Children and theology - Theologies of Childhood and the Children of AfricaTheologies of Childho

Meeting one another

The two words, children and theology, are old words with their own lives, independent from each other. They do not need each other to exist, live and convey meaning. It is part of the problem in using these two words together. Each one of them has on its own meaning, which is not necessarily clear and limited to one interpretation. Many people talk about a child or children every day. Most of the time, we presume that we know exactly what we are talking about, and we do not even question our own use of these words. The result is that we use them in different ways without really scrutinising them critically. In the process, many things are said that are contradictory. Sometimes our expressed ideas differ, even contradict, the real-life experiences of the children living around us. The same is true of the concept theology. Maybe not all people is using it as often as the concept child or children, but God and living a Godly life is ever present with us. When we use the concept or the idea of ‘theology’, it can have many layers of meaning, differing from person to person. On the questions

‘what is a child?’ and ‘what is theology?’, no simple universal answer can be given. The variety of different answers are influenced by many factors, not the least our own life experiences with these concepts, including our encounters with real children in different contexts, our own religious life and practices, the theological tradition in which we stand and our different understandings of these words caused by difference in culture. This is not the time and place to explore these concepts deeper. It is sufficient to admit that each concept can convey on its own a confusing number of meanings that can hugely influence the grammatical structure of meaning when using them together.

However, because both concepts exist, are alive and are used in the same world, it is almost inconceivable that they will not meet each other at some time in one way or another. It seems, though, that the meeting between them did not happen often in the past. It is actually amazing that theologians did not pay more attention to the meeting of these two words or to actively combining them until very recently.

Actually, many theologians have not merited childhood as a serious topic to attend to (cf. Bunge 2001:3, 2004:43, 2006; Miller-McLemore 2006:635–636). According to Bunge (2008), the biblical sciences have generally neglected the themes of children and childhood in their research. She is of the opinion that they did not give much attention to the many references in the Bible to children and childhood and the different uses of child-related terminology by the biblical authors. She even states that ‘most of literature that has addressed any relationships between biblical texts and children has been written primarily by scholars in the areas of religious education or children’s ministry’

(Bunge 2008:xv).

This view does not imply that, over the centuries, theologians did not attend to children in their theological thinking and writing at all.

Occasionally, there were glimpses of attention to children in the work of some theologians (cf. Berryman 2009; Bunge 2001). What is clear, however, is that children were marginalised by many theologians and were not allowed to influence and shape theology consistently. There are many reasons why this marginalisation of children in theology occurred (cf. Bunge 2001:11–12; Miller-McLemore 2003:xxii; Sims 2005:11). The following statement by Sims (2005) can be seen as a correct but very sad reason as to why children were easily omitted from serious theological reflection:

Children generally have not been viewed as active agents in the process of interpreting, constructing, negotiating and defining their relationships, societies, cultures, families and churches. Theologically they have not been viewed as active, formative agents in their relationships with God, others, themselves, society and culture, but rather as passive recipients of formation for such relationships or as young, immature sinners in need of conversion. (p. 11)

This situation has started to change since the beginning of the 21st century. A growing awareness of and interest in connecting children and theology started to develop. Several important books and articles were published, exploring this relationship (cf. ch. 1). In the process, different ways emerged for relating children and theology. The surface structure of this developing grammar was expressed in different ways and conveyed different meanings. The Child Theology Movement created a grammar structure very much influenced by Jesus’ action in Matthew 18:1–14 to put a child in the midst of the disciples during an intense theological argument.

The grammar of child and theology in the light of Matthew 18:1–14

We have to ask the question: In what way(s) can Jesus’ action in Matthew 18:1–14 help us to develop a grammatical structure of children and theology that will improve understandable communication? In trying to answer this question I will not analyse this pericope in depth. Such an analysis is presented in Chapter 5. Here I only look into aspects that may help in answering the question formulated above.

In Matthew 18:1–14, Jesus is addressing the disciples’ understanding of God and God’s kingdom. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and the cross and death, to the fulfilment of his mission to this world.

After Jesus had announced his coming suffering and death for the second time on this journey (Mt 17:33–23), the disciples still did not understand that the trademark of God’s kingdom was to lay down your own life and die. They rather started to argue (cf. Mk 9:33–37; Lk 9:46–48) with each other about greatness, about who will be the most important in the kingdom of heaven. It was to address this misunderstanding of God and God’s kingdom that Jesus took a little child to stand by his side (cf. Lk 9:47).

How do you picture what is happening here? It is clear that Jesus did not seek a child or sent a disciple to fetch a child. The implication is that there were children around Jesus and his disciples. The South African film director, Regardt van den Berg, directed a docu-drama based word-for-word on the Gospel according to Matthew, released in 1993.

Before starting with the production of the film, Van den Berg stated that he was convinced that he was to present Jesus as a joyful person, the Saviour that experienced the greatest form of joy, the joy of saving the lost.

The implication of this decision comes also to the fore in his picture of Matthew 18:1–14.³¹

It does not mean that the way in which Van den Berg filmed this scene represents wat really happened. It is rather a pictorial expression of the hidden grammar of meaning that Van den Berg attached to this episode in Jesus’ life. It is a scene full of joy. It is a picture of Jesus and his disciples with a few playing and laughing children around them. When the disciples asked their very serious question concerning greatness, Jesus took a child, playfully, whilst he answered their question. On the children’s faces, the joy to be with Jesus is clearly expressed.

31. http://regardtvandenbergh.com/matthew.html

At a conference on child theology held in Ethiopia in November 2013, this scene was shown to the conference attendees. It was immediately clear that many of the people present could not identify themselves with the picture Van den Berg created. According to them, Jesus could not have acted as informal and playful as pictured by Van den Berg. It just did not fit their cultural view of leadership and their view of Jesus as an authoritative male figure. The conduct of the children in the presence of adults, and especially around such an important leader as Jesus, was just not acceptable.

They experienced Van den Berg’s picture of the children as a disturbance, as misbehaviour on their side. These children just could not represent the child that Jesus had put in the midst of his disciples. Their cultural view of children did not allow them to picture the children and their interaction with Jesus in this way. What came to the fore here is that their hidden grammar of meaning underneath their surface grammar structure of Matthew 18 differed from Van den Berg’s hidden grammar of meaning underneath the same surface grammar structure.

What is quite interesting of Van den Berg’s picture of this scene is that he managed to keep the focus on Jesus the whole time, but he did it in such a way that all the children around him and his disciples were included. The implications are very clear: Jesus is the focus point, and the specific child he was referring to was only a representative figure of all the children around them. This pictorial interpretation fits with the world view of the Jews, who did not have an individualistic world view as developed in some parts of the developed world but a collective, group-orientated world view (Grobbelaar 2008:220–221). In a long discussion on this topic, the Old Testament scholar Perdue (1997:237) came to the conclusion that ‘the strong sense of corporate solidarity and community dominated Israel’s and early Judaism’s social and religious world’. It is therefore highly unlikely

that there was only one child with Jesus and his disciples. Van den Berg’s picture of a group of children around him is consistent with this world view.

Jesus took a child from this group of children as a clue, a sign or language to change the disciples’ view of God and God’s kingdom and to teach them a new theological grammar about God and God’s kingdom. It is a moment of revelation to the disciples, a revelation not about children or any of their many inherent characteristics or virtues (cf. Grobbelaar 2008:322–

325) but about who God is and about God’s way of doing things. It is a revelation of God’s grammar in relation to God’s kingdom.

Through using a child, Jesus wanted to change not only the surface structure of their kingdom grammar but also the deepest hidden structure of their grammar about God and God’s kingdom. By this action, Jesus confronted the hidden meaning behind their words, which was being formed in their innermost being since the beginning of their own childhood years, with God’s own grammar about the kingdom of God.

Unless you change, unless your grammar about God and God’s kingdom and the role of leadership in this kingdom changes, unless your innermost being and your understanding of the meaning of life change in such a way that it can be seen in your life and heard in your use of words, you cannot enter God’s kingdom.

Part of this conversation was also a clash between two different views of children, the view of the disciples and Jesus’ own view. The view of the disciples was formed by their surrounding Mediterranean culture (cf. Grobbelaar 2008:291–301). In this world, children were seen as property that belonged to their parents, without any status, undeveloped and incomplete, on the way to becoming an important human being, an adult. The only value of children lay in their future being.

Jesus had exactly the opposite view of children. Whilst the disciples looked at the kingdom of God from the perspective of their present situation where children had no status and where adults were the most important, the people with status, with power, with influence, the ideal of human perfection, Jesus said to them very clearly: No! This is not how it works in God’s kingdom. Come and have a look from my perspective, look back at this life from the future, at all children, at your own lives. See that in God’s kingdom, there are no adults, no hierarchy, no greatness, no power relationship, no difference in status, no unfinished humans-to-be, no incomplete state of being, no one with undeveloped character or bodily weakness, or emotionally instability or intellectually deficiency. It is a kingdom where the standard of the ideal human being is to be a child of the living God. Let this eschatological perspective on God’s kingdom become the deepest theological grammar of your life, the hidden grammar structure of meaning behind all your thoughts and actions. Let it also change the rules of the surface structure of your grammar, the words you use and the combination in which you use it. Remember, you have to follow me to the cross, you have to lay down your life, your longing for power and status, your theological grammar, especially about children and God’s kingdom. Yes, you will have to change your own innermost, cultural orientated, view of children. Then and then alone will you become children in my kingdom.

Then your calling would be to receive, to welcome the children in this world and in your own lives. When you do it, if you live according to God’s grammar about children and theology, according to God’s way of doing things, you will be surprised with a wonderful experience: You will also receive me.

Different combinations of children and theology

Looking to live according to God’s grammar about children and theology as expressed in Matthew 18:1–14, it is now important to study the surface grammatical structure of combining theology and children. On the surface, it is grammatically possible to combine or structure these two words in the following different ways (cf. Bunge 2007:12):

• child theologies

• theologies of childhood

• theologies for children

• children’s theology.

Other terms related to children and theology to these combinations can be added. Terminologies such as children and religious education, children’s ministry, children’s spirituality and children’s spiritual development. To these terms other concepts which, based on age and developmental motivations, use youth instead of children, for example youth ministry.

The big question is: What are the differences between all these terms? Are there any overlaps between them? How do we differentiate between them?

What is the focus of each one? The scary reality is that all these combinations and all the surrounding concepts we can add can be rather confusing, and it is not so easy to distinguish between them.

We also have to be aware of possible dangers in using theology and children together. We tend to allow children and the social construction of childhood as well as the knowledge about children that is generated by childhood studies and other academic disciplines to eclipse theology.

The challenge is that we should always remember that we are doing theology, not on an island severed from other academic disciplines, but in interaction with them, taking into account our theological identity and remaining true to it. The other danger is just the opposite. We can focus

so much on theology that we almost loose the real children of this world.

Then theology tends to become sterile adult thought, losing the influence of children’s agency on the formation of our theology and exposing ourselves to the possibility of not welcoming Jesus in our theology and lives. We even run the risk of not entering into God’s kingdom.

Therefore, we have to receive children in doing theology and be careful of how these two concepts influence one another. One of the important questions in combining these two concepts is: Which one comes first?

Where do you start? Wilmer and White (2013:13–15) use the image of people travelling between two cities to illustrate the influence that either child or theology might have as the starting point for the upcoming journey. You can start with theology and then move on to children, or you can start with children and move in the direction of theology. Depending on the starting point, you will reach a different destination.

When people start with theology and then move on to children, they actually want to work with Gods view of children. They want to understand children from a theological perspective. The destination of this journey is usually called theology/ies of childhood (cf. Ch. 3). According to Bunge (2006:554), ‘“Theologies of Childhood,” … primarily provide sophisticated understandings of children and childhoods and our obligations to children themselves’. An important part of this study is to explore all the different views on children and childhood present in the Bible and the Christian tradition in such a way that the dignity of children is respected (cf. Bunge 2007:12).

The journey can also be undertaken in the directly opposite direction.

Then the traveller starts with children and moves in the direction of theology. The destination is then child theology/ies. In this journey,

children become the hermeneutical lens through which you explore God and God’s way of doing things to come to a better understanding of God and God’s kingdom. Child theology therefore re-examines theology as a whole, including all the practices of the church and Christian life (cf.

Bunge 2006:554). Children are like lenses as White and Willmer (2006) explain:

[T]hrough which some aspects of God and his revelation can be seen more clearly.

Or, if you like, the child[ren] is [are] like a light that throws existing theology into new relief. (p. 6)

Both child theologies and theologies of childhood are legitimate surface grammatical structures. However, they do not exist independently from each other. The journey is not just a straight linear movement from one to the other. Sometimes the traffic gets mixed up. Willmer and White (2013) stated this as follows:

When the direction runs from theology to child, there are always some hints and gestures in the other direction … travels in the child-to-theology direction … does not mean it eliminates some traffic on the other carriageway. (p. 14)

'Children-to-theology’ and ‘theology-to-children’ cannot exist in total separation. They do influence each other. Conceding this influence, Willmer and White (2013:14) say: ‘“Child-to-theology” implies and shapes

“theology-to-child”’. Stated in other words, child theologies imply and shape theologies of childhood. With this view on the relationship between these two concepts, it seems that child theology is the shaper and by implication the more important factor in this journey.

Is it really only child theology that shapes theology of childhood? What about the possibility of theology of childhood shaping child theology?

When one moves from children to theology, one probably already has a view of children, a theology of childhood. If children become the

lens through which you explore theology, the question is: Who are these children or what lens do you use? Just as there are different kinds and colours of lenses, children are not all the same. There are many differences between them: They grow up in different contexts, they are part of different cultures, some are poor and some are rich and very privileged, some are abused and other not. There are child soldiers and those who

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