Child Theology

As I continue to reflect on the question of children and the church (see previous post here and here), I've come across the Child Theology Movement (CFM), which seeks to devleop the whole of theology in light of the child. Keith White, who is one of the founders says

'Child Theology is seeking to re-examine the heart of theology, church and mission, with a view to establishing how different it all looks with a child continuously standing in the midst.  This is a new endeavour: check out the major works of theology in any tradition by looking for the word child or childhood in the index or contents and you will find that children are marginalized to the point of erasure and invisibility.'

This is something as the church we need to nuture and encourage. To ask what church and theology looks like with children in the centre, in our midst, instead of on the margins. As I continue to think about what it is to be the church, I'm increasingly convinced that it is a space and a people who welcome and recognise the child as an active person who is a gift and participant as much as any other person. We have to overcome the idea that the child is an empty vessel which we simply fill with knowledge and experience. I don't think a child theology means a simplified theology. The problem in the church is that is too often the kind of theology we want or get is a theology which is so systemized, that it leaves no space for wonder or question. I came across this quote from Jeremy Begbie:

All good theology is done on the cliff-edge—one step too far and you tumble into idolatry, one step back and the view is never so good. The reader [of this book] will have to judge whether we have occasionally stumbled over the precipice, and when we have not, whether the view has justified the risk.” (Theology, Music and Time, Cambridge, 2000, p. 279)

Comments

[Mark]

Keith teaches sociology at Spurgeon's - he's a quality guy and he's well into the kids stuff.

[Don Ratcliff]

You may find some helpful materials on child theology at this address:

www.childspirituality.org/theology/

All the best,
Don