Theology and Children: Towards a Theology of Childhood

Abstract

All over the world the neglect of children is a horrendous crime against them. This paper does not tackle physical child-neglect, instead, it accuses Christian theology of neglecting children. One way the church can be child-friendly is to advocate and practice lifelong, egalitarian marriage. There is overwhelming evidence that children are more likely to flourish when they are brought up by their biological parents.1 The implication is clear: the likelihood of their relative failure to thrive in family forms which are alternatives to marriage, itself becomes a strong argument for marriage. Although I believe this argument to be sound, I will not be making it here. This paper is about the position of children in theology, not in alternative family forms, and their position is not a healthy one. I shall confine myself to some particular features of the Christian tradition, negative and positive, in relation to children, which theologians, ministers and students like ourselves, are able to influence. I have a private rule that I apply to all my teaching and writing: “Reconstruct as much as you deconstruct”. First of all I’m going to do some deconstruction. It may be painful, but I think it is necessary, to own up to influences within scripture and tradition that get in the way of loving children as Christ so obviously loved them. As the prophet Jeremiah saw all too well, (Jer.1:10) tearing down is often a prequisite for building or planting something better. So in the next section of my paper my targets are i) neglect of children in Christian theology: ii) the lack of guidance in the New Testament and elsewhere about parenting, and parent-child relations; iii) the displacement of real families by the family of Church; iv) the problem of preference [our children are more than neighbours]. The third, final and biggest section makes positive suggestions about a Christian theology of, and for, children.

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