Just been 'tagged' by Simon (http://bromleyboy.blogspot.com/) to share a passage of scripture that I inhabit, keep returning to, feel haunted by ...
Simon's was from Jeremiah and, coincidentally, so is mine! Same chapter, even. Just four verses on: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29.11)
In the summer of 1990, at the end of the first year of a teacher training course, I wrapped my Morris Marina around a tree and came off worst. I suffered a broken neck, severe head injuries, and a shattered right femur. I was in a coma for ten days.
My church, as soon as they heard the news, set up a 24 hour prayer-vigil, and (mysteriously?) my neck turned out not to be broken after all. One vague memory I have from that summer is finding a neck brace in my bedside locker and asking what it was for! However, the head injuries were still very serious - there was a real risk of brain damage (I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that one) - and my leg was a mess.
After three months in hospital I was discharged in a wheelchair, with metal plates in my leg, and a definite feeling that God had 'saved my life'.
I continued the B.Ed. course, but the following summer began to suffer considerable pain with the leg again. It swelled up, and I was admitted to hospital again - this time with septicaemia. The bone had become infected, and was giving me blood poisoning. I underwent a number of operations that summer - first to remove the metalwork, and then to try to identify and remove the seat of the infection. It seems that a fragment of bone had not reconnected with the blood supply and rotted deep inside the femur. But the surgery had no effect than to provide the infection with a route to the outside, and I was left with a painful sore, oozing smelly green pus. It had to be dressed twice a day, even after I left hospital, and I was taking whole handfuls of antibiotics.
This condition continued for a long, long time. It didn't do much for my dating prospects! And it didn't do much for my relationship with God, either. I began to ask why, if God had saved my life, healed my broken neck and head injuries, etc., I was left with this ongoing and disgusting problem.
That's when the verse from Jeremiah began to be very important to me. I did trust that God had a plan, and that somehow through all this he was working in me and changing me for something. It wasn't always easy to hold onto that, and I went through some really low times. But I kept coming back to that verse.
In 1994 I was referred to a specialist surgeon in London. I underwent some fairly major surgery - I was teaching my now, and took a whole term off work - to remove as much of the infected bone a possible. The operation was not a success.
Six months later I went under the knife again. This time the surgeon literally hollowed out the femur, scraping as much infected stuff out as he possibly could. Then, instead of stitching me back up at the end, he left the wound open, packed it with antiseptic beads (which had to be removed a couple a day using a pair of pliers!) and soaked the whole area with antibiotics. The end result, though, was that the infection looked worse than ever.
So I asked to see my surgeon to ask what was going on. He admitted that the operation had not been a success, and said that we needed to start considering amputation. If I had felt low in the previous few years, I was now at rock bottom.
However, my uncle - an Anglican vicar, and at the time director of the Acorn Healing Trust - came to visit me in hospital. He served me communion at my bedside. He then anointed my head with oil for healing. Finally, he anointed my hands with oil for service, saying, 'God hasn't finished with you yet.'
Visiting time over, the surgeon came back to see me, and to change the antibiotics with which I was being treated.
24 hours later the infection had cleared up. 48 hours later I was discharged from hospital. Within the week I had spoke to my minister about training for the Baptist ministry. It really was as dramatic as that.
And, looking back, I wouldn't want to change anything that happened. No it wasn't pleasant - but God was using my suffering and God was changing me. I have now been a Baptist minister for eight years, and that would never have happened without all I have just described.
Jeremiah 29.11 is an important part of my testimony, and still a very special verse for me. Thanks, Simon, for giving me the chance to share this, and to remind myself ...
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Connecting the Christian Faith with Children - section nine - training needs
9. Training Needs
In all of this, there is an urgent need to support, affirm, encourage and train all those involved in working with children in our churches.
Sunday School teachers / Children’s Workers
The largest area of concern must be for our Sunday School teachers and children’s workers. They are a great resource. They are highly motivated and committed. And yet for too long in many of our churches they have been neglected. We urgently need to give them the support and affirmation, the budget, and the training that they need.
Many of our workers would welcome the opportunity to share resources, to find out what other churches do and what works well for them, to get fresh ideas and creative prayer ideas, to refresh their skills. Perhaps we just need to put on a series of events like that with the main aim of affirming what they do.
Some have asked, too, for some more specific training. How can we understand what faith means for children, and how faith develops in children? How can we get to grips with the needs of modern children who live in a very different world from previous generations? How can we disciple our children? How do we provide pastoral support to children?
Church
It’s not just the children’s workers, though, who need that sort of training. Our church congregations, too, need a better understanding of how children can fit into church family as equal members. How to integrate children and church, and what are the practical implications of that.
I suspect that the attitude of our church members towards children is the single main issue we need to address if we are to effectively reach and keep children in our churches: “In a time of rapid cultural change, older Christians must be prepared for the fact that ways of expressing Christian thought and feeling which they have found meaningful and satisfactory may not be equally meaningful and satisfactory to their children.”[1]
So, the question is not only (perhaps not even), “‘How shall we prepare our young people for Church?” [We must] take with the greatest possible seriousness the question, ‘How shall we prepare the Church for our young people?’”[2]
Ministers and Church Leaders
Our ministers and church leaders need to be challenged, and reminded, that children are enormously significant both in the biblical narratives and in God¹s purposes. A brief survey of the way children were included in the worshipping communities of the Old and New Testaments challenges all of us to rethink the place of children in the activities of God’s people today. “Children are not the church of tomorrow; they are the church of today without whom there will be no church of tomorrow.”[3] Similarly, an examination of the emphasis on children’s ministry by many major figures through church history must challenge our ministers, in particular, to rethink their priorities, and their involvement with children’s ministry in their own context. At the very least, we must be encouraging our church leaders to ask whether their “church budget for children’s ministry expenses include leadership training and adequate materials and resources?”[4]
Passing on the faith to our children is one of the primary activities of any faith community. But I think it needs to be given a much higher profile, again, in the Christian church. And whether or not it is a minister’s specific gifting, it is certainly his or her responsibility to ensure it is happening effectively.
There has been an adult bias in every aspect of Christian thinking for the last 2000 years, and “a lack of training has resulted in poor practice at church level and an inadequate knowledge on the part of church leaders as to the needs of those working with children.”[5] Perhaps there needs to be at least a module on ‘connecting the Christian Faith with Children’ included in the ministerial courses offered at our Baptist colleges, because our churches are all built around the needs and desires of adults, and children have been shockingly marginalised in mainstream Christian theology.
Parents
Perhaps we also need to try to shift the emphasis away from Sunday morning worship being the main focus of Christian activity. In the faith communities of the OT and NT, the main focus of the faith was the household. And there are a number of people arguing that we need to recapture that in today’s church.
“Judaism … is a faith in which family and children play a central part.”[6] The home is “regarded as the focus of religious activity”[7] and “the family plays a role, not only as the basic unit of social life, but also as the primary milieu of ritual expression.”[8] A significant number of the Jewish festivals “were home-based and often involved the participation of children.”[9] “The covenant community was striking for its lack of separate institutions for the education of children.”[10] Rather, “responsibility for the education of children into the covenant community rested with the parents,”[11] “and not with the worshipping community, although the festivals and cycle of the year helped them in their task.”[12] The early Christians, too, regarded the home as “the principal area of Christian nurture and instruction.”[13] And modern Judaism still “places a high priority on family life.”[14]
There is a need to recapture the historical Christian notion that “parenting is a serious calling and a significant spiritual discipline”[15]:
· Chrysostom considered parents to be “‘artists’ who sculpt statues with great precision … helping to restore the image of God in their offspring.”[16] He described parents as “teachers of their children, ”[17] and the family as “a ‘little church’ or a ‘sacred community”[18] wherein “adults and children rehearse for membership in the kingdom of heaven.”[19] He spoke of the obligations of parents to their children, such as “reading the Bible … praying with them, and being good examples.”[20] Chrysostom considered that “in the churches far too little discussion is given over to the vocation of parenthood.”[21] And he claimed that “when and wherever there is a crisis of childhood there is also bound to be a crisis of parenthood.”[22]
· Luther exhorted parents to “baptise their children, expose them to the Word and the sacraments … teach them about the faith, provide them with a good education.”[23] He claimed that “father and mother are apostles, bishops, and priests to their children, for it is they who make them acquainted with the Gospel.”[24]
· Calvin frequently makes the point that “the primary obligation of parents … is to teach godliness … all parents have the duty of communicating what they have learned from the Lord to their children.”[25]
· Menno Simons made the “careful, intentional, aggressive, and vigilant nurturing of children in [the] Christian faith”[26] absolutely imperative, and gave the primary responsibility for such nurturance to the children’s parents. “Christian parents are to be ‘as sharp, pungent salt, a shining light, an unblamable, faithful teacher, each in his own home’.”[27] Anabaptist children were “urged to love one another, bear with one another, do honourable work, not be prideful, flee from evil, fear God, and follow the example set by Christ. Making lifelong commitments of discipleship rather than momentary decisions for personal salvation is what was essential … [and baptism] was construed as a beginning, not an end.”[28]
· In the early 18th century, Franke claimed that “true piety is fostered in children … by reading the Bible and exposing them to the Word through the teachings and practices of the church (learning the catechism, singing hymns, praying, and worshipping),”[29] and he encouraged “parents … to begin this approach right away with young children in the home by reading and discussing the Bible, teaching Luther’s catechism, praying at mealtimes, beginning and ending the day … with a prayer and a hymn, worshipping together, and preparing for worship on Saturday by reading the text for Sunday’s sermon.”[30] He also encouraged families “to read through the whole Bible every two years and Luther’s catechism every four weeks.”[31]
· Most church leaders in Wesley’s day, too, believed that “religious education did play an important role in the training of children, and that parents were important in the process.”[32]
· Jonathan Edwards “was a loving parent who took pains to raise his own children as faithful Christians. … he prayed with them, quizzed them on the Bible and the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and discouraged ‘frolicking’.”[33] He urged the parents in his congregations to do the same, to “lead family prayers every day, and serve as examples of Christian virtue.”[34] He urged them to be “as Carefull About the welfare of [children’s] souls as you are about their bodies.”[35]
· Friedrich Schleiermacher considered the Christian home to be the “first and irreplaceable school of faith, ”[36] “a center of worship and Bible study in which children could … experience the full range of Christian religious affections and come to a living faith in God.”[37] He argued that it was only after such initial nurture that the clergy were able to “properly train young people to think about their faith in doctrinal terms.”[38]
· Horace Bushnell claimed that “the ‘atmosphere’ of a Christian home – the ‘manners, personal views, prejudices, practical motives, and spirit of the house’ – played a determinative role in the child’s religious formation.”[39] He warned parents about “the dangers of ‘ostrich nurture,’ of allowing to forge his or her own way to heaven, ”[40] because, for Bushnell, the family rather than the church was the “primary agent of grace … [and] Christian nurture took its deepest root in the daily routines of family life … as the child absorbed the Christian atmosphere of the home and observed the tender, upright example of Christian parents.”[41]
· Karl Barth gave parents guidelines about their “ambassadorial function … to attest to their children a divine promise,”[42] and to “communicate to children that their lives ‘are under the guardianship and guidance of the One who really undertakes for them.”[43]
· Many contemporary feminist theologians state that “to learn to nurture through the act of parenting is to acquire an essential human virtue and even to perfect one’s own life of faith in Christ. To care for all children, and not simply one’s own child, … becomes key to the good Christian life.”[44] Further, “parenthood is a vocation for both women and men, not an avocation or a pastime.”[45]
However, many people in the church today believe that it is the “programs offered in their congregations [that] provide the primary place for the faith formation of children, and congregational leaders themselves have erred in allowing the focus of faith development to shift away from the family and to become centred in the congregation.”[46]
“Since the biblical model is for children to receive spiritual nurture first and foremost from their prime care givers in their own homes, there is a need for churches today to help and resource Christian parents to carry out their role.”[47] It seems obvious that “the best vehicles for the transmission of faith to children are family rituals, family service projects, and meaningful conversations with children in the home.”[48] So Dallow suggests that all Christian families should, “tell and retell Bible stories and share stories of faith experience; celebrate faith in everyday life; pray together; listen and talk to each other; [and] be involved in acts of service and witness together.”[49]
Others argue that “parents … should work as God works, bringing up children in the ‘nurture and admonition of the Lord’ (Ephesians 6.4) through appropriate caring and nurturing relationships in the discipline of the family.”[50] Such nurture will be primarily “non-verbal, implicit … passing on the Christian character and spirit through living together and parenting.”[51]
Sarah Johnson’s book, Daring to be Different: Being a Faith Family in a Secular World (2004, Darton, Longman & Todd) offers encouragement, practical advice, and suggestions for lively ways to build faith into daily family life.
But if this shift is to take place, the Christian family will need the help “of a supportive, serious, nurturing congregation to offer three things: a wider perspective, a less fraught and forced set of relationships (sometimes), and a Christian context that is more explicitly related to the Jesus story.”[52] Our churches need to be giving “greater attention to parent education, including the psychology of children and the practice of Christian education in the home,”[53] and in this way we can complement and complete “the Christian nurture started in the home, taking the child on to new explorations of discipleship.”[54]
[1] Understanding Christian Nurture (1981, a report of the Consultative Group on Ministry among Children, British Council of Churches), quoted by Sutcliffe (ed.), Tuesday’s Child (2001, Christian Education Publications), p.158
[2] Unfinished Business (1994, CCBI Publications), quoted by Sutcliffe (ed.), Tuesday’s Child (2001, Christian Education Publications), p.206
[3] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.87
[4] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.1450
[5] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.8
[6] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.3
[7] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.3
[8] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.3
[9] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.3
[10] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.28
[11] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.29
[12] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.30
[13] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.13
[14] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.3
[15] Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.20
[16] Chrysostom, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[17] Chrysostom, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[18] Chrysostom, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[19] Guroian, ‘The Ecclesial Family: John Chrysostom on Parenthood and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.62
[20] Chrysostom, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[21] Guroian, ‘The Ecclesial Family: John Chrysostom on Parenthood and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.62
[22] Guroian, ‘The Ecclesial Family: John Chrysostom on Parenthood and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.63
[23] Luther, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[24] Luther, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[25] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.171
[26] Miller, ‘Complex Innncence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.207
[27] Miller, ‘Complex Innncence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.211
[28] Miller, ‘Complex Innncence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.210
[29] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.264
[30] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.264
[31] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.264
[32] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.280
[33] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.311
[34] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.321
[35] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.321
[36] Schleiermacher, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.22
[37] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.333
[38] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.333
[39] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.354
[40] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.362
[41] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.356
[42] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.398
[43] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.399
[44] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.464
[45] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.470
[46] Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.24
[47] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.107
[48] Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.24
[49] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.110
[50] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.59
[51] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.59
[52] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.208
[53] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.43
[54] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.208
In all of this, there is an urgent need to support, affirm, encourage and train all those involved in working with children in our churches.
Sunday School teachers / Children’s Workers
The largest area of concern must be for our Sunday School teachers and children’s workers. They are a great resource. They are highly motivated and committed. And yet for too long in many of our churches they have been neglected. We urgently need to give them the support and affirmation, the budget, and the training that they need.
Many of our workers would welcome the opportunity to share resources, to find out what other churches do and what works well for them, to get fresh ideas and creative prayer ideas, to refresh their skills. Perhaps we just need to put on a series of events like that with the main aim of affirming what they do.
Some have asked, too, for some more specific training. How can we understand what faith means for children, and how faith develops in children? How can we get to grips with the needs of modern children who live in a very different world from previous generations? How can we disciple our children? How do we provide pastoral support to children?
Church
It’s not just the children’s workers, though, who need that sort of training. Our church congregations, too, need a better understanding of how children can fit into church family as equal members. How to integrate children and church, and what are the practical implications of that.
I suspect that the attitude of our church members towards children is the single main issue we need to address if we are to effectively reach and keep children in our churches: “In a time of rapid cultural change, older Christians must be prepared for the fact that ways of expressing Christian thought and feeling which they have found meaningful and satisfactory may not be equally meaningful and satisfactory to their children.”[1]
So, the question is not only (perhaps not even), “‘How shall we prepare our young people for Church?” [We must] take with the greatest possible seriousness the question, ‘How shall we prepare the Church for our young people?’”[2]
Ministers and Church Leaders
Our ministers and church leaders need to be challenged, and reminded, that children are enormously significant both in the biblical narratives and in God¹s purposes. A brief survey of the way children were included in the worshipping communities of the Old and New Testaments challenges all of us to rethink the place of children in the activities of God’s people today. “Children are not the church of tomorrow; they are the church of today without whom there will be no church of tomorrow.”[3] Similarly, an examination of the emphasis on children’s ministry by many major figures through church history must challenge our ministers, in particular, to rethink their priorities, and their involvement with children’s ministry in their own context. At the very least, we must be encouraging our church leaders to ask whether their “church budget for children’s ministry expenses include leadership training and adequate materials and resources?”[4]
Passing on the faith to our children is one of the primary activities of any faith community. But I think it needs to be given a much higher profile, again, in the Christian church. And whether or not it is a minister’s specific gifting, it is certainly his or her responsibility to ensure it is happening effectively.
There has been an adult bias in every aspect of Christian thinking for the last 2000 years, and “a lack of training has resulted in poor practice at church level and an inadequate knowledge on the part of church leaders as to the needs of those working with children.”[5] Perhaps there needs to be at least a module on ‘connecting the Christian Faith with Children’ included in the ministerial courses offered at our Baptist colleges, because our churches are all built around the needs and desires of adults, and children have been shockingly marginalised in mainstream Christian theology.
Parents
Perhaps we also need to try to shift the emphasis away from Sunday morning worship being the main focus of Christian activity. In the faith communities of the OT and NT, the main focus of the faith was the household. And there are a number of people arguing that we need to recapture that in today’s church.
“Judaism … is a faith in which family and children play a central part.”[6] The home is “regarded as the focus of religious activity”[7] and “the family plays a role, not only as the basic unit of social life, but also as the primary milieu of ritual expression.”[8] A significant number of the Jewish festivals “were home-based and often involved the participation of children.”[9] “The covenant community was striking for its lack of separate institutions for the education of children.”[10] Rather, “responsibility for the education of children into the covenant community rested with the parents,”[11] “and not with the worshipping community, although the festivals and cycle of the year helped them in their task.”[12] The early Christians, too, regarded the home as “the principal area of Christian nurture and instruction.”[13] And modern Judaism still “places a high priority on family life.”[14]
There is a need to recapture the historical Christian notion that “parenting is a serious calling and a significant spiritual discipline”[15]:
· Chrysostom considered parents to be “‘artists’ who sculpt statues with great precision … helping to restore the image of God in their offspring.”[16] He described parents as “teachers of their children, ”[17] and the family as “a ‘little church’ or a ‘sacred community”[18] wherein “adults and children rehearse for membership in the kingdom of heaven.”[19] He spoke of the obligations of parents to their children, such as “reading the Bible … praying with them, and being good examples.”[20] Chrysostom considered that “in the churches far too little discussion is given over to the vocation of parenthood.”[21] And he claimed that “when and wherever there is a crisis of childhood there is also bound to be a crisis of parenthood.”[22]
· Luther exhorted parents to “baptise their children, expose them to the Word and the sacraments … teach them about the faith, provide them with a good education.”[23] He claimed that “father and mother are apostles, bishops, and priests to their children, for it is they who make them acquainted with the Gospel.”[24]
· Calvin frequently makes the point that “the primary obligation of parents … is to teach godliness … all parents have the duty of communicating what they have learned from the Lord to their children.”[25]
· Menno Simons made the “careful, intentional, aggressive, and vigilant nurturing of children in [the] Christian faith”[26] absolutely imperative, and gave the primary responsibility for such nurturance to the children’s parents. “Christian parents are to be ‘as sharp, pungent salt, a shining light, an unblamable, faithful teacher, each in his own home’.”[27] Anabaptist children were “urged to love one another, bear with one another, do honourable work, not be prideful, flee from evil, fear God, and follow the example set by Christ. Making lifelong commitments of discipleship rather than momentary decisions for personal salvation is what was essential … [and baptism] was construed as a beginning, not an end.”[28]
· In the early 18th century, Franke claimed that “true piety is fostered in children … by reading the Bible and exposing them to the Word through the teachings and practices of the church (learning the catechism, singing hymns, praying, and worshipping),”[29] and he encouraged “parents … to begin this approach right away with young children in the home by reading and discussing the Bible, teaching Luther’s catechism, praying at mealtimes, beginning and ending the day … with a prayer and a hymn, worshipping together, and preparing for worship on Saturday by reading the text for Sunday’s sermon.”[30] He also encouraged families “to read through the whole Bible every two years and Luther’s catechism every four weeks.”[31]
· Most church leaders in Wesley’s day, too, believed that “religious education did play an important role in the training of children, and that parents were important in the process.”[32]
· Jonathan Edwards “was a loving parent who took pains to raise his own children as faithful Christians. … he prayed with them, quizzed them on the Bible and the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and discouraged ‘frolicking’.”[33] He urged the parents in his congregations to do the same, to “lead family prayers every day, and serve as examples of Christian virtue.”[34] He urged them to be “as Carefull About the welfare of [children’s] souls as you are about their bodies.”[35]
· Friedrich Schleiermacher considered the Christian home to be the “first and irreplaceable school of faith, ”[36] “a center of worship and Bible study in which children could … experience the full range of Christian religious affections and come to a living faith in God.”[37] He argued that it was only after such initial nurture that the clergy were able to “properly train young people to think about their faith in doctrinal terms.”[38]
· Horace Bushnell claimed that “the ‘atmosphere’ of a Christian home – the ‘manners, personal views, prejudices, practical motives, and spirit of the house’ – played a determinative role in the child’s religious formation.”[39] He warned parents about “the dangers of ‘ostrich nurture,’ of allowing to forge his or her own way to heaven, ”[40] because, for Bushnell, the family rather than the church was the “primary agent of grace … [and] Christian nurture took its deepest root in the daily routines of family life … as the child absorbed the Christian atmosphere of the home and observed the tender, upright example of Christian parents.”[41]
· Karl Barth gave parents guidelines about their “ambassadorial function … to attest to their children a divine promise,”[42] and to “communicate to children that their lives ‘are under the guardianship and guidance of the One who really undertakes for them.”[43]
· Many contemporary feminist theologians state that “to learn to nurture through the act of parenting is to acquire an essential human virtue and even to perfect one’s own life of faith in Christ. To care for all children, and not simply one’s own child, … becomes key to the good Christian life.”[44] Further, “parenthood is a vocation for both women and men, not an avocation or a pastime.”[45]
However, many people in the church today believe that it is the “programs offered in their congregations [that] provide the primary place for the faith formation of children, and congregational leaders themselves have erred in allowing the focus of faith development to shift away from the family and to become centred in the congregation.”[46]
“Since the biblical model is for children to receive spiritual nurture first and foremost from their prime care givers in their own homes, there is a need for churches today to help and resource Christian parents to carry out their role.”[47] It seems obvious that “the best vehicles for the transmission of faith to children are family rituals, family service projects, and meaningful conversations with children in the home.”[48] So Dallow suggests that all Christian families should, “tell and retell Bible stories and share stories of faith experience; celebrate faith in everyday life; pray together; listen and talk to each other; [and] be involved in acts of service and witness together.”[49]
Others argue that “parents … should work as God works, bringing up children in the ‘nurture and admonition of the Lord’ (Ephesians 6.4) through appropriate caring and nurturing relationships in the discipline of the family.”[50] Such nurture will be primarily “non-verbal, implicit … passing on the Christian character and spirit through living together and parenting.”[51]
Sarah Johnson’s book, Daring to be Different: Being a Faith Family in a Secular World (2004, Darton, Longman & Todd) offers encouragement, practical advice, and suggestions for lively ways to build faith into daily family life.
But if this shift is to take place, the Christian family will need the help “of a supportive, serious, nurturing congregation to offer three things: a wider perspective, a less fraught and forced set of relationships (sometimes), and a Christian context that is more explicitly related to the Jesus story.”[52] Our churches need to be giving “greater attention to parent education, including the psychology of children and the practice of Christian education in the home,”[53] and in this way we can complement and complete “the Christian nurture started in the home, taking the child on to new explorations of discipleship.”[54]
[1] Understanding Christian Nurture (1981, a report of the Consultative Group on Ministry among Children, British Council of Churches), quoted by Sutcliffe (ed.), Tuesday’s Child (2001, Christian Education Publications), p.158
[2] Unfinished Business (1994, CCBI Publications), quoted by Sutcliffe (ed.), Tuesday’s Child (2001, Christian Education Publications), p.206
[3] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.87
[4] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.1450
[5] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.8
[6] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.3
[7] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.3
[8] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.3
[9] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.3
[10] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.28
[11] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.29
[12] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.30
[13] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.13
[14] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.3
[15] Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.20
[16] Chrysostom, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[17] Chrysostom, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[18] Chrysostom, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[19] Guroian, ‘The Ecclesial Family: John Chrysostom on Parenthood and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.62
[20] Chrysostom, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[21] Guroian, ‘The Ecclesial Family: John Chrysostom on Parenthood and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.62
[22] Guroian, ‘The Ecclesial Family: John Chrysostom on Parenthood and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.63
[23] Luther, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[24] Luther, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.21
[25] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.171
[26] Miller, ‘Complex Innncence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.207
[27] Miller, ‘Complex Innncence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.211
[28] Miller, ‘Complex Innncence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.210
[29] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.264
[30] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.264
[31] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.264
[32] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.280
[33] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.311
[34] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.321
[35] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.321
[36] Schleiermacher, cited by Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.22
[37] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.333
[38] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.333
[39] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.354
[40] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.362
[41] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.356
[42] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.398
[43] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.399
[44] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.464
[45] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.470
[46] Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.24
[47] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.107
[48] Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.24
[49] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.110
[50] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.59
[51] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.59
[52] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.208
[53] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.43
[54] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.208
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Connecting the Christian faith with Children - section nine - part six (communion)
Communion
And, I suggest, nowhere is this more important than when it comes to communion.
Only 32% (7/22) of our churches allow children to participate in communion. 14% (3/22) allow children to be present, but offer them only a blessing or perhaps juice and a biscuit. Which means that 54% of our churches simply do not allow children to be present at communion.
In the Old Testament, “Exodus 16 … the feeding by God of the people in the wilderness … is not communion but it is for all of them, serving the needs of their hunger and the avoidance of the influence of Egypt. God did not pick which members of the community were to receive this food, it was for all.”[1]
The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle recorded by all four Gospels, and “some argue that in John’s Gospel [especially] the story … was a sacramental meal. The language is Eucharistic, and it is carefully located in time as ‘near to Passover’. If they are right then it needs to be noted that it was a boy who offered the bread (and fish) that Christ was to bless, break and distribute.”[2] “It took a small boy to be found and to be prepared to share his small resources with so many.”[3]
For the first Christians, the journey of faith “included everybody; children were present in the earliest Christian communities and were initiated into the faith along with adults. … although there is no explicit mention of children sharing the Eucharist in the New Testament … the Jewish Passover tradition, which would have had a strong influence on Eucharistic sharing, gave children a central role in the ritual. Children were given a place of honour at the Passover meal and often led adults in reliving the Passover experience … By implication, therefore, children were indeed receiving communion from the earliest times of our faith, sharing the worship with adults … Likewise, there is no explicit reference in the post-apostolic era to suggest that children receiving communion was abnormal or problematic.”[4]
Thus, “the only criteria for being fed the Bread of Life are: to come and believe. Children do that just as adults do. In fact, like the boy with the loaves and fishes, they are more likely to be willing and able than many of us will ever be.”[5]
In fact it was not until the 19th Century, and the emphasis brought by the Reformation, that children began to be discouraged from taking communion. “For valuable reasons instruction and understanding were given high priority, but this brought the receiving of communion much more into the adults-only world.”[6]
However, in the modern age, those churches that practise infant baptism believe that such baptism marks a person’s entry into the Church, and there is a growing movement in all these church traditions which argues that, as full members of the church, children must not be rejected from the sacrament. In support of this, “the report of a World Council of Churches consultation, And do not hinder them …, strongly supported the case for children being active participants in the Eucharist.”[7]
“In the Orthodox churches of the East … infant communion is the norm, immediately following baptism. In the East the right and need of children to receive communion remains unquestioned, and they communicate frequently, like the adults, and on equal terms with them.”[8]
In the Roman Catholic Church, “children are admitted to first communion, often in special services, around the age of seven.”[9]
“In 1987 the Methodist Conference in England approved … guidelines which found no inconsistency between admitting children to communion and Wesley’s own practice and teaching … [The] approach of Methodists is that … [children] should be invited to share in the Lord’s Supper if they desire it.”[10]
The Anglican position is varied, but generally moving toward an awareness of the important of admitting children to communion. In the regulations of the General Synod (GS 1696A: Admission of Baptised Children to Holy Communion Regulations 2006) it is stated that where a child has been admitted to Holy Communion (in one church or parish), they shall continue to be “so admitted at any service of Holy Communion … in any place, regardless of whether or not [their new parish has a policy of admitting children to communion].”[11] In other words, once a child has been allowed to receive bread and wine in one place, no other church or minister has the right to refuse them access to the sacrament!
It is only the Baptists who “maintain the … conviction that communion is linked to baptism which follows a mature declaration of faith and commitment.”[12] Clearly, it is our Baptist ecclesiology, which reserves baptism and church membership for those we consider ‘old enough to make up their own minds’, which is, in fact, one of the factors in the marginalisation of children in many of our churches!
One objection, of course, is that “children shouldn’t receive communion because they don’t understand it.”[13] But then not many adults “fully understand … very often … that God’s love is so graciously poured out for me. There’s an element of mystery.”[14] And one author points out “how anomalous it is to insist that children acquire intellectual knowledge of a sacramental act before they are allowed to participate … Sacramental actions work directly on our emotions and imagination; the intellect is only a supplement, important in its turn for full integration of the experience, but secondary in its contribution to our understanding.”[15] Or, as one church leader has remarked: “When people say of children, ‘Will they understand? Will they behave?’ I reply, ‘When you went forward to receive communion on Sunday, did you understand? What were you thinking? Did you feel you were worthy because of your ability to articulate this deep mystery?’”[16]
What we do in church is, most of the time, an entirely “cerebral affair. It’s all words … there’s not a lot of time for silence, there’s not a lot of time for symbolism.”[17] But our children “understand symbols, they understand things they can see and touch … [And] communion is about seeing, touching, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. That’s … very culturally relevant.”[18] So, “if the primary aim of the Church’s ministry among children is their spiritual development, it is impossible to segregate them from the primary sacramental source of spiritual development for Christians.”[19] It is true, then, that “the Church that does not accept children unconditionally in its fellowship is depriving those children of what is rightfully theirs, but the deprivation such as the Church itself will suffer is far more grave.”[20]
And this is the same issue as above. If we want to connect our children with the Christian faith, we can’t afford to separate them from it and teach them about it; we have to allow them to participate in it. “Communion [is] very much … the nourishing meal of the whole body of Christ and to exclude one part because of their age is wrong.”[21] “You cannot [say], ‘Yes, we welcome you to new life in Christ … but, no, we don’t trust you with the bread of life.’”[22]
As a post-script, Wolff-Pritchard notes that “children who have been fed at the Lord’s table since earliest infancy are like children who have had plenty of hugs and kisses – they hardly need to be taught about God’s love in bread and wine, because they already know all about it; they feel it in their bones.”[23]
[1] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.21
[2] White, Continuing the Search (www.childtheology.org)
[3] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.21
[4] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.4
[5] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.22
[6] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.6
[7] Sutcliffe (ed.), Tuesday’s Child (2001, Christian Education Publications), p.127
[8] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.5
[9] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.56
[10] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.56
[11] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), pp.142-143
[12] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.57
[13] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.79
[14] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.79
[15] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.160
[16] Margaret Withers, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.98
[17] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.84
[18] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.84
[19] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.54
[20] The Child in the Church (1976, British Council of Churches), quoted by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.14
[21] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.78
[22] Bishop David Stancliffe, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.69
[23] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.162
And, I suggest, nowhere is this more important than when it comes to communion.
Only 32% (7/22) of our churches allow children to participate in communion. 14% (3/22) allow children to be present, but offer them only a blessing or perhaps juice and a biscuit. Which means that 54% of our churches simply do not allow children to be present at communion.
In the Old Testament, “Exodus 16 … the feeding by God of the people in the wilderness … is not communion but it is for all of them, serving the needs of their hunger and the avoidance of the influence of Egypt. God did not pick which members of the community were to receive this food, it was for all.”[1]
The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle recorded by all four Gospels, and “some argue that in John’s Gospel [especially] the story … was a sacramental meal. The language is Eucharistic, and it is carefully located in time as ‘near to Passover’. If they are right then it needs to be noted that it was a boy who offered the bread (and fish) that Christ was to bless, break and distribute.”[2] “It took a small boy to be found and to be prepared to share his small resources with so many.”[3]
For the first Christians, the journey of faith “included everybody; children were present in the earliest Christian communities and were initiated into the faith along with adults. … although there is no explicit mention of children sharing the Eucharist in the New Testament … the Jewish Passover tradition, which would have had a strong influence on Eucharistic sharing, gave children a central role in the ritual. Children were given a place of honour at the Passover meal and often led adults in reliving the Passover experience … By implication, therefore, children were indeed receiving communion from the earliest times of our faith, sharing the worship with adults … Likewise, there is no explicit reference in the post-apostolic era to suggest that children receiving communion was abnormal or problematic.”[4]
Thus, “the only criteria for being fed the Bread of Life are: to come and believe. Children do that just as adults do. In fact, like the boy with the loaves and fishes, they are more likely to be willing and able than many of us will ever be.”[5]
In fact it was not until the 19th Century, and the emphasis brought by the Reformation, that children began to be discouraged from taking communion. “For valuable reasons instruction and understanding were given high priority, but this brought the receiving of communion much more into the adults-only world.”[6]
However, in the modern age, those churches that practise infant baptism believe that such baptism marks a person’s entry into the Church, and there is a growing movement in all these church traditions which argues that, as full members of the church, children must not be rejected from the sacrament. In support of this, “the report of a World Council of Churches consultation, And do not hinder them …, strongly supported the case for children being active participants in the Eucharist.”[7]
“In the Orthodox churches of the East … infant communion is the norm, immediately following baptism. In the East the right and need of children to receive communion remains unquestioned, and they communicate frequently, like the adults, and on equal terms with them.”[8]
In the Roman Catholic Church, “children are admitted to first communion, often in special services, around the age of seven.”[9]
“In 1987 the Methodist Conference in England approved … guidelines which found no inconsistency between admitting children to communion and Wesley’s own practice and teaching … [The] approach of Methodists is that … [children] should be invited to share in the Lord’s Supper if they desire it.”[10]
The Anglican position is varied, but generally moving toward an awareness of the important of admitting children to communion. In the regulations of the General Synod (GS 1696A: Admission of Baptised Children to Holy Communion Regulations 2006) it is stated that where a child has been admitted to Holy Communion (in one church or parish), they shall continue to be “so admitted at any service of Holy Communion … in any place, regardless of whether or not [their new parish has a policy of admitting children to communion].”[11] In other words, once a child has been allowed to receive bread and wine in one place, no other church or minister has the right to refuse them access to the sacrament!
It is only the Baptists who “maintain the … conviction that communion is linked to baptism which follows a mature declaration of faith and commitment.”[12] Clearly, it is our Baptist ecclesiology, which reserves baptism and church membership for those we consider ‘old enough to make up their own minds’, which is, in fact, one of the factors in the marginalisation of children in many of our churches!
One objection, of course, is that “children shouldn’t receive communion because they don’t understand it.”[13] But then not many adults “fully understand … very often … that God’s love is so graciously poured out for me. There’s an element of mystery.”[14] And one author points out “how anomalous it is to insist that children acquire intellectual knowledge of a sacramental act before they are allowed to participate … Sacramental actions work directly on our emotions and imagination; the intellect is only a supplement, important in its turn for full integration of the experience, but secondary in its contribution to our understanding.”[15] Or, as one church leader has remarked: “When people say of children, ‘Will they understand? Will they behave?’ I reply, ‘When you went forward to receive communion on Sunday, did you understand? What were you thinking? Did you feel you were worthy because of your ability to articulate this deep mystery?’”[16]
What we do in church is, most of the time, an entirely “cerebral affair. It’s all words … there’s not a lot of time for silence, there’s not a lot of time for symbolism.”[17] But our children “understand symbols, they understand things they can see and touch … [And] communion is about seeing, touching, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. That’s … very culturally relevant.”[18] So, “if the primary aim of the Church’s ministry among children is their spiritual development, it is impossible to segregate them from the primary sacramental source of spiritual development for Christians.”[19] It is true, then, that “the Church that does not accept children unconditionally in its fellowship is depriving those children of what is rightfully theirs, but the deprivation such as the Church itself will suffer is far more grave.”[20]
And this is the same issue as above. If we want to connect our children with the Christian faith, we can’t afford to separate them from it and teach them about it; we have to allow them to participate in it. “Communion [is] very much … the nourishing meal of the whole body of Christ and to exclude one part because of their age is wrong.”[21] “You cannot [say], ‘Yes, we welcome you to new life in Christ … but, no, we don’t trust you with the bread of life.’”[22]
As a post-script, Wolff-Pritchard notes that “children who have been fed at the Lord’s table since earliest infancy are like children who have had plenty of hugs and kisses – they hardly need to be taught about God’s love in bread and wine, because they already know all about it; they feel it in their bones.”[23]
[1] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.21
[2] White, Continuing the Search (www.childtheology.org)
[3] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.21
[4] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.4
[5] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.22
[6] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.6
[7] Sutcliffe (ed.), Tuesday’s Child (2001, Christian Education Publications), p.127
[8] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.5
[9] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.56
[10] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.56
[11] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), pp.142-143
[12] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.57
[13] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.79
[14] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.79
[15] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.160
[16] Margaret Withers, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.98
[17] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.84
[18] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.84
[19] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.54
[20] The Child in the Church (1976, British Council of Churches), quoted by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.14
[21] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.78
[22] Bishop David Stancliffe, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.69
[23] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.162
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Connecting the Christian faith with Children - section nine - part six (content)
- What are we Doing?
Instruction
In every single church, instruction takes the largest proportion of time in the children’s activities. There is a lot of truth in the statement that “adults come to church on Sunday in order to worship; children come to Sunday school in order to acquire information.”[1]
But we carve up the Bible into ‘Bible stories’ so that “few children even suspect that the story of God’s people – our story – is not a collection of object lessons or heartwarming anecdotes, but a long story of unbearable loss – and unbearable hope.”[2] We “violate the story … by telling it in snippets, out of order, and treating it chiefly as a source of themes and moral maxims.”[3]
Further, studies of so-called ‘Children’s Bibles’ and Sunday School materials “reveal a substantial problem. They reflect prevailing fashions and worldviews, and an adult gate keeping or selection of what is felt to be suitable for children. One myth is that adults understand the whole Bible whereas children can only understand certain adult-selected parts! … We have sold children short.”[4] Or, as Wolff-Pritchard puts it, “in the midst of a culture bloated on junk food, the church has offered its children only crumbs.”[5]
Nick Harding, children’s officer for the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, has made a similar point in his plea that we “don’t sanitise the Bible stories.” He has written a Grove Booklet – shortly to be published – titled ‘Working with Boys’, but which began with the provisional title, ‘Using the Bible in all its Gory”![6] So often we revert to the use of sanitised children’s Bibles, or carefully selected and dumbed down version of the stories.
Dallow, too, challenges us to move beyond just Bible teaching. She says that “telling stories and teaching about their meaning is not enough. Children need to encounter the stories of the Bible as part of their exploration of who God is and how the Christian faith affects life-skills and experience.”[7] Elsewhere she writes: “the church has largely denied children the opportunity to grow in their discipleship, being more concerned with the words of Jesus … than the works of Jesus … children’s ministry [has generally been] a matter of ‘teaching the Bible’ to children, and ‘telling them to be good’. In itself, there is nothing wrong with this, but it is a cerebral, lifeless Christianity.”[8]
Craft
The next highest proportion of time in our churches’ children’s activities is given over to the craft activity. However, Nick Harding has challenged the fact that we do craft in Sunday School at all. He argues that the time would be spent far more constructively doing something else – worship or prayer, perhaps. And Nick said he thinks we do craft so the children can prove to their parents that they haven’t been wasting their time (or so they have something to show to the rest of the church when they come back in).
Worship and Prayer
Worship and prayer play virtually no part in what goes on in our Sunday Schools and children’s groups. In some churches, even less time is given to these elements than the time taken to register the children.
And this is absolutely crucial. “Christian education is no substitute for real, living membership in the community of faith. [But] the church has continued to segregate children from the worshipping community where its own life is most richly lived.”[1]
Our “children will learn to pray more readily the more they are exposed to worship both in the home and at church.”[2] Their prayer life will expand and grow “through inclusion in experiences of faith events, in family, church and community. … seeing and hearing adults at prayer both in the home and at church can be an important nurturing factor in the process of a child’s journey in prayer.”[3] “Children need to see [their] leaders engaging with God in prayer.”[4]
Franke, in the 18th century, placed “great emphasis on praying with and for children. He [encouraged] parents to let children pray in their own words, beginning when they are very young,”[5] and claimed that “it is important for everyone who has contact with children to pray for them.”[6]
Of course, “children do not think in the same way as adults and … their thinking about prayer will change and develop radically during the early years of life.”[7] Children “will pray according to their stage of spiritual development and will not suddenly become adult in their behaviour or understanding.”[8] Of course there will be a huge difference between our children’s prayers and ours, but “they can help us open ourselves to God in a fresh way by reaching a depth of relationship with God far beyond anything we can offer.”[9]
So, Adults must “provide the support and model for children’s own praying, but cannot pray for them.”[10] “Teaching young people to pray may … have significant consequences for their developing lives.”[11] But our main concern “must be to help children pray their own prayers rather than teaching them prayers.”[12]
It has been suggested that “the spirituality of most adult Christians leaves our children without role models.”[13] And there is some significant truth in that suggestion. How can we connect the Christian faith with our children if we are not worshipping and praying with them? If we are not showing and teaching them, by our example, how to worship and pray, how are they ever going to learn? If we want to connect the Christian faith with our children we need to be showing them how to live it, not just teaching them about it.
[1] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.141
[2] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.141
[3] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.141
[4] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.145
[5] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.269
[6] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.269
[7] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.107
[8] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.141
[9] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.143
[10] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.141
[11] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.107
[12] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.143
[13] Andy Goodliffe’s Blog, 16/06/2006 (http://andygoodliff.typepad.com/)
[1] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.140-141
[2] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.4
[3] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.44
[4] White, Continuing the Search (www.childtheology.org)
[5] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.68
[6] from a meeting with Nick Harding, 31/1/07
[7] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.131
[8] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), pp.124-125
Instruction
In every single church, instruction takes the largest proportion of time in the children’s activities. There is a lot of truth in the statement that “adults come to church on Sunday in order to worship; children come to Sunday school in order to acquire information.”[1]
But we carve up the Bible into ‘Bible stories’ so that “few children even suspect that the story of God’s people – our story – is not a collection of object lessons or heartwarming anecdotes, but a long story of unbearable loss – and unbearable hope.”[2] We “violate the story … by telling it in snippets, out of order, and treating it chiefly as a source of themes and moral maxims.”[3]
Further, studies of so-called ‘Children’s Bibles’ and Sunday School materials “reveal a substantial problem. They reflect prevailing fashions and worldviews, and an adult gate keeping or selection of what is felt to be suitable for children. One myth is that adults understand the whole Bible whereas children can only understand certain adult-selected parts! … We have sold children short.”[4] Or, as Wolff-Pritchard puts it, “in the midst of a culture bloated on junk food, the church has offered its children only crumbs.”[5]
Nick Harding, children’s officer for the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, has made a similar point in his plea that we “don’t sanitise the Bible stories.” He has written a Grove Booklet – shortly to be published – titled ‘Working with Boys’, but which began with the provisional title, ‘Using the Bible in all its Gory”![6] So often we revert to the use of sanitised children’s Bibles, or carefully selected and dumbed down version of the stories.
Dallow, too, challenges us to move beyond just Bible teaching. She says that “telling stories and teaching about their meaning is not enough. Children need to encounter the stories of the Bible as part of their exploration of who God is and how the Christian faith affects life-skills and experience.”[7] Elsewhere she writes: “the church has largely denied children the opportunity to grow in their discipleship, being more concerned with the words of Jesus … than the works of Jesus … children’s ministry [has generally been] a matter of ‘teaching the Bible’ to children, and ‘telling them to be good’. In itself, there is nothing wrong with this, but it is a cerebral, lifeless Christianity.”[8]
Craft
The next highest proportion of time in our churches’ children’s activities is given over to the craft activity. However, Nick Harding has challenged the fact that we do craft in Sunday School at all. He argues that the time would be spent far more constructively doing something else – worship or prayer, perhaps. And Nick said he thinks we do craft so the children can prove to their parents that they haven’t been wasting their time (or so they have something to show to the rest of the church when they come back in).
Worship and Prayer
Worship and prayer play virtually no part in what goes on in our Sunday Schools and children’s groups. In some churches, even less time is given to these elements than the time taken to register the children.
And this is absolutely crucial. “Christian education is no substitute for real, living membership in the community of faith. [But] the church has continued to segregate children from the worshipping community where its own life is most richly lived.”[1]
Our “children will learn to pray more readily the more they are exposed to worship both in the home and at church.”[2] Their prayer life will expand and grow “through inclusion in experiences of faith events, in family, church and community. … seeing and hearing adults at prayer both in the home and at church can be an important nurturing factor in the process of a child’s journey in prayer.”[3] “Children need to see [their] leaders engaging with God in prayer.”[4]
Franke, in the 18th century, placed “great emphasis on praying with and for children. He [encouraged] parents to let children pray in their own words, beginning when they are very young,”[5] and claimed that “it is important for everyone who has contact with children to pray for them.”[6]
Of course, “children do not think in the same way as adults and … their thinking about prayer will change and develop radically during the early years of life.”[7] Children “will pray according to their stage of spiritual development and will not suddenly become adult in their behaviour or understanding.”[8] Of course there will be a huge difference between our children’s prayers and ours, but “they can help us open ourselves to God in a fresh way by reaching a depth of relationship with God far beyond anything we can offer.”[9]
So, Adults must “provide the support and model for children’s own praying, but cannot pray for them.”[10] “Teaching young people to pray may … have significant consequences for their developing lives.”[11] But our main concern “must be to help children pray their own prayers rather than teaching them prayers.”[12]
It has been suggested that “the spirituality of most adult Christians leaves our children without role models.”[13] And there is some significant truth in that suggestion. How can we connect the Christian faith with our children if we are not worshipping and praying with them? If we are not showing and teaching them, by our example, how to worship and pray, how are they ever going to learn? If we want to connect the Christian faith with our children we need to be showing them how to live it, not just teaching them about it.
[1] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.141
[2] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.141
[3] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.141
[4] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.145
[5] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.269
[6] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.269
[7] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.107
[8] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.141
[9] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.143
[10] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.141
[11] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.107
[12] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.143
[13] Andy Goodliffe’s Blog, 16/06/2006 (http://andygoodliff.typepad.com/)
[1] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.140-141
[2] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.4
[3] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.44
[4] White, Continuing the Search (www.childtheology.org)
[5] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.68
[6] from a meeting with Nick Harding, 31/1/07
[7] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.131
[8] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), pp.124-125
Connecting the Christian faith with Children - section nine - part five (children's workers)
- How Affirmed are the Workers?
Our children’s workers are overwhelmingly female (many of our Sunday Schools are desperate for men to help and to teach; and, also, the children need Christian male role-models). The vast majority of our children’s workers are the mums of the children in the groups (who know that if they don’t go out with their children no one else is going to do it). I wonder what that says to the children (and to the mums) about the value we place on them?
Very few of our children’s workers have had any training. Some of them admitted that they are not even up to date with child protection stuff. And our churches are relying heavily on the teachers on our congregations. Where teachers have had training, they have generally sought it (and, paid for it?) themselves. There is no evidence that churches are saying to their workers, ‘Here’s a course you might find beneficial, we’d like you to go on it, we’ll pay for it, we’ll pay your travel expenses and we’ll sort out your childcare.
Only 3 churches said they had enough children’s workers, everyone else is constantly trying to recruit. And virtually all churches are finding it incredibly difficult to persuade members to take on any responsibility for the children.
Only 9 of the churches are able to offer their children’s workers a rota system, so the majority of the workers are out with the children week in week out, with no opportunity for their own spiritual input unless they get the tapes or attend the evening service (difficult for busy mums).
Only 4 churches annually ‘commission’ their children’s workers. Many churches don’t even pray for them regularly or routinely. Some pray for the children and the workers before they go to their classes on a Sunday morning, but one respondent made the entirely valid point that any children’s work beyond a Sunday morning is hardly ever prayed for in services.
Perhaps as a result of all that the vast majority of our children’s workers feel unaffirmed, unappreciated and unacknowledged. They feel that the rest of the church are just glad they don’t have to go out with the children. They feel ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Other members of the church make them feel that their work is of limited value. They feel like a child-minding service, ‘out on a limb’. (Those are all phrases and words that children’s workers wrote on their version of the form.)
Our children’s workers are overwhelmingly female (many of our Sunday Schools are desperate for men to help and to teach; and, also, the children need Christian male role-models). The vast majority of our children’s workers are the mums of the children in the groups (who know that if they don’t go out with their children no one else is going to do it). I wonder what that says to the children (and to the mums) about the value we place on them?
Very few of our children’s workers have had any training. Some of them admitted that they are not even up to date with child protection stuff. And our churches are relying heavily on the teachers on our congregations. Where teachers have had training, they have generally sought it (and, paid for it?) themselves. There is no evidence that churches are saying to their workers, ‘Here’s a course you might find beneficial, we’d like you to go on it, we’ll pay for it, we’ll pay your travel expenses and we’ll sort out your childcare.
Only 3 churches said they had enough children’s workers, everyone else is constantly trying to recruit. And virtually all churches are finding it incredibly difficult to persuade members to take on any responsibility for the children.
Only 9 of the churches are able to offer their children’s workers a rota system, so the majority of the workers are out with the children week in week out, with no opportunity for their own spiritual input unless they get the tapes or attend the evening service (difficult for busy mums).
Only 4 churches annually ‘commission’ their children’s workers. Many churches don’t even pray for them regularly or routinely. Some pray for the children and the workers before they go to their classes on a Sunday morning, but one respondent made the entirely valid point that any children’s work beyond a Sunday morning is hardly ever prayed for in services.
Perhaps as a result of all that the vast majority of our children’s workers feel unaffirmed, unappreciated and unacknowledged. They feel that the rest of the church are just glad they don’t have to go out with the children. They feel ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Other members of the church make them feel that their work is of limited value. They feel like a child-minding service, ‘out on a limb’. (Those are all phrases and words that children’s workers wrote on their version of the form.)
Connecting the Christian faith with Children - section nine - part four (ministry)
- Where’s the Minister?
Many of our ministers have little or no input into the planning of the children's work in their churches. Most never attend the children's groups, and they certainly never teach the children themselves.
Both the minister and the main children's worker were asked to fill in a version of the survey form. And where they did that, it was telling to note how many of their answers disagreed or even conflicted. Some of the ministers couldn't even tell me how many children's workers there are in their church (or they got the number wrong)!
It seems fair, then, to draw the conclusion that many of our ministers have, and show, very little interest in what goes on in Sunday School or their other children's groups. (Some have said to me that it is not their 'gifting'. To which I want to respond: 'What's your gifting got to do with it? Surely you have a responsibility ...?')
As we have read, many of the great figures of the Christian faith made the teaching of children a personal priority (see the excellent set of essays in 'The Child in Christian Thought' edited by Marcia J. Bunge). Charles Spurgeon once said (something like) he would rather have the letters SST (for Sunday School Teacher) after his name than a Ph.D. They all knew the importance of working with children.
Ishmael, speaking at Spring Harvest 2007, talked about how most children's workers are gifted pastorally, and that our children have a desperate need for gifted Bible teachers. So where are the ministers? How can we give children's ministry the same value and recognition as the other ministries in our churches? When will we realise that the children are just as (if not more!) important than the adults? They are the church of today without whom there will be no church of tomorrow!
Many of our ministers have little or no input into the planning of the children's work in their churches. Most never attend the children's groups, and they certainly never teach the children themselves.
Both the minister and the main children's worker were asked to fill in a version of the survey form. And where they did that, it was telling to note how many of their answers disagreed or even conflicted. Some of the ministers couldn't even tell me how many children's workers there are in their church (or they got the number wrong)!
It seems fair, then, to draw the conclusion that many of our ministers have, and show, very little interest in what goes on in Sunday School or their other children's groups. (Some have said to me that it is not their 'gifting'. To which I want to respond: 'What's your gifting got to do with it? Surely you have a responsibility ...?')
As we have read, many of the great figures of the Christian faith made the teaching of children a personal priority (see the excellent set of essays in 'The Child in Christian Thought' edited by Marcia J. Bunge). Charles Spurgeon once said (something like) he would rather have the letters SST (for Sunday School Teacher) after his name than a Ph.D. They all knew the importance of working with children.
Ishmael, speaking at Spring Harvest 2007, talked about how most children's workers are gifted pastorally, and that our children have a desperate need for gifted Bible teachers. So where are the ministers? How can we give children's ministry the same value and recognition as the other ministries in our churches? When will we realise that the children are just as (if not more!) important than the adults? They are the church of today without whom there will be no church of tomorrow!
Connecting the Christian Faith with Children - section nine - part three (budget)
- What’s the Budget?
Very few churches have a specific or realistic budget for their children's work. And, as we know, the budget of any organisation effectively reflects where its priorities lie!The only churches with any sort of realistic budget were those who employ a youth or children's worker, and then they have to factor in salaries, etc. Most of the rest said that if the children's workers have a bill that needs to be paid, or materials need to be bought for the Sunday School, then the church will pay the bill. But telling your workers to come cap-in-hand to ask for money is a very different sort of relationship than giving them an amount of money at the beginning of the year to be spent on the children! I think we need to do some work here!
Very few churches have a specific or realistic budget for their children's work. And, as we know, the budget of any organisation effectively reflects where its priorities lie!The only churches with any sort of realistic budget were those who employ a youth or children's worker, and then they have to factor in salaries, etc. Most of the rest said that if the children's workers have a bill that needs to be paid, or materials need to be bought for the Sunday School, then the church will pay the bill. But telling your workers to come cap-in-hand to ask for money is a very different sort of relationship than giving them an amount of money at the beginning of the year to be spent on the children! I think we need to do some work here!
Connecting the Christian Faith with Children - section nine - part two (purpose)
Not everything, though, is quite so encouraging. And I have identified number of trends and significant issues we need to be aware of.
- What’s the Purpose?
2/22 (only 9%) of our churches have any specific mission statement / purpose statement for their children’s work. And the responses from the minister and children’s workers in the same church often contradicted each other with regard to the purpose of the children’s work. I don’t think any of our churches have a clear idea of what they are doing with children or why they are doing it!
When it came to the section of the form giving a list of options, many forms just had all or most of them ticked. And where the minister and the children’s worker had both filled in a copy of the form, they had generally ticked a different set of things.
A significant number of churches didn’t select ‘arm them against the dangers of secular culture’, or ‘nurture their spirituality’ as purpose statements. A number also disliked the phrase ‘convert them to Christianity’ – some saying that this is God’s work, and others objecting on the grounds that it is too strong a phrase, preferring ‘introduce them to Jesus’. Quite a number also added ‘having fun’ to the list.
This is an area of great concern. There seems to be, in our churches, total confusion about what the children’s work / Sunday School / Junior Church is actually for. Very few of our churches have any clear idea of what is the purpose of their work with children.
- What’s the Purpose?
2/22 (only 9%) of our churches have any specific mission statement / purpose statement for their children’s work. And the responses from the minister and children’s workers in the same church often contradicted each other with regard to the purpose of the children’s work. I don’t think any of our churches have a clear idea of what they are doing with children or why they are doing it!
When it came to the section of the form giving a list of options, many forms just had all or most of them ticked. And where the minister and the children’s worker had both filled in a copy of the form, they had generally ticked a different set of things.
A significant number of churches didn’t select ‘arm them against the dangers of secular culture’, or ‘nurture their spirituality’ as purpose statements. A number also disliked the phrase ‘convert them to Christianity’ – some saying that this is God’s work, and others objecting on the grounds that it is too strong a phrase, preferring ‘introduce them to Jesus’. Quite a number also added ‘having fun’ to the list.
This is an area of great concern. There seems to be, in our churches, total confusion about what the children’s work / Sunday School / Junior Church is actually for. Very few of our churches have any clear idea of what is the purpose of their work with children.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The Drama of Doctrine
Today I started reading The Drama of Doctrine (Kevin Vanhoozer).
Vanhoozer follows Paul Tillich in characterising 'cultural history as a series of anxiety attacks: ancient civilisation suffered the anxiety of death; the Middle Ages and Reformation, the anxety of guilt; modernity, the anxiety of meaninglessness ...' (p.2) and postmodernity, the anxiety of truthfulness. He then sets out his thesis that 'sound doctrine - authoritative teaching - is vital for the life of the church, and hence for the life of the world' (p.3). 'What the church uniquely has to say and do cannot be reduced to philosophy or politics [or sociology]. The church's unique responsibility is to proclaim and to practise the gospel, to witness in its speech and life to the reality of God's presence and action in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit ...' (p.3).
I'm already being challenged to preach more doctrine and less sociology (and I'm only sixteen pages in)!
Vanhoozer follows Paul Tillich in characterising 'cultural history as a series of anxiety attacks: ancient civilisation suffered the anxiety of death; the Middle Ages and Reformation, the anxety of guilt; modernity, the anxiety of meaninglessness ...' (p.2) and postmodernity, the anxiety of truthfulness. He then sets out his thesis that 'sound doctrine - authoritative teaching - is vital for the life of the church, and hence for the life of the world' (p.3). 'What the church uniquely has to say and do cannot be reduced to philosophy or politics [or sociology]. The church's unique responsibility is to proclaim and to practise the gospel, to witness in its speech and life to the reality of God's presence and action in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit ...' (p.3).
I'm already being challenged to preach more doctrine and less sociology (and I'm only sixteen pages in)!
preaching theology or sociology?
Last Sunday I had an interesting conversation with Jim, from one of the Methodist Churches in our circuit. He was noting that, maybe ten years ago, what he heard in sermons was generally theology. But, these days, we seem to be preaching more sociology. Why is that?
I thought back over my last few months' preaching, and put my hand up. Guilty as charged. In the sermon Jim was referring to I had set out the distinctions between churched, de-churched and unchurcd groups in our communities, and the urgent need for churches to reach the unchurched and not just the de-churched. I think that's an important message. But I'm now asking myself about whether I need to try to strike some sort of balance between pointing out the need for change (lots of fun in a Methodist circuit setting where I am a bit more itinerant) and pointing to the glory of God. Hmm.
I thought back over my last few months' preaching, and put my hand up. Guilty as charged. In the sermon Jim was referring to I had set out the distinctions between churched, de-churched and unchurcd groups in our communities, and the urgent need for churches to reach the unchurched and not just the de-churched. I think that's an important message. But I'm now asking myself about whether I need to try to strike some sort of balance between pointing out the need for change (lots of fun in a Methodist circuit setting where I am a bit more itinerant) and pointing to the glory of God. Hmm.
Connecting the Christian Faith with Children - section nine - part one (good stories)
9. 2007 Survey of Yorkshire Baptist Churches
Good Stories
Some would say that we are doing our best. And the responses to the survey sent to the Baptist churches in Yorkshire contain many good stories and positive figures. For instance:
· 82% (18/22) of churches have a Sunday School or Junior Church meeting at the same time as adult worship.
· 55% (12/22) of churches run a midweek children’s activity.
· 50% (11/22) of churches run other children’s activities such as holiday clubs and one-off events.
· 45% (10/22) of churches have AAW at least once a month. A significant number of other churches have AAW bi-monthly or at important Christian festivals (Christmas, Harvest, etc.)
· 73% (16/22) of churches regularly have a children’s address or an all-age time in their services.
Between them, the 22 churches that responded are reaching at least 400 children of church families and at least 500 children from their local communities. That’s something to be encouraged about! There are a lot of exciting and creative things happening across Yorkshire. And we need to share those stories. The survey forms mentioned have not been a very good way of collecting those stories – some responses have just hinted at things – but it would be good to find a way of collecting and sharing stories of some of the really good things that are happening.
Good Stories
Some would say that we are doing our best. And the responses to the survey sent to the Baptist churches in Yorkshire contain many good stories and positive figures. For instance:
· 82% (18/22) of churches have a Sunday School or Junior Church meeting at the same time as adult worship.
· 55% (12/22) of churches run a midweek children’s activity.
· 50% (11/22) of churches run other children’s activities such as holiday clubs and one-off events.
· 45% (10/22) of churches have AAW at least once a month. A significant number of other churches have AAW bi-monthly or at important Christian festivals (Christmas, Harvest, etc.)
· 73% (16/22) of churches regularly have a children’s address or an all-age time in their services.
Between them, the 22 churches that responded are reaching at least 400 children of church families and at least 500 children from their local communities. That’s something to be encouraged about! There are a lot of exciting and creative things happening across Yorkshire. And we need to share those stories. The survey forms mentioned have not been a very good way of collecting those stories – some responses have just hinted at things – but it would be good to find a way of collecting and sharing stories of some of the really good things that are happening.
Connecting the Christian Faith with Children - presentation
On Monday I presented some of my thinking / reading / writing on the 'Connecting the Christian Faith with Children' project to the Missions Group of the Yorkshire Baptist Association. The response was very positive and encouraging.
There were a couple of interesting things, though. Some churches are right on board with the need for change and intergenerational stuff, but they just have no children! How do they get children and families into the church? Or are we thinking about this with a completely wrong set of categories? Maybe the answer has something to do with the difference between attractional and missional church. An attractional church will worry about having no children / families / young people coming to its services. A missional church will go to where the children / families / young people already are ... ?
I'll carry on posting the sections of my interim report. I think we're up to section nine!
There were a couple of interesting things, though. Some churches are right on board with the need for change and intergenerational stuff, but they just have no children! How do they get children and families into the church? Or are we thinking about this with a completely wrong set of categories? Maybe the answer has something to do with the difference between attractional and missional church. An attractional church will worry about having no children / families / young people coming to its services. A missional church will go to where the children / families / young people already are ... ?
I'll carry on posting the sections of my interim report. I think we're up to section nine!
apologies
Apologies for the very long 'blog' silence. Lots of stuff going on that I can't go into here. Going to try to be more disciplined (in various ways) from now on.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Connecting the Christian Faith with Children (part eight)
8. Contemporary Childhood
Children today live in a different world to the one we grew up in.[1] They watch interactive television programmes, they play handheld computer games, they surf from image to image – from video to video – on the internet. They are surrounded by text and sound and moving image, bombarded with subliminal messages, obsessed with minor celebrities and fashions. And while that may be an oversimplification, it does help us to understand why the Christian church has become effectively alien to the vast majority of youngsters and children in the UK today. There are so many other things clamouring for their attention that we should not be surprised that the church regularly loses out to its ‘competition’.
In fact, for many children, the church presents no competition at all. They don’t even know we exist (unless perhaps they are brought by their parents). They have no understanding of the Christian message, no recollection of the stories of the Bible, and no reference point whatsoever with regard to the Christian faith. This is, in (small) part, due to the marginalisation of Religious Education in schools. But the church must take its own (much larger) share of the blame.
Increasingly, families have other priorities than church at weekends. Where both parents work long hours, Sunday may be the only day for the family to be together. In single-parent families, Sunday may be the day children see their other parent. In the busy life of many modern families, Sunday might be the only time available for visiting distant grandparents, playing sport, or even doing the weekly shopping.
Dallow asks all those involved in work with children within a Christian setting to be “aware of the social world in which today’s children find themselves. We also need to understand how children’s thinking develops, so that what we offer children is real and relevant.”[2] Take note of some of the following trends, “characteristic of life in the UK in the 21st century”[3]:
- fall in number of married couples and increase in cohabitation
- rise in divorce rate
- rise in number of lone-parent families (22 per cent with dependent children are lone parent families)
- increased access to leisure-time activities
- increase in fast food and reduction in families who regularly eat meals together
- increase in homes where children have their own televisions and access to a personal computer
- increase in children living in families where the income is below half the contemporary average income (1.4 million in 1979; 4.2 million in 1992/3)
- 100,000 under-16s run away from home each year
- 42 per cent of young people brought before magistrates courts have been excluded from school
- one in six children between 11 and 15 use drugs. They are five times more likely to truant and be excluded from school and be in trouble with the police
- only one in five of all young people feel part of their local community.[4]
However, while the culture of the world outside of church is changing rapidly, our churches have failed to keep pace with that change.
[1] Nick Harding’s book, Kid’s Culture (2003: Scripture Union) is a useful resource for understanding the world that shapes our children.
[2] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.58
[3] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.64
[4] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), pp.64-65
Children today live in a different world to the one we grew up in.[1] They watch interactive television programmes, they play handheld computer games, they surf from image to image – from video to video – on the internet. They are surrounded by text and sound and moving image, bombarded with subliminal messages, obsessed with minor celebrities and fashions. And while that may be an oversimplification, it does help us to understand why the Christian church has become effectively alien to the vast majority of youngsters and children in the UK today. There are so many other things clamouring for their attention that we should not be surprised that the church regularly loses out to its ‘competition’.
In fact, for many children, the church presents no competition at all. They don’t even know we exist (unless perhaps they are brought by their parents). They have no understanding of the Christian message, no recollection of the stories of the Bible, and no reference point whatsoever with regard to the Christian faith. This is, in (small) part, due to the marginalisation of Religious Education in schools. But the church must take its own (much larger) share of the blame.
Increasingly, families have other priorities than church at weekends. Where both parents work long hours, Sunday may be the only day for the family to be together. In single-parent families, Sunday may be the day children see their other parent. In the busy life of many modern families, Sunday might be the only time available for visiting distant grandparents, playing sport, or even doing the weekly shopping.
Dallow asks all those involved in work with children within a Christian setting to be “aware of the social world in which today’s children find themselves. We also need to understand how children’s thinking develops, so that what we offer children is real and relevant.”[2] Take note of some of the following trends, “characteristic of life in the UK in the 21st century”[3]:
- fall in number of married couples and increase in cohabitation
- rise in divorce rate
- rise in number of lone-parent families (22 per cent with dependent children are lone parent families)
- increased access to leisure-time activities
- increase in fast food and reduction in families who regularly eat meals together
- increase in homes where children have their own televisions and access to a personal computer
- increase in children living in families where the income is below half the contemporary average income (1.4 million in 1979; 4.2 million in 1992/3)
- 100,000 under-16s run away from home each year
- 42 per cent of young people brought before magistrates courts have been excluded from school
- one in six children between 11 and 15 use drugs. They are five times more likely to truant and be excluded from school and be in trouble with the police
- only one in five of all young people feel part of their local community.[4]
However, while the culture of the world outside of church is changing rapidly, our churches have failed to keep pace with that change.
[1] Nick Harding’s book, Kid’s Culture (2003: Scripture Union) is a useful resource for understanding the world that shapes our children.
[2] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.58
[3] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.64
[4] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), pp.64-65
Connecting the Christian faith with Children (part seven)
7. Robert Raikes and the Sunday School Movement
The way many of our churches currently operate their ministry to children owes much to the work of Robert Raikes. During the 1780s, Raikes was “concerned with the plight of individuals – especially children – within society and with the crime to which this led.”[1] So, he began “a school for the poor” with a focus primarily on “teaching reading, writing and … manners; but catechetical instruction, reading the Bible and attendance at church were regarded as central from the outset.”[2]
These Sunday schools were established “more for the benefit of those children of parents who did not attend church or chapel than for the benefit of those children who were brought up in practising families.”[3] But “with the founding of weekday day schools, … from 1830, the Sunday Schools came to concentrate more on Bible reading, the formation of children in Christian belief and their ‘habituation’ to regular worship. This shift to a more exclusively religious emphasis – a focus on Sunday rather than school – was accompanied by a move from professional (or, at least, paid) teachers to voluntary helpers.”[4]
Even so, Sunday school came to be seen as being “linked more closely with the idea of school than with the idea of church. Growing up meant leaving behind both school and Sunday school.”[5] With the result that Sunday school, in this form, was “unable to survive the secularisation of Sunday and unable to compete with the growing body of alternative attractions available to young people.”[6]
During the 19th Century, “as mothers took on more responsibility for the care and the moral and spiritual development of children … religious education itself became ‘feminised’ and was seen as somehow ‘beneath’ the job of the serious systematic theologian.”[7]
By “the second decade of the twentieth century both Sunday School and church membership were in decline … Sunday afternoons – the preferred time for most Sunday schools – became unsustainable and the schools began to meet on Sunday morning, at the same time as ‘adult’ church services.”[8]
This meant, though, that numbers were increasingly “restricted to children whose parents went to church.”[9] Another difficulty was that the children “experienced Christian nurture, worship and prayer in separation from the main act of communal worship and away from their parents.”[10] It has been argued that “excluding children from the main Sunday service (or even a part of it) splits the church and puts a question mark against the Christian identity of children as a full part of the body of Christ.”[11] Not only do children “learn best what it is to be an adult worshipper by seeing and hearing other adults worship,”[12] but “adults also have a lot to learn from children.”[13] And some claim that “the decline of the Sunday School is probably a blessing in disguise!”[14]
[1] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.37
[2] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.36
[3] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.201
[4] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.38
[5] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.201
[6] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.201
[7] Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.12 (footnote 21)
[8] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.38
[9] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.38
[10] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.38
[11] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.39
[12] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.39
[13] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.39
[14] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.40
The way many of our churches currently operate their ministry to children owes much to the work of Robert Raikes. During the 1780s, Raikes was “concerned with the plight of individuals – especially children – within society and with the crime to which this led.”[1] So, he began “a school for the poor” with a focus primarily on “teaching reading, writing and … manners; but catechetical instruction, reading the Bible and attendance at church were regarded as central from the outset.”[2]
These Sunday schools were established “more for the benefit of those children of parents who did not attend church or chapel than for the benefit of those children who were brought up in practising families.”[3] But “with the founding of weekday day schools, … from 1830, the Sunday Schools came to concentrate more on Bible reading, the formation of children in Christian belief and their ‘habituation’ to regular worship. This shift to a more exclusively religious emphasis – a focus on Sunday rather than school – was accompanied by a move from professional (or, at least, paid) teachers to voluntary helpers.”[4]
Even so, Sunday school came to be seen as being “linked more closely with the idea of school than with the idea of church. Growing up meant leaving behind both school and Sunday school.”[5] With the result that Sunday school, in this form, was “unable to survive the secularisation of Sunday and unable to compete with the growing body of alternative attractions available to young people.”[6]
During the 19th Century, “as mothers took on more responsibility for the care and the moral and spiritual development of children … religious education itself became ‘feminised’ and was seen as somehow ‘beneath’ the job of the serious systematic theologian.”[7]
By “the second decade of the twentieth century both Sunday School and church membership were in decline … Sunday afternoons – the preferred time for most Sunday schools – became unsustainable and the schools began to meet on Sunday morning, at the same time as ‘adult’ church services.”[8]
This meant, though, that numbers were increasingly “restricted to children whose parents went to church.”[9] Another difficulty was that the children “experienced Christian nurture, worship and prayer in separation from the main act of communal worship and away from their parents.”[10] It has been argued that “excluding children from the main Sunday service (or even a part of it) splits the church and puts a question mark against the Christian identity of children as a full part of the body of Christ.”[11] Not only do children “learn best what it is to be an adult worshipper by seeing and hearing other adults worship,”[12] but “adults also have a lot to learn from children.”[13] And some claim that “the decline of the Sunday School is probably a blessing in disguise!”[14]
[1] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.37
[2] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.36
[3] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.201
[4] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.38
[5] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.201
[6] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.201
[7] Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.12 (footnote 21)
[8] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.38
[9] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.38
[10] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.38
[11] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.39
[12] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.39
[13] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.39
[14] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.40
Connecting the Christian Faith with Children (part six)
6. The Status of Children before God
A ‘blog’ posting by ‘Lynn’[1] manages to distill some of the historical debate on the status of children before God to just a small number of options:
1: all children start life outside the Kingdom of God.
This assumes that children of all ages are in exactly the same position before God as adults i.e. in sin and rebellion and if they die before repentance and faith, they are hell-bound
2: the presence of a Christian parent establishes right standing before God.
This is based on teaching about the covenant; the special agreement between God and his people (Genesis 17, Deut 29, 1 Peter 2:9-10) The children of the people of God also belong to him.
3: the presence of a Christian parent creates privilege, not standing.
This is a softer version of answer 2. To be in a Christian home environment increases the likelihood of future Christian discipleship. It is more likely that he will be nurtured towards faith.
4: the experience of baptism establishes right standing before God.Put simply: if a child is baptised, s/he is acceptable to God. If s/he is not baptised, s/he is not.
5: the experience of baptism enhances privileges.
This is a softer version of answer 4. It assumes that baptism is undertaken seriously as an expression of faith and hope by the parents. It enhances the possibility of future discipleship, like answer 3.
6: All children belong to God.
This answer can lead people into difficulties. Until a child can have a personal experience of sin, and therefore of guilt, s/he is covered by Christ’s saving work. But how do we know when a child stops being a child i.e. when do they move from the “saved” position to the “unsaved” position?[2]
In a later post, Lynn posits a seventh answer to the question of a child’s status before God. She suggests that:
7: All children begin with God
but will drift from that position unless an effective nurturing or evangelistic influence operates in their lives.
Key to this is that the child’s belongingness to God may become rebellion. There is no assumption that the belonging WILL become rebellion. This answer takes account of humanity’s rebellion against God and the child’s potential to be part of that. But it holds that potential in tension with Jesus’ own teaching about children and the Kingdom. Taking that teaching seriously, it holds that all children begin with God, but that they will drift from that safe position unless the drift is halted and reversed. So we need to have a VISION to cater for this; both within the Christian family and amongst the children's team.The answer also makes sense of the fact that the faith of many adults began with Christian nurture in the home and grew into mature Christian discipleship. Some adult Christians have never doubted that they belong to God. They have been nurtured in that sense of belonging; they have agreed with it; they have grown in it. They have never consciously said “no” to Jesus …[3]
[1] http://helpiworkwithchildren.blogspot.com/
[2] Answers 1 to 6 can be found at: http://helpiworkwithchildren.blogspot.com/2007/03/status-of-children-before-god-part-1.html
[3] Answer 7 can be found at: http://helpiworkwithchildren.blogspot.com/2007/04/status-of-children-before-god-part-2.html
A ‘blog’ posting by ‘Lynn’[1] manages to distill some of the historical debate on the status of children before God to just a small number of options:
1: all children start life outside the Kingdom of God.
This assumes that children of all ages are in exactly the same position before God as adults i.e. in sin and rebellion and if they die before repentance and faith, they are hell-bound
2: the presence of a Christian parent establishes right standing before God.
This is based on teaching about the covenant; the special agreement between God and his people (Genesis 17, Deut 29, 1 Peter 2:9-10) The children of the people of God also belong to him.
3: the presence of a Christian parent creates privilege, not standing.
This is a softer version of answer 2. To be in a Christian home environment increases the likelihood of future Christian discipleship. It is more likely that he will be nurtured towards faith.
4: the experience of baptism establishes right standing before God.Put simply: if a child is baptised, s/he is acceptable to God. If s/he is not baptised, s/he is not.
5: the experience of baptism enhances privileges.
This is a softer version of answer 4. It assumes that baptism is undertaken seriously as an expression of faith and hope by the parents. It enhances the possibility of future discipleship, like answer 3.
6: All children belong to God.
This answer can lead people into difficulties. Until a child can have a personal experience of sin, and therefore of guilt, s/he is covered by Christ’s saving work. But how do we know when a child stops being a child i.e. when do they move from the “saved” position to the “unsaved” position?[2]
In a later post, Lynn posits a seventh answer to the question of a child’s status before God. She suggests that:
7: All children begin with God
but will drift from that position unless an effective nurturing or evangelistic influence operates in their lives.
Key to this is that the child’s belongingness to God may become rebellion. There is no assumption that the belonging WILL become rebellion. This answer takes account of humanity’s rebellion against God and the child’s potential to be part of that. But it holds that potential in tension with Jesus’ own teaching about children and the Kingdom. Taking that teaching seriously, it holds that all children begin with God, but that they will drift from that safe position unless the drift is halted and reversed. So we need to have a VISION to cater for this; both within the Christian family and amongst the children's team.The answer also makes sense of the fact that the faith of many adults began with Christian nurture in the home and grew into mature Christian discipleship. Some adult Christians have never doubted that they belong to God. They have been nurtured in that sense of belonging; they have agreed with it; they have grown in it. They have never consciously said “no” to Jesus …[3]
[1] http://helpiworkwithchildren.blogspot.com/
[2] Answers 1 to 6 can be found at: http://helpiworkwithchildren.blogspot.com/2007/03/status-of-children-before-god-part-1.html
[3] Answer 7 can be found at: http://helpiworkwithchildren.blogspot.com/2007/04/status-of-children-before-god-part-2.html
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Connecting the Christian Faith with Children (part 5)
5. Children through Church History
Throughout Church history, reflection on and exploration of the narratives and teachings of Scripture has led people to struggle with questions about the true standing of children before God. The theological debate on the nature of humanity has, at its heart, asked the question “are children by nature innocent, good beings, or are children by nature evil depraved beings?”[1]
Augustine (354-430)
Augustine’s reading of Romans 5.12 (‘All had sinned in Adam’) and his conviction that judgement applied even to infants has, for more than 1500 years, “formed and informed, transformed and deformed Christian attitudes toward children.”[2] Augustine argued that, “just as infants gain physical strength as they mature, so they assume greater accountability for their actions.”[3] But all are infected with ‘original sin’, and unbaptised infants are excluded from salvation.
Aquinas (1225-1274)
Thomas Aquinas followed Augustine with a notion of graded responsibility, claiming that “increasing age, grace and virtue order one’s passions and one’s actions, bringing one closer either to perfection or to damnation.”[4] By contrast, though, Aquinas was convinced of the “manifest actual innocence”[5] of those in the first stage of childhood: Infantia: “Babies or young children, lacking reason, are not intentional moral agents … they cannot be held accountable for anything. They are … incapable of actual sin.”[6] However, Aquinas held that, although such infants are “undeserving of damnation, since they are incapable of actual sin, they are also undeserving of salvation, since they still bear the stain of original sin.”[7] Hence, unbaptised infants are consigned to ‘limbo’, “denied intimate union with God but spared the physical, spiritual, and psychological pain of hell.”[8] (This is a doctrine held by the Roman Catholic Church until 2007.)
According to Aquinas, “a second stage of childhood begins with the dawning of rational thought.”[9] At about the age of seven, a child gains the capacity for “formal learning, moral accountability, sin and virtue.”[10] They can “desire and request baptism … receive the Eucharist, and … even make simple vows.”[11] Aquinas seems quite indulgent of the young, making allowances for them as “their minds, spirits and bodies continue to grow.”[12] But he “treats children past the age of puberty as adults in ecclesiastical and moral matters.”[13]
Luther (1483-1546)
Luther, too, recognised developmental stages, and a gradation of responsibility for sin, in the life of the child. Yet he also held “children up in their very neediness and simplicity as the model of faith.”[14]
In addition, Luther wrote a number of catechisms, which “initiated the young in the faith into the believing community’s vision of life … it gave them a clear point of orientation in the world. It provided for them a conceptual vocabulary …”[15] Luther’s catechisms were effective “in sustaining a distinctive piety.”[16]
Luther’s concern for children can be seen in his assertion that “attending to children’s physical welfare, their vocational prospects, their need to learn of God’s grace … human care and affection – this is an essential part of all Christian discipleship. ‘Indeed, for what purpose do we older folk exist, other than to care for, instruct, and bring up the young?’”[17]
Calvin (1509-1564)
John Calvin was another who viewed children as a “metaphor for the religious life of adult Christians,”[18] and his writings “bear witness to the importance of children in church and society.”[19] Adults in Reformation times “were not indifferent to but rather profoundly interested in – and often deeply affectionate toward – children.”[20] And it is clear that Calvin, too, was “intensely interested in children and child rearing.”[21] He was involved, “often quite personally, in the implementation of public policies that had important implications for children”[22] and, like other Protestant preachers, “did not use the doctrine of original sin to underscore the sinful character of children.”[23] While making it clear that children are not exempt from original sin, Calvin dwells less on their sinfulness, and “is more appreciative of the positive character of children … than some of his forebears … or successors.”[24]
Calvin, like his predecessors and contemporaries, held a developmental model of childhood, dividing it into “three stages, each lasting approximately seven years,”[25] and states that “the younger the child, the less he or she manifests the effects of sin.”[26] He argues, too, that “adult believers ought to imitate children’s natural simplicity but not their lack of understanding.”[27]
With the Psalmist (Psalm 8), Calvin views young children as “mature proclaimers of God’s goodness.”[28] And, arguing against “Anabaptists’ insistence that a personal faith precede the sacrament, he suggests that no one can prove that infants themselves do not believe.”[29]
“Calvin … held that the church had an obligation for a program of religious education in order to inspire and guide children to lives of piety,”[30] and he called “for a program of weekly catechetical instruction and for teaching young children to sing psalms so that they might help lead congregational singing.”[31] “Parents were required (and … reminded) to bring their children to lessons”[32] at noon on Sundays. Thus John Calvin was committed to the “spiritual nurture of children.”[33]
Menno Simons (1496-1561)
Menno Simons held a theory of ‘complex innocence’: he recognised the “absence of both faithfulness and sinfulness in children,”[34] but also considered their innocence to be tempered by “an inherited Adamic nature predisposed toward sinning.”[35] He “delineates between a nature predisposed toward sin and actual sinning … identifying only the latter as that for which believers have responsibility before God.”[36] And he further argued that “Christ’s grace is not only for those within the Christian fold but for all children.”[37]
Simons’ perspective “utterly obligated parents and the Christian community to nurture children ‘in the fear of God by teaching, admonishing and chastising them,’ serving also as models of an ‘irreproachable life,’ so that when their children come to the ‘years of discretion,’ they may ‘hear, believe and accept the most holy Gospel of Jesus Christ’.”[38] Yet, perhaps uniquely, Simons held a “concern for spiritual maturity that does not always coincide with chronological maturity.”[39]
Simons’ Anabaptist identity, and the Anabaptist rejection of infant baptism and practice of believer’s baptism, suggests much about his understanding of children. However, Simons’ believed strongly that “all children are covered by God’s grace, whether or not they have made commitment of faith, and that parents and the Christian community together are responsible for nurturing children toward voluntary commitments of faith and discipleship.”[40]
A.H.Franke (1663-1727)
The “German pietism of the early eighteenth century emphasized not only the renewal of the individual believer but also the need to live out this renewal in love of the neighbour.”[41] So it was that Franke, a Lutheran Pastor, became concerned about the large number of children “in tremendous need because of poverty, neglect, and poor educational opportunities.”[42]
Franke began to offer “religious instruction in his church, preaching about child rearing,”[43] and went on to plan (in 1695) “a large complex of charitable and educational institutions, including a school for poor children and an orphanage.”[44] This was unheard of at the time. But by the time of Franke’s death, his schools and orphanages had “served over two thousand boys and girls.”[45]
Franke is “an important example of someone who opened his eyes to the needs of children … and who tirelessly devoted his resources and energy to serving them.”[46]
John Wesley (1703-91)
“From the beginning of the Wesleyan movement at Oxford in the 1720s, children were one of the primary focuses of concern, primarily children of the poor.”[47] The care and education of children, as well as the establishment of schools, was central to Wesley’s activities, and his “educational program … involved changing the whole person – body, mind and spirit.”[48]
“Wesley took his work with children seriously. He was concerned enough about their intellectual and spiritual welfare that he also warned the Methodist preachers under his supervision either to spend regular time with the children in their societies or else to cease being Methodist preachers and go back to their trade.”[49]
“Occasionally revivals broke out among the children in the Methodist Societies.”[50] Certainly, “young people were often at the core of local revivals,”[51] and Wesley believed that “God begins His work in children.”[52] The transformed lives of the children then “became models for the adults.”[53] Wesley often pointed out that “to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must become as little children.”[54] He realised that “children had limits, that they should not bear the burden of being considered the same as adults. And yet he also knew that some children had a capacity for knowledge and love that exceeded that of some adults.”[55]
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
“Jonathan Edwards viewed children as both sinners and saints: they were indelibly tainted with original sin, and yet also capable of genuine faith … and he took seriously their religious thoughts and questions.”[56] He “clearly believed that children had distinct needs of their own,”[57] and that “their faith had to be carefully nurtured.”[58] And yet he also “thought it was possible for God to choose even the tiniest infants for salvation.”[59]
Edwards “spent much of his life ministering to children ... he watched them play, listened to their questions, and even held religious meetings for them … [gathering] them together to teach them the Gospel.”[60] Edwards also preached “sermons directed explicitly to children,”[61] and children’s sermons eventually became a “popular part of Protestant worship during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”[62]
Edwards also held up children as models for adult Christians, saying that they symbolised “some of the best Christian qualities.”[63] Edwards even “allowed children to be admitted into full communion … By passing the bread and wine to them, he treated them as full spiritual equals.”[64] And he managed to “create a Christian theology that [valued] children’s spiritual needs.[65]
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
Schliermacher demonstrated a “persistent interest in the subject of children” in much of his writing. “He saw children as naturally innocent, not encumbered with the supposed inheritance of original sin.”[66] But he did claim that the “evil influences of society … spoiled the natural goodness of children.”[67]
Schliermacher noted that, “in the Incarnation, childhood itself is affirmed as worthy by God.”[68] And a theme throughout his 1818 sermons on the Christian Household was “the wonderful blessing that children represent to the community of faith.”[69] He said that “adults need to recover a childlike ability to be present in the moment if they are to experience the full blessing of Christian faith,”[70] and that the church “neglects children at its own very significant peril.”[71]
Schleiermacher considered the education of children to be one of a pastor’s most important duties, and held such high expectations of the catechising pastor that he claimed that “when children who have been raised in church lose their faith in adulthood, it is often because they have received poor catechetical instruction.”[72] He “never believed the religious instruction of children was a task beneath him. He … [loved] the company of children, and he sought passionately to make the Christian faith accessible and attractive to them.”[73]
Horace Bushnell (1802-1876)
For Congregationalist Horace Bushnell, “a child could not be expected to have an adult faith.”[74] But Bushnell “emphasised the developmental nature of spiritual understanding,”[75] and stated that “Christ was ‘ a Saviour for infants, and children, and youth, as truly as for the adult age’.”[76] Bushnell advocated a special (non-voting) form of church membership for children, in which they were “not subject to church discipline but allowed full access to the Lord’s Supper.”[77] And he admitted that, “had he the chance to begin his career over, he would have preached first to children and only secondly to adults.”[78] He declared, “We call it coming down when we undertake the preaching to children; whereas it is coming up … to speak to the bright day-light creatures of trust and sweet affinities and easy conviction.”[79]
Karl Barth (1886-1968)
Barth spoke of children as “bearers of a promise of God’s grace.”[80] He considered them to be “needy beginners”[81] but ready to learn, “characteristically at play,”[82] and tuly free despite their limitations.[83] Thus, “young people are to be an example to the older in this ever fresh hearing of the divine command.”[84]
Karl Rahner (1904-1984)
Rahner argued that all “human persons – including children – are fundamentally oriented toward God,”[85] and spoke of the “unsurpassable value of childhood.”[86] He challenged the “Christian tendency to subordinate childhood to adult life,”[87] by showing how the child “is intended to be, right from the start, a partner of God.”[88] And he argued that “being a child has value in its own right.”[89]
Rahner reminds us that “for adults to attain the openness of children (which is what the kingdom of heaven requires), conversion is necessary.”[90] And he defines such openness as an “infinite openness to the infinite.”[91] Rahner’s theology reminds us “not only that our obligation is to nurture the children who are given to us and all that belongs to them as children, but that each one of us, again and again, must become that child we were in the beginning.”[92]
Rahner was bold to “address the pastoral needs of the young,”[93] although he did question whether “a catechism is the appropriate medium for the religious initiation of a child.”[94] It was one of Rahner’s contemporaries who observed that, often in Christian education, “instead of going in directly by the open doors of the child’s imagination and sense perception, we waste our time by knocking on the still bolted doors of his understanding and his judgement.”[95]
Feminist Theology
In contemporary times, some feminist theologians have pointed out how, in Western culture since the eighteenth century, “the movement of men out of the home and into the workplace had a powerful impact on … family life.”[96] Fathers began to have “less immediate involvement with domestic life and … children … In matters of education and spiritual formation, children had fewer male role models readily available.”[97]
But in the same period there has been little or no “developed teaching on children by the church itself.”[98] “Doctrines of human nature, salvation, and God remained amazingly adult-centred, forgetting that all people begin their lives as children and that many people spend a large proportion of their adult lives responsible for children in some way. [Such] theological neglect coincided with a broader societal neglect.”[99]
These feminists point to “the historical dilemma which assigns only to women the concern for ministries with women, children and youth.”[100] And they are particularly concerned for the “plight of children outside stable, two-parent families [where] children disappear into a market-driven society where the ultimate measures of value are utility and self-interest.”[101] In this society, the responsibilities of adults for children “assume paramount importance.”[102]
Much contemporary feminist theology “promotes the welfare of children”[103] and supports the “child’s claim as a worthy creation of God.”[104] They “invoke an eschatological image in which all are welcome to the table of God,”[105] and argue that “Christians are obliged to create a world in which ‘every child who wants might learn to dance’.”[106] We need to “be at the forefront of advocating … the protection of all children”[107] and calling for “justice for the ‘least of these’.”[108]
They point to the “utter vulnerability of children before the adults that create and shape their world,”[109] and believe that, while “children may harbour evil thoughts, … the depth and extent of their corrupt behaviour is in direct proportion to the actions of the adults in their midst.”[110] Sin is defined in “strikingly adult ways, as … leanings and control that most children have not yet acquired.”[111] And they claim that “sin is more something to which children fall victim than something they engage in as culprits.”[112]
[1] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.280
[2] Stortz, ‘Where or when was your servant innocent? Augustine on childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.79
[3] Stortz, ‘Where or when was your servant innocent? Augustine on childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.83
[4] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.111
[5] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.113
[6] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.113-114
[7] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.114
[8] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.114-115
[9] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.117
[10] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.117
[11] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.117
[12] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.119
[13] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.119
[14] Strohl, ‘The Child in Luther;s Theology’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.144
[15] Strohl, ‘The Child in Luther;s Theology’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.149
[16] Strohl, ‘The Child in Luther;s Theology’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.149
[17] Strohl, ‘The Child in Luther;s Theology’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.159
[18] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.161
[19] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.161
[20] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.162-3
[21] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.162
[22] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.163
[23] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.163
[24] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.169
[25] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.164
[26] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.165
[27] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.165
[28] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.166
[29] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.183
[30] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.186
[31] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.186
[32] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.187
[33] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.193
[34] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.194
[35] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.194
[36] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.201
[37] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.203
[38] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp. 194-195
[39] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.204
[40] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.195
[41] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.247
[42] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.252
[43] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.253
[44] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.247
[45] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.254
[46] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.278
[47] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.297
[48] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.292
[49] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.298
[50] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.295
[51] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.295
[52] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.296
[53] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.296
[54] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.296
[55] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.298
[56] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.301
[57] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.302
[58] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.303
[59] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.311
[60] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.313
[61] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.313
[62] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.313
[63] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.312
[64] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.318
[65] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.328
[66] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.334
[67] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.334
[68] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.338
[69] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.340
[70] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.348
[71] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.348
[72] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.346
[73] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.348
[74] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.355
[75] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.355
[76] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.355
[77] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.356
[78] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.359
[79] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.359
[80] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.389
[81] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.392
[82] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.392
[83] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.393
[84] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.393
[85] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.421
[86] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.421
[87] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.422
[88] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.423
[89] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.443
[90] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.426
[91] See the title of Hinsdale’s paper, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.406-445
[92] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.445
[93] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.439
[94] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.438
[95] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.434
[96] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.447
[97] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.447
[98] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.448 (italics in original)
[99] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.472-473
[100] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.452
[101] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.456
[102] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.457
[103] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.459
[104] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.459
[105] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.459
[106] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.459
[107] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.459-460
[108] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.460
[109] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.462
[110] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.462
[111] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.463
[112] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.464
Throughout Church history, reflection on and exploration of the narratives and teachings of Scripture has led people to struggle with questions about the true standing of children before God. The theological debate on the nature of humanity has, at its heart, asked the question “are children by nature innocent, good beings, or are children by nature evil depraved beings?”[1]
Augustine (354-430)
Augustine’s reading of Romans 5.12 (‘All had sinned in Adam’) and his conviction that judgement applied even to infants has, for more than 1500 years, “formed and informed, transformed and deformed Christian attitudes toward children.”[2] Augustine argued that, “just as infants gain physical strength as they mature, so they assume greater accountability for their actions.”[3] But all are infected with ‘original sin’, and unbaptised infants are excluded from salvation.
Aquinas (1225-1274)
Thomas Aquinas followed Augustine with a notion of graded responsibility, claiming that “increasing age, grace and virtue order one’s passions and one’s actions, bringing one closer either to perfection or to damnation.”[4] By contrast, though, Aquinas was convinced of the “manifest actual innocence”[5] of those in the first stage of childhood: Infantia: “Babies or young children, lacking reason, are not intentional moral agents … they cannot be held accountable for anything. They are … incapable of actual sin.”[6] However, Aquinas held that, although such infants are “undeserving of damnation, since they are incapable of actual sin, they are also undeserving of salvation, since they still bear the stain of original sin.”[7] Hence, unbaptised infants are consigned to ‘limbo’, “denied intimate union with God but spared the physical, spiritual, and psychological pain of hell.”[8] (This is a doctrine held by the Roman Catholic Church until 2007.)
According to Aquinas, “a second stage of childhood begins with the dawning of rational thought.”[9] At about the age of seven, a child gains the capacity for “formal learning, moral accountability, sin and virtue.”[10] They can “desire and request baptism … receive the Eucharist, and … even make simple vows.”[11] Aquinas seems quite indulgent of the young, making allowances for them as “their minds, spirits and bodies continue to grow.”[12] But he “treats children past the age of puberty as adults in ecclesiastical and moral matters.”[13]
Luther (1483-1546)
Luther, too, recognised developmental stages, and a gradation of responsibility for sin, in the life of the child. Yet he also held “children up in their very neediness and simplicity as the model of faith.”[14]
In addition, Luther wrote a number of catechisms, which “initiated the young in the faith into the believing community’s vision of life … it gave them a clear point of orientation in the world. It provided for them a conceptual vocabulary …”[15] Luther’s catechisms were effective “in sustaining a distinctive piety.”[16]
Luther’s concern for children can be seen in his assertion that “attending to children’s physical welfare, their vocational prospects, their need to learn of God’s grace … human care and affection – this is an essential part of all Christian discipleship. ‘Indeed, for what purpose do we older folk exist, other than to care for, instruct, and bring up the young?’”[17]
Calvin (1509-1564)
John Calvin was another who viewed children as a “metaphor for the religious life of adult Christians,”[18] and his writings “bear witness to the importance of children in church and society.”[19] Adults in Reformation times “were not indifferent to but rather profoundly interested in – and often deeply affectionate toward – children.”[20] And it is clear that Calvin, too, was “intensely interested in children and child rearing.”[21] He was involved, “often quite personally, in the implementation of public policies that had important implications for children”[22] and, like other Protestant preachers, “did not use the doctrine of original sin to underscore the sinful character of children.”[23] While making it clear that children are not exempt from original sin, Calvin dwells less on their sinfulness, and “is more appreciative of the positive character of children … than some of his forebears … or successors.”[24]
Calvin, like his predecessors and contemporaries, held a developmental model of childhood, dividing it into “three stages, each lasting approximately seven years,”[25] and states that “the younger the child, the less he or she manifests the effects of sin.”[26] He argues, too, that “adult believers ought to imitate children’s natural simplicity but not their lack of understanding.”[27]
With the Psalmist (Psalm 8), Calvin views young children as “mature proclaimers of God’s goodness.”[28] And, arguing against “Anabaptists’ insistence that a personal faith precede the sacrament, he suggests that no one can prove that infants themselves do not believe.”[29]
“Calvin … held that the church had an obligation for a program of religious education in order to inspire and guide children to lives of piety,”[30] and he called “for a program of weekly catechetical instruction and for teaching young children to sing psalms so that they might help lead congregational singing.”[31] “Parents were required (and … reminded) to bring their children to lessons”[32] at noon on Sundays. Thus John Calvin was committed to the “spiritual nurture of children.”[33]
Menno Simons (1496-1561)
Menno Simons held a theory of ‘complex innocence’: he recognised the “absence of both faithfulness and sinfulness in children,”[34] but also considered their innocence to be tempered by “an inherited Adamic nature predisposed toward sinning.”[35] He “delineates between a nature predisposed toward sin and actual sinning … identifying only the latter as that for which believers have responsibility before God.”[36] And he further argued that “Christ’s grace is not only for those within the Christian fold but for all children.”[37]
Simons’ perspective “utterly obligated parents and the Christian community to nurture children ‘in the fear of God by teaching, admonishing and chastising them,’ serving also as models of an ‘irreproachable life,’ so that when their children come to the ‘years of discretion,’ they may ‘hear, believe and accept the most holy Gospel of Jesus Christ’.”[38] Yet, perhaps uniquely, Simons held a “concern for spiritual maturity that does not always coincide with chronological maturity.”[39]
Simons’ Anabaptist identity, and the Anabaptist rejection of infant baptism and practice of believer’s baptism, suggests much about his understanding of children. However, Simons’ believed strongly that “all children are covered by God’s grace, whether or not they have made commitment of faith, and that parents and the Christian community together are responsible for nurturing children toward voluntary commitments of faith and discipleship.”[40]
A.H.Franke (1663-1727)
The “German pietism of the early eighteenth century emphasized not only the renewal of the individual believer but also the need to live out this renewal in love of the neighbour.”[41] So it was that Franke, a Lutheran Pastor, became concerned about the large number of children “in tremendous need because of poverty, neglect, and poor educational opportunities.”[42]
Franke began to offer “religious instruction in his church, preaching about child rearing,”[43] and went on to plan (in 1695) “a large complex of charitable and educational institutions, including a school for poor children and an orphanage.”[44] This was unheard of at the time. But by the time of Franke’s death, his schools and orphanages had “served over two thousand boys and girls.”[45]
Franke is “an important example of someone who opened his eyes to the needs of children … and who tirelessly devoted his resources and energy to serving them.”[46]
John Wesley (1703-91)
“From the beginning of the Wesleyan movement at Oxford in the 1720s, children were one of the primary focuses of concern, primarily children of the poor.”[47] The care and education of children, as well as the establishment of schools, was central to Wesley’s activities, and his “educational program … involved changing the whole person – body, mind and spirit.”[48]
“Wesley took his work with children seriously. He was concerned enough about their intellectual and spiritual welfare that he also warned the Methodist preachers under his supervision either to spend regular time with the children in their societies or else to cease being Methodist preachers and go back to their trade.”[49]
“Occasionally revivals broke out among the children in the Methodist Societies.”[50] Certainly, “young people were often at the core of local revivals,”[51] and Wesley believed that “God begins His work in children.”[52] The transformed lives of the children then “became models for the adults.”[53] Wesley often pointed out that “to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must become as little children.”[54] He realised that “children had limits, that they should not bear the burden of being considered the same as adults. And yet he also knew that some children had a capacity for knowledge and love that exceeded that of some adults.”[55]
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
“Jonathan Edwards viewed children as both sinners and saints: they were indelibly tainted with original sin, and yet also capable of genuine faith … and he took seriously their religious thoughts and questions.”[56] He “clearly believed that children had distinct needs of their own,”[57] and that “their faith had to be carefully nurtured.”[58] And yet he also “thought it was possible for God to choose even the tiniest infants for salvation.”[59]
Edwards “spent much of his life ministering to children ... he watched them play, listened to their questions, and even held religious meetings for them … [gathering] them together to teach them the Gospel.”[60] Edwards also preached “sermons directed explicitly to children,”[61] and children’s sermons eventually became a “popular part of Protestant worship during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”[62]
Edwards also held up children as models for adult Christians, saying that they symbolised “some of the best Christian qualities.”[63] Edwards even “allowed children to be admitted into full communion … By passing the bread and wine to them, he treated them as full spiritual equals.”[64] And he managed to “create a Christian theology that [valued] children’s spiritual needs.[65]
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
Schliermacher demonstrated a “persistent interest in the subject of children” in much of his writing. “He saw children as naturally innocent, not encumbered with the supposed inheritance of original sin.”[66] But he did claim that the “evil influences of society … spoiled the natural goodness of children.”[67]
Schliermacher noted that, “in the Incarnation, childhood itself is affirmed as worthy by God.”[68] And a theme throughout his 1818 sermons on the Christian Household was “the wonderful blessing that children represent to the community of faith.”[69] He said that “adults need to recover a childlike ability to be present in the moment if they are to experience the full blessing of Christian faith,”[70] and that the church “neglects children at its own very significant peril.”[71]
Schleiermacher considered the education of children to be one of a pastor’s most important duties, and held such high expectations of the catechising pastor that he claimed that “when children who have been raised in church lose their faith in adulthood, it is often because they have received poor catechetical instruction.”[72] He “never believed the religious instruction of children was a task beneath him. He … [loved] the company of children, and he sought passionately to make the Christian faith accessible and attractive to them.”[73]
Horace Bushnell (1802-1876)
For Congregationalist Horace Bushnell, “a child could not be expected to have an adult faith.”[74] But Bushnell “emphasised the developmental nature of spiritual understanding,”[75] and stated that “Christ was ‘ a Saviour for infants, and children, and youth, as truly as for the adult age’.”[76] Bushnell advocated a special (non-voting) form of church membership for children, in which they were “not subject to church discipline but allowed full access to the Lord’s Supper.”[77] And he admitted that, “had he the chance to begin his career over, he would have preached first to children and only secondly to adults.”[78] He declared, “We call it coming down when we undertake the preaching to children; whereas it is coming up … to speak to the bright day-light creatures of trust and sweet affinities and easy conviction.”[79]
Karl Barth (1886-1968)
Barth spoke of children as “bearers of a promise of God’s grace.”[80] He considered them to be “needy beginners”[81] but ready to learn, “characteristically at play,”[82] and tuly free despite their limitations.[83] Thus, “young people are to be an example to the older in this ever fresh hearing of the divine command.”[84]
Karl Rahner (1904-1984)
Rahner argued that all “human persons – including children – are fundamentally oriented toward God,”[85] and spoke of the “unsurpassable value of childhood.”[86] He challenged the “Christian tendency to subordinate childhood to adult life,”[87] by showing how the child “is intended to be, right from the start, a partner of God.”[88] And he argued that “being a child has value in its own right.”[89]
Rahner reminds us that “for adults to attain the openness of children (which is what the kingdom of heaven requires), conversion is necessary.”[90] And he defines such openness as an “infinite openness to the infinite.”[91] Rahner’s theology reminds us “not only that our obligation is to nurture the children who are given to us and all that belongs to them as children, but that each one of us, again and again, must become that child we were in the beginning.”[92]
Rahner was bold to “address the pastoral needs of the young,”[93] although he did question whether “a catechism is the appropriate medium for the religious initiation of a child.”[94] It was one of Rahner’s contemporaries who observed that, often in Christian education, “instead of going in directly by the open doors of the child’s imagination and sense perception, we waste our time by knocking on the still bolted doors of his understanding and his judgement.”[95]
Feminist Theology
In contemporary times, some feminist theologians have pointed out how, in Western culture since the eighteenth century, “the movement of men out of the home and into the workplace had a powerful impact on … family life.”[96] Fathers began to have “less immediate involvement with domestic life and … children … In matters of education and spiritual formation, children had fewer male role models readily available.”[97]
But in the same period there has been little or no “developed teaching on children by the church itself.”[98] “Doctrines of human nature, salvation, and God remained amazingly adult-centred, forgetting that all people begin their lives as children and that many people spend a large proportion of their adult lives responsible for children in some way. [Such] theological neglect coincided with a broader societal neglect.”[99]
These feminists point to “the historical dilemma which assigns only to women the concern for ministries with women, children and youth.”[100] And they are particularly concerned for the “plight of children outside stable, two-parent families [where] children disappear into a market-driven society where the ultimate measures of value are utility and self-interest.”[101] In this society, the responsibilities of adults for children “assume paramount importance.”[102]
Much contemporary feminist theology “promotes the welfare of children”[103] and supports the “child’s claim as a worthy creation of God.”[104] They “invoke an eschatological image in which all are welcome to the table of God,”[105] and argue that “Christians are obliged to create a world in which ‘every child who wants might learn to dance’.”[106] We need to “be at the forefront of advocating … the protection of all children”[107] and calling for “justice for the ‘least of these’.”[108]
They point to the “utter vulnerability of children before the adults that create and shape their world,”[109] and believe that, while “children may harbour evil thoughts, … the depth and extent of their corrupt behaviour is in direct proportion to the actions of the adults in their midst.”[110] Sin is defined in “strikingly adult ways, as … leanings and control that most children have not yet acquired.”[111] And they claim that “sin is more something to which children fall victim than something they engage in as culprits.”[112]
[1] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.280
[2] Stortz, ‘Where or when was your servant innocent? Augustine on childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.79
[3] Stortz, ‘Where or when was your servant innocent? Augustine on childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.83
[4] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.111
[5] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.113
[6] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.113-114
[7] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.114
[8] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.114-115
[9] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.117
[10] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.117
[11] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.117
[12] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.119
[13] Traina, ‘A Person in the Making: Thomas Aquinas on Children and Childhood’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.119
[14] Strohl, ‘The Child in Luther;s Theology’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.144
[15] Strohl, ‘The Child in Luther;s Theology’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.149
[16] Strohl, ‘The Child in Luther;s Theology’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.149
[17] Strohl, ‘The Child in Luther;s Theology’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.159
[18] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.161
[19] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.161
[20] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.162-3
[21] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.162
[22] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.163
[23] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.163
[24] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.169
[25] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.164
[26] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.165
[27] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.165
[28] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.166
[29] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.183
[30] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.186
[31] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.186
[32] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.187
[33] Pitkin, ‘“The Heritage of the Lord”: Children in the Theology of John Calvin’ , in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.193
[34] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.194
[35] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.194
[36] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.201
[37] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.203
[38] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp. 194-195
[39] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.204
[40] Miller, ‘Complex Innocence, Obligatory Nurturance, and Parental Vigilance: “The Child” in the Work of Menno Simons’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.195
[41] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.247
[42] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.252
[43] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.253
[44] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.247
[45] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.254
[46] Bunge, ‘Education and the Child in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism: Perspectives from the Work of A. H. Franke’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.278
[47] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.297
[48] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.292
[49] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.298
[50] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.295
[51] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.295
[52] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.296
[53] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.296
[54] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.296
[55] Heitzenrater, ‘John Wesley and Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.298
[56] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.301
[57] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.302
[58] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.303
[59] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.311
[60] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.313
[61] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.313
[62] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.313
[63] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.312
[64] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.318
[65] Brekus, ‘Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.328
[66] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.334
[67] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.334
[68] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.338
[69] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.340
[70] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.348
[71] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.348
[72] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.346
[73] DeVries, ‘“Be Converted and Become as Little Children”: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.348
[74] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.355
[75] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.355
[76] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.355
[77] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.356
[78] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.359
[79] Bendroth, ‘Horace Bushnell’s Christian Nurture’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.359
[80] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.389
[81] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.392
[82] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.392
[83] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.393
[84] Werpehowski, ‘Reading Karl Barth on Children’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.393
[85] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.421
[86] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.421
[87] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.422
[88] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.423
[89] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.443
[90] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.426
[91] See the title of Hinsdale’s paper, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.406-445
[92] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.445
[93] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.439
[94] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.438
[95] Hinsdale, ‘“Infinite Openness to the Infinite”: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.434
[96] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.447
[97] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.447
[98] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.448 (italics in original)
[99] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.472-473
[100] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.452
[101] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.456
[102] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.457
[103] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.459
[104] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.459
[105] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.459
[106] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.459
[107] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), pp.459-460
[108] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.460
[109] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.462
[110] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.462
[111] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.463
[112] Miller-McLemore, ‘“Let the Children Come” Revisited: Contemporary Feminist Theologians on Children, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.464
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