By: MARGARET BROWN
Margaret Brown is one of The Resident’s longest standing contributors and has lived in the Algarve for more than 20 years. As well as Point of View, she also writes Country Matters twice a month.
LIVING IN today’s culture of sueing and counter-sueing, there is a tendency first, to look round for someone else to blame, second to deny all responsibility and, if all else fails, to blame God.
Not confined to those who claim to follow any one of the mono-theistic faiths, the idea of an all-seeing supernatural power dishing out punishment across the board to the good, the bad and the ugly offers a cop-out, encouraging a conviction that any misbehaviour or contravention of human decency which remains unpunished is permissible and God drops out of the equation.
More obvious in financial wheeler-dealing and the business world, it brings discord to human relationships and splits up families and friends. When a school curriculum included compulsory religious education at primary and secondary level, apart from teaching Christian ethics and the difference between right and wrong, some of it lingered in the subconcious.
At least one knew that when rules were broken, retribution was not far behind: lies and denials might delay punishment but the overhanging cloud of guilt made it welcome in the end. I speak from experience having been a prime example of naughtiness both at home and during term time and suffered accordingly.
Today the words ‘sin’ and ‘guilt’ are rarely used, being considered old fashioned and certainly counter-productive when raising children: neither is punishment politically correct since Laws were passed forbidding physical chastisement, which leaves parents with their hands tied and few choices when trying to turn much loved little savages into civilised human beings.
To reason with and explain why some action is wrong is fine if it works, but it should be permissible to back this up with sanctions or a mild smack.
Surely an early introduction to Jesus and the Ten Commandments suitably backed by stories from the Bible, if made interesting, will enable a child to judge right from wrong. To know that a loving Father God sees everything is a sanction in itself and in time may nurture a budding conscience: and I am all for instilling a healthy fear and respect for God.
