TORONTO, Canada - Fundamentalist Christians in a southern Ontario town live by the adage, ``Spare the rod and spoil the child.'' Now social workers are imposing a modified version: ``Spare the rod or lose the child.''
Seven children in one family already have been taken from their home by social workers and police because their parents refused to promise to stop disciplining them with sticks or straps.
Scores of other Church of God worshippers - all women and children - have left Aylmer, a rural community of 6,000 people about 90 miles southwest of Toronto, for the United States to avoid being asked if they will continue what they call adherence to biblical teaching, church officials say.
The case pits the fundamentalist beliefs of the Church of God against the Family and Children's Services child welfare agency that intervenes when it believes discipline exceeds acceptable limits under Canadian law.
Officials of the government-funded agency refuse to discuss specifics of the Aylmer case, but say they only act when punishment is brutal or unacceptable, such as leaving marks or involving sticks, belts, electrical cords or other implements.
``Spanking is not per se abusive, but we have to assess the severity of the most extreme forms of corporal punishment,'' said Steve Bailey, executive director of the regional Family and Children's Services office, which removed the Aylmer children from their home on July 4.
Police were called to assist social workers in carrying the children - four boys and three girls aged 6 to 14 - from the home because friends and relatives of the family gathered to protest. The minister of the Aylmer Church of God said the children struggled and cried while being taken away.
The children now are staying with foster families. Their parents have visitation rights and have mounted a legal challenge to regain custody. Privacy laws in Canada prohibit identifying the children or the parents.
To Church of God worshippers, it amounts to discrimination for their beliefs. They cite the Bible as the source for encouraging corporal punishment and insist on using rods or straps, saying the hand is for expressing love while an implement is for administering discipline.
``It clearly states in the Bible that corporal punishment should be used and that means more than a hand,'' said Henry Hildebrandt, the minister in Aylmer. ``The Bible talks about using an object. We find that works and it works well.''
A Web site on the Aylmer case set up by the Church of God questions how a country such as Canada, which accepts more than 200,000 immigrants a year from a variety of cultures, could challenge its beliefs and practices.
Under the headline ``Christians flee Canada,'' the Web site says 28 women and 83 children left Aylmer in ``the dark of night'' to avoid further removals by the child welfare agency. It says they went to Church of God communities in the United States.
The Aylmer worshippers don't drink alcohol, smoke or use drugs or foul language, according to the church Web site. It said they were homeowners with stable families in which the husbands all have jobs.
``Something is wrong, badly wrong, when people from cultures from all over the world are admitted and their lifestyles accepted in Canada, while Christians must escape persecution in the night to preserve their religious liberty,'' read the Web site message Thursday.
Canadian law allows parents, teachers and other authority figures to use ``reasonable'' force in controlling or disciplining children. That is generally interpreted as permitting slaps on the buttocks with an open hand.
A legal challenge to corporal punishment in Canada will be heard in the Ontario Court of Appeals in September. Some nations have enacted legislation curtailing the use of physical force against children, including Israel, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
In the United States, only Minnesota has restrictions against corporal punishment in the family, and 27 states ban it in schools.
On the Net:
Church of God, http://www.childrentaken.com
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.