I really hope this situation shines a light the myriad problems that led to Lydia’s death. It wouldn’t matter if a nutjob like Pearl wrote that book, which is so very obviously, to any decent human being, regardless of religion, a hideously disturbing body of work if there weren’t so very many ignorant, isolated, brainwshed people out there willing to follow along.

I suspect the Schatzes were typical followers. How many other families, hidden from general public view by their isolationist, closed-community, home-schooling practices, have robotically obedient and seemingly happy children (on cue — be happy and smiling in public or Mommy and Daddy will beat you for hours with rubber hosing!) ? How does anyone really know what’s going on in these homes? To me, even a willingness to consider the Pearls’ material shows a serious, serious psychological and behavioral flaw. How many thousands of Pearl followers beat just short of organ damage or death and get away with it for years because, on the outside, they’re a happy, shiny family, but at home, the children are being subject to systematic torture?

Also, the fact these girls were adopted so very easily and all at once really makes me wonder what kind of oversight is going on with these Christian adoption agencies which set themselves up in the poorest, most disorganized and chaotic countries and then funnel dozens of children into these isolated communities and families with pretty much zero vetting process. This story makes me look at the Haiti incident even more suspiciously.

There are some serious, serious issues here about closed communities, unsupervised homeschooling, international adoptions, easy availability of the hideous, pyschopathic material the Pearls are selling, etc.

Let’s just hope someone with a public forum somewhere — a major news outlet, a celebrity, anyone, someone — please — asks these questions and puts a stop to the series of events that led to Lydia’s death.

I agree with Doug that the Schatzes were not “typical” followers of the Pearls. Unlike most followers of Pearlianity, the Schatzes followed the Pearls’ advice, literally and to the letter, leading to the death of one of their children and the near death of another. I think most followers of the Pearls, in the Schatz’s position, would have sensed in their hearts that something was terribly wrong; they would have disregarded Michael Pearl’s reckless and dangerous admonitions to never stop lashing with the plumber’s supply line unless their child submits. And because a typical Pearl follower disobeys the Pearl’s rule and stops whipping before their child needs the hospital or the coroner, we never hear about them or their children.

The Schatzes were atypical because they behaved as true believers. They listened to Michael and Debi Pearl instead of listening to their hearts. And as a result, we have now all heard of their family and their late daughter Lydia and their nearly slain daughter Zariah. And as long as the Pearls’ toxic teachings are permitted to flourish within the Christian homeschooling community, there will be some sets of parents who will atypically obey those teachings assiduously enough to seriously injure or occasionally even kill their children in the name of “godly discipline.” The fact that “only two” (Doug’s words, not mine) children have turned up dead from “discipline” at the hands of Pearl-following homeschoolers is because so many other such parents stop short of obeying the Pearls’ advice as faithfully as the Schatzes did.

The Christian homeschooling movement is at a crossroads now with regard to the Pearls. Either the main body of the movement decisively jettisons the Pearls and their pseudo-Biblical teachings, or the Pearls will continue to drag the whole movement further down into public disrepute due to their association with it.

The Pearls instruct their followers to use exactly the same piece of tubing the Schatzes used to murder Lydia and torture Zariah, they instruct them to whip them methodically, ritually, continuously, even suggest having a parent sit on them while the other beats them — which the Schatzes did — until the children completely submit, and Michael Pearl actually says a proper whipping should leave them without breath to complain.

Exactly how, again, did the Schatzes take the Pearls’ instruction too far…?? Sounds like they did EXACTLY what the Pearls tell parents to do to their kids. They systematically, methodically took turns beating Lydia until she didn’t have breath to complain…

The Pearls are complicit in Lydia’s death. People like you, Joan, Doug and Sonja, are complicit in Lydia’s death.

How many thousands and thousands of children remain battered, inside and out, emotionally and spiritually dead, damaged beyond repair because of the sadistic and sick teachings of the Pearls and of people like you.

Shame on you.

A dead child’s blood is on your hands. God will deal with you for that.

Lydia may have no breath to complain, but I do, and others do, and we will see to it that the Pearls are brought to justice and that those who promote the systematic torture of children — people like you, Joan, Doug and Sonja — are investigated.

Lydia will not have died in vain. Her death will be the beginning of the end for the Pearls and for people like you.

The Pearls have become a cult, and one with particularly dangerous teachings. It is not okay to say that they are okay anymore, and that there is good in what they do. They are straying more and more from the truth once delivered to the saints, and are well on their way to preaching anther gospel. Children do not need to be relieved of the guilt of their sin by atoning stripes of the rod–they must be shown the Cross. The Pearls are false teachers who must be shunned, and publicly.

I used to believe this stuff. I thought it was child abuse not to spank. Twenty years later, with two prodigals, a Harvard-sized debt from a therapeutic boarding school, and a heart that has been broken as many times the rod was sung on the backsides of my precious children, I have repented.

Parenting is best done by desperately clinging to the Cross. It is a fearful heart that will want a formula, that wants a three day fix for that tantruming child, who is humiliating you in public. Yet God doesn’t give a onesizefitsall solution, He gives us only the Holy Spirit, who is our Wonderful Counselor.

But I do highly recommend Turansky and Clarkson’s books, for those still confused and coming out of this “spank until they submit” cult. And Lou Priolo’s “The Heart of Anger”, is so healing if you have exasperated your child, and he won’t look you in the face anymore. They will help you detox from this

God has been very gracious to me. My youngest have read the Frog and Toad books aloud to me and so these precious memories are now mixed with an anguish for a girl who dreamed of safety in this country and was instead beaten to a pulp for mispronouncing some words in those charming little fables of friendship. I will seek to turn those tears into intercession for the remmnant of this broken family. I will also cry out for justice against their false teachers, the Pearls–or at least a great reduction in the two million yearly sales they earn.

God has been good, and I have been given a second chance to mother my wayward ones, and we have won our children’s hearts back. But we have paid a terrible price. I urge you Pearlites to reconsider your reliance on plastic plumbing lines for order in your homes, and seek the face of God instead.

I think, until the homeschooling community in general repents of its pride and idolatry of family, we are not going to be the ones who are going to change the culture–especially not while we defend spokespeople like the Pearls, who recommend training children in modesty by taking them to airports, to point out all the immodestly dressed sinners. What a terrific focus to give your children– look at tight pants, who cares about the broken hearts? I wonder how many of those women in low cut blouses could hear the Gospel coming from those same trained minds? They are not likely to find those families very winsome. Warped viewpoints like this was one of the reasons I quit reading and subscribing to the homeschool literature, and going to the conventions. They have nothing to say to me anymore.

I appreciate, as others have said, your brave stand. We have done business with you in our more prosperous past, particularly at Christmas. Those days, with my husband’s downsizing, are no more. But I will send my curriculum orders your way in the future! Bless you.