Jonathan,

This post really struck a chord with me. I hope you will forgive the diatribe, but I feel like there are so many layers to both these stories; the Pearls and evangelical adoption movement.

I really appreciate your analysis of the Pearls and their “training” techniques, and I would have to agree with the questioning of the scope of their influence. I have taught youth ministry and Christian education in conservative evangelical colleges/seminaries for more than a decade, and Kathryn Joyce’s Mother Jones article was the first I had heard of them. Moveover, I grew up in Memphis where they apparently ministered for 25 years and have no recollection of them. That is not to say because I had not heard of them that they have no influence, but I can assume that their influence in the circles I inhabit is modest at best.

In doing some research on the Pearl’s after reading the Mother Jones article, I ran across a couple of reviews of their work written by Tim Challies (here & here). I really respect Tim and his insight. As usual, his analysis was helpful to me in understanding the Pearl’s perspective, and I would point you toward it.

Essentially, it seems that the Pearls are advocating a “baptized” approach to classical conditioning in the vein of theories advanced by theorists such as Ivan Pavlov and B. F. Skinner. Many Christian psychologists and educators acknowledge the pragmatic effectiveness of discipline according to these conditioning techniques, but they equally acknowledge really fail to address the real issues in helping a child to grow and mature well and to become a follower of Christ. Sure, we know we can produce behaviors or extinguish behaviors in a child through conditioning, but I do not know many that are comfortable with a plan for raising children that is purely behaviorally-based for growing healthy children into healthy adults because behaviorism doesn’t address the attitude of the heart. Conditioning deals with extinguishing behavior in a fairly mindless and unreflective kind of way. In fact, several of the most influential classical conditioning theorists go so far as to assert that the role of cognition (thinking) in human behavior is really little more than an illusion. They would say that we are little more than a collection of actions and responses (or repressed actions and responses) that have been reinforced by positive and negative consequences. These theorists make valid observations about behavior, but their worldviews are so disparate from those of biblical Christianity, that they necessarily begin and end in different places from anyone seeking to live with a biblical worldview.

Pointedly, the Pearl’s approach to understanding people flies directly in the face of a biblical understanding of humanity. God’s Word teaches that we are created in the Image of God (Imago Dei). What separates us from the rest of creation is our ability to think, reflect, emote, and choose. As a result of sin, the Imago Dei in us is marred. There is no amount of external or internal discipline that will change that. We need rescue and re-creation. Jesus died to accomplish just that in our lives for His glory, and the Holy Spirit comes on us to make transformation in who we are. He changes our desires, our motivations, and our proclivities progressively in a way that conditioning never will. Conditioning changes behavior. Jesus re-creates people.

The Pearl’s influence in the adoption/orphan care community is regrettable if it is present at all. The significant majority of children in foster care and those who have been adopted have suffered some type of trauma. The circumstances of this trauma and their “God-wired” responses to the trauma cause them to develop differently. There are common, well documented brain and bio-chemical differences in these children, and many classical conditioning techniques promise to reinforce their trauma not heal it. Parents of children from hard places would do well to consider the work of psychologists like Dr. Karyn Purvis (author of The Connected Child and psychology professor at TCU). Dr. Purvis and her colleagues promote a positive approach to correction and discipline that values the Imago Dei and reflects the redemptive discipline that we see in God’s approach to parenting us all as manifested in the work of Jesus.