Evangelicals are mean to kids, beginning at home

Every Father’s Day weekend, complementarian women post on social media about how thankful they are for their husbands’ loving leadership. Photos of confidently smiling men who think the gospel requires them to be the heads of their households grace our newsfeeds.

While many of these men may be generally kind and while their wives likely mean what they’re saying, their theology of male headship makes one thing clear: These people think their patriarchs are the protectors of society.

But if these guys are the leaders of white evangelicalism, then they are the ones responsible for white evangelicalism being in the condition it’s in. Which begs the question: If these guys are such good fathers who care about family values, why is their movement so mean to kids?

Being mean to their own kids

“For white evangelicals, everything begins in the home.”

For white evangelicals, everything begins in the home. And their meanness toward kids is no exception. Much of their modern meanness has been shaped by the Institute in Basic Life Principles that is exposed in the Shiny Happy People docuseries. And for those who would dismiss IBLP as a fundamentalist organization that’s completely different than supposedly more even-handed organizations like The Gospel Coalition, TGC partially defended IBLP in a piece written by Alex Harris, who criticized the series and added, “I know people who had positive experiences with IBLP. These were homeschooling families with parents who genuinely sought to honor God and do what was best for their children.”

Those of us who grew up in the independent Baptist world of the IBLP recognize full well the parallels between the hierarchies of IBLP and The Gospel Coalition.

It all begins with their view of authority. “When we are rejecting God’s delegated authority, we’re also rejecting his authority,” one IBLP representative explains. In their world, God’s hierarchy of delegated authority begins with men at the top. “They turned every father into a cult leader,” one of the interviewees says.

One of the clearest examples of white evangelical meanness toward their own kids is through the ever-present threat of hell. My earliest memories in this world were going to bed as a 4-year-old with my 2-year-old brother in the room, as my dad laid on the floor and told us stories about the horrors of hellfire. Being eternally roasted is hard enough for a 40 year old to deal with, let alone a 4-year-old.

Because white evangelical men are so terrified of what they think God the Father plans to do to their kids for not submitting to God’s hierarchy of delegated authority, they often promote a discipline strategy that prioritizes spanking. As Shiny Happy People demonstrates, fear of hell is referenced as reason to use spanking as “encouragement” to break “the rebellious spirit they’re born with.”

The piece I’ve written that I’ve received the most consistently angry feedback from over the years has been my exposé on Voddie Baucham, who calls babies “vipers in diapers” and promotes spanking so much that he recommends having “an all-day session where you just wear them out.”

Perhaps the clearest example of white evangelicals being mean to kids has been their response to their sexual abuse crises. As BNG’s Mark Wingfield described the Southern Baptist Convention’s handling of sexual abuse, “The house is still a mess.”

Being mean to other people’s kids

So imagine what happens when the movement these men rule over expands its territory to take over the United States government. If my thesis is correct that their movement is mean to kids in their homes, then one would expect their political movement to be mean to kids in society as well.

“While evangelicals claim to prioritize the family, they actively work to break up families.”

While evangelicals claim to prioritize the family, they actively work to break up families that don’t submit to their understanding of God’s delegated authority. And that directly affects their approach to immigration.

“My disturbing take: It’s virtually impossible to write a survey question about the treatment of immigrants that is too brutal for Republicans to support,” sociologist Robert P. Jones recently wrote on Bluesky. Then Jones pointed to three findings from PRRI.

1. “8 in 10 Republicans support renditions of immigrants to foreign prisons without due process.”
2. “Three quarters of Republicans (77%) and white evangelicals (74%) favor installing deterrents such as walls, floating barriers in rivers, and razor wire to prevent immigrants from entering the country illegally, even if they endanger or kill some people.”
3. “Six in 10 Republicans (62%) and white evangelicals (56%) agree that the federal government should place immigrants who are in the country illegally in internment camps guarded by the U.S. military until they can be deported.”

Every one of these brutal positions affects kids.

As immigrant parents who work on farms or in hotels are chased down and taken away, kids are left without parents. When ICE shows up at Home Depot and starts chasing immigrants through the parking lot, kids are left without parents.

But immigrant kids aren’t simply the collateral damage of the Trump administration’s violence against their parents. They are targets as well.

In February, when ICE officials were conducting raids near schools, USA Today reported kids were so scared to attend school that nearly two-thirds of students in some classrooms were absent. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, warned that witnessing these raids would traumatize children.

One Texas mother said her 11-year-old daughter was so traumatized by bullying over her immigration status that she died by suicide.

In April, reports came of ICE entering elementary schools claiming they wanted to provide wellness checks on children.

In May, ICE agents were reportedly present at graduation ceremonies, which led to people being too afraid to attend their kids’ graduation.

They’ve raided restaurants, where kids would be present eating meals with their families. Imagine the trauma witnessing deportations would have even on children who were U.S. citizens who witness these events happening while trying to have dinner.

According to NBC News, an 11-year-old girl with a brain tumor lost her medical care due to being deported to Mexico.

According to CNN, a 4-year-old U.S. citizen with cancer was deported to Honduras.

Another 4-year-old girl was essentially given the death penalty because her body can’t absorb nutrition without the aid of medical technology that isn’t available in Mexico. Thankfully, after enough outcry, the Trump administration allowed the girl to live for another year by extending her humanitarian parole.

Don’t mess with our kids

When Tom Homan, the director of ICE who is enforcing these policies against children, threatened to arrest California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Newsom replied: “Lay your hands off 4-year-old girls that are trying to get educated. Lay your hands off these poor people who are just trying to live their lives, man. Trying to live their lives, paying their taxes, been here 10 years. The fear, the horror, the hell is this guy? Come after me, arrest me, let’s just get it over with, tough guy.”

That’s the thing about these conservative evangelical and Catholic patriarchs and their posses. They talk a tough game about being the protectors of children. In fact, they organized the “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” event in Seattle a few weeks ago.

But as with most accusations coming from the right these days, their claim that liberals are messing with our kids is projection. They’re the ones traumatizing their own kids. They’re the ones breaking up families. And they’re the ones targeting kids for deportation and even cutting them off from life-saving medical care.

“While these patriarchs claim to value families, their actions reveal they actually value power.”

While these patriarchs claim to value families, their actions reveal they actually value power. Rather than shaping their politics to support families, they’re subjecting all of our families to their masculinity hierarchies. And that ultimately comes down to the two father figures white evangelical men look up to.

The Father turned his face away

Their first father figure is God the Father. But because they define reality as a hierarchy of authority, they define God the Father as being characterized by the same traits we see in powerful men.

One of the most influential book series in these families is the “On Becoming” series written by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo and Robert Bucknam. According to Salon, their book On Becoming Baby Wise along with its sequel have sold more than 250,000 copies. In addition to basing much of their advice on pseudoscience or on outright misinformation, they also base their treatment of kids on their theology of God the Father.

One of their controversial pieces of parenting advice is for parents to ignore their crying infants, and to simply leave the infants to cry alone. Where do they come up with this advice? From their theology of God the Father’s treatment of Jesus on the Cross.

“Praise God that the Father did not intervene when his Son cried out on the Cross,” Ezzo writes. “God is not sitting on his throne waiting to jump at our every cry, trying to prove he loves us.”

Perhaps one of the reasons they are mean to kids is that the picture of God the Father they look up to is of an authority figure devoid of empathy for crying infants.

The softness of white evangelical men

As these men consider the political landscape for politicians who would be willing to take their vision of the family from the walls of the home and the church to society at large, the father figure that seems the most consistent with their vision of God the Father is Donald Trump himself.

When Trump first began courting the attention of religious leaders in 2015, he invited a group to his boardroom at Trump Tower. In a Facebook post written by independent charismatic apostle Lance Wallnau, he claims Trump said: “I never punch indiscriminately. I’m a counter puncher. If you get hit and do nothing, it sends the wrong message.”

One of the other leaders responded, “It’s open season on Christians in particular.”

Then Trump agreed and went on a rant about how New Yorkers couldn’t say “Merry Christmas” anymore. Of course, none of that is true. But truth doesn’t matter to these people. What matters is power. And fear is a great tool for power obsessed men to rile each other up and to get people to fall in line beneath them.

Wallnau says Trump told the group: “Every other ideological group in the country has a voice. If you don’t mind me saying so, you guys have gotten soft.” Then Trump reportedly added, “People who identify themselves as ‘Christian’ make up probably the single largest constituency in the country but there is absolutely no unity, no punch in exercising that power. Not in political consensus or any other area I can see.”

In other words, Trump considers white evangelical men to be beneath him. He thinks they’ve gotten soft. They’re not as tough as he is. They’re not willing to punch violently to the degree Trump is. Trump was trying to bring a voting bloc together, the largest voting bloc, to unite them under him in a hierarchy of delegated authority that is devoid of empathy as it exercises power with a punch.

And when Trump explained all this to the patriarchs, they lapped it up.

While on the surface, Trump and the creators of the Moral Majority movement may seem to be very different, they actually speak the same language, the language of hierarchy and highest power.

In the world of empire, there is no working with the emperor. There is simply working for the emperor or under the emperor. Trump targeted white evangelicals because he knew they see the world through the lenses of hierarchy and power and threats of violence like he does.

But he felt the evangelical men were soft enough and weak enough to bend their knee to him. And that is why we see Trump targeting white evangelicals, and he was quite right. They value the same things.

They value power. They value making things right through violence. But they’re soft enough to bend their knee to him.

Daddy’s home

Perhaps that’s why when Trump was sworn in earlier this year, conservative men literally began calling him their daddy.

“Dad is home,” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk celebrated.

“Daddy’s back!” Rep. Byron Donalds declared on Fox News.

And MAGA rapper Tom McDonald created a song with the lyrics, “Check the stats, stop throwin’ stones! Straighten up, sucker, ‘cuz Daddy’s home!”

Tucker Carlson famously said before the 2024 election that re-electing Trump would signal Dad is coming home to punish his disobedient children.

So when our phones turn off and our computers close, and we’re no longer seeing the images of smiling, happy patriarchs surrounded by their wives and kids who have been delegated beneath them, we don’t have to wonder why white evangelicalism is in the condition it’s in today.

White evangelicalism is mean to kids because its leaders are men whose father figures are the authority obsessed, empathy devoid examples of their God the Father and Trump.

Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.

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