“One of the things that Girard noticed about the Scriptures, not to mention human history, is that oppression is always respectable, and that the victim who protests that oppression is not respectable. He is told to shut up. Persecutors always feel persecuted. The oppressor feels oppressed and is highly indignant when the victim won’t shut up. When the victim writes a psalm of lament, he is not playing the dutiful role that he was assigned. The victim is therefore the troublemaker and must be dealt with.”

Mere Christendom, p. 43

“First, discipline must be prompt. No delays or postponements. Ecclesiastes says that discipline must be carried out ‘speedily.” Second, discipline must be effective. The child needs to feel it. The book of Hebrews says that no discipline seems pleasant at the time but rather painful. If it isn’t painful, it isn’t corrective. Third, discipline must be consistent. Whenever there is an infraction, you need to deal with it. Too often, discipline is meted out based on the attention span of the parent or the annoyance threshold of the parent . . . What are you teaching your children [with intermittent discipline]? It certainly isn’t virtue. You’re instilling in them a gambler’s hope.”

Keep Your Kids, pp. 45-46

“If there is no God above Caesar, then how do we keep Caesar from declaring himself god? Not only so, but because as god he answers to no one, this means there is no such thing as ethics. There is no authority over him to which he must defer. And if that is the case, then everybody under him must defer to him—and he could well be an erratic or ill-tempered or insane god with bad digestion. And does anybody really want a god with a bad temper who is capable of toothaches or migraines?”

Mere Christendom, p. 42

“Maturity means growing up into greater difficulty. So fourth grade is more difficult than third grade, and eighth grade is more difficult than fourth grade, and graduate school is more difficult than eighth grade. What happens when you don’t do well? Well, there too, life gets harder. But it gets harder in a different way.”

Keep Your Kids, p. 43

“Before fining someone, or flogging him, or putting him in jail, or exiling him, or executing him, which pretty much exhausts the options, we had better know that what we are doing is authorized by God. If it is, well and good. If it is not, then we are abusing someone created in the image of God, and God is going to hold us accountable for it. We should either coerce with a clean conscience (and an open Bible) or not at all.”

Mere Christendom, p. 41