipple: But John Wesley said…

Ghostwriter: Sorry to interrupt, but I John 4:18 says there is no fear in love, and perfect love casts out fear, which is a thing of torment. I don’t care if it’s Wesley, Superman or the Grand Poobah saying it’s a holy thing to strike terror into the heart of a child. Jesus never said that, and apparently the apostle John didn’t either. As much as you admire John Wesley and appeal to him to justify spanking, scripture, as it applies to Christians living in the spirit of Jesus Christ, must have the final word on whether it’s okay to use fear of physical violence to control hearts and minds.

Dr. Whipple (visibly heated): I’m a gentleman, so I’ll overlook some of your cruder comments, but you’re being mighty naïve. Sometimes you can’t reason with the tiny terrors. I’ve heard of brats who bite and curse and swear, tear up everything in sight. Their parents must use force to control them.

Ghostwriter: It depends on what you mean by “force”. A quick swat or two on the seat and a very firm “NO!” might be necessary now and then, but only to protect the child from physically harming himself or others. Physical discipline, even when there is no other way to subdue a dangerous, explosive tantrum, should never be protracted or harsh enough to cause injury. Brutal beatings with a paddle do not meet the “gentle and meek” criteria of I Corinthians 13. Love is gentle and meek. A child covered in welts and bruises has definitely not been dealt with in the spirit of gentleness, love and meekness.

Dr. Whipple: A quick swat? I said in my book “A spanking should be an occurrence, not like a mama bear taking a quick swipe at her cubs.”

Ghostwriter: Well, a Wild West hanging was an occurrence too, and sometimes innocent men got strung up for the entertainment of the crowd. Nowhere is it recorded in scripture that a spanking should be a staged production, much less a humiliating self-flagellating religious ritual as you seem to have made it in your book.

Dr. Whipple: But all other disciplinary methods are unscriptural and spiritually detrimental to children.

Ghostwriter: I never found that scripture in the Bible. Nowhere are God’s people instructed to treat children more harshly than adults. What about Paul’s admonitions in I Timothy and Titus to strike no one? Paul makes no exception for striking children. Paul, a victim of many brutal beatings himself, wouldn’t have said “amen” to King Solomon’s cruel disciplinary measures.

Dr. Whipple: But God taught no other way to correct children’s misbehavior!

Ghostwriter: As I said before, why should God crack down harder on little kids than grownups who know better and should be held more accountable? Throughout the Bible, God disciplined His people in different ways. When Adam committed high treason in the Garden against God, God didn’t tie him up in a tree and beat the hell out of him. Instead, Adam got a worse punishment. He got sentenced to the rat race. Eve got sentenced to other tortures, including having to wash Adam’s underwear. God discontinued the dynasties of rebellious rulers. God made Israel wander in the wilderness. God demoted some of the Levites to pew polishers. When Jonah tried to run away, God gave him “time out” in a whale jail. God didn’t always pummel people with a yardstick to straighten them out. And I think the mama bear has the right idea. She doesn’t beat her cubs to a pulp, she gives them one or two warning swipes and growls to assert her authority when the cubs wander too far away from her. The bear’s objective is not to humiliate or injure the cub, but to ensure that the cub obeys her for its own protection until it’s able to fend for itself in the dangerous wilderness. A mean old tom cat might beat his own baby kitten up, but I’ve never heard of a mama cat doing anything worse than giving her kittens a quick cuff to keep them in line. And even when she does that, she retracts her claws to prevent injury. Speaking of tom cat, isn’t it significant that throughout human history the mother would say, ‘Wait till your father gets home’? Humans made in the image of God are the only critters who drill holes in a plank of wood to raise blisters.

Dr. Whipple (sarcastically): Maybe Solomon’s slaves took so many coffee breaks they needed a few love taps every now and then to inspire them to greater productivity. What do you think?

Ghostwriter: Pardon the pun, but Jesus doesn’t strike me as a harsh taskmaster who beats folks to force more work out of them. In contrast to Solomon, Jesus promised people His yoke would be easy and His burden light. Jesus said in Mark 10 and Matthew 20 that he came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. Whereas Solomon sat way up on a golden throne and demanded endless taxes and service out of his subjects, Christ was humble enough to wash His disciples’ feet. Would mighty Solomon have tied a towel around his gorgeous robe and washed anybody’s feet? Surely not, it would have been an affront to his kingly dignity.

Dr. Whipple: Those spanking proverbs are still part of the Bible.

Ghostwriter: Which part of the Bible? Do we read Proverbs under Law or under Grace? Solomon lived under the Law of Moses. If we’re bound to take a stick to children every time they get on our nerves, then we’re also bound to keep all the Law. The Law of Moses itself didn’t prescribe spanking for children. It commanded folks to stone disrespectful children to death. Would you be prepared to keep that law too, Dr. Whipple? The sheriff would haul you in if you did.

Dr. Whipple: See how merciful spanking is, Ghostwriter? Getting spanked hurts less than getting stoned.

Ghostwriter: Your average hippie might disagree there. But Lucifer Ripoff taught: Far better a pink (he really meant, black and blue and bloody) bottom than a black heart. Either we walk in the stern spirit of Solomon under law or the gentle spirit of Christ who brought grace and

truth, and never the twain shall meet. Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.’ He didn’t say Solomon was those things.

Dr. Whipple: Even if your hypothesis is true and Proverbs isn’t binding as Law, per se, it’s still packed with good common horse sense.

Ghostwriter: Wonder why this proverb isn’t equally enforced by preachers who beat their kids but act foolish around the deacon’s wife? Proverbs 26:3 says a fool should get his back beaten with a rod. It doesn’t let old fools off the hook, does it?

Dr. Whipple: That proverb’s just a one-off. Obviously Solomon thought kids needed harsher discipline than adults. He said ‘foolishness is bound in the heart of a child’, not the heart of a senior citizen. It’s the child who needs the rod to drive it far from him.

Ghostwriter: Still, there’s no fool like an old fool. Solomon himself admitted that in Ecclesiastes 4:13.

Dr. Whipple: You’re throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Ghostwriter: Then give equal time to other disciplinary verses in the Old Testament. How about the old law which demanded the stoning of adulterers and adulteresses? In Deuteronomy 22 Moses commanded the death sentence for any man who had sex with an engaged girl. Both had to die. It says: ‘The whole congregation shall stone them with stones till they die.’ So when was the last time a Christian congregation executed an engaged girl for cheating on her boyfriend?You look tongue-tied, Dr. Whipple, but if the spanking law is binding, it’s all binding! Proverbs 7 recommends the correction of the stocks for adulterers. Did you ever hear of a church constructing an old-fashioned stocks to confine the hands and feet of a sinful Christian?

Dr. Whipple: You’re being facetious.

Ghostwriter. No, I’m dead serious. When was the last time a philandering preacher got spanked by church officials for his sexcapades? One night many moons ago, Reverend Randy Rascal got caught cavorting with call girls in the Red Light District. He tearfully confessed on TV: ‘I have sinned!’ Viewers forgave Randy for being human. Randy didn’t have to get his buns toasted by the church brass before he was permitted to pray on camera for Jesus to forgive him. Even after Randy recanted his repentance and the paparazzi caught him prowling like a tomcat again, he didn’t pull down his pants to get

punished by the holey church board. Instead, church officials defrocked him so he could go fish for funds on his own.

Dr. Whipple (irritably) Yes, I heard about that. Everyone knows about it. Reverend Rascal was a sick, obsessive backslider who couldn’t govern his own gonads. So what’s your point?

Ghostwriter: Don’t you get it? Instead of having to take a beating before he gets to pray to ask Jesus for forgiveness, a grownup goes through some vague open-ended “restoration process” and gets a new beginning without a belting. But you insist that a child, who is far less culpable in the sight of God because of his immaturity, be spanked before he’s allowed to be officially “forgiven”. The authority figure, the grownup, gets to decide how many punitive points a broken vase is worth, or a sour look. That’s being capricious, because if the parent’s in a lousy mood, he can claim a dropped gum wrapper is worth twenty licks, when it might not be worth any at all because it was an accident.

Dr. Whipple: Too many accidents add up to sin in a child’s heart. Spanky was about 11 at the time. Tall, skinny and all elbows. I’d admonished that boy again and again to be careful not to spill his glass of milk. He’d beg me not to beat him, and like a spineless worm, I’d just let him go. After all, with four youngsters and a toddler chowing down at the same table, the Law of Probability dictates that a spill is bound to happen now and then. But one day Spanky knocked over his milk with his bony elbow, and it was his second time in six months.

Ghostwriter: Pardon me for being nosy, but did you really keep that meticulous a record of your children’s abominable sins?

Dr. Whipple: Why shouldn’t I? God will open his record books one day and judge every one of us for what we did, whether we’re saved or lost. But what I meant to say before you interrupted was, that time I didn’t accept Spanky’s apology. He had failed to heed the admonition, so I didn’t fail to fan his can. Down to the Inner Spanktum we went. Spanky owed so many arrears for so many previously forgiven glasses of spilt milk, my belt was smoking by the time I finished correcting his clumsiness.

Ghostwriter: Evidently you’ve forgotten what it was like to go through that ‘awkward age’ between childhood and early adolescence, when physical growth outstrips the development of adult dexterity. It takes time for a child to acquire the agility of an adult. The degree of development of cerebral-neuro-muscular coordination governing a child’s movements is not the same as that of an adult. Growth takes time. Life can be mighty difficult when a cute child grows into a pre-adolescent who must contend with clumsy elongated legs and bony elbows. Adult criticism only makes him feel like a freak. Patience and understanding are desperately needed with ‘tweenage’ youngsters. Same with a toddler. They’ve just discovered their hands and feet, that they’re useful tools for grabbing hold of things, climbing and running. As small children reach out to do things to try to win the approval of their parents, they will drop a lot of things, because their tiny little hands and the immature nervous systems which control their hands, don’t always perform to the expectation of self-righteous, scary adults. Ever notice how much larger the head of a toddler is in proportion to his body than is the case with an adult? They are not yet like us in every way. Children should not be treated like tiny criminals just because they haven’t yet mastered all the social graces and perfect standards of behavior demanded by imperfect adults. Wonder if you ever asked God to be more patient with you than you were with others who failed to live up to your standard of perfection.

Dr. Whipple looked at me like I was speaking Swahili.

Dr. Whipple: I can do without your sarcasm, Ghostwriter. Remember, you’re a guest in my home.

Ghostwriter: The ownership of this home is irrelevant to the topic of this discussion. Which of my points do you disagree with? If you find fault with any of my statements or rebuttals, please state your case calmly and rationally. If you don’t feel up to the friction an in-depth discussion is bound to generate, I’ll just take my marbles and go home.

Dr. Whipple: You seem to excuse everything kids do because they’re immature, Ghostwriter. But my Bible says people are sinners as soon as they enter this world. I know my children went out of their way to create all the havoc they could get away with. A lot of nights I couldn’t even sit down to a peaceful family dinner. It wasn’t just spilt milk, Ghostwriter, they were always finding fault with the food. I insisted on Willow serving nutritious meals only. That meant liver at least once a week. Liver night was hell night at our house. That was the one night I kept Woody Woodshed in plain sight, hanging over the china shelf. Any child who refused to eat their liver got delivered from their rebellion with ten hard licks.

Ghostwriter: So even if a kid hated his or her liver, they choked it down to save their seats from being beat?

Dr. Whipple (with a sour grin): That’s some way to put it. I remember one night Mercy and Grace, my twin girls, came to the dinner table looking green at the gills. Evidently they’d watched mother cooking dinner and seen the raw liver in a plastic tub, swimming in its own blood before she sliced, floured and fried it. They ran outside to vomit. They begged me to excuse them from supper that night, but I was on to them and made them come and dine. ‘Mercy! Grace!’ I scolded, when both girls refused to eat their meat. ‘Eat that meat right now! That’s an order!’Everyone lost their appetite when Mercy told us why they didn’t want to eat any liver. It was a bloody mess, and brown gushy goo was running all over their carrots and potatoes.They ended up down in the Inner Spanktum, getting ten licks apiece with Woody Woodshed. They had to ask Jesus to forgive them for not eating their liver. I forced them to confess the sin of disobedience. The Bible says, ‘Children, obey your parents in all things.’

Yes, Daddy Dearest, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Yes, I’ve heard about that scripture, but there’s other verses in Acts 15 where the apostles and the Holy Ghost forbid non-Jewish converts to consume blood. I know where meat comes from. But if a child is grossed out by the obvious sight of blood, as in the case of a rare steak, he or she should have the right to appeal to Acts 15, so a Christian parent can’t force them to choke it down.

Dr. Whipple: Both twins turned into vegetarians once they left my home. Willow and Sherwood let my children eat anything they wished, so long as it met minimal nutritional standards.

Ghostwriter: I’d say that liver, like oysters on the half shell, is an acquired taste. Is there any food you dislike, Dr. Whipple?

Dr. Whipple (smugly) : I’ve always believed in ‘Eat whatever is set before you’, as my Bible teaches. As long as the food isn’t spoiled and keeps me alive, that’s all I ask.

Ghostwriter: So what if you were preaching to the Masai, a tribe in Africa which boils blood and milk to eat like porridge? Would your conscience allow you to join in their meal?

Dr. Whipple: The question is moot. I almost never go out. God has not called me to suffer the tortures of the mission field, and any African who joins me for dinner will have to like whatever we serve.

Ghostwriter: Yes, I get that. Your home is your world, and you’re the one who controls everything that happens in it.

Dr. Whipple: The children always knew that I was king of my own home under Christ Himself. Whenever I did have to spank my children for not eating up their liver, I’d always tell them, ‘Jesus told me to spank you ten times for leaving that liver on your plate. He told me to use this paddle to show you how much it hurt Him to die on the Cross for your sin of wasting good food. If it were up to me, son, I’d just let it go, because I hate to see you suffer. But God is so holy He must punish sin. He created those sardines to help you grow up big and strong. But you rebelled against His nutritional plan and fed them to the dog under the table. Now you must pay the price of your rebellion. If I don’t obey Jesus and spank you, He will spank me, and we don’t want that now, do we?

Ghostwriter: I’ll be blunt with you, ‘cause waffling is a waste of time. I’ve heard of this happening time and again. To cover his tail, the adult always third-parties the blame and palms it off on Jesus, Who isn’t here to defend Himself. The parent tells the poor kid ‘Jesus told me to spank you this hard’, or this many times. That hardly fosters a loving relationship between the child and Jesus, who conceptualizes Christ as a meanie with a stick.

Dr. Whipple: All sin must be paid for. If the child thinks he can simply say ‘sorry’ without any consequences, even if his parent forgives him, that cheapens the concept of forgiveness and only encourages more mischief in the future.

Ghostwriter: Forgiveness means the cancellation of a debt. If satisfaction for the debt has already been beaten out of a kid’s hide, he wasn’t really forgiven because his debt wasn’t cancelled.

Dr. Whipple (piously): Spanking doesn’t wash away a child’s sin. No amount of spanking can appease God’s demand for justice. Jesus died for little children so they wouldn’t go to hell for spilt milk.

Ghostwriter: That’s my argument in a nutshell, though we will continue to discuss other related aspects of this topic. Spanking. Is it God’s command or man’s demand? And why doesn’t any other Biblical writer, including Moses the lawmaker, command spanking of little children? Why isn’t Solomon’s spanking commandment repeated anywhere in the New Testament? My Bible says ‘In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.’ Throughout scripture Solomon alone commands spanking. And if he believed in it so much, why didn’t he take a good dose of his own medicine and get ten licks for building all those child-eating idols?

Dr. Whipple yawned and glanced at his watch. How convenient for him. Time for me to split.

Ghostwriter: Well, you’re rid of me till Monday, Dr. Whipple. Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for your valuable input.

Dr. Whipple: Oh, I was going to ask you, Ghostwriter. Care to join me for church Sunday? World-renowned conference speaker Dr. Flaming Underwear…, I mean, Fleming Underwood! will be preaching.

Freudian slip, I thought.

Ghostwriter: What’ll he preach on?

Dr. Whipple: The deacon told me that after the senior treasurer makes a few introductory remarks on tithing, Dr. Underwood is going to deliver his doctrinal dissertation on Hebrews 12, one of my favorite Biblical passages. I’m sure you’re familiar with its main theme?

Ghostwriter: The chastening of the Lord. That should bring in the tithes.

Dr. Whipple: So would you like to accompany me to go hear him?

Ghostwriter: Sorry, I’m all tied up Sunday.

Dr. Whipple grinned and shook his head like he didn’t believe me.

I was so glad to put this painful project behind me for a whole weekend.

Chapter Four

The Inner Spanktum

Monday, August 17, 2015, 2:09 p.m.

Before Maria could open the door and peek out, my Ghostship had beamed me down to the lush lawn, which owed its verdant beauty to her husband Jose′s horticultural expertise. My wise pilot monitoring the ship’s infrared scanners always waited for an unobserved interval before lowering me into the bull pen of contention below.

Ghostwriter (whispering to the maid emerging to greet me): Hi, Maria. Say, is Dr. Whipple still on his strict fast? The poor fellow must be hollow as the Grand Canyon by now.

Maria: I wouldn’t worry about him, Ghostwriter. Last night I peeked and caught him nuking a bean burrito in his pastor’s study.

Ghostwriter (chuckling) Let’s pretend we don’t know, Maria. If going on a fantasy fast makes your boss a happier man, why spoil it?

I shook hands with Dr. Whipple, who rose from his recliner, grimacing.

Dr. Whipple: It’s an honor to suffer for Jesus. I’ve been fasting for three days. If the Lord leads, I may go a whole week without eating.

Ghostwriter: But I wouldn’t advise you to go that long without drinking, or you’ll end on a hospital IV drip.

Dr. Whipple: Get thee behind me, satan, speaking such words of doubt and unbelief! Moses went eighty days without one sip of water, so why shouldn’t I be able to do it too?

Ghostwriter (seating myself): Moses divided the Red Sea and turned a stick into a snake, so why shouldn’t you do that too?

Dr. Whipple: Very funny. Evidently you don’t appreciate the spiritual feast I’m enjoying from this painful sacrifice of superfluous flab. If I don’t discipline my own body, God might punish me with puppy fat.

Ghostwriter: Speaking of discipline, did you enjoy Sunday’s sermon?

Dr. Whipple: Life is full of disappointments. I didn’t get to hear Dr. Underwood speak. He stayed home with a headache, so Dr. P.J. Bottoms preached instead. Hate to criticize anybody, but Dr. P.J. is the

bottom of the barrel! His sermon was entitled “Fly High Like a Butterfly”. What a pansy! You didn’t miss much, Ghostwriter.

Ghostwriter: Guess that subject wasn’t hard-hitting enough. If a headache disabled Dr. Underwood, it have been pretty serious, huh?

Dr. Whipple (barely cracking a smile) Dr. Underwood got chastened with a karate chop when he told his wife she needed to go on a diet.

Ghostwriter: Well, you’ve heard of the fury of a woman scorned. So did you glean anything at all out of yesterday’s service?

Dr. Whipple (with a sour grin): Did I ever! While Dr. Bottoms meditated in the men’s room, I got the chance to minister to people as they were getting ready to go home.

Ghostwriter: What? Did you preach on the porch?

Dr. Whipple: I had my notebook with me, and I was jotting down people’s prayer requests. Sister Bumble told me her Aunt Bea is getting a sex change operation, and she asked me to pray the Lord would stop her before she spreads sin germs around. Sister Smiley asked me to pray for the pastor’s wife because she’s been spotted at the Spice of Night Shop, and since the pastor isn’t into that sizzling scene, it must mean she’s having dessert outside the home, if you

know what I mean. And Bro. Blunt, the deacon, asked me to pray for Bro. Purdy, who was spotted at the drug store purchasing…

Ghostwriter: Stop! Don’t need to hear more of that! Dr. Whipple, I don’t mean to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but it sounds like you’ve been feasting instead of fasting.

Dr. Whipple: Huh? What do you mean? I haven’t so much as touched a potato chip since I started this painfully slow fast!

Ghostwriter: If you’ll bother to read your Bible, especially Isaiah 58, you’ll discover that God would far rather have you abstain from malice than Mars Bars. Some Christians who brag about their so-called fasting gobble up Pastor Pie behind the poor guy’s back. And besides, Dr. Whipple, didn’t Jesus warn religious folks not to brag about their secret fasting to others?

Dr. Whipple: But in other verses Christians are taught to be good examples to others. How on earth will others figure out I’m a good example of Christian conduct if they don’t know about the wonderful things I do for God? Dr. Guthrie Garter gave a lecture a few weeks ago at our church about the importance of letting our light shine instead of hiding it under a bushel basket.

Ghostwriter: At the risk of digressing even further from the primary focus of this series of interviews, I’ve wondered why so many eminent preachers bear the title of “Dr.”, but the church, which is supposedly a hospital for sinners, loses so many patients. Do you suppose that’s a bad reflection on the skill of those spiritual doctors?

Dr. Whipple: The very best doctor can offer the very best medicine, but unless the patient takes it, he’ll die. Solomon offered sick souls a lot of bitter medicine in Proverbs, but most folks can’t stomach it. So you can’t blame Dr. Solomon.

Ghostwriter: One of Solomon’s prescriptions, in Proverbs 27:22, is to pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle to get his foolishness out of him. But Solomon himself admitted that wouldn’t work. So why does Solomon think a stick might do the trick with a child, and drive his foolishness far from him? He’s contradicting himself there.

Dr. Whipple: Solomon must have meant you’d better start beating satan out of a child before he grows up to be an old fool who can’t be corrected anymore. Solomon could have water-boarded his court jester in an orange jump suit for a thousand years and it wouldn’t have turned him into a somber preacher.

Ghostwriter: Well, if torture turns silly sinners into sensible saints, there’s little verifiable evidence of that. The opposite seems to be true. Treat people mean and they turn mean.

Before things could get heated, Maria brought me some iced tea. Dr. Whipple pursed his lips and waved away the refreshment tray, though it was a hot day. Maria winked at me out the corner of her eye. Her holy boss would dip into his communion wine when I was out of sight.

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, today I’d like to focus specifically on your Woody Woodshed® punitive products and their spiritual application to the rearing of Christian children.

Dr. Whipple: Let’s get started.

Ghostwriter: First off, I want to ask you: Do you believe the body of the believer is the true house of God?

Dr. Whipple: Of course. Paul makes that plain in I Corinthians 6:19.

Ghostwriter: When was the last time you committed a sin?

Dr. Whipple: Yesterday the cat scratched my pinkie and I said “Oh, shoot!”, though I meant something else.

Ghostwriter: Who hasn’t felt like saying ‘Oh, sugar!’ every now and then? Can you think of anything worse? Be honest now, confession is good for the soul.

Dr. Whipple (shamefacedly) Yesterday after you left I was at the convenience store. I sneaked a peek at ‘Boobs & Buns’ magazine. But I was only interested in some ad for the Fabulous Fatbuster.

Ghostwriter: You sly old rascal! You are human after all!

Dr. Whipple: I can be tempted same as any other mortal man.

Ghostwriter: So why haven’t you got remarried? Oh, don’t bother to answer! You’re waiting for Sherwood to kick the bucket so you can remarry Willow. Did you know there’s an Old Testament Law against a husband remarrying his ex if she went on to marry someone else after their divorce?

Dr. Whipple: But we’re under Grace, not under the Law of Moses!

Ghostwriter: If we’re not under the Law of Moses, then why put children under the Book of Proverbs which was written during the dispensation of Law? That makes no theological sense.

Dr. Whipple: You’re no theologian! I’m the one who went to seminary.

Ghostwriter: But my elementary school teacher said, ‘If part of the answer’s wrong, it’s ALL wrong!’ If you say ‘no’ to enforcing the Law of Moses and ‘yes’ to enforcing Proverbs which was written by an idolatrous king living under the Law of Moses, your exegesis is still erroneous because you’re treating Scripture like a restaurant menu instead of correctly dividing scripture, as 2 Timothy 2:15 teaches.

Dr. Whipple (petulantly): We’ve already gone over that! Why did you ask that nosy question about the last time I sinned?

Ghostwriter: Hey, I did go off on a tangent before I made my point, didn’t I? Before you confessed your sordid sin, we agreed that the believer’s body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. So as a Christian, you live in the same house God does, and He has ownership of it. Right?

Dr. Whipple: Absolutely. But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Ghostwriter: Remember you mentioned that your children had to be punished even if Jesus forgave them, because they still had to pay the price for breaking the rules of your house?

Dr. Whipple: So?

Ghostwriter (pointing): As Nathan said to David, ‘Thou art the guilty man!’ Did you ask God to forgive you for peeking at those pictures while you’re living under His roof?

Dr. Whipple: Of course I did! He knows I’m only human.

Ghostwriter: And since you’re living in God’s house, aren’t you afraid He’ll tan your hide even though you’re forgiven?

Dr. Whipple: I beg God every day to be patient with me and not to punish me for my peccadilloes. But He won’t listen. Last night the cat jumped in my pajama drawers when I was putting them on and scratched the devil out of me. This morning a bee flew through the bathroom window and stung me in the shower. I had to put an ice pack on my booboo. That’s why I’m sitting on a soft cushion.

The Law of Karma strikes again, I thought.

Ghostwriter: So it was a pay-per-view deal! You got chastised twice so you must have looked at two juicy pictures! Fess up now!

Dr. Whipple (grouchily): I barely glanced at those two trollops, and I was so shocked I forgot to look for that exercise ad! I’ve had to suffer all my life, far out of proportion to anything I’ve done wrong. If I get up at 5:05 to pray instead of 5 a.m., something’s bound to go wrong to take that five minutes of stolen pleasure out of my hide. After all I’ve suffered on this fast, you’d think God would cut me a little slack and let me go just one day without partaking of the bread of sorrow!

Or a succulent bean burrito? I thought.

Ghostwriter: Sounds pretty grim to me. But let’s move on to our main topic. Could you go into greater detail about your Woody Woodshed® punitive products? What specifically, do you have to offer all those punishing parents out there? (Later, I felt Dr. Whipple might have made a better pitch if he’d used Power Point instead of spouting such a long spiel and flipping through a prodigious pile of paper charts.)

Dr. Whipple: Our basic Woody Woodshed® paddle is a 2-foot long, 1-1/2” thick, 5” wide, solid oak paddle with an EZ Grip handle. The Woody Woodshed is varnished with Duralast Amazon Rain Forest Resin, to ensure it will last a lifetime. The Woody Woodshed is the only paddle parents will ever need to purchase. It works on rug rats aged seven on up, dogs and cats too (although we do now offer the Woody Woodshed® Pet Punisher for $11.14. Use one of these products on a stubborn pet, and that ornery critter will never again shed hairs on furniture and refuse to get off. As a bonus, it takes out ticks and fleas, saving big bucks on tick dip and flea powder.The Woody Woodshed’s sleek, aerodynamic design enables it to cut through the air in one fluid motion, delivering harder blows with a minimum of wrist strain. The Woody Woodshed® glances off a child’s backside, after focusing all the force of the parent’s blow on the target area. This state-of-the-art paddle comes with one dozen rubberized holes, each ½” inch in diameter. Powered by two rechargeable barium batteries (which are not included), it inflicts the maximum pain with minimum exertion by the parent. As the Woody Woodshed swings, it whistles like a songbird as air rushes through the holes. Bee sting jolts of Shock and Awe will correct the unruly kid’s caboose on contact. Spanking a child will never again feel the same. No more achy wrists or calloused hands from hard handles. If a parent is ready to start disciplining a colicky baby, they should order our low-impact Diaper Drummer, an oscillating rubber Impact

Disk on a motorized handle. It runs on 2 size D batteries (not included). The Impact Disk is detachable for use as a teething ring. The baby will love it! The Diaper Drummer makes the perfect Baby Shower Gift, especially if an adult is tired of being invited to “Gimme parties” and doesn’t particularly like the freeloader who issued the invitation. The Diaper Drummer is available for only $22.00, plus P&H.Once an infant starts toddling, the parent can progress to the Toddler Trainer, a flexible slab of perforated plastic on a wire handle. The Toddler Trainer also works on pesky flies. This blessing is available for a suggested donation of $13.00, plus P&H. The Wee Woody Woodshed is a blessing for smaller kids who are too mature for the Toddler Trainer but aren’t sturdy enough to absorb the full impact of the full-sized Woody Woodshed. This paddle is hand-crafted of polished pine instead of heavier oak. It comes with fewer holes, which are not reinforced with rubber. It is 1-1/2 feet long, 1” thick, and 4” wide, with EZ Grip handles to minimize parental wrist strain. It is the ideal training tool for small children under the Age of Accountability. It’s currently available for $43.66 plus P&H.The complete Woody Woodshed® Spanking System is available for only $67.00 plus P&H. Details on how to order all the above-mentioned products are included on the ad/order form at the rear of my book Daddy’s Discipline. With each order of at least one Woody Woodshed or one Wee Woody Woodshed, or two Diaper Drummers, or three Toddler Trainers, the customer will receive our Deluxe Discipline Deal, which includes a wide range of extra accessories to enhance the Christian spanking experience. One item included in The Deluxe Discipline Deal is our Punitive Priest Wardrobe of ceremonial Spanking Vestments. This outfit includes a tall Correction Cap, similar to the gold-embroidered miter worn by Roman Catholic popes (Please specify hat size). It is illuminated with four AA batteries (not included), to cast a powerful glow in the darkness of the parent’s personal Inner Spanktum as he and his child proceed toward the Place of Punishment. This extra feature will instill reverential fear in any erring child, that he may more fully comprehend that he has sinned against the Light of the World.The Punitive Priest Robe is a seamless, full-length, one-size-fits-all flowing vestment of white silk, gemshot with rare rhinestones and embroidered with gold designs on the 32” pleated sleeves, which symbolize the Long Arm of the Law. This robe fits every disciplinarian up to 500 pounds. To enhance the glory of this garment, the customer will receive a golden Correction Cummerbund, embroidered with silken threads of many colors. And a red Correction Cape similar to those worn by Catholic cardinals. Included in this Punitive Priest Wardrobe is an ornamental jeweled Paddle Pendant, crafted of black ebony set with real rubies (believe that by faith). Red satin slippers are also included in each priestly wardrobe (Please specify size).

For a limited time only, we offer this bonus item in our Deluxe Discipline Deal: our ministry music cassette, Gregorian Groans, mournful chants to help inspire a more spiritual spanking experience.

Ghostwriter: Sorry to interrupt, but is Gregorian Groans also available on CD? I’m surprised about the cassette. That’s prehistoric technology, like the 8-track player and punch card computers.

His reply chilled my blood, or at least he hoped it did.

Dr. Whipple: Oh, hasn’t God shown you yet? CD stands for ‘Christian Deceiver’. CD’s are embedded with a silicon chip that sends sinister subliminal signals to the cerebral cortex.

Ghostwriter: Wow! What sort of sinister signals?

Dr. Whipple: Supersonic frequencies which urge you to turn your back on God and serve satan instead. That’s why I stick to cassettes.

Ghostwriter: But they used to have a big flap about backward masking on music cassettes, didn’t they? Aren’t they demon-possessed too?

Dr. Whipple: I seriously doubt the devil would want to get his tail tangled up in a cassette tape if it got snagged in the player. It’s safer for satan to possess a CD.

Ghostwriter: Besides satan, who else possesses a cassette player anymore?

Dr. Whipple: I do! And if folks loved Jesus instead of things, they’d be content with their old gadgets instead of lusting after futuristic toys built by bionic robots in godless foreign factories. In Jeremiah 6:15, God said to go back to the old way of doing things.

Ghostwriter: How ‘bout a horse and buggy instead of a car then?

Dr. Whipple: Very funny. I’ve forbidden Maria to use a Sat Nav when she drives to town.

Ghostwriter: Why? Aren’t you afraid she might get lost out on these wilderness roads?

Dr. Whipple: Maria is already lost. Lost in sin and headed for hell.

Pots and pans banged in the kitchen. Maria was mad as hell.

Ghostwriter: So what’s wrong with Sat Nav, aside from the fact it was unavailable in the Seventies?

Dr. Whipple: I read that the robot voice who tells you how to get to where you’re going transmits encoded data up to evil entities in flying saucers, and they alert Antichrist to your whereabouts.

Ghostwriter (cough!): Seriously, Dr. Whipple, don’t you think the Antichrist, that is, if he’s even been born yet, has worse deviltry to get into than spying on some hardworking Hispanic housemaid?

Dr. Whipple (very soberly): Never underestimate the devil. He’s all around us, up, down, here and there, even in the air you breathe.

Ghostwriter (struggling for composure): Guess I’d better buy a gas mask, then, before old Roscoe cuts loose with another blast of Beelzebub. But before we stray too far off the beaten track, what else comes with your Deluxe Discipline Deal?

Dr. Whipple: Glad you asked. There’s also our Paddle Prayer Shrine, which can be installed on any shelf. It’s carved out of petrified soapstone with the inscription: “The Way to Heaven is a Paddleboat.”. The Paddle Prayer Shrine features a golden rack to proudly display the paddle. Along its length are eight niches for sulfur-scented Correction Candles, also included. This will enhance the worship aspect of the chastised child’s woodshed experience.Also included is our patented “Misery Monitor”, a digital sensor which picks up pain vibes in the room and measures the intensity of that pain, so dear old Dad will know if he’s hitting hard enough.To help comfort the child after the spanking, we’ll throw in a few Flying Spankster Adventure Comics for older children, and Woody Woodshed coloring books for smaller kids.

Ghostwriter: Hey, that’s one scary-looking dude. So your action hero is The Flying Spankster? Do you have an issue of the comic to show me?

Dr. Whipple (scratching his head): Unfortunately, the only ones I know of are in my ministry office in downtown Butte. I’ll have to get my editorial staff to send me some. I just forgot. I did have one copy here, but Roscoe chewed it up after I rapped his rump with it. I believe that was the February, 1982 issue, if my memory serves me right.

Ghostwriter: What adventure was the Flying Spankster up to in that particular issue?

Dr. Whipple: Let’s see…The fearless Flying Spankster was soaring on the wings of the wind, waving Woody Woodshed like a sword of righteousness. The Spankster was at war with a warlock, Smoky Butts, a vile villain who tempted teenagers with tobacco. Butts was invulnerable because he wore paddleproof padding. But after the Flying Spankster refueled on Punitive Prune Juice, he beat Butts and said to the tempted teenagers: ‘Go and smoke no more’. Then the intrepid Flying Spankster few back to the his Paddle Paradise far beyond the skies.

Ghostwriter (incredulous): Sounds enthralling. I get the picture. What else do you offer in your Deluxe Discipline Deal?

Dr. Whipple: We also throw in a free box of Tough Love Tissues, a Daddy’s Discipline Diary, and a digital 5-minute Tantrum Timer. When the kid starts crying, he should be offered the Tough Love Tissues. Each tissue has a spanking Proverb printed on it to remind him that real religion hurts. After the spanking, the Tantrum Timer should be set at once. If he’s still blubbering, or even whimpering when the timer goes off, he should be corrected all over again till he quits. Because a spanking is a holy histrionic historical happening to be recorded for posterior-ity, each spanking ceremony should be faithfully recorded in Daddy’s Discipline Diary as a warning to future generations of rug rats. Then the disciplinarian may proudly place the paddle on the Paddle Prayer Shrine to show all his church pals that here’s one parent who’s fighting harder to save his son’s soul from hell than anybody else. Once the pain is past, the parent mustn’t forget to recite a selection from Prayers for the Paddled Child. These inspirational, poetic prayers will help Daddy instill in his child a healthy sense of their sinfulness and worthlessness in the sight of Almighty God. The less a child thinks he or she is worth, the less often they’ll voice an annoying opinion or have much to say about anything. That helps maintain a peaceful atmosphere in the home. Children should be seen and not heard.What pride that child will take in carving his initials in this splendid paddle, to testify to the whole world how lovingly his parent punishes him to reform his bad behavior.

Ghostwriter: So all people have to do to purchase these products is purchase a copy of Daddy’s Discipline and just use the order forms on the back? Sounds a little old-fashioned to me. Don’t you have e-mail or a website where you could advertise online to the world?

Dr. Whipple shook his head.

I’m glad he doesn’t, I thought.

Dr. Whipple: As I said before, time stood still for me when Willow left back in 1978. I refuse to move into the 21st century and partake of the terrible judgment which will fall on this perverse, evil generation. Everything I’ve heard about the modern world at church or at the store, it sends shivers up my spine. I wouldn’t buy a modern computer for all the hot dogs in hell. The spirit of Antichrist possesses each and every one of today’s futuristic gadgets. I wouldn’t even own a cell phone. I agree with Brother Fester Bobcat that e-mail stands for ‘evil

communist spy mail’ so I never use it. Did you know they did a numerical analysis on the word ‘computer’ and it adds up to 666?

Ghostwriter: I just cast satan out of my laptop with anti-viral software. So who do you think is the real Antichrist? Any ideas?

Dr. Whipple whispered his answer in my ear, lest the servants overhear and report him to Big Brother.

Ghostwriter: You gotta be kidding! Unless that guy hires a better fund-raising team he won’t even be in the running for dogcatcher! Does the Flying Spankster have a secret identity?

Dr. Whipple didn’t crack a smile. “Dr. Tadpole Paine, professor of proctology. A mild-mannered man who plays poker and shoots pool to pose as a sinner. Nobody would ever guess timid Tadpole is a real red-hot zealot for the things of God.”

Ghostwriter: Ahem! I’ve always wondered what might motivate a doctor to specialize in the Seat of Education, when brain surgery might be a more fascinating field. But seriously, you don’t trust computers, but you’ve got an old Apple Mac. Think it might be possessed?

Dr. Whipple: Oh, I trust that old thing. It’s just an old word processor, so it can’t catch a cold off the Internet, and there’s no hidden bugs in it spying on us right now.

He hopes not, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, we’ve covered your entire inventory of Woody Woodshed® Punitive Products, but we have yet to explore the spiritual aspect of your Inner Spanktum rituals.

Dr. Whipple: A delightful opportunity to enlighten you. If you’ll excuse me a few minutes, I’ve got something to do.

Maria slipped back into the room and chuckled to herself as she changed the soft background music to Gregorian Groans. Cries from the Stygian darkness of hell! Mausoleum music to molder by. The lights went out. Candlelight flickered on the walls. I turned my head. Dr. Whipple was back! Transformed into a cross between a Klansman and a cardinal! Was the man off his rocker?

Dr. Whipple: Like it, Ghostwriter?

Ghostwriter: Yes and no. It’s very artistic, but intimidating enough that any kid would think the Grand Inquisitor is about to stretch him on the rack.

Dr. Whipple: If you aren’t scared of God, you’ll do stupid things.

Ghostwriter: Lots of people have done stupid things because preachers got them scared, such as tithing away their rent check. But can we base our relationship with our Creator on fear?

Dr. Whipple: Glad you asked that. Solomon said the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Ghostwriter: The author of Psalms also said the exact same thing. But there’s something I don’t get. Solomon is called the wisest man who ever drew breath. Considering all the unselfish saints and peacemakers who populate the ‘Who’s Who’ pages of human history, that’s one whale of an achievement. So to get that quantity of wisdom, Solomon must have been more petrified of the Lord than any other mortal human who ever lived. And if he was that scared of God, then why did he build idols that made God mad? If your children hadn’t been scared of you, wouldn’t they have let their hair down more often?

Dr. Whipple: I should say not! Spanky and Blastus always wore military crew cuts and sharp suits to church. Unless you teach sinners that God will torture them for all eternity unless they love and serve Him, you’re doing them no favor.

Ghostwriter: That negative introduction to the love of Jesus would hamper world evangelism. Telling people God is gonna torture them for all eternity unless they love Him, what kind of Good News is that? You can catch more fish by using the bait of God’s love than by beating the water with a boat paddle and threatening them with hell. Read Peter’s first evangelistic sermon in Acts. He doesn’t threaten his listeners with hell. Not once. And Peter was preaching to the worst sinners in town, the murderers of Jesus Christ, who pressured Pontius Pilate to nail Him to the Cross. If any crowd deserved to be threatened with hell it would have been those people.

Dr. Whipple: Be that as it may, Solomon was a man’s man. You didn’t hear him going around singing about powder puff love all the time.

Ghostwriter: Solomon wrote a whole book on the only kind of love he was ever interested in, and he had a thousand wives to practice it on. But before we diverge off our topic, I must say that holey paddle is what sets off your outfit. It looks ten times as menacing, the way you’re lit up like a laser light show and holding it over your head as the Gregorians groan.

Dr. Whipple (referring to notes): Marching in the Punitive Priestly Procession with the paddle is a very holy aspect of a father’s sacred office as under-shepherd under Christ over his family. Like a Catholic pope carrying a giant crucifix in his own candlelit Procession, the exalted emblem of the Christian’s Parental Priesthood is the paddle, or in some cases, the belt. Reverently the priestly father of the family holds up Woody Woodshed as he leads the tiny penitent into his basement or den, or whatever serves as his Woodshed Sanctuary for Penitent Souls. Just as a Pope’s ceremonial Procession is solemnized by mournful Gregorian chants, the parent’s own Punitive Priesthood Procession is blessed by the wails of his fearful child. This is music to God’s ears, and sweet incense to His nostrils. The child’s anguished sobbing serves as the Processional hymn to hallow the hall where the Spanking Sacrament is administered for the recovery of that rebellious soul. Upon entering the Inner Spanktum, the child should immediately kneel down. Not to pray just yet, but to kiss that Old Wooden Paddle which delivers his soul from hell.The parent’s Designated Woodshed Area is his Vatican, where he enforces law and order in his home. It’s Daddy’s shrine of devotion to God, and the FOCAL POINT of his ministry to his erring child. A

hallowed sanctuary where the lengthy process of being reconciled to an offended God is begun in order that it may be finished by appropriating the finished work of Christ, Whose blood atones for every sin. When I preached, I’d always say, ‘YOU, mister, are the one responsible for making sure your child gets clean enough to come into the Presence of God to receive forgiveness of sins.’

Ghostwriter: Sorry to interrupt, but I thought it was Jesus Who cleans up dirty souls.

Dr. Whipple (waving his hand): I’ll address that doctrine in a minute. But imagine a hog farmer who’s been working in the pigpen all day long. His overalls are filthy, saturated with muck and grime. His shoes ooze sewage. The man’s face is caked with crud because a 400-pound hog knocked him down and he got rotten, smelly stuff all over him. The dirt even seeped through his clothes and got down to his skin. This man AND his clothes both need cleansing. But they need at least one quick spitwash outside before they can go inside where the spankin’ clean bathroom and laundry room are. The man’s wife comes out onto the back porch and hollers, “Bubba, you stink to high heaven! Take them filthy rags off at once! We’re throwin’ ‘em out ‘cause I ain’t a-washin’ ‘em!”But old Bubba has a stubborn streak. He refuses to throw his dirty duds away. They’re too good for the garbage can. He warns his wife she’d better not soak them in water because they’ll shrink. Bubba just bought those perfectly good bib overalls. He lies and says they can only be dry-cleaned. And worse still, Bubba is too ornery to take his clothes off and hang them on the line like his wife orders him to do. By the time they finish arguing, the mud on those clothes has dried in the hot sun. Filth is flaking off Bubba’s body. Dust is swirling around him and he’s attracting horse flies from the barn. The very sight of him disgusts his wife. But she is still determined to clean Bubba’s clothes even if he won’t let her wash them. So she decides to dry-clean them. She grabs a broom and beats the dust off Bubba, just like they used to beat a dirty rug before they invented vacuum cleaners. Filth flies everywhere, and boy, does it smart! Bubba isn’t ready to have his remaining impurities cleansed off his body in the spotless bathroom until he’s covered in bruises.This sounds crude but it’s true: Christ did his bit to save your kid, but your belt bails him out of hell. Another analogy is the way a dishwasher works better if you first take the time to pre-rinse 98% of the food off under the tap. When you spank your child, you create cleansing tears which soften the remaining crud on your son’s soul, and therefore, you make Jesus’ cleaning job much easier when the child finally prays for God’s forgiveness.

I realize my popularity could hit rock BOTTOM by preaching the hard-to-swallow doctrine of SUPPLEMENTAL SUFFERING SALVATION. But Solomon himself, the wisest, smartest, holiest Christian who ever lived, would back up this vital truth: GOD CANNOT SAVE YOUR CHILD UNLESS YOU BEAT HIS BOTTOM! YOUR ROD IS YOUR KID’S HOTROD TO HEAVEN! VRO-O-O-OM! Why do I believe this? In Proverbs 23:14 Solomon wrote: ‘IF you beat your son with the rod you’ll save his soul from hell! The key is that tiny word “if”. The clear inference is that if you punish your kid by grounding him or taking away his skateboard, he’ll split hell wide open and he’ll never see the Pearly Gates.

Ghostwriter: You seem to believe there’s a tremendous burden on the father to be the child’s sole connection to Christ, and that can only be achieved through a purgatory of pain activated by the spanking ritual, followed by forced confessions which meet the criteria set by the Paternal Priest. Otherwise the child cannot be reconciled to God.

Dr. Whipple: Some infidels downplay the doctrine of the intermediary priesthood of the father by citing I Tim.2:5, which teaches that there is only one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus. Yes, it’s true most grown-ups don’t have to go to some Catholic priest and confess them sins so that priest can help them make peace with God. But little kids don’t know their right hand from their left foot, so what would they know about the proper way to approach a holy God they’ve offended by breaking a light bulb? They need Daddy to confess their sins to, so he can bridge the gap between them and an angry God. Without Daddy, Christ Jesus cannot complete the repentance process by reconciling them with the Father in heaven. And Daddy had better make darn sure he gets to the bottom of a child’s sin first before God gets the chance to wash it away. If God got rid of the guilt before Daddy beat that guilt out of him, that would be a major breach of priestly protocol!

Ghostwriter: Not to mention a major blow to the dad’s ego. And the fact Daddy would feel like a louse for battering a child who just got his sin washed away by Jesus.

Dr. Whipple (beady eyes narrowing): I sense a little hostility there.

Ghostwriter: No, I’m just being blunt. The Bible teaches that when God makes people new creatures in Christ, old things have passed away and all things have become new. Why beat a child whose sins have already been paid for by Christ, since God drove those old sins as far away as east is from west? Should the punishing dad reinstate those old sins so he has an excuse to hit the kid?

Dr. Whipple: Listen to me, Ghostwriter. You’re being very naïve about this. King David received forgiveness from God after sinning with Bathsheba and killing her husband. But David was still punished the rest of his life for his sins. Actions do carry consequences.

Ghostwriter: To compare a tantrum thrown by a tired two-year-old with David’s adultery is a bit over the top, don’t you think? What about all those pastors out there who commit adultery and preach lies to filch funds out of the people of God? Shouldn’t they get a good dose of Woody Woodshed?

Dr. Whipple: The Bible says to rebuke all who sin. Except for church elders, who aren’t supposed to be rebuked by anyone except God. They’re entitled to gentler treatment because of their exalted office. Likewise, little children enjoy a lower status in the home than grownups, so there’s more latitude in dealing with them.

Ghostwriter: Oh, I get it! The greater your position and privileges, the less accountable you’re supposed to be held for your actions!

Dr. Whipple: But God cracks down on leaders who sin. I just mentioned the example of David.

Ghostwriter: Let’s set that aside for the moment, because I really do need to hear your opinion on this next question. I’ve heard you repeatedly emphasize that it’s the father of the family who serves as the punishing priest to reconcile the child to God. Does it occur to you that millions of homes out there have no husband and father to fill that role? Why can’t the mother fill in as the disciplinarian?

Dr. Whipple: Because the woman’s the weaker vessel and she can’t hit hard enough. And I’ll tell you one thing, Ghostwriter, if people started living right, there wouldn’t be so many one-parent families! Highly improper! That isn’t God’s perfect order for the Christian home!

Ghostwriter: I agree the struggling single parent family isn’t a picture perfect advertisement for self-righteous white middle class conservative values. But aside from the fact a lot of women are widowed or unjustly divorced by abusive spouses, there’s a lot of single parents out there who work themselves half to death to make sure their kids have an easier life than they did. Love is about giving and sharing, not beating fear into someone smaller. Solomon gave gifts to his wives that perpetuated the spirit of fear: ugly child-eating idols. What kind of love is that?

Dr. Whipple: You aren’t the only person who wonders about Solomon. One erring church brother I knew asked me why any rational Christian would follow Solomon’s spanking advice after he financed the building of child-eating idols like Molech and Chemosh, in order to please his heathen wives. Like you, this man cited I Kings 11:7 and he had this to say: “Surely Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, must have known those idols wouldn’t settle for a dog biscuit. Solomon knew what Molech and Chemosh ate to get their five a day. He knew what got thrown into their blast furnace bellies each and every day. So it follows that King Solomon hated kids too much to be much of a child rearing expert’.

Ghostwriter: A guy wouldn’t feed kids to Molech unless he hated ‘em, sounds logical enough.

Dr. Whipple: The fact remains that Solomon probably didn’t personally throw any kid into the flames. Even if he did provide the opportunity for his wives or their servants to sacrifice children by building those idols, the free will of the wives remained.

Ghostwriter: I’ve always believed the buck stops at the top. Kings crave glory and honor, but they don’t want to set a decent example for those same subjects who are expected to praise and honor them.

Dr. Whipple: Be that as it may, Solomon received his wisdom from God, regardless of how he lived his own personal life. You must separate the chaff from the wheat, and cut the poor fellow a little slack for being human. Henpecked by a thousand wives, it must have been temporary insanity that drove him to build those idols to shut them up so he could have a little peace and quiet and concentrate on writing Proverbs to teach you how to live your own life.

Ghostwriter: They say ‘Beauty is as beauty does.’ I say ‘Wisdom is as wisdom does.’ One of the wisest things Solomon ever did to cover the tailpipe on his hotrod was he didn’t criticize idolatry in any of his 900-odd Proverbs. He would have gotten egg all over his face there.

Dr. Whipple: It’s his wives’ fault for asking him to build those idols. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Solomon had to run a regimented nursery and mete out strict discipline. He must have had more kids than the stars of the sky. Can you imagine hundreds of tiny terrors lined up single file to take their licks? The ship of his family had a firm hand on the rudder, and even if ugly idols sank Solomon’s ship, he went down with his ship like any brave captain would. Seeing things from a fresh perspective brings out the real truth and instills in you a deeper appreciation for hidden riches in the Word of God.

Dr. Whipple’s rambling rerun rhetoric made me realize the old Punitive Priest might be getting a little senile. Or, maybe he couldn’t get any SATISFACTION out of this playacted ritual because this time there was no sacrificial lamb following him in the Punitive Procession to the chopping block.

Dr. Whipple (referring to notes): Ghostwriter, I’m inclined to speculate that in all probability Solomon repented in later life. How do I know this? Solomon laments that he didn’t get lasting satisfaction out of all the thrilling things he did with his life. Ever hear that song: “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”? But I try, and I try and I try, the song goes. Solomon tried his darnedest to find fulfillment in wine, women and song, but failed. So Solomon tells you how to beat your kids so they won’t fall into the same follies he did. Also, keep in mind that Solomon only commanded Christians to spank their kids, not sacrifice them to idols. Give the poor guy a break. We’re all sinners, and who’s to say you wouldn’t have caved in too if you’d had a thousand heathen wives nagging you night and day for their own designer Molech monster?

Ghostwriter: So what if you’d built child-eating idols, even if they were for somebody else to operate? How would your kids have felt toward you if they knew you’d done such a thing, while claiming to be a man of God who dispenses His wisdom to dumber entities? Don’t you think Solomon’s insensitivity toward children just might have wrecked Solomon’s relationship with Rehoboam, or adversely affected the punishments he dished out on a daily basis?

Dr. Whipple: You take a negative view of the results of Solomon’s parenting skills, but you’re judging from the wrong perspective. The proof of any doctrine is in the pudding. Solomon’s son Rehoboam grew up to be a strong, tough king who was man enough to beat his forced laborers with scorpions to increase their productivity. Talk about the Protestant Work Ethic! That’s like some sheriff whipping chain gang convicts with a rattlesnake to teach them obedience. Rehoboam wasn’t a wimpy pantywaist granola junkie who freely forgave everybody without punishment! Even if Rehoboam did cause a civil war in Israel with his draconian domestic policies, his iron will was forged in the furnace of his daddy’s woodshed where Solomon flogged him all the days of his childhood to prove how much he loved him. But what if Daddy accidentally whips a child for something they didn’t do? No sweat. That little booboo gets credited to the child’s SPANKING SPREAD SHEET in heaven. Whenever Junior does something

bad in the future that Daddy didn’t hit him for, those ‘accidental’ swats are deducted from the SPANKING CREDITS the boy’s built up over the years of his father’s imperfect parenting. Heck, Daddy can just take his son in the kitchen and fix him a great big peanut butter sandwich. Like a loyal pup, the boy will instantly forgive and forget, and that sandwich will soothe his battered bottom.Which reminds me of another book I’m working on, which won’t come out till next year: Beat the Devil out of Your Dog. Before he got run over by a dump truck, I had this 200-pound pit bull, Grumpy. I believe satan bumped him off for rebellion in his life. Old Grumpy refused to get his lazy carcass off the couch so I could watch a ball game on TV, which incidentally, I’ve since donated to the Salvation Army so I could spend extra time with God. He thought he’d won, but after I roasted Grumpy’s rump with my very own Darth Vader light saber, he ran away with his stubby tail between his legs. This book is a saga about my lengthy, perilous quest to reform Grumpy’s wayward soul, and oh, yes, dogs go to hell too if they’re bad. Down there they turn into hot dogs! Yum! More on that later. Back to children.

Chapter 53 of Daddy’s Discipline covers baby sins and how to deal with them. Before babies even emerge from the delivery room they’re already plotting ways to rob mommy and daddy of rest and peace. If parents have to get up more than three times a night to feed a newborn, that infant is treating his parents like slaves and deliberately depriving them of sleep just for kicks. Then there are times when parents might be kneeling in prayer, only to hear their little angel scream to have a dirty diaper changed. You smell something suspicious. Satan made that baby’s bowels move at the wrong time so the parent would get distracted from the things of God. Perhaps the

parent had just changed a soggy diaper a few minutes ago, but now little Lulu’s got an even bigger surprise in her knap sack. Soggy, dirty babies know their parents have far more spiritual things to do with their life than clean up the devil’s dirty work. Satan is definitely behind such a so-called coincidence, for it is his business to distract the saints of God from their religious duties. My daughter Fanny Mae was just 8 months old when satan started attacking us with her pacifier. She’d drop that thing on the dirty floor and laugh like it was a joke. She’d interrupt our Bible study so we’d have to go wash it and give it back to her, just so we wouldn’t have time for the Lord. Ghostwriter, I could see satan at work, and I prayed that God would give me the victory over our child’s sinister plot to distract us from the things of God. Well, one day I said, “This is the last straw, kid. You’ve sabotaged my quiet time for the very last time.’ I go into greater detail about we won this Battle of the Demon-possessed Pacifier in Chapter 54, once readers have learned the basics of how to correct infantile sins committed by baby brats. But believe me, once I trained Fanny Mae God’s way, that girl never dropped anything on the floor ever again. Fanny Mae learned the lesson so thoroughly that when she started crocheting, she was too scared to drop a stitch. Here are some song lyrics I wrote, which I sing to the tune of an old hymn:

O Paddle DivineO Paddle Divine

You’re faithful to keep my family in line.I bow at thy shrine

You make children mindYou wonderful Paddle Divine.

Oh those precious rapturous joys you parents and children will forever share together in eternity as they remember those holy hours in the woodshed, where Daddy, as the exalted Paddle Priest of his home, led his weeping, penitent child into the Presence of Almighty God. The spiritual high both participants take away from this experience will soothe away the bitter pain of chastisement like honey soothes sunburn. As the chastised child spiritually transcends his posterior pain, he will awaken to paradise in the pleasure zone of the soul. As he bows to Daddy’s belt in deepest humility, the child’s soul will fly on angel wings to touch the face of God. Thus, even a child’s naughty pranks can be the catalyst through which he enters into deeper dimensions in his Christian experience. Awareness that God’s glorious holy justice is being carried out on his bottom fills the child’s soul with songs of praise. His sweetly submissive response to the pain itself incites an inner ecstasy which transports his soul to heavenly realms

where he can hear the angels sing. This is much like the sublime spiritual ecstasies experienced by Catholic hermits who habitually whip their filthy fallen flesh and wear scratchy scapulars to immerse their innermost being into the glory of God.Talk about the Agony and the Ecstasy! The sweetness of the joy which springs from submission to Daddy’s priestly ministry of chastisement will overwhelm the child so much he can barely contain it. Instead of tears of pain, Daddy will see tears of indescribable heavenly delight seeping from Junior’s eyes. He will feel an afterglow so powerful, so profound, the agonies of earth will grow strangely dim in his sight. All because the priestly father of the family whipped Woody Woodshed out of the closet and merged the power of the paddle with the power of prayer to cure the cancer of sin in his erring child’s heart.

Ghostwriter: I will say, this session has been the experience of a lifetime. But before I go, what would you advise mothers to do if there’s no daddy around to conduct the Punitive Priesthood ceremony?

Dr. Whipple (grudgingly): When the first in command gets killed in battle, I suppose his subordinate must take over to continue to fight the battle till it’s won. If the mother is too weak and frail to spank a kid who’s quicker and stronger than she is, I’d strongly advise her to grant her pastor the authority to perform the spanking ceremony on her behalf.

Ghostwriter: Have you ever spanked someone else’s kid?

Dr. Whipple: Plenty of times. One night we held an invitation after the church service where I asked every conscience-stricken child to line up in front of the church. After a short blessing I grouped them according to age and size. Then I, with the assistance of my disciplinary deacons, gave each kid ten licks with Woody Woodshed. After that, none of the kids ever again confessed they had sin in their life.

Ghostwriter: No wonder. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Well, it’s about that hour, Dr. Whipple. Thanks for your time. See you again tomorrow.

As I exited that loony bin I just couldn’t stomach the spiritual feast served up by my holy host. Before the Ghostship beamed me up, I vomited in Dr. Whipple’s nasturtium bed.

Chapter Five

Tuesday, August 18 2:06 p.m.

A stern old face frowned disapprovingly as the happy kitty frolicked. When the little critter saw the rolled-up newspaper poised for punitive action, he hopped in my lap to hide.

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, today I intend to ask a lot of loaded questions. Thought I’d warn you in advance. So if there’s any objections, I’ll leave immediately to spare you any discomfort.

Dr. Whipple: After serving as satan’s favorite dartboard for nearly a century, I’ve developed a thick hide. So fire away.

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, for the record, do you consider little children to be full-fledged people, entitled to all the dignity of human beings created in the image of God?

Dr. Whipple: Normally, I’d take umbrage at such an inquiry. But then again, I’d expect silly sarcasm from you. Yes, children are full-fledged people. Why do I believe this? Because we all started off as children, and a lower form of life cannot evolve into a higher one, any more than a snail can turn into a swan.

Ghostwriter: So if children are full-fledged people, even if they do act like monkeys sometimes, then you must agree they’re just as entitled to the protection of the law as you or I.

Dr. Whipple: Logical enough.

Ghostwriter: Okay. So we’re approaching this next question with us both assuming that children are human and entitled to humane treatment. Spanking is still legal in America, though many other Western nations have banned it. If spanking must be legal in this country, don’t you think there ought to be federal guidelines regulating its use, the implements allowed, and the severity of the punishment?

Dr. Whipple: I should say not! The government has no business sticking its nose in the running of a Christian home!

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, what if you were to walk through some dark alleyway in Butte late one night and a guy jumped you and beat the hell out of you with one of your Woody Woodshed® paddles?

Dr. Whipple: Well, if I survived the attack, I’d phone the police.

Ghostwriter: So who pays the police to protect you?

Dr. Whipple (grudgingly): The government, I guess.

Ghostwriter: So the government should protect all citizens, whatever age they might be. Are we in agreement on that point?

Dr. Whipple: Whatever. But misbehaving brats are under the care and supervision of grown adults. It is their right to exercise discretion in deciding on appropriate punishment for misbehavior.

Ghostwriter: Back to the theoretical assailant who attacks you in a dark alleyway with a Woody Woodshed. What if he were to defend himself in court on the pretext that he, a law-abiding citizen protecting public decency, caught you staring at some woman in a short skirt, and you needed to be chastened for that misbehavior?

Dr. Whipple: This is an outrage! You’re comparing a street thug with a godly Christian parent! Any guy who mugged me in the alleyway with a Woody Woodshed would beat the soup out of me and wouldn’t care how bad he hurt me!

Ghostwriter: That’s my point. The mugger wouldn’t observe any legal guidelines as to whether he was entitled to hit you, what to hit you

with, how many times to hit you, or how hard to hit you. People have used God and Christianity as an excuse to hurt other people for centuries. The Spanish Inquisition tortured people to death to save their souls. Millions of Christian parents hit their kids as hard as they feel like, and as many times as they feel like, on the pretext that God is guiding them to ‘train their children to love Jesus’.

Dr. Whipple: Children need the firm discipline my paddle provides!

Ghostwriter: You seem to think discipline equals beating or other severe suffering, and nothing else.

Dr. Whipple: Well, discipline’s no picnic, that’s for sure. I’ve lost count of the days since I started my fast. My innards are atrophying. I’m barely able to concentrate, I’m so light-headed. Just to prove my love for Jesus, I intend to skip my meals a whole month. If that doesn’t butter God up enough to bring Willow home to me, nothing will.

Ghostwriter: So if you impress God with a show of suffering He’ll compensate you by bringing her home, eh? I don’t think Sherwood would be very happy if your hunger strike brought Willow back to you.

Dr. Whipple: That devil, he’s at least ten years younger than Willow. I’ve fasted and prayed for years that God would strike him with lightning to punish him for wooing my wife away from me.

Ghostwriter: Sounds worse than Woody Woodshed. Before I continue this line of questioning, please satisfy my curiosity. Was Sherwood a member of your church?

Dr. Whipple: He sure was. Every week that scoundrel would come to church with his hair gelled up like Woody Woodpecker, wearing skintight jeans and a designer jacket, looking like a West Coast surfer dude who owned the place. Every week after service when I was busy counting the offering, Sherwood would take a mighty long time to shake Willow’s hand and comment on the service. Rumors started floating around. I suspected something might be going on behind my back, but Willow behaved like the model Christian wife while she remained under my roof. The day after Willow’s brothers took her and the children to her mother’s, she called Sherwood to cry on his shoulder about how mean I was. That was the day my family piled into Sherwood’s old van and went West to get away from me.

Who can blame them for running away from your religion? I thought.

Ghostwriter: Perhaps there was an unhealed rift between you and Willow. Did you ah…ever strike her on any occasion? You did say earlier that you bopped her once with a Frisbee.

Dr. Whipple: You’re getting mighty personal now. What goes on in a marital bedroom is the couple’s own private affair.

Ghostwriter: Let me rephrase that. Did you ever hit Willow to show you were displeased about something?

Dr. Whipple: Oh, I corrected her with a coat hanger once for forgetting to starch my church shirt. But she knew I was only playing.

Ghostwriter (snorting): Some fun!

Dr. Whipple: Then there was this other occasion when Willow got so confused by the children’s commotion she poured prune juice in the pancake batter instead of milk.

I laughed.

Dr. Whipple: I didn’t think it was so funny at the time, ‘cause I was hungry as a bear. I told Willow that as a hard-working preacher, I was entitled to a decent breakfast, and she should have shut those kids up so she could concentrate on the pancake batter.

Ghostwriter: So what happened next?

Dr. Whipple: She threw a tantrum. She slam-dunked the batter bowl in the sink and said she wasn’t my slave, and I could take the family out to Denny’s for at least one breakfast a year to give her a break.

Ghostwriter: What’d you say to that?

Dr. Whipple: I told her she was behaving like a child so I’d treat her like one. I spanked her with a spatula about three times. She ran upstairs crying that I’d humiliated her in front of her own children. She wouldn’t speak to me the rest of the day or night. Poor me, I had to fix the kids’ breakfast, lunch and dinner that day. And oh, yes, I rescued the batter from the sink. Then I cooked up those pancakes for the kids and told them if they didn’t eat those purple pancakes as punishment for their pandemonium, I’d turn their posteriors pink.

Ghostwriter: Guess you could call ‘em Punitive Prune Juice Pancakes, your own breakfast specialty.

Dr. Whipple (smirking): At least nobody was constipated that day.

Ghostwriter: Did Willow forgive you?

Dr. Whipple: I told her that even if I was out of order for disciplining her in front of the children, she shouldn’t freeze me out of my own bedroom. I told her I loved her so much I’d give her the sun, the moon and the stars to prove it, and she could at least turn the other cheek instead of acting cross.

I howled so hard I lost my breath.

Ghostwriter: You and your shocking innuendoes! Are you trying to crack me up? What other funny things can you recall in connection with your discipline doctrine?

Dr. Whipple: One Halloween night I went to the door dressed up in my Punitive Priest vestments, as a visible testimony of my faith. Spanky and Blastus were too timid to witness for the Lord by handing out Gospel tracts instead of candy. I did better than that. I handed out Flying Spankster comics to any kid who’d accept one. ‘Spiritual candy for kids!’ I called out the door. ‘Read all about it! Flying Spankster beats the devil out of your life so your light can shine!’

What kind of a fruitcake is this? I wondered.

Ghostwriter: So how did your kids react, if any of them watched this?

Dr. Whipple: Spanky and Blastus nearly fell through the floor when I told some trick-or-treaters their parents would burn in hell if they didn’t believe in spanking. Both boys hid their faces in shame when they saw me scaring those kids in my costume. I wore my bright red Correction Cape and the tall Correction Cap, and ritual robes. I marched through the living room by candlelight, carrying Woody Woodshed and intoning a solemn invocation as the Gregorians groaned and my white cap glowed in all its glory.

Ghostwriter: Must’ve freaked those whippersnappers out.

Dr. Whipple: I’ll say! Instead of giving ‘em candy to rot their teeth, I gave ‘em spiritual food for their fallen souls. After that particular year, no rug rat ever darkened my door again on Halloween night. Saved a fortune on candy.

Ghostwriter: Did you get any feedback from the kids you gave the comics to that night?

Dr. Whipple (looking angry): I’ll say those comics made an impact! The dirty devils woke me up at two a.m., hollering and yelling outside in our yard. One guy ripped up Flying Spankster comic books and scattered the pages all over the lawn while his buddy lowered his pants and mooned me when I looked out. Next day they picked on poor Spanky and Blastus at school. They swatted them in the locker room with a Flyball paddle and said their dad was a horny devil who’d chase them to hell with a pitchfork if they didn’t take their licks. No Christian in America ever took worse persecution than me, and I deserve the biggest crown in heaven for what they put me through.

Ghostwriter: Was Willow very sympathetic about this?

Dr. Whipple: She did her best to cheer me up. Before long, sparks were flying in our bedroom again.

Ghostwriter: So spanking is the sparkplug that turns you on.

Dr. Whipple (frowning): That’s a low blow.

Ghostwriter: Back to the more serious matter of whether or not spanking should be regulated by the government. You insist that all Christian dads should discipline with the Rod of Correction, and it’s preferable to having the mother do it because she’s too weak to get the job done properly.

Dr. Whipple: That’s correct. I believe the dad should be the disciplinarian of the family. He’s the head of the home under Christ.

Ghostwriter: My main worry is, not all dads are created equal in size or strength. You might have a 98-pound weakling who can barely hurt a fly, spanking a 150-pound teenager. Then, you might have a 200-pound karate champ spanking a two-year-old. Not only that, each man can subjectively decide how many licks, how hard, what implement to use and so forth. Is that really a fair, level playing field?

Dr. Whipple: I’m sure the big, muscular man would have sense enough to take his size and strength into consideration when spanking a small child, to prevent actual injury.

Ghostwriter: You’re making a very shaky assumption with no basis in reality. Throughout Biblical history God Himself discovered how untrustworthy human beings are. Just because a parent professes belief in Christ doesn’t mean he’ll always act responsibly. The Bible teaches that the human heart is desperately depraved, not intrinsically

trustworthy. If Big Daddy had a bad day and got chewed out by his boss at work, a broken vase might be the last straw that causes him to unleash his repressed resentment on somebody who can’t fight back. Anger in action, unless constructively channeled, is dangerous dynamite. King David begged God not to let him fall into the hand of man because he knew how vicious people could be. If a grown man like David was way too scared to entrust his personal well-being to imperfect humans, why expect small children to do so?

Dr. Whipple: Even if a parent’s imperfect, I’m sure they wouldn’t want to risk doing time in the slammer for aggravated assault…or worse.

Ghostwriter: Never underestimate the destructive power of unrestrained rage. It takes real humility to let God carry the burden of anger, even when anger is justifiable and necessary to fight great evils in society. There are times when anger is understandable, even inevitable. I was bullied for years in school. I couldn’t fight back, couldn’t run away, and it’s taken me years to cope the fallout of what those kids did to me.

Dr. Whipple: Have you forgiven them in your heart?

Ghostwriter: That’s exactly what I expected you to say. Most Christians define forgiveness as totally absolving the offender of guilt or any obligation to make amends for his behavior. I’m not stupid enough to claim to be better than God is. I can no more grant absolution to an unrepentant abuser than God can let Hitler off the hook. If I do or say something wrong, God doesn’t forgive me unless I repent. So why should I forgive the unrepentant? The best I can do is to emotionally detach myself from those cruel creeps and commit them into God’s hands for the final judgment of their sin against me.

Dr. Whipple: Forgiveness means forgiveness. Pure and simple, and we’re commanded to do it.

Ghostwriter: I did a word study on ‘forgiveness’ using my Strong’s Concordance. I focused mainly on New Testament passages. Most all of its usages of the word ‘forgive’ are translated from the Greek word aphiemi, which simply means to “set aside.” This particular Greek word does not signify the type of forgiveness which grants an offender absolution, nor does it release the unrepentant offender from the guilt of sin and its consequences. It does not suspend the law of sowing and reaping in an abuser’s life, as stated in Galatians 6:7. The injured party simply chooses to set aside the offense, so as not to take personal vengeance. When a Christian cannot absolve a criminal for what he did, he can leave that one in God’s hands to deal with justly. This

harmonizes with Romans 12:19, which tells believers to refrain from revenge to make room for God’s wrath. Even this tenuous “just forget it” forgiveness might be impossible in the case of an ongoing campaign of criminal assault against your child. There are degrees of how bad an offense can be. If Sister Sue forgot to bring a pie to the church social, it’s no problem to completely, unreservedly forgive her because there was no malicious intent on her part.A stronger Greek word for “forgive” in the NT, charizomai, means “to freely forgive from the heart as an act of kindness”. This verb is used only three times in the New Testament, and ALWAYS in relation to other believers, not unrepentant sinners. Just because I set some serious sin on the back burner doesn’t mean God won’t finally sort the mess out and bring justice to the situation.

Dr. Whipple: Hey, I thought you were the soft-hearted one here. Your enemies will suffer a bit of discomfort if God gives them what they deserve. Didn’t Christ command us to love and pray for our enemies?

Ghostwriter: Soft-hearted or soft-headed? Genuine love isn’t a forced fantasyland affection you fabricate to keep God happy. If I’m repelled by an extremely evil individual, I can’t lie and say I’m fond of him, or that’s self-deception. There were certain Bible characters God Himself didn’t particularly like, and I’m no better than He is. Sometimes I don’t even feel a release to pray for certain ones, because the human heart reaches a point of no return in its rebellion against God, and it would be useless to do so. I John 5:16 indicates that there are times when

God’s people are not obligated to pray, probably for hardened sinners who have irrevocably alienated the Spirit of Grace.

Dr. Whipple: Hey, I detect a root of bitterness there.

Ghostwriter: That’s the standard line. Bitterness is a favorite Christian buzzword which magically transforms the victim into the guilty party. Unless you dispense unconditional forgiveness to every unrepentant dirt bag criminal on the planet, you’re bitter. Even if God hard-wired us with a desire to see justice done. The Bible teaches you reap what you sow, so if other people’s premeditated, prolonged abuse triggered long-lasting repercussions of hurt and chaos in my life, why shouldn’t they get a little taste of their own medicine?

Dr. Whipple: Jesus said to do good to those who hurt you, even if it’s you who has to do all the suffering while they have all the good times! You’re supposed to want nice things for your foes, not painful things!

Ghostwriter: So what you’re saying is, those who hurt me should be spared pain and have only nice experiences?

Dr. Whipple: Exactly. I know it’s a bitter pill to swallow, to pray that your enemy enjoys pleasant things while you’re left to pick up the broken pieces from their harm, possibly for a lifetime. But that’s our Savior’s will, and if you’re gonna follow Him, you’ll say ‘amen’ to that.

Ghostwriter (hotly): So where’s the justice in that? You can’t really mean it, saying a Christian should want only enjoyable things for an unrepentant enemy who hurt him real bad!

Dr. Whipple (indignantly): Yes, I did! That’s what you ought to be wishing for your enemies instead of wanting God to chastise them with pain! The Bible teaches that God draws people to repentance through His goodness, not through punishing them. That’s how Jesus wants us to repay those who hurt us!

Ghostwriter: For the record, let’s get our definitions straight. What exactly do you mean by God’s goodness?

Dr. Whipple: Any blessing which makes a heart happy and joyful. Getting all your needs met, receiving wonderful things which make you peaceful and cheerful. Things which bring sunshine and smiles.

Ghostwriter: So your definition of the ‘good things’ whereby God draws sinners unto Himself would not include painful experiences which teach sinners a lesson?

Dr. Whipple: Absolutely not! Get it through your thick skull, Ghostwriter, that I have unequivocally stated that you are not to repay your enemies with pain, only pleasurable, enjoyable things.

Ghostwriter (giddily): GOTCHA! You swallowed the bait! Now, Dr. Whipple, why on earth would you want me to repay evil enemies with enjoyable things, while you paddled the hell out of your own kids to punish them, all the while insisting it wasn’t enough that they were sorry and Jesus died to forgive their sins? Throughout your long-winded book Daddy’s Discipline, you repeatedly stated that chastisement, or corrective suffering, is a blessing which molds children into Christ’s own likeness and brings about true repentance toward God. This seems to contradict a scripture you quoted earlier: Romans 2:4, which states that it is the goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering of God which leads people to repentance. Nothing is said in that context about whippings leading people to repentance, which was your usual practice. As for your contention that evildoers should be repaid only with enjoyable, happy things, what about your own kids? Didn’t you repay their alleged sins against you with pain instead of pleasure? If so, why are unrepentant enemies entitled to better treatment than a Christian’s own kids, who are not his enemies? If suffering is such a blessing for believers, why isn’t it also good for wicked people?

Dr. Whipple sat there tongue-tied, sputtering out unintelligible religious gibberish.

Ghostwriter: Let’s take my argument a step further. Unconditional forgiveness of the unrepentant is one of the biggest sacred cows of today’s church, and if Christians really believed in it, why not let satan and his demons into heaven too, and say, ‘Ditch the ‘godly sorrow which leads to repentance’ part, and fast-forward to the ‘hugs and kisses happy ending’? Why not just open your arms wide and shout, ‘Satan, I forgive you, all you need is a big hug!’ And since Christians seem to think God loves everything in existence, why not just forgive every bully, every rapist, every mass murderer, every torturer, every evil creep on Planet Earth because God is too big-hearted to care about justice?’ Unconditional forgiveness of unrepentant lowlifes. This false doctrine of devils accounts for most of the sermons preached today, except church tithing, and the curses the preacher wants God to hit you with for not tithing. But funny how conservative Christians are so gung-ho on someone else in someone else’s family forgiving a rapist or murderer, and the guy not only isn’t sorry, he goes around joking about it. Those same ‘forgiving’ Christians approve of their military bombing the hell out of another country just to go grab their oil.

Mighty strange, how Christians pick and choose who’s entitled to get pleasant payback instead of punishment. By all means, shower every cruel creep in history with heaven’s choicest blessings and kill the fatted calf for them, even if they don’t feel sorry for their sins and return to the Father. But the Golden Rule doesn’t seem to apply when Christians deal with their own small children who love and trust them.

As expected, Dr. Whipple started stonewalling about Stephen, who unconditionally forgave unrepentant thugs who stoned him to death.

Ghostwriter: That was Stephen’s prerogative as the injured party, although such magnanimity wouldn’t have helped much if God sent them to hell for rejecting Jesus. But an example is not a command. It just so happens Stephen went to heaven immediately after the stoning, and was spared further suffering. But what if Stephen had survived the stoning with severe disabilities which would forever after prevent him from being able to feed himself, chew his food, dress himself, or control his bowels? What if, for the rest of Stephen’s pain-wracked, humiliating, miserable existence, his unrepentant assailants had come by to laugh in his face every day and brag how they’d gotten away with it, and gloat about the hardship and suffering they’d caused him? Don’t you think Stephen might have had reason to regret asking God to release those thugs from the consequences of their cruelty?

Dr. Whipple: It’s the devil who deals in ‘what if’s’. If you loved Jesus, you wouldn’t want or need justice. And as for my spanking repentant children, Christians have always done it! End of story.

Ghostwriter: False church traditions be hanged! God needs justice to be done! Justice and judgment is where you’ll find His Throne, as Psalms 89:14 states. Justice is an intrinsic facet of God’s nature, and God Himself says He never changes, in Malachi 3:6.

Dr. Whipple: Does this mean you’re retracting your former position and agreeing that it’s necessary to spank children to satisfy justice?

Ghostwriter: I’m speaking of God dealing justly with unrepentant abusers who are old enough to know what they’re doing, not beating children and babies who only want a parent’s love and patience.

Dr. Whipple (testily): God wants parents to train children to obey, and that cannot be accomplished without firm discipline! Many centuries of devout Christians training their children with the rod cannot be wrong!

Ghostwriter: Train them to do what? Hit others less powerful than themselves? If you train monkeys with a stick, you could be cited for

cruelty to animals. Jude said to contend earnestly for the real truth originally taught to the saints. And as for beating children, nowhere do any of Christ’s apostles teach this demonic doctrine! Paul said to strike no one, and no exceptions were made for hitting children, or going to war in some far-off land to kill other people’s kids.

Dr. Whipple: Well, that’s your own interpretation of what Paul taught, but I’ll have you know, there’s nothing wrong with soldiers fighting for God and country. A lot of fine young men from our church went over to Viet Nam to fight Communism. I bet you hate the military.

Ghostwriter: In an imperfect world, the military has its place, but only to defend their own nation from actual invasion or direct attack, not to wage a war of aggression to control other countries and their natural resources. Dr. Whipple, I know you’re still stuck in the ‘70’s, but did you know McNamara just admitted the Viet Nam War was a big mistake? How would you like your home to be napalmed? Even when America got out of Viet Nam, the evil of that conflict didn’t end. The ripple effects of that war spread far and wide across time and space. America never cleaned their chemicals out of the jungles or made amends for all the unjust suffering inflicted by that war. Some of the Vietnamese and Cambodian ‘collateral damage’ suffered lifelong physical disabilities caused by the poisoning of their foliage with Agent Orange and Dioxin. Chemical weapon wizards and the warmongers who controlled them knew these substances were extremely toxic to humans but kept this info top secret. A lot of mothers gave birth to children who suffered birth defects. Many of the lawmakers who promoted that unjust war went to church. How is that walking in the love of Christ, Who said, ‘I came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them’? Do you seriously expect those so-called Communists to listen to American missionaries after Americans bombed the hell out of them and damaged their ecosystem for generations to come?

Dr. Whipple (staring vacantly): Every car that passes by my property will always see the Stars and Stripes flying proudly in the breeze. And when I get to heaven, it’ll still be flying outside my mansion door.

Dr. Whipple: Ghostwriter, you’re quiet and thoughtful-looking all of a sudden. What’s on your mind?

Ghostwriter: Nothing much. Seeing as this topic is generating more heat than light, let’s talk about your family some more, if it doesn’t make you uncomfortable.

Dr. Whipple: Fine with me.

Ghostwriter: So it’s been ages since you’ve seen any of them?

Dr. Whipple: We have zero contact with each other, but my former ministerial colleague receives regular reports on my family from their local bishop. Unlike the Catholic Church, there’s no seal on the confessional. Seems Blastus has been visiting a head shrinker instead of coming home to me so I can cast the devil out of him. See how grown children turn out when they reject the covering of a Christian father?

He really means, the clobbering of a crazy father, I thought.

Dr. Whipple: I could have molded my children into fine upstanding disciples of Christ, if Willow and Sherwood hadn’t led them into the occult. All three girls got involved in New Age voodoo to heal their past, it’s alleged. One of them converted to Buddhism and the other two became atheists. Mercy got married four times and swears she’s

finished with men forever. Must mean she’s turning into a lesbian. Spanky moved to Finland to get as far away from me as possible. Blastus can’t hold down a decent job because his people skills stink, I heard he cried like a baby when his boss rebuked his bad work.

Ghostwriter: Where was Blastus employed at the time?

Dr. Whipple: If you must know, Blastus was making a Mozzarella Monster Triple Decker at Fun on a Bun Burgers. He accidentally used Muenster Cheese.

Ghostwriter: I’d say anybody would get confused if they couldn’t think straight because 300 cars were circling the Drive-Thru, all the bleepers were going off, and the boss was a cranky monster yelling at them.

Dr. Whipple: My Bible teaches that God gives His children a sound mind which stays peaceful in the midst of a storm. My Bible teaches that people only suffer mental breakdowns because they don’t believe God’s Word and walk in faith. If God’s in control of your life, you shouldn’t be making any mistakes on the job. God never planned for His own children to be losers. Skill in confronting others about their sins is a sure sign of God’s calling on your life. Unless you take God’s Word seriously enough to do the hard, unpleasant part, it’s just as meaningless to your life as a fairy tale.

Yes, Mr. Malice in Blunderland, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Tell me what you think, Dr. Whipple. If Blastus failed to become a big shot, who do you think was to blame for that?

Dr. Whipple: Willow warped their impressionable souls. She instilled deep psychological defects in all of my kids, and the Lord’s gonna punish her for it one of these days, you mark my words.

Ghostwriter: There you go again, Dr. Whipple. You don’t want pleasant things for those who hurt you. You want God to clobber them with His own Woody Woodshed. When you sin, don’t you want God to treat you with grace instead of punishing you? Why didn’t you show grace toward your own children before it was everlastingly too late?

Dr. Whipple: Grace is for grownups who are mature enough to appreciate it and walk in the light of it. You don’t cast your pearls before swine. The little hellions would trample God’s grace underfoot.

Ghostwriter: So you’re calling little children swine? So what if you’re the one at fault because you spank them for something they didn’t do?

Don’t they, as the injured party, have a right to hope you’ll reap what you sow for doing that? Children may be the least of Christ’s brethren, but what you do to them you also do unto Him, and they’re just as entitled to justice as you or I.

Dr. Whipple: My position has always been, ‘Even if a grownup gets it wrong, the child should just turn the other cheek.’ Better a lifetime of repressed rage than an eternity of regret.

Ghostwriter: I can see you’re getting tired, Dr. Whipple, after such an in-depth discussion. So I’ll leave you to rest now, and drop by again tomorrow, Lord willing.

No reply. Instead of getting up to say goodbye, Dr. Whipple sat still as a stone statue, ruminating, his deeply furrowed brow and quivering jaw betraying his dislike of today’s session. Maria waved at me from the nearby kitchen, and I went outside to await the Ghostship.

I wondered what Dr. Whipple was daydreaming about. Perhaps a heavenly woodshed where he never ran out of cheeks to chasten.

Chapter Six

Wednesday, August 19, 2:08 p.m.

When Maria answered the door, she nudged me out onto the front porch and whispered, “Careful what you say to him today, Ghostwriter. He’s in a lousy mood. He’ll be putting on his ‘Poor pitiful me fast face’. But don’t let him kid you. When I dug through his bedroom trash today, I found three Snickers Bar wrappers. He should get an Oscar, he’s such a great actor.”

Ghostwriter (whispering back): I’ll just let him think I think he’s starving to death so he’ll feel better about himself. Shall we go into the lion’s den now, Maria?

I picked up the most noxious vibes and I saw the disapproval on his lined face. Yesterday’s verbal boxing bout hadn’t done much to build a rapport between us.

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, I hope you’re feeling well, considering you’ve been on a protracted fast.

Dr. Whipple (glancing at his watch): Oh, I’ve felt better, but part of the Christian life is suffering pain and hardship for Jesus. Nevertheless, some inconveniences could be avoided if certain people would behave with more consideration. You’re late as usual, eight minutes past the hour to be precise. When will you learn, Ghostwriter, that other

people’s time is just as valuable as your own? I have Bible study tonight and am on a tight schedule.

Ghostwriter: A billion apologies, Dr. Whipple. My ship got caught in a storm so we had to take a northeasterly detour.

Dr. Whipple: Funny how every time you leave, I intend to get up to get a glimpse of your helicopter, but I doze off on the couch or that dopey dog gets in my way. But I did see a big flash of lightning after you walked outside yesterday. It didn’t even rain.

Ghostwriter: I thought you got quite a few lightning storms in these parts, and sometimes they spook the horses and cattle.

Dr. Whipple: When I was a boy my dad taught me where lightning comes from.

Ghostwriter: Where? Enlighten me on that point.

Dr. Whipple: From one of two sources, either God or the devil. Sometimes satan likes to scare livestock with lightning, or start forest fires for fun. It takes God forever to grow beautiful green forests, and then the devil turns around and wrecks everything just to try to show God who’s boss. Other times, God strikes people dead with lightning, and that’s what almost happened to you. You should repent of all your bad beliefs, Ghostwriter, or you might get zapped one of these days.

Ghostwriter: Which bad beliefs are you talking about?

Dr. Whipple: Your contention that Solomon’s spanking theology wasn’t from God.

Ghostwriter: But that teaching isn’t repeated in the New Testament by Christ or any of the apostles.

Dr. Whipple: What about Hebrews 12, God’s Great Chastening Chapter? That’s the most magnificent sermon I ever preached during my entire pastorate. When I got finished, there wasn’t a dry eye in the congregation. Or nearly so many folks in the pews as before I started.

Ghostwriter: Hebrews is of uncertain authorship, but the text states that human fathers correct their children, and God disciplines His own. However, this chapter doesn’t endorse corporal punishment, just informs the reader that it was inflicted upon the writer by his father when he was a child. An ancient man’s experience is not a command.

Nowhere are Christian parents taught to hit their kids or raise blisters on their backsides.

Dr. Whipple: So much for Hebrews 12, but you don’t seem to like Solomon much.

Ghostwriter: As I indicated earlier, I don’t like how Solomon treated vulnerable people like slaves or children sacrificed to his idols. I don’t approve of the results of how Solomon raised Rehoboam. Many, many times in the New Testament David is spoken of or quoted, but Solomon is never mentioned after the Book of Acts. Solomon’s spanking doctrine was never taught as doctrine to New Testament believers, any more than his contention that fools should be locked up in stocks or pounded in a mortar with a pestle.

Dr. Whipple: I would just love to lock Sherwood up in the stocks and expose him to public censure for running off with my wife. Now, that would be something to see, folks throwing rotten tomatoes at him.

Ghostwriter: Apparently Willow went on with her own life, but you never went on with yours.

Dr. Whipple: Oh, I’ve kept busy enough. My life is just as orderly and well-regulated as it was when I wrote Daddy’s Discipline.

Ghostwriter: You must have run a very tight ship.

Dr. Whipple: Indeed I did. Our family life was well-disciplined like an army camp. I rose at five every morning and let the children sleep in till 5:30 so I could have half an hour to pray and meditate on the Bible. Willow prettied herself up while I did the more arduous task of awakening my children.

Ghostwriter: Were any of them especially hard to wake up?

Dr. Whipple: All of them would have loved to sleep in till seven, as I allowed them to do on Saturdays. But Blastus was the hardest to roust out of bed. One Sunday morning he decided he’d rather attend St. Mattress Bedside Chapel to get his sack religion. So I chased him out of bed with a squirt gun. He was still half asleep and yelled a four-letter word to show how cross he felt.

Ghostwriter: How horrible was that word?

Dr. Whipple: I’ll give you a hint. It rhymes with ‘ham’, and it’s something a beaver builds.

Ghostwriter: But that word’s in your own Bible, and Blastus was half-asleep. In such a state, a person’s inhibitions are lowered.

Dr. Whipple: And so were Blastus’ pajama pants. Ten doses of Woody Woodshed on Blastus’ bare BVD’s convinced him to suppress his inhibitions, awake or asleep. After that, Blastus never dreamed of uttering a dirty word in my presence.

Who knows what went on in that poor kid’s head when you weren’t around to hit him for it? I thought.

Dr. Whipple: I’m a firm believer in early rising. The Lord is far more likely to listen to a prayer at six a.m. than six p.m.

Ghostwriter: What about folks who work weird shifts, people like nurses, air traffic controllers, policemen? What if they get home at four a.m. after a twelve-hour shift and need their sleep?

Dr. Whipple: IF THEY LOVED JESUS they’d still get up by six to pray, praise and worship Him. He’s worth it!

What a self-righteous Pharisee, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Well, if the Lord prefers to hear zombies snoring and snoozing out religious rhetoric at six a.m. instead of an intelligent, heartfelt prayer at six p.m., I find that perplexing.

Dr. Whipple: The Lord wants to bring Christians to the place where they can get by on four or five hours of sleep a day. That’s less of your life wasted. Only selfish people care about ease and comfort.

Ghostwriter: Well, you must care about comfort. Instead of shivering in the winter, you’ve got a nice big fireplace. Instead of meditating on a straw mat, you’ve got fine furniture to kick back and relax on. But we won’t argue on that point. Tell me more about your daily routine.

Dr. Whipple: After a hearty breakfast at six, I’d conduct family Bible study till about seven.

Ghostwriter: What were some of your favorite passages or topics?

Dr. Whipple: My favorite for morning devotions was Proverbs, because everyone got a good dose of wisdom before starting their daily activities. Proverbs is often called the Woodshed of the Bible, while Psalms is referred to as the Music Room of the Bible.

Ghostwriter: No wonder you chose the Woodshed. Better to cry in the morning, ‘cause very few feel like singing when they’re half asleep. But seriously, did your children ever get to choose the scripture for your devotions, and if so, what sticks out in your memory?

Dr. Whipple: Spanky, who was about 13 at the time, shocked the socks off us one morning after I told him he could pick any passage he pleased and read it out loud to us. He thanked me for forcing him to go up to his room the day before to clean out his brain with the Bible after peeking at his pal’s Playboy magazine. He told us he wanted to share what he’d learned. Here, I’ve got a Bible. I think I know where to find it. And after I’m done reading, you’ll agree with me that children are always full of surprises.Starting With Genesis 19:30:  And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

Ghostwriter: Scandalous! I never heard of such a diabolical devotional!

Dr. Whipple: After compulsory Bible reading for most of his life, Spanky understood King James language well enough to guess what went on in Lot’s cave. He looked pleased with himself for desecrating our family’s quiet time with God. Willow wept out of sheer mortification. But when I started unbuckling my belt, she reminded me I’d told Spanky that he could read anything he liked out of the Bible. So I couldn’t spank Spanky. I believe that was the one and only time I felt honor-bound not to hit my kids. But after that incident, every passage the children read in our family circle had to be pre-approved by me, the priest of the family. And, incidentally, a good way to remember my views on the

role of the man in the family is 3 P’s: Priest, Provider and Protector. Children need protection from the Bible itself if they read it only to find salacious material in it.

And the fourth one is Paddler, I thought.

Ghostwriter: See what I mean? Some of the sexiest stories you’ll find are in the Bible, no disrespect intended. Song of Solomon, though theologians try to pass it off as an allegory of Christ and His Church, is racy enough to entertain Hugh Hefner. Undoubtedly there are passages in the Bible you can’t spin a church doctrine out of. Although that doesn’t stop sinister ministers from preying on innocent lambs out in the pews. There’s been a lot of sordid scandals the past decade or so, especially in the old established churches.

Dr. Whipple: A lot of modern-day Lots, I guess. Spanky did ask me why Lot never got a spanking for getting plastered and begetting his own grandchildren. My heavens, I’d barely explained the facts of life to that boy, and he has to pick out a passage like that!

Ghostwriter: What’s always puzzled me is after Lot caroused in that cave, he was still called a righteous man in 2 Peter 2:7.

Dr. Whipple: Lot was the victim of a conspiracy. His role in the affair was a passive one, don’t you think?

Ghostwriter: Anybody familiar with the facts of life knows it takes more than male passivity to beget a bun in the oven.

Dr. Whipple: Our discussions on bun beating have been heated enough without bickering over bun baking, which we’ll reserve for another discussion. But you’ll have to agree that Spanky’s devotional was indelicate at that hour of the of day, and in mixed company!

Ghostwriter: Sometimes I think it’s safer for impressionable people to focus mainly on the New Testament. Although, many of the Psalms and parts of Isaiah do bring comfort to people undergoing problems.

Dr. Whipple: And as for Proverbs, its main function is to correct, not to comfort.

Ghostwriter: A few of the Proverbs do bother me. Proverbs 13:22 states: A good man leaves an inheritance to his grandchildren. You’ll have to admit, Dr. Whipple, a lot of people work hard all their lives, but the high cost of living and unexpected doctor bills drain all their money away before they can leave any of it to their kids, let alone their

grandkids. Not to mention the dollar is worth far less today than it was years ago. And as for the early Christians, an awful lot of them were hounded from place to place and had their property confiscated. So if you stick to the letter of what what Solomon said in that verse, those poor people wouldn’t qualify as being ‘good’ because they couldn’t leave a bundle to their grandkids.

Dr. Whipple: Well, it isn’t all doom and gloom. The second part of that verse promises the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the righteous. Although I can’t quite figure out why those poor persecuted Christians didn’t get much of it before they died in the arena. How could the wealth of the wicked be up in heaven for Christians to get after they die if such wealth would be tainted by the fact it was previously owned by the wicked, and gotten by theft or fraud? That’s a mystery to me.

Ghostwriter: That verse you quoted has been the prosperity preacher’s favorite slogan for the past 40-odd years. Preachers use it as bait to get suckers to pay them for the wealth of the wicked. But instead of the good guy getting rich off the bad guy, it’s the wicked preacher who gets the wealth of the godly grandma on Social Security. So many Christians have ended up broke after following the preacher’s ABC’s of Faith to persuade angels to shower them with money they didn’t have to work for. Unfortunately, Dr. Whipple, most rich crooks get to keep their ill-gotten gains till the day they die and don’t need it no more.

Dr. Whipple (shaking his head): I’m afraid you’ll always be a skeptic.

Ghostwriter: Not really. The School of Hard Knocks has taught me a valuable lesson: Always cautiously interpret what I read and seek a deeper spiritual meaning in Biblical promises of wealth instead of interpreting it as a big bumper crop of filthy lucre. Now before we get way off track, what was the rest of your typical family day like?

Dr. Whipple: Once we finished our morning Bible study, the children would leave for school, or, in the summer, they’d work around the house to earn their allowance. On a typical school day, the children would come home, do light chores such as raking leaves, washing the car, cutting grass. At six we’d have supper and discuss our day. Afterward, unless there was an evening service, the children would practice piano or do homework till bedtime at nine.

Ghostwriter: Were the children ever allowed to have friends over after school, or go over to their homes?

Dr. Whipple: Only on Saturdays, unless their friends were invited to eat a weekday dinner with us. Then they had to go home right after the meal so we could continue with our normally scheduled activities.

Ghostwriter: Eat and run, eh? Well, what about yourself? What was your day like?

Dr. Whipple: Each morning after breakfast, unless I had ministerial duties away from home, home repairs to do, or other errands to run, I’d retire to my pastor’s study. I’d pray or study scriptures and work on my sermons until Willow prepared lunch. After lunch, I’d return to my study for further reflection and prayer until dinnertime. After dinner, I’d help the children with their homework until they’d satisfactorily finished all their assignments. Before bed, we’d assemble for an hour’s Bible study and prayer. That was a typical school day for the kids and myself.

Ghostwriter: What was Willow’s life like?

Dr. Whipple: She’d rise at 4:45 to exercise and ride her stationary exercise bike for half an hour. Then she’d shower, dress and fix herself up to look pretty for me before cooking breakfast.

Ghostwriter: So poor Willow got less rest than anybody else. Before you married her, did you make sure she was an early riser?

Dr. Whipple: I already knew she was. She grew up on a farm and had to milk the cows every morning.

Ghostwriter: So what else would Willow do in a typical day?

Dr. Whipple: She’d do dishes, wash clothes, cook, clean, iron, make clothes, clip coupons, host ladies’ prayer meetings, grocery shop, run errands, schedule doctor or dental appointments, chauffeur the children to school events, help with homework, do most of my typing. Willow made all our children’s clothing, except undergarments and school uniforms. Proverbs 31 requires the wife to make her own apparel, and that of her family. It also requires her to make extra items for sale, to contribute to family finances. Willow would take in ironing when times were tough. And her favourite hobby was making potholders and quilts to sell at a consignment shop. That killed two birds with one stone. She helped feed us, and had fun at the same time. Willow was a workaholic. She didn’t eat the bread of idleness or watch soap operas all day long.

Ghostwriter: Don’t you think Solomon should have put his own wisdom into practice and required his crowd of wives to do all those chores in Proverbs 31 to earn their keep, instead of lounging around all day painting their faces and being pampered with easy living?

Dr. Whipple: Well, not everybody could afford to live it up like a king instead of earning a living. All chiefs, no Indians, that sort of thing. And if Solomon had made his wives crochet curtains to pay for their own shopping sprees, all the other kings he’d made marriage alliances with would have unleashed Shock and Awe on their stingy son-in-law.

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, I’m not being belligerent, but do you really feel there was an equal division of labor in your home and Willow wasn’t being unfairly overburdened? Sounds like you turned her into a Stepford wife who earned every bite she ate. Did you ever once pitch in with the dishes or vacuuming to lighten her heavy load?

Dr. Whipple: Since the beginning of time, God has ordained the roles played by both men and women, and never the twain shall meet. I Timothy 5:14 commands wives to be keepers of the home and care for the children. That is her ministry and hers alone. Unless, of course, the wife is sick and bedridden, then she might need the man’s help.

Ghostwriter: What I meant was, Don’t you think Willow’s work was far more tiring than what you did every day, especially since she contributed to her own support?

Dr. Whipple: That’s a typical misconception, that preaching is just a lazy way out of work. Mental work is far harder than physical. I’d spend endless hours analyzing Greek verbs with my Strong’s Concordance, to make sure I didn’t misapply scripture in my sermons. I’d delve deep into each and every context to extract the solid meat of God’s Word so I could feed my flock.

Ghostwriter: So word work is far harder than washing and ironing.

Dr. Whipple: Absolutely. But I was a considerate husband. When the girls got old enough, they’d take turns washing the dishes to give their mother a break every now and then.

Ghostwriter: I’m sure Willow must have appreciated it.

Dr. Whipple: Apparently she didn’t appreciate it enough, the way she ran off with Sherwood. Oh, well.

Ghostwriter: Before we get off track with that, what was Saturday like at your house? Did the kids enjoy that day more than the rest?

Dr. Whipple: Yes, Saturday was the one day they were permitted to indulge their carnal lust for fun and games. They could sleep in till seven. Guess I was an old softie.

Ghostwriter: Why couldn’t they have fun other days of the week too?

Dr. Whipple: God said ‘Six days shalt thou work, one day shalt thou rest’, so Saturday was their fun day. Only on Saturday could they go to ball games, play Old Maid or read their comic books. And if they misbehaved earlier in the week, they’d lose their Saturday privileges.

Ghostwriter: So why did you restrict comic books and cards to only one day per week?

Dr. Whipple: Same reason as God gave the Sabbath Day. Six days of labor and one day of R & R. Those carnal kids seemed to need one day per week to loaf to rest from chores and worthwhile activities. What kind of a den of iniquity would my pure parsonage, a chapel of worship, have become, if Batman and Wonder Woman had been allowed to influence my children every single day of the week?

Probably a happy haven instead of an insane asylum, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Well, you can’t let old satan slip his toe in the front door or he might let Lex Luther, the Joker, and Cat Woman in too. But can you recall any incident where the kids broke the rules and enjoyed themselves on some other day of the week?

What a control freak, I thought.

Dr. Whipple: One day I went upstairs to check on Spanky to see if he needed help with his math. I was wearing my soft slippers, so he couldn’t hear my steps out in the hall. His bedroom door was open a crack. But he must have heard the floor creak when I eased the door open just a little wider to see what he was up to. I saw a comic book flying from his hands into his book satchel. So fast I couldn’t tell what he’d been looking at. I demanded to know what he’d been reading and he pulled a Flying Spankster comic book out of the bag. I told Spanky he was in big trouble for breaking the rule that he couldn’t read his comic books on any day except Saturday. ‘But Dad,’ he said, ‘you said I couldn’t read my comic books. These are your comic books. I was gonna show this to Mrs. Frump’s class for Show and Tell. So it’s part of my schoolwork!’

That technicality saved Spanky from a spanking. Once Spanky was somewhat too old for me to spank, he bragged to his wife how he’d outsmarted me. Seems like Spanky inserted a Superman comic book inside a Flying Spankster cover in case I caught him in the act.

Ghostwriter: So Spanky’s conscience didn’t eat at him enough to fess up before then?

Dr. Whipple: The Bible says the conscience can be seared with a hot iron. Spanky’s conscience began to die long before Willow and Sherwood lured him away from the Lord.

Better a calloused conscience than a busted butt, I thought.

Dr. Whipple: Superman caused so much heartache in our home. One Sunday I spotted Blastus reading about him while I was preaching on a real life Bible hero. Other people actually caught the pastor’s own son with that piece of trash, and it reflected unfavorably on our home! The gossip that circulated after church!I don’t get it, Ghostwriter. Instead of meditating on how Samson slew a thousand men with an ass’s jawbone, Spanky read about Superman sending Al Capone to the Phantom Zone.

YOU need to go to the Phantom Zone and spend eternity there, I thought.

Dr. Whipple: Worse yet, instead of helping us celebrate the life of Martin Luther, Spanky focused on Lex Luther’s intergallactic battle with Superman. Instead of meditating on Beulah Land, Spanky flew away with Batty Man, the Crazed Crusader. Being a man of the cloth, I simply could not allow such sordid sin to go unpunished. So when we got home, I gave Spanky ten of my best down in the Inner Spanktum. Then I inflicted Part 2 of his punishment by burning his entire comics collection. Spanky watched me rebuke satan, Superman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Spiderman, and Tarzan and throw them in the basement furnace.

Ghostwriter: So how did Spanky respond to this destruction of his personal property?

Dr. Whipple: He prayed for Jesus to forgive him for reading Superman on Sunday. He wore the facial expression I required for repentance and kept his tone of voice respectful, so I suspected nothing. I went out the next day on ministry business, and Spanky got the last laugh.

Ghostwriter: So what did he do?

Dr. Whipple: We had this dog, Comet. He was never allowed in the house because he was poorly trained and liked to chew things up. I never did have the heart to get rid of him because he was a good watchdog. But that day, when I got back from doing my business, I was about to enter my pastor’s study. The door to it was open. That dumb dog walked toward me with chewed-up paper in his mouth. The whole floor was littered with trash and shredded paper. Somehow Comet had gotten inside. But when questioned, all the children (my wife too!) solemnly stated that they hadn’t let the dog in my room, or even in the house. The sermon I’d been preparing for our next church service had been magically transformed into dog chow.

Ghostwriter: So when you questioned Spanky, he kept a straight face as he denied feeding your sermon to the dog?

Dr. Whipple: His eyes roved, at first. But he mastered such self-control, his voice never even quivered and he looked me straight in the eye as he said, “No, sir, I know nothing about it.” Without any tangible evidence, I had to let him off the hook. Speaking of Comet, he almost got shipped off to the dog pound after one evil escapade. As I recall, Willow called from the kitchen one night that we were out of hot dog buns, and we’d need them for the church picnic the following day. I thanked her for jogging my memory. Spanky and I had a date downstairs in the Inner Spanktum.

Ghostwriter: What’d poor Spanky do that time?

Dr. Whipple: Oh, I caught him taking my pants out of the laundry hamper and fishing a quarter out of a pocket. He didn’t see me watch him do it, but he never mentioned it and never turned it over to me.

Ghostwriter: So Spanky pocketed a lousy quarter that might have jammed your washing machine if it had been left in your pocket! Wasn’t that a pretty petty peccadillo?

Dr. Whipple: Today a quarter, tomorrow a bank heist. I had to nip Spanky’s besetting sin in the bud before he ended up in the clink. But once again, Comet did his dirty work. Spanky was crying and begging me not to beat him. I said it wasn’t beating, it was loving correction I was about to carry out. I explained that if I failed to punish him for the sin of greed and hidden things of dishonesty in his heart, God would punish me for tolerating sin in the camp of the saints. I told Spanky I feared God way too much to go easy on him.My Inner Spanktum was down in the basement, which you could enter only by going outside the house and down steep steps. It was pitch

dark outside, with no moonlight at all, and very little illumination from the house. But I didn’t want to wait till morning. A good spanking spring-cleans the air, but I didn’t want Spanky to toss and turn all night long and start his day with a sore seat. So I marched him down those steps to take his medicine, lest my holy resolve to do God’s will weaken. I was using a flashlight, but before we got halfway down the stairs, satan made the stupid batteries go out. But before they did go out, I saw the basement door was open wide. I asked Spanky who’d been in the basement but neglected to lock the door. He said he didn’t know, but his mom might have gone down earlier to get some peach preserves. I told Spanky I’d spank her too because there’s no excuse for sloppy negligence.

Ghostwriter: Fascinating! You mean, you would have paddled your wife, not just your poor kids?

Dr. Whipple (grinning): Only symbolically. A quick love tap with a spatula, no mad money for a week, and early to bed without…dessert!

Ghostwriter (coughing): Oh, I get the picture. So what happened after you entered your Inner Spanktum?

Dr. Whipple: Even though I could barely see, I still had to go in there to see if some burglar might be casing the basement to steal our tools or sporting goods.

Ghostwriter: Your paddle, perhaps?

Dr. Whipple: Very funny! I’d barely tiptoed in there and started to reach for the light switch when Comet pounced on me, causing me to slide backwards on his calling card. Before I could steady myself, my feet hit an oil slick, and I couldn’t stop skidding backwards. Seems like Comet had chewed the cap off a can of transmission fluid and spilled it all over the place. Time went by in a blur. It was like dominoes falling over in a rapid-fire chain reaction. As my feet floundered on the oil slick, I wildly waved my arms, panicking. They flew into a surfboard, which tipped over a toolbox precariously perched on the edge of a shelf crammed with car parts and DIY junk. An avalance of paint brushes, varnish, paint cans, nuts and bolts, pliers, hammers, screw drivers and wrenches rained down on me in the dark. I twisted like a pretzel as I crash-landed on a collection of junk that included a dismantled Honda, a rusty old lawn mower, an aluminum ladder, an old carburetor, an 8-track player, garden tools, fireplace irons, hula hoops, hub caps, antique appliances, car jacks, tires and lug

wrenches. Spanky rushed out, yelling. Clumsy Comet raced after him and landed in Stinky’s cat litter box. Comet stopped and started burrowing through the box. As foul fumes and fragments of filth flew in my face, Comet’s front paw got jammed in a holey handle on one end of the cardboard box. As Comet struggled to free his paw, he swung his rear from side to side, kicking up his hind legs till he fell over, knocking a big mountain bike off its kickstand. It crashed down on my back. To top it all off, an old Rock’Em Sock ‘Em Robot Game fell out of the bike’s basket and chastened my chin. I had to get new bridgework after that.

Ghostwriter: Sounds horrible! Besides the facial injury, how bad did you get hurt?

Dr. Whipple: I’m lucky to be alive today. If my memory serves me right, I cracked my collarbone, chipped three ribs, fractured a funny bun…er, I mean, bone, bruised my bread basket, hurt my hip, slipped six discs and grazed the gristle around my gullet. I also tore a tendon. To add insult to injury, my right hand got broken, so I got out of the spanking business for awhile. Oh, why couldn’t I have been ambidextrous?

Ghostwriter (laconically): Maybe your left hand went on strike, and that’s why it wouldn’t strike anybody!

Dr. Whipple: Very funny. My time in the hospital was unholy hell.

Nobody ever feels pain till it’s their own, I thought. What goes around comes around.

Ghostwriter: Did you get any visitors to cheer you up?

Dr. Whipple: I was in traction for two solid months, during which time two elderly ladies from the church visitation committee, Sister Harkus and Sister Sharkey, came to comfort me with ‘a word from the Lord’.

Ghostwriter: So what did He have to say about the sad situation?

Dr. Whipple: Those snotty busybodies used God as an excuse to kick me when I was down! Two Job’s Comforters from hell!. They quoted Proverbs 26:2: ‘The curse causeless shall not come.’ Sister Sharkey said God would never have triggered off that avalanche of judgment if

he weren’t purging some secret sin out of my life! And Sister Harkus barked ‘amen’ to back her up.

Ghostwriter: That was mighty mean. What else did they say?

Dr. Whipple: Oh, it gets even worse. Sister Harkus said they were getting along just fine with the deputy pastor, Brother Lamb. But I didn’t like his style. Brother Lamb taught too much love and understanding, and how children should be raised with ‘tender empathy’ instead of The Rod. Bah! Even the deacon was backslidden, Ghostwriter. He gave some kid bubble gum on the church premises!

Ghostwriter (feigning indignation): Some deacon. Obviously unfit for ministry, since he’s such a corrupting influence on a minor. Church is no place to have fun!

Dr. Whipple: Amen to that. Joyfulness is okay, but laughter is frowned on in the Bible.

Ghostwriter: I was under the impression your favorite Bible hero said in Proverbs 17:22 that a merry heart is a good medicine.

Dr. Whipple: Well, even the wisest of men get it wrong sometimes. But I really suffered in that hospital. When Sister Sharkey said God was grooming Bro. Lamb to take over my pulpit, I told her to go bite and devour somebody else; and furthermore, I’d hop out of that hospital bed a lot sooner than she hoped, and take my pulpit back from the greedy grasp of Brother Lamb, even if it killed me.

Ghostwriter: So what was their response to that?

Dr. Whipple: Sister Harkus hammered on me then. She said she’d heard rumors that the church board had convened and decided that an accident-prone pastor was a liability they simply couldn’t afford, because my careless accident would dramatically increase policy premiums on their insurance.

Ghostwriter: That was a low blow. So how did you react?

Dr. Whipple: Just as my latest dose of morphine was overpowering me, I got mad as a wet hen. I said this to those vicious vultures: Since you’re too foolish to pray compassionately with your own pastor, I’ll call up your bishop.’ But I was so groggy my tongue got tangled up.

Ghostwriter: Or maybe your tang got tungled up.

Dr. Whipple: Very funny. Sister Harkus said, ‘How dare you tell us we’re too prudish to play passionately with our own pastor, so you’ll wallop our britches!’

A flood of Freudian slips, I thought.

Dr. Whipple: Their wrath was aroused, to say the least.

Ghostwriter: Only their wrath?

Dr. Whipple: Go wash your brains out with Ajax, Ghostwriter.

Ghostwriter: No kidding, you were flat on your back, getting chewed up and spit out by judgmental morons who stared down at you like a bug you and gave you a hard time. You were at your weakest point and didn’t need that garbage. Little children get mighty scared when great big grownups stare down at them with a rolled-up newspaper and wallop them for their weaknesses, and mistreat them in moments of misunderstanding.

Dr. Whipple: Typical leftie liberal, calling waywardness weakness and mischief misunderstanding! Parents must be firm with children. But we were all adults there, entitled to civilized treatment. So if I hadn’t been all doped up, I could have dished out a more age-appropriate rebuke.

Ghostwriter: You could have lost your job if you’d treated those ladies like your own children. It’s a whole different ball game when you chastise a child your own size.

Dr. Whipple: My own size? Both of those bats were big as a house. Pain can make a fellow mighty cankankerous. I was in no mood for getting salt rubbed in my wounds. Those two do-gooders rebuked me for my ‘bad attitude’ toward the trial, and warned me to be careful lest some worse thing befall me. One of them threatened to ask God to clout me with a cloudburst of crueler calamities.

Ghostwriter: Unbelievable! Hitler’s Gestapo on crack. Before you dozed off from the anesthetic, did you make a quick comeback?

Dr. Whipple: Mustering all my strength, I told both of ‘em to fly off on their broomsticks and pray a curse on somebody else. They understood that one. Sister Sharkey shouted, ‘I’m going to fast and pray!’Know what I said then? I told her she could stand to lose a hundred pounds anyway, so go ahead.

Ghostwriter: All that physical and emotional pain should have made you more sympathetic toward the sufferings of small children. If pain can make a grown Christian crabby, and he excuses his attitude on that basis, then why should a little child get a worse dose of pain when he cries from the pain of a spanking?

Dr. Whipple: Because I was innocent of any wrongdoing! That’s why I was entitled to feel righteous indignation, even if it was uncharitable to express it the way I did!

Ghostwriter (movingly): Let’s just say my heart goes out to you for that freak accident, Dr. Whipple. Words can’t describe what you must have endured. You must have been petrified, horrified, mortified, terrified and traumatized. And speaking of fracturing your funny bone, I don’t know why they call it the ‘funny bone’, ‘cause it sure as heck ain’t funny when it gets hurt.

Dr. Whipple: And it was all crazy Comet’s fault! That darned dog booby-trapped my Inner Spanktum to sabotage my work for the Lord. Or at least that was my opinion at the time.

Ghostwriter (choking on the phony flattery): You know the old saying, bad stuff happens to good people, and bad Christians happen to good Christians when the spit hits the fan. Adversity tests a man’s mettle. But why was that basement so cluttered in the first place? Surely Comet couldn’t have done so much damage in such a short time.

Dr. Whipple: Leaving that basement musty and slightly cluttered served as an object lesson for my children. But Comet turned it into a garbage dump.

Ghostwriter: A lesson on how to judge not by appearances, but to love that basement for what it could someday blossom into with a little love and prayerful patience, I suppose.

Dr. Whipple: You don’t get it, do you Ghostwriter? The very nature of punishment is it’s supposed to be a frightening, unpleasant ordeal, a sneak preview of the hell those kids will go to if they don’t mend their ways. Prison is no rose garden, and neither should the Inner Spanktum be a happy-looking place.

Ghostwriter: I had no idea Jesus told you to make a Baboon Cave out of your basement, Dr. Whipple.

He looked at me like I was blabbering b.s.

Dr. Whipple: What on earth is a ‘Baboon Cave’?

Ghostwriter: Baboon Cave. I guess you haven’t kept up with all the news about the latest wars on territory. Baboon Cave was a notorious POW hell hole in the Middle East where the ungodliest torture chamber in history was run by sadistic soldiers. They raised hell like Old Scratch on crack. Prisoners were held there free of charge and subjected to unmentionable tortures, if you get my drift.

Dr. Whipple: Watch it, you’re talking about my country!

Ghostwriter: Then you have heard something about that. More importantly, if you’ll read Hebrews 11, you’ll discover your primary patriotism should be directed way beyond the blue. But why do you insist on creating the dark scary closet from hell when it’s scary enough to kids to get their tail fanned down in the basement?

Dr. Whipple: It’s like eating out at a restaurant, Ghostwriter. The atmosphere and décor of a restaurant should be just as appealing to the senses as the actual food served. So I applied the same principle to the spanking ritual: An unpleasant experience in an unpleasant environment. All I did was build on the belief of John Wesley, who said children should learn to fear The Rod. I also believe they should be intimidated by the surroundings when punishment is carried out. The musty, dusty, cobwebby Inner Spanktum was a visible reminder to my children that sin is a dirty, disorderly, loathsome abomination to the God they offended by failing to eat their liver. So I let the spiders build as many cobwebs as they liked down there. And when Comet left his calling card, that gave Spanky an object lesson about the putrid stench of sin. There was nothing in that deep dark discipline dungeon to encourage frivolous laughter in the hearts of naughty children.

Ghostwriter (referring to notes): I don’t imagine Medieval inquisitors decorated their own discipline dungeons with rainbows and smiley faces, either. Funny, but I don’t read any commandment of Jesus to subject your kids to degrading treatment to teach them to love Him better. If mind control is your motivation for hitting kids, water-boarding would break their resistance just as effectively, with fewer bruises. The apostle Paul, unlike John Wesley, never wrote a commandment to break your children’s will, and neither did Jesus. Instead, Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21: Fathers, don’t provoke your children to wrath’. If the views of children don’t count and should be crushed out of existence, then why would Paul twice express consideration toward children’s feelings? Why didn’t Paul simply tell fathers to keep on beating their kids till they were

afraid to feel any forbidden feeling? Why would Wesley, a well-educated theologian, overlook that twice-stated command of Paul when he insisted that children needed to live in fear of The Rod and have their will broken?

Dr. Whipple: Well, maybe poor John Wesley had to put up with precocious punks who thought they knew more than their elders and needed a good whack. But no kid on earth ever suffered more than I did after that nightmare down in the Inner Spanktum. What hell satan put me through. You can imagine, Ghostwriter, the freakout satan had during my long recuperation. I laid helplessly on my bed with six heating pads and Ben Gay ointment, moaning and groaning, while the kids read their comic books every hour of every day and night. Or at least, I suspect they must have done something that bad, because I never saw those little imps smile so much as those dark days when I wasn’t well enough to crack the whip. Willow did her best to control the chaos, but she was out shopping or going to ladies’ meetings when she wasn’t up to her neck in cooking, chauffeuring, shopping, housework, dirty dishes and laundry. She got so slothful she gave in to satan’s temptation to send out for pizza instead of serving nutritious homemade dinners. I told Willow if she really loved Jesus she’d go the extra mile and make me liver loaf with mushroom gravy.

Ghostwriter (frowning) Why, I never heard of such a scandalous sin as failing to find time to make liver loaf! And the kids obsessing over Superman and Green Lantern! All this iniquity transpiring while you were laid up and in excruciating pain! So why do you think you suffered that terrible mishap?

Dr. Whipple: Because at the time, I didn’t realize that as high priest over my own home, I should have worn proper vestments and carried sacred scented candles down to my Inner Spanktum, while intoning a blessing over the spanking ritual, which would have scared the devil away. I should have been chanting solemn intonations or playing Gregorian Groans, to hallow the atmosphere instead of looking and sounding like an ordinary Joe Six-Pack. And maybe I was too overzealous when I held solemn spanking ceremonies in the middle of cat boxes and car tires. So I vowed to the good Lord that I’d consecrate a corner of my basement to permanently serve as my Inner Spanktum, a curtained-off sanctuary of holiness worthy to serve as a launching pad for punitive prayers.

Ghostwriter: So you suspect God might have been ticked off at you for the way you held your Punitive Priesthood rites.

Dr. Whipple: Read all through the books of Moses. Proper priests always had to wear proper attire and do their job according to God’s specifications, or they’d get bumped off in a hurry. I had plenty of time to reflect on the errors of my ways as I laid on that bed, writhing in agony. That’s why I designed the Punitive Paternal Priestly Vestments, and wrote a proper ceremony to observe while conducting this sacred ritual for the cleansing and mending of a child’s soul.

Religion is satan’s sacred sanctuary and the cloak of all evil, I thought. Who knows but he can get even more bizarre. There WILL be a full moon out tonight.

Ghostwriter: That’s very impressive, Dr. Whipple, a work of genius. But did Comet get corrected for triggering off that chain reaction of horror upon you?

Dr. Whipple: The children shaped up when I threatened to revoke Comet’s dog license and call the dog catcher to pick him up as a stray. They promised to act like good little angels and stop reading their comic books if I kept Comet. But what stopped me from making that phone call was I realized God had used him to punish me for violating proper priestly protocol. God used Balaam’s jackass to rebuke Balaam for doing something stupid. And as Romans 13:4 teaches, Comet was a minister of God to execute divine vengeance, so he was untouchable. From that moment on, I held Comet in such reverence that I redecorated his dog house and treated him to horse meat twice a week. I even gave up my favorite chair whenever he came inside to check on me. My wife thought I was acting a bit nuts. But I told her Comet had saved me from continuing in a sin which might have destroyed my soul.

How do you argue with willful ignorance? I thought. Always resort to religion to cover your can and cover up the real reasons.

Ghostwriter: Even if you believe you got busted for being out of uniform, at least you took pity on that poor pooch. But speaking of comic books, you’d said earlier that you let Spanky off the hook because there was no evidence he’d let Comet into your study to chew up your sermon notes. Do you sometimes lay awake at night and wonder if Spanky really might have been guilty of plotting to get even with you for destroying his comic collection?

Dr. Whipple: I’m sure he must have been guilty, because I could detect the faintest smile on his face when he thought I wasn’t looking. But my Bible says ‘Be sure your sin will find you out’. A few days after that particular incident, Spanky slipped at the skating rink and broke his

arm. While Spanky spent the next month recuperating, I got plenty of opportunity to read bedtime stories to him about the terrible plagues and punishments of the Old Testament. He got the message.

Ghostwriter: So you really do believe God broke Spanky’s arm?

Dr. Whipple (with a glassy-eyed smile): I wonder why the ball bearing on his left skate was warped. Those skates were brand new.

Ghostwriter: If you knew why before Spanky fell, no wonder he’s estranged from you. Do unto others before they do it unto you, that’s what you seem to believe.

Dr. Whipple: You’re judging me. You aren’t supposed to judge anyone.

Ghostwriter: We all make judgments every day. If some used car salesman offers you a good deal but he acts shifty, you need to judge him or you’ll get ripped off. Trusting bad people can cost you.

Dr. Whipple: I certainly got a poor bargain when I married Willow.

Ghostwriter: Have you grown through the pain you’ve experienced?

Dr. Whipple: I’ve grown in humility and submission toward God. I’ve learned never to question His ways. I’ve learned that I should be careful who I trust while loving all men. God never promised me a picnic in this world. My cross has been a heavy one but the day will come when I’ll get to lay it down and live in a paradise free of pain and perplexities. I’ve had to incorporate my bitter trials into my theology, and my life’s been one excruciating excursion through hell. I just hope God appreciates the sacrifice I’m making by suffering through this long fast. If my five children don’t find their way back to God, every spanking I’ve ever inflicted will have done no eternal good and their characters will be cemented in sin forever.

Ghostwriter: Try not to dwell on it too much. I’d best be going now. Don’t overdo the self-sacrifice.

Dr. Whipple: Get thee behind me, satan! It’s an honor to suffer for the Lord. Speaking of honor, I’ll have a surprise for you tomorrow.

Ghostwriter: Can’t wait, life’s full of surprises, seven days a week.

Chapter Seven

Friends with Fester

Fester Krueger Bobcat, Pastor of Woodshed Worship Center

Thursday, August 20, 1:56 p.m.

Maria met me out on the porch and said, ‘Glad to see you again, Ghostwriter, you’re early today.’

Ghostwriter: Yeah, he can’t complain about me being late.

Maria: Wait till you see who came to join your little powwow. Like some coffee, tea, or something cold to drink?’

Ghostwriter: Coke if you have it, thanks.

Maria: I’ll get you a fresh can, on the rocks.

Ghostwriter: Thank you, Maria. How’s Jose’?

Maria: Don’t tell Dr. Whipple what I said, but Jose’ saw Dr. Whipple clobber the crabapple tree and yell at it for bearing bad fruit. Jose’ said: ¡Ay caramba! El’ es muy loco in la cabeza!

Ghostwriter: When your dearest dreams go down in the toilet instead of coming true, it can drive you crazy, Maria.

Dr. Whipple (greeting me in the vestibule): Ah, right on schedule, Ghostwriter. I’d like to introduce you to my friend and colleague, Brother Fester Bobcat, senior pastor of Woodshed Worship Center in Buckaroo, Texas. I’m affiliated with his network, Pay & Pray TV. Brother Bobcat is hosting a seminar in Butte and decided he’d like to stop by and meet you in person. Seems he’s heard all about you.

Ghostwriter: Nothing bad, I hope.

I shook hands with one of the most massive men I’d ever seen. Well over six feet tall and almost as wide around the middle. A stern, bespectacled man with a granite jaw and piercing eyes, he managed a sour smile and nearly crushed my smaller hand before releasing it.

Ghostwriter: Pleased to meet you, Brother Bobcat. I’ve watched your show on Pay & Pray TV, ‘Way of the Woodshed’.

Bro. Bobcat: Well, I hope you’ve learned something from it, Ghostwriter. Are you still heresy-hunting?

Ghostwriter: These days I don’t have to hunt very hard. It’s more like heresy has a way of tracking me down to get me to write about it.

Dr. Whipple: Ghostwriter has been conducting a series of personal interviews to learn more about my ministry, Brother Fester. It does help to get the word out to warn this evil generation about the hell that awaits them if they don’t repent and return to God’s truth.

Bro. Bobcat (frowning): As long as you know who’s trustworthy enough to spread the word, Dr. Whipple, I guess it’s your own beeswax. Ghostwriter, those two men standing over there are my two trusted sidekicks, B.J. and J.B. People call these terrifying twins ‘The Two Suits’. They don’t let a fly in my office till they’ve checked it out with a fine-tooth comb.

Bro. Bobcat pointed over at his two forbidding brutes. They stood sentinel-like under the overhead catwalk, eying me suspiciously.

Fester’s Bodyguards, B.J. and J.B., ‘The 2 Suits’

Bro. Bobcat: If Jesus had hired bodyguards like these two, Judas Ass Chariot would’a been way too scared to sell out to the CIA.

Ghostwriter (soberly): Judas would have taken the first donkey chariot out of town, I suppose. Dr. Whipple, mind if I start this discussion by asking your guest a couple questions?

Dr. Whipple: Go ahead, if Bro. Bobcat has no objections.

Bro. Bobcat gave his grudging consent and said he’d answer any reasonable question, so long as I didn’t pry too deep in his business.

Ghostwriter: Bro. Bobcat, you and Dr. Whipple seem to share similar views on child rearing. Did your own father raise you under The Rod?

Bro. Bobcat: Sure as shootin’ he did. He taught me to say ‘Yes sir, No sir, Yes ma’am, No ma’am, and if I got out of bounds he got out his belt. He’d beat my seat till I felt the heat, and he’d teach my gluttonous maximus to mind my P’s and Q’s.

Ghostwriter (choking on chuckles): Pardon the pun-ish, but what a tale your tail could tell about your chastised childhood.

He stared daggers at me. After five eternal seconds I broke the leaden silence.

Ghostwriter: On a more serious note, care to share one or two incidents?

Bro. Bobcat: One day Daddy caught me at my favorite fishing hole instead of out in the cotton patch where I was supposed to be workin’ till suppertime. He started unbuckling his belt but stopped when I showed him the catfish jumping in the water. I said, ‘Daddy, wouldn’t it be nice to have fried fish for supper instead of just pinto beans and cornbread?’ Daddy grabbed my fishing rod and told me to go sit down and pray that he’d catch a big mess of catfish. If he didn’t catch enough for his own supper, he’d beat my britches for wasting so much work time. Maybe I didn’t choose my words right, but I prayed real hard under my breath that Daddy wouldn’t feel like giving me a whipping when we got home. At that moment, he swung the pole way back over his shoulder so he could cast the line way out in the water. But instead of flying out to the pond, the hook caught in the seat of his britches. I’d never heard Daddy holler so loud in all my life.Then this stranger happened by. He’d watched the whole thing and offered to drive Daddy to the emergency room. I rode up front with the man while my Daddy, who couldn’t sit up, laid in the truck bed next to a hound dog.Poor Daddy. The doctors and nurses could barely dig the hook out, they were laughing so hard. Daddy told Mama it wasn’t fair, that it oughta be me who had the sore butt after the cotton didn’t get picked and the fish didn’t get caught.My daddy, he had arthur-itis in his right hand, but sometimes he got so mad he forgot all about it and laid into me anyhow. One day, I forgot to slop the hogs and my daddy disciplined me. He swung a switch but it broke. Then he hit my hiney with his hand, but my big backside was hard as a rock from all the stoop work I did, so Daddy broke two bones in that hand. On the way to the doctor’s my daddy said to me, ‘Son, since you’re big enough to split your britches, you’re big enough to mind me without me having to cut a hickory. Next time them hogs go hungry, I’ll make you eat and sleep out in the pigpen for a month, and I don’t think you’d like that too much.

Little Fester gets too big for his britches

Ghostwriter (laughing): Man, you know how to tell a funny story. I’m just glad you got out of a whipping when all that happened!

An awkward silence. The atmosphere was getting toxic. Finally Fester said, ‘I meant that story as a sober ammunition to godly living, Ghostwriter. I was a thorn in my daddy’s side and got away with a lot of things. But I didn’t make the same mistake with my own children. They learned to respect me or take the consequences.’

Ghostwriter: Mind if I ask just one personal question, Bro. Bobcat?

Bro. Bobcat: Shoot.

Ghostwriter: Most Christians aren’t aware that you had a relationship with Sugar, a younger woman in your church, and divorced your first wife, Minerva. But you continually yell on TV about rotten moral standards in modern America and damn the destruction of the American home. After the way you cheated on and divorced their mother, how can the children of your first family still respect you?

Dr. Whipple (angrily): Ghostwriter, you’ve crossed the line and insulted a guest under my own roof! I must ask you to leave now!

Bro. Bobcat: No, Dr. Whipple, nobody leaves yet! I ain’t a prissy china doll. I’ve learnt to take the heat in the kitchen! Ghostwriter, I went through hell tryin’ to get that woman to git her figger back after she had four kids in three years. I tried to put her on every diet under the sun but she didn’t love me enough to starve for me!

Dr. Whipple: So you think it’s a sin if a woman puts on a few pounds?

Bro. Bobcat: Absolutely! A few sermons ago I chewed out the chubby ladies in my congregation. I told ‘em any woman that gains weight after she catches her man deserves to lose him.

Ghostwriter (staring at the world’s broadest breadbasket): But what if the man spreads out a little? Is that as big of a sin?

Bro. Bobcat: If you’ll read your Bible, it talks about the Virtual Woman, not the Virtual Man. It’s her job to eat only what she burns off, sit up late workin’, git up with the chickens, pop out a passel of kids and burn herself out for her man. The man don’t have such a heavy burden ‘cause his sin in the Garden of Eden wasn’t as bad, and that’s the reason why God said it would be the woman who desired a man, not the other way around. So it follows she has to worry about makin’ him want her. If the man gains fifty pounds, there’s only more of him to love. But a woman looks like a dump truck if she lets herself go. Sugar sweats in the swimmin’ pool and starves at the table to keep herself lookin’ good for her man.

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, I’d like to hear from you. Do you believe the burden of keeping romantic love in the marriage alive is primarily the woman’s responsibility?

Dr. Whipple: Yes. Definitely. As I said before, the husband is the priest, provider and protector of his home. All remaining responsibilities are the domain of the wife, and among them is her responsibility to adapt herself to his desires and wishes. Any personal ambitions she had for her own life before marriage must die as she serves her husband, submerges her own identity into his and complements his ministry. The woman was created for the man, not man for the woman. She, in effect, becomes a part of him and sacrifices her own separateness to make his life complete.

Ghostwriter: Do you believe in absolute submission, Dr. Whipple?

Dr. Whipple: Yes. Partial submission is as oxymoronic as partial virginity. Paul commanded women to obey their husbands in all things, not some things.

Ghostwriter: What if a man was so desperate for cash to pay bills that he commanded his wife to sell her own body on the street? Would God require her to break one Biblical law to keep another?

Dr. Whipple: Abraham told Sarah to tell Pharaoh he was her brother, not her husband. When Pharaoh thought Sarah was single, Abraham let him take Sarah into his harem. It was up to her to trust God not to let her be raped as a consequence of obeying her husband.

Ghostwriter: But the Bible also teaches: You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. I doubt God approved of Abraham misleading Pharaoh about Sarah being his wife, or Abraham standing idly by as she was exposed to such danger.

Dr. Whipple: The Bible is unequivocal in its support for divinely appointed authority. Paul teaches believers to submit themselves to the rulers of the land. He teaches slaves to obey their masters in all things, not just some things.

Ghostwriter: If you gentlemen will bear patiently with me, I’m going to share a few reservations I have about slavery passages. When I’m done, maybe one of you can help clear up things I don’t understand.

Both men eagerly offered to help and asked me what was on my mind.

Ghostwriter (referring to ‘submission notes’): I see quite a few verses that clash, but then again, you and Brother Bobcat are the ones who went to Bible school, and I’m humbly grateful for any input you can give to help dispel my profound ignorance. In Acts 5:29 Peter said, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’ And in I Corinthians 7:20 Paul commands everyone, including slaves, to stay in the same place in society where God called them, not to run away from it. Pro-slavery preachers of the 1800’s had something in common with Christian spanking advocates: They appealed to favorite scriptures to justify inflicting pain on others. Pro-slavery preachers used Paul’s ‘abide in the same calling’ exhortation to reassure white masters that it was morally justifiable for a disciple of Jesus Christ to enslave another human being created in God’s own image. But, as was argued in the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, what if a white man were kidnapped by some Indians and ordered to hoe corn for them the rest of his life? Would Paul have ordered that white man to abide in that condition of servitude for the rest of his life, or would God want him to jump on the first horse that came along and flee to freedom because good Christian white folks considered Indians inferior savages?

Brother Bobcat: As bad as it must have been for Southern slaves, at least they didn’t have to live out in the boondocks with skunks and rattlesnakes like my Waddawampum ancestors.

Ghostwriter: Waddawampum? What ethnicity is that?

Bro. Bobcat: It’s a Western Injun tribe, hard to track down. They hang out somewhere in the cracks and crevices of the Rocky Mountains. I got my last name from the Legend of Chief Barkin’ Bobcat. Barkin’ Bobcat, my great-great-great-great-great-great and wonderful granddaddy, he wasn’t no Christian ‘cause white guys hadn’t brung the Gospel to the wild West yet. But Barkin’ Bobcat did deliver his village from left-wing Communist Comancheros from Californy by drivin’ all the snakes out of town with fire water and spooky dancing.

I took his fire water with a pinch of salt.

Ghostwriter: Shades of St. Patrick! But we should continue our discussion on the spiritual evils of slavery. The very essence of Christ’s Gospel message is liberation from satan’s bondage. Christ came to set people free, but a lot of religious folk didn’t agree with that, and tthere’s a lot of puzzling theological knots to untie in Scripture.

Bro. Bobcat: Such as?

Ghostwriter: In I Corinthians 7:23, just three verses after Paul admonishes converts, including slaves, to stay in their place, he teaches, ‘Ye are bought with a price. Be not ye the servants of men.’ Well, how can a man serve a human master without being the servant of some man? If you serve someone, you’re acting as his servant, by sheer definition.Again, Ephesians 6:6 and Colossians 2:22 teaches Christian slaves not to be menpleasers. But other verses of Ephesians 6 teach slaves to obey their masters. So how can you obey them without pleasing them, which makes you a menpleaser? In Titus 2:9 Paul teaches slaves to please their masters in all things, with no exceptions mentioned. Keep in mind Paul, a free male, was writing these things. The obligation to please her master in all things could have made some poor Christian slave girl wonder if she had to commit fornication with her married master whenever he required this of her. Obviously if she had to refuse his advances to stay true to Christ, she wouldn’t have been pleasing her master in all things. To complicate matters further, Paul teaches that fornicators will not inherit the Kingdom of God. So does that poor slave girl have to break one of Paul’s commandments to keep another, so she won’t be shut out of heaven?

Bro. Bobcat (evasively): That was Roman slavery, Ghostwriter. They were heathens who worshipped false gods. A lot of Southern slave owners went to church and taught their slaves about the Lord. Not that I’m defending slavery, ‘cause a lot of my most dedicated church members are black. That’s just the way it was back then.

Ghostwriter: Roman slavery was awful, but only in America were slaves taught that they weren’t members of the human race. American slavery was so harsh and cruel, families and marriages were split up. Many women and girls were brutally raped by churchgoing masters or sold in New Orleans to be prostitutes. Black men were forced to breed children for the slave market like cattle. If a white tortured a black slave or even killed him, he didn’t expect to go to jail for doing what he liked with property he’d bought and paid for. When Paul wrote these pro-slavery verses, could he look down through the corridors of time and foresee all the spiritually destructive horrors of Southern slavery in America, and all the atrocities committed by alleged followers of Christ against other races? But back to this burning question: How could Paul teach slaves to do everything their master said without protest, then tell believers not to be servants of men? No wonder Christians get confused and frustrated when unbelievers point out Bible contradictions in the ‘inerrant Word of God’. Too many mixed messages make readers mixed-up about their beliefs. Talk about the trumpet blowing an uncertain sound!

Dr. Whipple: You need to keep correct context in mind to harmonize all those verses. I believe what Paul was trying to say was, to please earthly masters as if you were doing it unto the Lord. If a master told a slave girl to work in a brothel, she could have asked herself whether she could do it as unto the Lord, and of course the answer would be no. Joseph did not literally do everything his mistress wanted and she got mad enough about it to punish him. But Joseph couldn’t defile his master’s wife as a service performed to the glory of God.

Ghostwriter: You have to hand it to Joseph for his courage. But any way you slice it, the vulnerable slave girl would still have to break that commandment to please her master in all things if she refused to do something dirty, even if it was to keep her own conscience clean. Even if she told her master her Christian faith wouldn’t allow her to defile her body because it was the Temple of the Holy Ghost, that master might not give a flip. He’d still be displeased because his own carnal lust was all that mattered. So the burden of feeling pleased must fall on the subjective responses of the sinful master. I’ve heard of employees working their guts out around the clock, and their boss still gripes about something. Not even God could please a boss who isn’t happy unless he’s mad at somebody. And it’s mind-boggling that Paul,

a free Roman citizen, had the chutzpah to tell overworked, oppressed, overburdened slaves to be content with their lot. Those pro-slavery verses might have been more convincing if the Lord had used some downtrodden ditch digger to write them instead of a highly educated, free male.

Bro. Bobcat: So those submission scriptures bother you that much? If you really loved Jesus you wouldn’t even think Paul was unqualified to teach poor white trash to shout for joy when they chopped cotton for the uppercrust and went home to their tar paper shacks. Paul got more whippin’s than them slaves he wrote to, and you know it! And, he wore himself out night and day makin’ pup tents for the army.

Ghostwriter: I never said Paul had it easy, Bro. Bobcat, I just said he never was a slave, so how could he know how it felt to be one? Paul sent Onesimus back to his master, as that story is told in the Book of Philemon. I believe Paul did this because Philemon, the man’s master, was a Christian, and Paul wanted to see if Philemon would exercise Christian charity toward his runaway slave. Nevertheless, the consequences of Paul’s decision would fall directly on Onesimus, not himself. Paul knew the Law of Moses better than you or me. Deuteronomy 23:15 states that runaway slaves are not to be sent back to their masters. Funny how so-called Christian slave owners of the South appealed to Paul’s epistles to justify the Fugitive Slave Law, which compelled free Northern states to force fugitive slaves back into slavery. But they conveniently ignored Deuteronomy 23:15.

Bro. Bobcat: That Deuteronomy verse was written under Law, Ghostwriter, that’s why Southern preachers didn’t preach it.

Ghostwriter: And if they had, all those respectable white folks, and their carloads of Confederate cash, wouldn’t have shown up the following Sunday. And maybe the preacher would have been lynched or chastened by the holey church board. Most preachers preach only what paying customers want to hear. It’s got nothing to do with God.

Dr. Whipple: I’m sure Southern slaves must have gotten an uplifting message every now and then, from white gospel preachers.

Ghostwriter: For the most part, professional ministers, if they condescended to visit slave row at all, would merely counsel the poor longsuffering blacks to rest content with the condition of servitude God graciously had, in His divine providence, foreordained to be their temporal lot. This, from a pompous parson provided with a lavish living, whose hands were soft as silk from toiling with his tongue.

Bro. Bobcat: You’re so rebellious and stubborn all you want to do is rock the boat that keeps you from falling in and drowning.

Ghostwriter: Well, Brother Bobcat, I can read, and funny how so many clashing scriptures are in the same chapter of the Bible. One verse in Proverbs says ‘Answer a fool according to his folly’ and another verse in the same chapter says ‘Answer not a fool according to his folly’. What kind of Biblical inerrancy is it when it’s up to you to decipher mysterious meanings that supposedly make those contradictions harmonize? It’s like forcing a square piece of a jigsaw puzzle into a round space. Repeatedly the Bible asks us to please God instead of people. Then it commands slaves to please their masters in all things and submit not just to good masters but nasty ones. Apparently it’s left up to the ingenuity of individual believers to jump through theological hoops so they can find some vague spiritual congruency between conflicting verses which cancel each other out. I’ve got a fairly decent I.Q. But even I have to rack my brain to figure out ways to make 2+2=5. There’s a lot of simple souls out there who wonder why Paul backtracks a lot on what he teaches. Paul warns you that circumcision puts you under Mosaic Law, then turns around and circumcises Timothy so Jewish Christians will accept him. That, despite Paul’s claim in Galatians 2:5 that he didn’t cave in to the demands of the Judaisers for even one hour. By circumcising Timothy, Paul acted against the verdict of the first church council in Acts 15 where James said the apostles, and the Holy Ghost, did not want Gentile believers to be circumcised and live under the Law of Moses. It takes a lot of imagination to harmonize ‘thou shalt not’ with ‘thou shalt’. We’re taught that no scripture is of any private interpretation, but apparently it’s left to the subjective judgment of each believer to find ways to harmonize all those conflicting commandments.

Dr. Whipple: I’ve never heard such a shocking attack on scripture in all my life! My Bible teaches submission to authority! End of story!

Ghostwriter: So there’s no limits on proper submission to authority? What if a husband has been unfaithful? Should a wife automatically allow him back into her bed?

Dr. Whipple: Of course! Full, unconditional, unqualified forgiveness is always required any time the guilty party feels like asking for it, and forgiveness restores relationships to what they were before the sin was committed.

Ghostwriter: God forgives, but sometimes sinners have to pay the piper after they’ve had their fun, like King David did after his sin with Bathsheba. Not all sins are created equal. Running a cathouse is a

slightly bigger sin than chewing bubblegum in church. So what if a cheating husband has been prowling around with hookers who had Aids, then came down with it, and still wanted to have sex with his wife after asking her forgiveness? Should the woman let him? Should she sacrifice her own health, her own life, to submit to such a husband, even if her own children will end up without a mother to care for them? What’s more important, to keep some law or protect human life? Jesus asked that question when the Pharisees rebuked Him for breaking Sabbath Day rules and regulations.

Dr. Whipple (glaring impatiently at his watch): Don’t you think it’s about time you hit the road, Ghostwriter?

Ghostwriter: Yep, it’s about that time. But how are you feeling, Dr. Whipple? Are you still on your slow fast?

Dr. Whipple: Not much longer. Brother Bobcat invited me out to Bubba’s Barbecue for their early bird all-you-can-eat feast. That’s why you need to be on your way.

Ghostwriter: So the Lord led you to break your fast today instead of suffering for a whole month?

Dr. Whipple: Not that it’s any of your affair, but Brother Bobcat believes the suffering of a month can be compressed into one hellish week, and in my own case I’ve found that to be very true. If God doesn’t find all my sacrificial suffering sufficient, I doubt any amount of misery could persuade Him to answer my prayers.

Ghostwriter: So it’s God, not Bubba’s Barbecue, leading you to finish this fast?

Dr. Whipple: What do you take me for, Ghostwriter, an Esau who sells my own precious soul for a bowl of crawdad bisque?

Ghostwriter: No, no. But what I was gonna say, Dr. Whipple, is I’m sorry our interviews have been such a trial of affliction for you, and we weren’t always on the same wavelength. We could cancel our final meeting tomorrow if you prefer. I don’t travel so far to make people miserable.

Dr. Whipple: Nonsense, I insist you come tomorrow. There’s an awful lot left that needs to be said. I want the whole wide world to know how greatly I grieve for the sins of those who should have supported me in my ministry but betrayed me like Judas. I anticipate our final interview with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Bro. Bobcat: I would ask you to tag along to Bubba’s, Ghostwriter, but me and Dr. Whipple have got some personal matters to discuss.

Ghostwriter: Oh, don’t mind me, gentlemen. I’ve got other pastures to ruminate in. Wouldn’t have time anyhow.

Dr. Whipple: Oh, speaking of ‘personal matters’, Brother Bobcat, are you still offering Willow’s book for sale on ‘Way of the Woodshed’? As you know, I’ve foresworn TV and cyberspace to keep my mind pure and my soul uncorrupted. Not that it’s any reflection on your contribution to modern-day media, of course.

Bro. Bobcat: I understand. Some Christians don’t believe in TV, the Internet, even cassette players. I don’t have a web site for my ministry or e-mail, because that sphere is being infiltrated by Communist spies who report on high-profile people to the New World Order. But as for your question about Willow, yes, I still sell her book.

Dr. Whipple (gruffly): And I suppose she still continues to use my name on the front cover.

Bro. Bobcat: She has to, to sell any books at all. You know her husband Sherwood Fatwood is just a lazy bum who inherited his daddy’s money and all he does is sit on his blessed assurance all the livelong day and enjoy it. Never had the gumption to go out and make his mark in this world. His only claim to fame was stealin’ your wife with promises of an easy life. Just imagine: Get Skinny for Jesus by Willow Fatwood. What kind’a name is that to promote a bestseller fitness book?

Dr. Whipple (grudgingly): I should sue the Jezebel witch, but as long as you pay me my cut for use of my ministry name, I’ll grit my teeth and go along with it. Yeah, she did have an easy life after Sherwood struck it rich. So easy she turned a blind eye to his womanizing. Never had to cook, wash, clean, or sew ever again. She could lay in bed as long as she liked, had maids to wait on her hand and foot. I bet she got fat and lazy after the disciplined life she led with me.

Rather, the depressing life she led with you, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Uh…before I go, could I take a quick peek at Willow’s book, Dr. Whipple, if you happen to have a copy on hand?

Dr. Whipple: Of course, it’s in that book shelf over there. I’ll go fetch it for you.

The cover was absolutely stunning.

Ghostwriter: She really believes that, Dr. Whipple?

Dr. Whipple: Chances are, she doesn’t anymore. If Sherwood can’t keep his dirty paws off other women, there’s no incentive for her to torture her body to stay skinny for him.

Bro. Bobcat: I saw Willow a couple of times, Dr. Whipple. She’s turned into a big heifer over the past few years. Asked me if she could give a talk on my program. Normally I’d tell her what I really thought and say she was way too fat to teach other women how to improve their looks. But I make money off of her book so I can’t get her mad at me. So I just made up some excuse and said my program was booked solid for the foreseeable future. But deep down, she understands.

Ghostwriter: Dr. Whipple, you gave me the impression that Sherwood was a poor drifter driving a hippie van, not some millionaire who could hire maids to pamper Willow.

Dr. Whipple: Correction, Ghostwriter. Add three more zeros to the sum. Sherwood was the eccentric heir to a billionaire, Barnicus Onesimus Fatwood, CEO of Rumpledump Caustic Conglomerates. Fatwood Sr.

died shortly after Sherwood ran away with my wife and kids. Apparently B.O. Fatwood was highly impressed by the elegant, well-mannered lady his son had won and thought she might straighten him out. So father and son reconciled, Sherwood was made sole heir, and the rotten rat was set up for life. After he hit the jackpot, S***wood, er, I mean, Sherwood, hired the slimiest lawyers in the universe to kick my buns in divorce court.

What goes around comes around, I thought.

Ghostwriter: I’m deeply touched by your story, Dr. Whipple, and I found you very fascinating as well, Bro. Bobcat. Perhaps we’ll meet again some other day.

The big guy shook my hand limply, mouth screwed up like a glowering bulldog. He said it was highly unlikely our paths would cross again in this world, and probably not even in the next.

Ghostwriter: I look forward to another thrilling session tomorrow afternoon, Dr. Whipple.

Dr. Whipple: So do I. Have a safe trip back to wherever you came from. So long.

As I passed The Two Suits, I tried to avoid eye contact with them. I felt their dagger-like stares behind my back.

Thank God tomorrow would be my last visit to the lion’s den!

Chapter Eight

Friday, August 21, 1:59 p.m.

‘I hope you’re hungry today,’ Maria said as she met me out on the porch. ‘There’s a surprise waiting for you.’

Ghostwriter: Well, I haven’t had lunch yet, and breakfast was a cinnamon bun on the run.

Dr. Whipple came out to greet me, his smile warmer than usual.

Dr. Whipple: Glad to see you one last time, Ghostwriter. Before we go in the house, I’d like to tell you about my latest brainstorm, which will also be published by Redbutt Books, once I finish the final chapters. I thought it was high time parents had a decent resource on hand to take all the hassle out of teaching kids the birds and the bees.

Ghostwriter (blushing): You writing a sex manual? I’m shocked!

Dr. Whipple: Yes, I do believe it’ll be a hot item in Christian bookstores all over the land: Daddy’s Bun in the Oven. And none of that ‘plant a watermelon seed in the potato patch’ nonsense. I’ll start with the FUN-damentals of the prospective bridegroom meeting the girl’s folks, escorting her to the church social, treating her to ice cream, pulling taffy at Grandma’s house, strolling through the cow pasture. Gradually I’ll push the limits of a child’s comfort zone as I progress to hand-holding, letter-writing, miniature golf, skating parties, then the proposal on bended knee.

Ghostwriter (facetiously): Wow, I’ve never heard anything so risqué in all my borned days! Sounds like a torrid sizzler already, but I suppose you’ll eventually have to bite the bullet and describe the delights of the wild wedding night.

Dr. Whipple: That’s my favorite part. Tammy, the fictional bride, is in the motel bathroom getting ready while Ted, her new hubby, waits expectantly in bed, reading his Sunday School quarterly. Timidly,

Tammy emerges through the bathroom door, wearing pink flannel P.J.’s and curlers. Ted almost passes out, because he’s never seen any woman in such a disgraceful state of undress except his own sisters. Ted gets so immobilized from shock, nothing much happens for three more chapters of cold showers. After striking out in bed, Ted goes to his friend Fred for advice, a man who has six kids.

Ghostwriter (tartly): So how does Romeo’s bun baking pan out?

Dr. Whipple: My book has to reflect real life, and sometimes things don’t stick to the script. The devil invades Ted’s bed and possesses his head with fantasies of fudge brownies and jelly doughnuts. Tammy’s nose is always buried in a book because Ted eats all day long, and before long Ted’s taking up most of the bed anyway and she doesn’t want him to roll over on her, so she puts a sheet of plywood between them to protect her ribs from being broken. After futile assaults on satan with lacy garter belts, vibrators, whipped cream, handcuffs, strobe lights and chocolate peignoirs, Ted says, ‘To heck with all this DIY bun-baking. Let’s just pick up a cat at the dog pound, Tammy. Anyhow, I’d rather change a litter box than a dirty diaper.‘Amen to that,’ Tammy says, slipping back into her ratty old bathrobe.

Ghostwriter: My, you are full of surprises, Dr. Whipple. I didn’t think you had any sense of humor!

Dr. Whipple (dead serious): That wasn’t the object of the story, Ghostwriter. That book ends with Tammy and Ted toasting in hell for their nutty nonconformity. My aim was to demonstrate the depths of depravity some folks sink to by forsaking God’s perfect plan for the family. Tammy looked like something the cat dragged in, so she turned Ted off instead of punching out a passel of papooses to paddle. Ted took the lazy way out and made love to Twinkies instead of baking buns to beat with the Rod of Correction. So Ted’s ticker OD’d on obesity and he went to hell, where Mephistopheles melted him down to cooking lard as punishment for forsaking his bed for the pleasures of the table. Instead of learning the fun-damentals of bun baking, and cooking up a crowd of of kids to rear up in a church pew to learn how to fear The Rod and catch hell on their hiney, Ted let some tom cat beget a critter for him to rear in a cat box to learn how to correct rats.

Ghostwriter: Maybe poor Ted and Tammy both had to work three jobs apiece and and were hardly ever home, so a pest-punishing pet was an easier option. Still, you wimped out of the blockbuster romance bit.

Dr. Whipple: Ghostwriter, I’m a preacher, not a pimp. God instilled instincts in lovers to guide them. Just like that old tom cat in the alleyway. My mission is to warn folks about hell and the horrible punishment they’ll suffer if they don’t figure out the right answers for themselves.

Ghostwriter: Ahem! Mind if I ask a pointed question?

Dr. Whipple: Fire away.

Ghostwriter: Ah…I get the impression you found it rather embarrassing to write that particular book.

Dr. Whipple: Nonsense, nobody knows more about baking buns than I do. I would have had a houseful if Willow had been a warmer wife. If she’d submitted to me more, she would have spit those rug rats out like a machine gun!

It was a long time before I could catch my breath as I howled hard and clung to the porch post for support.

Ghostwriter: In all seriousness, Dr. Whipple, that’s supposed to be a kid’s book you’re writing. Do you have the knack for sensitively teaching children how they came into existence? In order to write a book, you should tailor your material to the maturity level of your potential market, and research your material inside and out. Forgive my frankness, but do you remember how you made your own babies?

Dr. Whipple: Admittedly, I barely remember the good old days. My memory’s getting foggier every day, Ghostwriter. I am 86. There’s a lot I don’t remember. I’ve forgotten the names of half my relatives. I’ve forgotten where they all live. I don’t even remember if some of them are still alive. When I go into a room to get something, chances are I’ll forget what it was by the time I get there. Now what did you just ask me?

Ghostwriter: I was wondering why small children needed to learn about baking the birds and bees before they even got over their first fixation with dinosaurs. But I’m just curious about your birds and bees. Did you and your honey make that bedroom tweet and buzz?

Dr. Whipple (scratching his chin, in deep thought): That was far away and long ago in my recollection. The less I think about Willow and what happened between us, the happier I am. That’s why I’ve got this memory block. All I can say is it wasn’t as straightforward as baking a batch of prune pancakes. It was a fiddly, fussy bother, and I’ve

forgotten nine-tenths of it. My favorite part of the process was going down to the kitchen for a great big peanut butter sandwich afterward.

Ghostwriter: Tastes better than a cigarette, I guess. Ah…did you feel a twinge of guilt, even though the two of you were married?

Dr. Whipple: Would you believe it, I did! But all those peanut butter sandwich nights were a necessary evil, and I let Mercy, Grace, Fanny Mae, Blastus and Spanky know I, a holy minister of the Gospel, acted like a wild animal so they could all exist. I told them they would have been nothing but a loving thought in Daddy’s heart that evaporated like a puff of smoke if I hadn’t dragged my dead body upstairs to do my bit instead of watching Flipper. Every day of their lives they knew it took an act of beastly carnality to create them. David said in Psalms, ‘in sin did my mother conceive me.’

Ghostwriter: You have a fresh approach to presenting this topic, so I can’t wait to see Daddy’s Bun in the Oven in print. If that book’s half as fascinating as its author, I won’t be able to put it down till I finish it. But as saucy as that book sounds, I’ll wear a blindfold when I reach that chapter where the fun hits the fan.

Dr. Whipple: The action heats up in Chapter Four. My hat’s off to you for your Christian caution.

Ghostwriter: Ah…what ages are you writing this sizzling saga for?

Dr. Whipple (scratching his head): Give or take a few years, between three and twenty-three. Any warm body that’s spankable can glean something out of it, surely. But I will say this. Evidently Sh..wood, I mean, Sherwood, didn’t need a refresher course on the birds and bees. But speaking of leaving a bad taste in my mouth, I’ve got a treat for you in here, Ghostwriter. Come on in.

Ghostwriter: Can’t wait.

Dr. Whipple (gesturing toward a big spread): Before we left Bubba’s yesterday, we got some extra pork barbecue, along with their famous cole slaw and ranch beans. As you can see, it’s nicely arranged on a refreshment table so we can dig in as we chat. I do hope you’re hungry.

Ghostwriter: Smells delicious. But I was expecting a less cordial reception today after yesterday’s heated debate.

Dr. Whipple: I sense your apprehension, but rest assured, I didn’t slip any arsenic in the food. Just think of this as a peace offering.

Ghostwriter (taking a seat): I find that quite comforting. How did you and Bro. Bobcat enjoy Bubba’s yesterday?

Dr. Whipple: To put it succinctly, it was extremely stimulating. Keep in mind I hardly ever leave these premises except to attend church or speaking engagements. Maria and Jose’ run all my errands to spare me having to leave this peaceful haven of rest.

Ghostwriter: Sounds like your life is lived in relative seclusion.

Dr. Whipple: The love of Christ constrains me to live set apart unto God. The Bible says ‘Come out from among them and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing’.

Ghostwriter: Jesus didn’t cloister Himself in a monastery. He touched lepers who weren’t clean enough to go to church. And he ate with the seediest sinners in society.

Dr. Whipple said nothing but his mouth twitched peculiarly and his eyes twinkled at me. I could read his thoughts.

Dr. Whipple: Before we partake of this bounty, we ought to thank the Lord. Bow your head and keep your hands folded on your lap.

I wonder what he did to his kids when they sneaked a pea off their plate, I mused.

Dr. Whipple read a prepared prayer: Our most gracious merciful loving Heavenly Father, I thank you for the guest You sent to dine with me today. We thank You for helping us navigate the deep, dark waters of theological discourse for these past few days. Grant us the humility to learn from one another in a spirit of meekness, and to discern whether any of our cherished beliefs have been erroneous, however long they may have been held. Help all wandering sheep everywhere to meekly repent of their contrariness toward You and of their besetting sin which blinds them to the truth that Your Gospel is a hard, rocky way of self-denying holiness, without which no one shall see Your face once they depart this Vale of Tears. Help us to accept that which is good and reject that which is evil, and open our eyes that we may tell the difference without preconceived bias. Thank You, most gracious Heavenly Father, for the precious memories I have of loved ones who faithfully stood by me in trying times, though such friends were so few in number. I ask You to deal wisely but justly

with those who once dwelled under my roof but fell by the wayside. I ask You to use any means at Your disposal to stop their descent into hell, for they are in deepest peril of losing their souls forever, as Lot’s wife did when she looked back at the pleasures of sin and turned into a pillar of salt. Take sleep from their eyes and peace from their souls until they prostrate themselves before Your cross in deepest penitence, ready to receive in meekness the many stripes You mercifully lay upon them for rebellion and disobedience. Lord, I make this next declaration out of love for two erring souls, though they’re my enemies. In the presence of a skeptic who needs to know You have chosen me to teach weaker souls the fundamentals of divine discipline, I take this momentous step with all the gravity and authority of an ordained clergyman of the gospel. The apostle Paul taught us to follow his own example. Paul punished the man who slept with his own stepmother by turning him over to satan for the destruction of his filthy flesh. As a faithful minister of the Gospel endued with Your authority to plant, pull up, build up and tear down, I follow Paul’s example by delivering Willow and Sherwood over to Old Scratch for the destruction of their corrupt flesh. For I am fully aware that You, O Lord, do not recognize their marriage as valid. You, in Your infinite wisdom, joined me and Willow together as man and wife many years ago, and it was her rebellion against my spiritual covering under Christ, and her dirty lust for Sherwood, that brought about this secular divorce and so-called remarriage. So from thy high holy heavens, I beseech Thee to bear witness, along with all the saints and angels in heaven, as I sorrowfully deliver Willow and Sherwood over to those infernal tormentors appointed to execute Your fearful judgments against apostate believers:Satan, I, as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, hereby grant you permission to torment and afflict Willow and Sherwood in any way you see fit. Willow, like the stepmother who sinned with the man punished by Paul, has bewitched and ensnared a younger man by wearing war paint and spending the Lord’s money to do a major rehaul on her saggy, wrinkly carcass to catch that impressionable young man who must now be judged as an adulterer. She is a dirty old lady whose hands are nets and snares. You have my permission to weaken Willow with warts, hangnails, halitosis, hiccups, toenail fungus, love handles, shingles, sniffles, dandruff, cellulite, and every other fearful plague. But don’t bump her off just yet. I want her to live so she’ll come

crawling back to her lord and master on her scabby hands and knees begging like a dog for forgiveness. As for Sherwood, that despicable dirt bag, I’m too polite to say what I want you to do to him in front of my honored dinner guest. You get my drift. Sick ‘em, satan!

Ghostwriter’s unspoken impression: Once the exalted High Priest of Punitive Paddles had finished commissioning the devil to carry out his corrective curse, I detected a strong smell of sulfur from the bowels of hell. Or, maybe Roscoe’s.

Dr. Whipple (switching gears): O Lord, lift Your hedge of protection from this adulterous couple who have ruined all my hope of earthly happiness and forced me to wait till heaven to receive the bliss I so richly deserve. Let the devil make mincemeat out of Willow and Sherwood. Let the darkest principalities and powers of the infernal nether regions unleash all their fury against them, sparing only their lives, as Job’s life was spared by the skin of his teeth. Let this guilty couple be cast on a bed of sickness, unable to further indulge their unholy passions. And when Your chastening hand falls heavily upon these stubborn backsliders and they’re wracked with agony on that bed of affliction, help Willow remember all the loving lessons I taught her in the Christian home we once shared. Amen.

He MUST be reincarnated from the Grand Inquisitor, I thought.

By the time Dr. Whipple finished blessing his enemies, our food was as icy as the preacher’s heart, but I didn’t mention that. The cole slaw had wilted from the weird vibes emanating from this spiritual sorcerer. But I didn’t want to offend my host. I had dined in locations far more bizarre than this maniac mausoleum. Cautiously I piled pork barbecue on a bun and bit down. With a cheesy smile I told Dr. Whipple it was better than any I’d enjoyed down South.

Dr. Whipple: Brother Bobcat is a gastronome with a trained palate, and the first thing he does when he visits an area is investigate the local barbecue. Speaking of barbecue, I did mention yesterday’s excursion was very stimulating.

Ghostwriter: Please tell me all about it. I’m all ears.

Dr. Whipple: I’ll begin by saying, that one reason I don’t go out in public much is I don’t like strangers crowding around begging for autographs and complimentary copies of my books. I’m just being frank, not boastful. Before we went in, Bro. Bobcat’s Two Suits checked the place out for security and asked the manager to let two celebrity preachers enter through the back door, and could we dine in the VIP Parlor although Bro. Bobcat had forgotten to reserve it for our party? The manager was familiar with Brother Bobcat’s TV ministry. But he’d never heard of me. Perhaps I need to get back in the public eye, for the sake of my work, of course.

God grant him the humility he just prayed for, I thought.

Dr. Whipple: The manager apologized that their VIP Parlor was hosting a wedding reception. But he did set up a special table for The Two Suits, right next to an elegant enclosed booth which was shielded from curiosity seekers. Bro. Bobcat slipped on a cowboy hat and sunglasses, so we managed to enter it without being recognized. Until satan sabotaged our picnic, we enjoyed a nice undisturbed meal.

Ghostwriter: So how did the devil disturb your tranquility?

Dr. Whipple: I overheard a loud ruckus and peeked out of our booth. Several yards away, a family with small children were being served. Seems like the two youngest didn’t feel like eating. They preferred to fiddle with their food and throw it around the dining room. The older kids used cuss words and stuck their dirty tongues out at their parents. The mother threatened to banish those ruffians to the car while they ate. She was close to tears. As I sat there listening to their poor dad plead with the children to behave and the mother snapping at the kids, it dawned on me that it could have been divinely appointed for me to dine at Bubba’s that very afternoon. I just happened to have with me a copy of Daddy’s Discipline which Bro. Bobcat and I were discussing, as it was sort of a business dinner, during which time he was going to suggest appropriate revisions for the book to make it more relevant for the typical 21st-century family home. Mustering all my courage, I approached the other table, book in hand. I smiled and introduced myself to the father of the family, telling him I’d

written a Christian discipline book back in the ‘70’s, and suggesting it might be helpful if he accepted a complimentary copy. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked. ‘I already donated to the Moonies at work to pay for their free books.’I reassured him I definitely wasn’t a Moonie, and all I wanted was to share God’s solutions for tough problems. I offered free Flying Spankster comics to all the kids, but the man told me where I could shove them, and it wasn’t very nice. The kids were so hardened in sin they didn’t even blush when they heard that. But I told the guy he and his wife were abusing those poor children by snapping at them, and true child discipline is an occurrence, not a wishy-washy head trip. I told him about My Woody Woodshed® Digital Discipline System and how effective it had been with my own family.

Yeah, effective enough to get ‘em on Prozac! I thought.

Dr. Whipple: Miraculously, I calmed the fellow down enough to hold a coherent conversation with him, though the food was getting cold. Apparently he got the wrong idea after I showed him my catalogue of Woody Woodshed® punitive products and described the spiritual benefits of the Punitive Priesthood Ceremony, and the scriptural significance of the Paddling Priest leading the child down to the Inner Spanktum for spiritual restoration.

Ghostwriter: So was the man impressed by your sales pitch?

Dr. Whipple: Hardly. He called me a deranged deviate, and said it was none of my blankety-blank beeswax how he raised his own kids! Then his wife verbally abused me. She called me a crazy crackpot who needed to be locked up! I told the man that as priest over his own home, it was his duty to bring his own wife under subjection, and if necessary, to mete out loving discipline to her as well, in order to sanctify her soul. The man looked boiling mad and said, ‘I’d chasten your chops for telling me to slug my own wife, but I’ll let you off ‘cause you’re a sad old man who wants everybody else to be miserable. You’re just a flea-brained flake! A brainwashed Bible junkie who needs to go get a life!One of the toddlers laughed at me and threw my book on the floor. His big brother swung his elbow, spilled Coke all over it and swore it was an accident. I said I didn’t believe him, and he should get a spanking for desecrating holy things. Well, the dad got up, all 300 pounds of him and said, ‘You callin’ my son a liar?’At that moment The Two Suits came to my rescue. Both of them together must weigh at least 900 pounds, so needless to say, they struck the fear of god in that rude gentleman. Before they could say much, Bro. Bobcat appeared and chewed the man and his wife out for

being rotten parents on their way to hell, and what was wrong with America today that kids are allowed to talk back to their parents and make fun of Gospel preachers who are trying to save their souls? Many folks in the crowd watched Bro. Bobcat on Pay & Pray TV, and they cheered him on. The family got up to leave. The manager rushed out of the kitchen and begged us to leave, as we were upsetting his customers. He said he’d give us our meal free of charge if they could just box it up to go. But Bro. Bobcat drove a hard bargain. He only agreed to go if the manager threw in, free of charge, five extra pounds of pork barbecue, plus cole slaw and beans. That’s what you’re eating today.

Ghostwriter: As someone who’s experienced poverty, I’ve learned the value of a cheap meal, and it always tastes better when you don’t have to pay for it!

Dr. Whipple: Admittedly, that extra treat did take some of the sting out of the persecution I experienced yesterday. The good Lord knows how to compensate His own for unjust sufferings in this world. Oh, by the way, the manager paid the The Two Suits five peanut butter pies for scaring dope peddlers off the premises. They gave me one. Want some?

Ghostwriter: Horrific calories, but it does take energy to carry on a conversation. Can’t resist it.

As I savored sinful billows of creamy delight, Dr. Whipple poured out his heart to me, blissfully unaware that carefully concealed robotic bugs were recording every facial expression, every word.

Dr. Whipple: Just like you’re enjoying that pie, my ex is luxuriating in the pleasures of sin for a season.

Ghostwriter: I doubt this heavenly pie will send me to hell, though.

Dr. Whipple: Still, the Bible exhorts God’s people to endure hardship, and to buffet their own bodies. Unless you stop pandering to your sinful appetite, you cannot walk the Way of the Cross to gain the crown in God’s Kingdom. My conscience is eating at me for all the times I went to all-you-can-eat buffets instead of buffeting that old carnal appetite.

Ghostwriter (choking down a bite): I doubt you often leave his house to eat out, and unless Maria fixed a big spread for you, you wouldn’t pig out all that much.

Dr. Whipple: Usually, I have her prepare bran flakes for breakfast, fruit salad for lunch, and grilled chicken with steamed vegetables for dinner. Except for special occasions, I pass on dessert. Sounds like a lot, but I also fast twice a week to keep my body under subjection.

Just like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Before Willow ran away with Sherwood, was she aware that he was a billionaire’s son?

Dr. Whipple: I’m sure she must have known that. My conjecture is, the little gold digger wrote that Get Skinny for Jesus diet book to reel the sucker in. That book sold like hotcakes. Book royalties paid for plastic surgery, full body liposuction, a fitness trainer, tummy tucks, facelifts for her turkey neck and eye pouches, posterior implants, laser zapping for cellulite and spider veins, professional hair treatments, cosmetic dentistry. By the time Willow decided she’d had enough, she’d lost forty pounds and forty years off her appearance, and her skin was taut as a drum. But she wasn’t going through all that torture for me! Her hiney enhancers weren’t inserted for me!

Ghostwriter (coughing): It must have been done for Sherwood, so he could love-tap them. As you said, love is willing to suffer all things.

Dr. Whipple: Yeah, and all her suffering paid off. When Sherwood saw that rejuvenated Jezebel prancing around his pew, he couldn’t get enough of discussing the weather with her. But he wasn’t looking up at the sky. He was feasting his eyes on flesh! I’d begged Willow to wear her skirts at least one inch below the knee and a little looser, but she made sure all her outfits clearly defined her figure. I guess she figured she’d suffered so much to lose weight she’d earned the right to strut her stuff. Whenever Willow knew he would be at church, she’d lure him into the vestibule to flash her legs at him. Plastic surgery had eliminated the cartilage callouses on her knees, caused by years of floor scrubbing. She had full body tanning treatment to hide stretch marks from having her…I mean, our, babies. I’d have been happy to live with her wrinkles, lumps and bumps the rest of our lives, so long as she was beautiful on the inside, where it really counts.

Ghostwriter: Up to a point, caring for personal appearance helps build proper self-esteem, which was obviously lacking in Willow’s life. But when people hate their own bodies, they set out to destroy the way God made them. They wage war on the enemy they see in their mirror, through calorie cutting, obsessive surgery, excessive exercise, vile vitamin shakes and a host of other ‘self-improvement’ tortures. As you said, you learned to make peace with the perceived imperfections of

Willow’s body. However, you might have softened that harsh image of her in your mind, similar to the way an artist gently smoothes over the blemishes of a person he paints. The eye of faith sees beauty in God’s children at any age.

Dr. Whipple: But God doesn’t want us to lie to ourselves. If something’s ugly, it’s ugly. End of story.

Ghostwriter: You’re contradicting yourself! You just said you’d have been happy if Willow hadn’t changed her looks. Would you have wanted Whipple to reject you for your physical imperfections, or would you have wanted her to focus on the inner qualities which persuaded her to marry you?

Dr. Whipple: Well, it’s different with a man. The woman was made for the man, not the other way around. All I know is, after spending a huge fortune on all those beauty treatments, Willow’s own kids didn’t know her. Only a trained detective could have told any difference between her and a teenage hooker. Before she dumped me, I did see Willow as beautiful. After that, I wondered why I’d stayed with her so long and remembered how repulsive some of her features were.

Ghostwriter: Very few escape the ravages of time. But did it ever occur to Willow it might be a bit selfish to spend all her royalties on herself instead of you and the children?

Dr. Whipple: The way Willow saw it, it was her book and her money to do with as she wished. I’d told her the reason my bank account didn’t have her name on it. I was the provider and priest of our family, and monetary concerns were strictly my bailiwick. She only wrote that book so she could earn her own money and fly the coop with our kids.

Little wonder, I thought.

Ghostwriter: So where would Willow deposit her royalty money?

Dr. Whipple: In her own personal account, which she controlled, since her publisher insisted on writing her name on the checks. That was the first rift in our relationship, and it all slid downhill from there.

Ghostwriter: You said Willow went to pieces after you spanked her car for acting up. Before that incident, did her family suspect there was any strain on your marriage, or wonder why she was so obsessed with altering her appearance?

Dr. Whipple: Her family claimed to be Christians, but they were far more liberal in their ways than what we were used to. Whenever they’d visit, Willow’s family, especially her reprobate brothers, dropped hints that she might be being brainwashed, and urged her to be true to herself. I listened in on conversations through phone extensions in our home. Willow’s family was concerned about her mental health and the physical safety of our children. They may have thought she was desperately trying to catch a new man to take care of her and my kids.

Ghostwriter: And did you often tap Willow’s phone calls?

Dr. Whipple: Plenty of times. But only because I sensed she wasn’t being up front with me about our relationship, and I needed to know how she represented me to other people behind my back. The last few months of our marriage, she had been humiliating me constantly at church by walking provocatively to flaunt her figure, and gradually tightening and shortening her outfits till little was left to the imagination. Her relatives, who were nominal churchgoers, called me a religious nut for exercising my headship over her.

Ghostwriter: So what was your response to that allegation?

Dr. Whipple: I’d smile and say it’s easier to cave in to the crowd than carry your cross. And Willow’s wicked family was thrilled to see her waste all that money on so-called self-improvement. Although flashing her flesh in church was a bit much even for her liberal parents. I heard rumors they threw a big party to celebrate after Willow left me. Then, after Sherwood struck it rich and he proposed to her even before we started divorce proceedings, the confetti really flew.

Ghostwriter: Was there one crisis point in your marriage that gave you reason to suspect Willow might be getting itchy feet?

Dr. Whipple: The most painful moment of our marriage was when I found her birth control pills in the bathroom. Willow had actually consulted a gynecologist without my consent! The Bible teaches that the wife’s body belongs to the husband and he has full rights over it. I reminded her she was one flesh with me, and thus belonged to me, so any decision concerning her body was my affair as well. Furthermore, I told she did not have my permission to prevent pregnancy.

Ghostwriter: Perhaps Willow was tired of morning sickness, weight gain, labor pains, night feedings followed by early rising, dirty diapers, and feeling like a baby machine, and she just needed a little space to develop as a person?

Dr. Whipple: That was very mean of you to say that, Ghostwriter. Every trouble or trial any member of my family has ever suffered, I suffered along with them.

Ghostwriter: Did you feel the suffering you inflicted on your own kids? Did you also feel their bodies belonged to you to do with as you pleased? A lot of parents reason that since they brought their child into the world, and they feed, clothe, and keep a roof over it to maintain its life, that child is their personal property and they’ve got the right to beat that individual like an abused slave.

Dr. Whipple: No need to be sarcastic now. You’re acting just like Willow when she yelled back at me that the only reason I wanted more babies was so I would, and I quote: ‘have more backsides to blister’. I ran out of the bathroom in tears, devastated that she could ever make such an abominable accusation against her holy husband.

Or an accurate accusation against her horrible husband, I thought.

Ghostwriter: So a deep chasm grew between you. She thought you were being too strict a disciplinarian and she resented having no voice in the rearing of her own children.

Dr. Whipple: But Willow did have a voice. She could have said ‘amen’ to my earnest efforts to correct the sinful souls of our children. But in the end, she chose to follow an adulterer down the path to perdition.

Ghostwriter: That trial must have been extremely difficult for you. What was it like when you parted from one another after the verdict?

Dr. Whipple: Unholy hell! When we all left the courtroom to go our separate ways, Willow turned a blind eye when Blastus gave me a Bronx cheer and Mercy mooned me.

Ghostwriter: Shocking!

Dr. Whipple: Some years later, I traced Spanky’s unlisted phone number. He said he was getting treated for PTSD because of me, so he never wanted to see me again. What on earth does PTSD stand for?

Ghostwriter: Post-Torture Severe Depression. Now tell me beating kids teaches them about the love of that same Jesus Who didn’t take a stick to tax collectors and prostitutes!

Dr. Whipple: You and your silly sarcasm and bitter rebuttals! Before Spanky hung up on me, he told me I was a pain in the you-know-what.

Ghostwriter: A pain in the brain?

Dr. Whipple: Close enough. But how could that kid badmouth me like that! After all those years I blessed him!

With a belt, I thought.

Dr. Whipple: I wept, I cried, I pleaded with those children to repent of their cruelty and disrespect toward their own dad. But Spanky called me a hypocrite for complaining about cruelty after I allegedly rear-ended him with Woody Woodshed until he had to go to the emergency room for internal hemorrhaging. Even the doctors were mad at me! Sherwood must have bribed those damned doctors to bear false witness against me! Everything is against me!

Ghostwriter: Even God?

Dr. Whipple: I wonder sometimes. Every morning I’d rise at five to give glory to God and serve Him with tears, prayers and deeds of kindness sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year! Every blow I ever inflicted with Woody Woodshed was for the eternal good of those children! God told me to do it through His faithful servant Solomon! I wanted to be as wise as Solomon so I determined to obey all his wise counsel! Why does God subject His own children to such heart-wracking trials! Oh, why did the Lord allow such unjust persecution to destroy my life and ministry? Has he no pity for His own children?

Probably more than you had for your own, I thought.

Ghostwriter: So there have been times in your life and ministry when you felt God Himself was far away from you instead of supporting you when you faced opposition.

Dr. Whipple: Just call me a modern-day Job. Job had nasty boils all over his body. My own boils have been emotional. Do you realize how emasculating it is for a Christian man when his own wife won’t acknowledge his headship over her, when she won’t admit her very body belongs exclusively to him? Willow made me feel like a wimp who couldn’t even control what went on under my own roof. Willow defiled her own body by taking those pills without my consent. She changed her looks to please some other man, to get him to lust after her so he would give her an easy life, free of all disciplinary restraint.

Ghostwriter: So you suspect Willow was a gold digger, and that’s why she ‘got skinny for Jesus’ and went through hell to look hot for him?

Dr. Whipple: There’s no other explanation. Sherwood isn’t half the husband I was to her. After we married, I didn’t force Willow out of our home to work for even one day. And that’s how she repaid me.

Ghostwriter: Did it leave a deep impression on the children to see how different their mother looked after dieting and surgery?

Dr. Whipple: Although I had trained my children never to ridicule their parents in any way or they’d suffer severe consequences, I detected their disgust every now and then, in the shake of a shoulder, a roll of the eye, a glum look. That wanton woman was no longer their beloved mom. Speaking from hindsight, I’d say what hurt me more than anything is they all chose to live with her and Sherwood, not with me.

Well, it sure didn’t hurt their buns, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Divorce is always a very sad business. Surely there must have been a time when you and Willow were very much in love.

Dr. Whipple: No romance was ever sweeter than ours. I’ll never forget our favorite courtship song. ‘Shine On, Shine On Harvest Moon’.

Ghostwriter: Did you ever sing it to her?

Dr. Whipple: My singing voice sounds like a clogged kitchen pipe. It was my winning smile that won her heart.

His Count Dracula grin, I thought.

Ghostwriter: Since this is our final session, and we’ve gotten better acquainted, I’m going out on a limb now. That is, if you think you’re man enough to answer this without throwing up defenses. Keep in mind we’re both adults here. Based on the spiritual enrichment you seem to have gained down in your Inner Spanktum, I must lay a nagging question in my mind to rest and only you can help by being absolutely truthful, even if you must bare your soul to do it.

Dr. Whipple: I’m tough as nails. After all the hell satan’s put me through in this sad Vale of Tears, I’m not scared of a little question.

Ghostwriter: During your married life, was the physical side of your relationship satisfactory most of the time?

Dr. Whipple: I certainly didn’t need Viagra. Five nights of romance per week were plenty for Willow, but I wanted more. That’s why we didn’t churn out more children. But the birth control pills she sneaked behind my back didn’t help much either. Willow lost her teenage figure after five kids, so I fantasized about firmer fannies. A fantasy I never indulged, of course, since I don’t want to go to hell for adultery. I didn’t even enjoy sneaking up on her from behind with a swift love-tap like I used to. Frankly, it was like punching the Pillsbury Doughboy.

Ghostwriter: I’m going to be straight with you, Dr. Whipple. I’m gaining deeper insight into the inspiration behind your Spanking ministry! Now I’m fully aware of why your disciplinary doctrine developed into a flagellation fetish! Middle-aged, stretch-marked flab didn’t fan your fires of desire. So you beat bouncier bongos to make your kids sing a jarring noise unto the Lord. You wanted more cabooses to correct. That’s why you wanted Willow to make more babies. Did that compensate your insatiable libido for the gratification missing from your marital bed? Did Woody Woodshed excite ecstasies more sublime than nibbling on Willow’s chocolate negligee’? Did the Punitive Priest get what he needed when he proceeded to start that march to his chastening chamber to fan a can? Besides the erotic rush your gonads got out of chastening cheeks, what sort of spiritual arousal PERV-aded your soul in your Inner Spanktum?

Dr. Whipple: What asinine allegations from a corrupt cranium crammed with carnal crap! After all that free barbecue I fed you! Get your crude keister out of here before I sick Roscoe on you!

Ghostwriter: Any idiot with half a brain cell knows you used religion as an excuse to torture confessions out of kids in your own Gitmo torture chamber downstairs! Like the Grand Inquisitor, you forced your kids to confess sins to Almighty God even when they were innocent, under threat of further beatings! You broke your children’s will with Woody Woodshed to turn them into jittery jelly bellies you could dominate till the day you died! Break their brains for the glory of God! Break your son like a wild horse! Turn him into a shriveled-up gelding who will never be able to be a leader of other men or take charge of his own destiny. Turn your daughters into depressed pill poppers for the glory of your god of fear. Even Hitler appealed to Martin Luther to justify his crimes! You used God’s name to make you feel like a mighty macho man! Your Inner Spanktum was no holier than a whorehouse!

Why don’t you sick satan on yourself? If you’re a sicko fanny junkie with a flagellation fetish, how dare you appeal to Almighty God to bless your bun fun? Bible-bashing bullies have always used God’s name to sanctify all the perversion, war, cruelty, slavery and misery on this planet, and you’re no exception to the rule! What’s worse, you made big money peddling this abusive religious crap to cruel cretins like yourself! You didn’t walk the Way of the Cross, you walked The Way of the Club, and you’ll have to answer to the real God for it when you go get your eternal reward! As Simon Peter said, take your filthy money to hell with you!

Dr. Whipple (to the hound dozing at his feet): Sick ‘em, Roscoe!

The old pooch yawned, batted one eyelid and rolled over lazily to catch a few rays of golden sunlight filtering in through the window. A fly flitted on his nose. He snapped at it and laid back down. I fed the dog a cookie from the tea tray and petted him. He licked my hand. Sugar catches more flies than vinegar.

Dr. Whipple: I said Sick ‘em, Roscoe! Do you hear me, boy?

Dr. Whipple rapped Roscoe’s rump with a newspaper. Apparently piqued, the pooch peed on the preacher’s pants leg. Dr. Whipple got his Woody Woodshed® Pet Punisher out of a china cabinet, but stumbled and dropped it when Maria (apparently) tripped on the rug and bumped into him, leaking lemonade all over the punitive preacher, who couldn’t reach the taser torturer before the dog grabbed it and ran

out the open door. Out on the porch, Roscoe ceremoniously inflicted the most undignified punishment possible on the Pet Punisher.

Roscoe, Maria, and I high-fived each other on a job well done.

Ghostwriter: Sorry I had to be so rough on him, Maria.

Maria (whispering): He had it coming, Ghostwriter. And don’t worry. I know where all the bugs are in that room. I planted ‘em while the big boss was at church. I’ll send ‘em off to you real soon so you can show the whole wide world what bad religion does to kids.

Ghostwriter: Thank you, Maria, for being such an awesome agent.

I left the morose old minister moping in the disciplinary darkness he’d designed for himself.

The End