Toward a Theology of Childhood

Toward a Theology of Childhood

DAWN DEVRIES Professor of Systematic Theology

Union-PSCE

Communities of faith have much to learn from children's experience of God and their view of the world. Theology that values the perspectives of children will address quite different questions from the ones that have dominated the Christian tradition.

Who speaks for the children? Who makes certain that their concerns are addressed in contemporary society? While we have just lived through the longest uninterrupted bull market in the history of the United

States—a market that has created untold wealth for a few—roughly one in five children among us is growing up in poverty.1 During the last decade, while prosperous baby boomers have devoted themselves to the philosophy "work hard, play hard," their preschool children have undergone a 700% increase in the prescription of psychotropic drugs for mental illnesses such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression.2 While the National Rifle Association defends the constitutional right to bear arms and celebrates the American sportsman, gunshot wounds have become the leading cause of death among American teenagers, closely followed by suicide. In 1996 alone, 4,643 children and teenagers (and 9,390 people in all) were killed by guns in America. That compares with a total of 15 deaths by gunshot wounds in Japan and 30 in Great Britain during the same year.3 Such grim statistics about the experience of childhood in the United States, which claims to be the leader of the free world, are well known and appalling.

^ee statistics provided by the United States Census Bureau on its website at www.census.gov. See also The State of America's Children: Yearbook 2000 (Washington, D.C.: Children's Defense Fund, 1998).

2J. M. Zito et al., "Trends in the Prescribing of Psychotropic Medications to Preschoolers," The Journal of the American Medical Association 283/8 (February 23, 2000).

3See P. R. Breggin, M.D., Reclaiming Our Children: A Healing Plan for a Nation in Crisis (Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Books, 2000) 41, 62-63.

at Open University on January 6, 2015int.sagepub.comDownloaded from

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162 Interpretation APRIL 2001

In recent years, the literature on children and childhood has burgeoned, fueled in part by the ongoing debate on public policy regarding our children.4 But until very recently, the field of systematic theology in the twentieth century has been largely silent on the question of children.5 Does the witness of Christian faith have anything distinctive to contribute to the present discussion in our culture about children?

A theologian who wishes to address the question of children faces many of the same initial challenges faced by feminist theologians. The subject of children and their experience is not a regular dogmatic commonplace, and the sources for retrieving children's experience seem either nonexistent or at least relatively difficult to recover. Moreover, among the ideas about children that one can retrieve from traditional theological texts, very little is directly helpful for a contemporary theology of childhood; many of our Christian forebears' ideas and practices demand critical exposure, not triumphant repristination. Within the limits of this initial exploration, I can do little more than suggest lines for further investigation. For now, our attention will focus on three questions. First, what is a child, and how do our theories on the nature of the child affect our relationships with children? Second, how should we conceive the redemption or reconciliation of children? What does it mean for a child to "be saved"? Finally, what does Christian hope look like through the eyes of a child? Although these questions by no means exhaust the range of doctrines that need to be rethought, I hope they will be suggestive of further work that can be done in the area of a children's theology.

THE NATURE OF THE CHILD

On the face of it, defining the nature of the child is a simple and straightforward task: the child is an immature human being who requires protection and nurture by the adult members of the species in order to grow to physical and emotional maturity. Childhood has generally been assumed to be the state of immaturity, though the age of maturity has been defined differently in various cultures and eras. Yet in important ways this fundamental definition of childhood has been nuanced through the development of a variety of theories of childhood. For our purposes, I want to contrast two different ways of valuing the state of immaturity: one we shall call an instrumental valuation and the other an intrinsic valuation of childhood. The instrumental view holds that, in one way or another, childhood is valuable for the sake of what it will later become. In other words, the child has value because he or she has the potential to become an adult. The intrinsic valuation, on the contrary, holds that childhood has its own value, irrespective of later developments. In this view, the child

4For an overview of the new academic focus on children in various disciplines see S. Heller, "The Meaning of Children Becomes a Focal Point for Scholars," The Chronicle of Higher Education 7 (August 1998) A14-16.

5Two recent publications begin to redress the neglect: a special number of the journal Theology Today 56,4 (January 2000) with an editorial and eleven articles devoted to Christian understandings of children and childhood, and M. J. Bunge, ed., The Child in Christian Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), a collection of seventeen essays on theological understandings of children from the history of Christian thought.



THE CHILD Interpretation 163

has intrinsic worth, and has both rights and responsibilities that correspond to her worth.

Among the theories of childhood that have shaped the modern world, many value

childhood instrumentally. For example, John Locke's (163^-1704) influential epistemologi

ca! theories, which viewed the mind as a blank slate wait* ,g to be filled with the contents of

experience and reflection, tended to support a view of c ¡Idren as containers waiting to be

filled. While Locke was deeply con

cerned about appropriate education

for children, it was not so much for

their own sake as for the sake of the ^suM^ ^ „ -...-«. ^

childfr d behind. The insights of childhood

are not illusions that must be replaced with

the Jld hard facts of adult reality.

citizens they would later become. As relatively empty containers, children had nothing of value to offer to adults. While Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), in reacting against the rigid pedagogy of the seventeenth century, in ired an interest in the actual capabilities of young children, he set later theorists down a >ad that defined childhood in terms of certain "deficits" that are later overcome in adi ìood. Jean Piagefs (1896-1980) well-known stage theory of cognitive development hol· . that children not only know less than adults do but also think in an entirely different wav̂ redictably, as children grow older, they gain the cognitive abilities that mark the successive stages of development toward adulthood. While adults may find children's reasoning quite interesting, as the thought of alien "others," they can rest assured that adults no longer s1 ire the cognitive deficits of childhood. Similarly Lawrence Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development assumes that young children are simply incapable of truly moral actions, since they lack the principles in which such actions are grounded. What looks like moral behavior in children can almost certainly be reduced to imitation, compliance, or other pre-moral attitudes.

While developmental theories have certainly been helpful in identifying age-appropriate forms of instruction and communication, they have a dark side: earlier phases of development are taken as relatively less valuable than later phases. Once again, the infant is valuable chiefly for the toddler he will become, the young child for the adolescent, the teenager for the adult. Developmental theories tend to distance adults from children, so that the child is seen as an "other" rather than as a fellow human being.

Perhaps no theoretical discourse is more dominant in our modern consciousness than the discourse of free market capitalism, and in this realm, too, instrumental valuation of childhood seems to be the norm. Children are primarily seen as products, consumers, or burdens. As products, children are the coveted possessions of adults who can, to ever greater measure, virtually design their own offspring. In addition, adults who invest so much into procuring their children, says the market discourse, have every right to expect a return on that investment. Under this scenario, if certain forms of conception, such as in vitro fertilization of ova and sperm certified to have come from individuals with extremely high IQ scores, guarantee better returns on their risk, parents are more than justified in tak-



164 Interpretation APRIL 2 0 0 1

ing advantage of them. Although presumably all who are involved in the big business of

producing babies for discriminating investors recognize that the product in this case is a

unique human being, the rights or intrinsic value of that person seem strangely absent from

the discussion. The value of the child is the value she will have for the eager parents who see

her as theirs—almost as their property. If the child has a right to sufficient protection, nur

ture, and education, that is for the sake of the brilliant, beautiful, or successful adult that

she will become, providing a profitable return on her parents' investment.6

As consumers, children are the focus of relentless and seductive marketing strategies.

Children are valued as key players in determining how household income will be spent,

even if they themselves neither earn the money nor strictly control the accounts in which it

is held. The "value" of children for the many businesses that court them is not their intrin

sic value as unique and vulnerable human beings but their ability to consume products,

increase sales, and thereby contribute to the profitability of the corporation. That children

as consumers are not valued intrinsically should be clear enough from the fact that many

companies do not hesitate to market to children products that are known to be dangerous

and harmful for them.

As burdens, children (especially infants and poor children) are seen as a weight on the

economy—as non-producers and indirect consumers who nonetheless require costly care.

As such, they are simply lacking in any positive value from a market perspective. Jonathan

Kozol laments the dominance of market metaphors in our estimation of childhood:

The problem is not only that low-income children are devalued by these mercantile criteria; childhood itself is also redefined. It ceases to hold value for its own sake but is valued only as a "necessary prologue" to utilitarian adulthood. The first ten, twelve, or fifteen years of life are excavated of inherent moral worth in order to accommodate a regimen of basic training for the adult years that many of the poorest children may not even live to know. There is no reference to investing in the present—in the childhood of children—only in a later incarnation of the child as a "product" or "producer."7

What a striking contrast to our modern theories and discourses of childhood

words of Jesus: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the

kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a

child shall not enter it" (Mark 10:14-15, RSV). Here, Jesus not only welcomes children but

sets them up as models to be emulated. The value of these children, according to Jesus, is

not for the sake of something else but simply for what they are in themselves as children:

that is, Jesus holds childhood as intrinsically valuable. In a discerning article on attitudes

6For an excellent discussion of many of the ethical perplexities of the new reproductive technologies, see T. Peters, For the Love of Children: Genetic Technology and the Future of the Family (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996). On the influence of the discourse of free market capitalism on views of children, see T. D. Whitmore and T. Winwright, "Children: An Undeveloped Theme in Catholic Teaching," in The Challenge of Global Stewardship: Roman Catholic Responses, ed. Μ. Α. Ryan and T. D. Whitmore (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1997) 161-85.

7J. Kozol, Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope (New York: Crown Publishers, 2000) 139.




toward children in the New Testament, Judith Gundry-Volf argues that Jesus' identification

with children includes at least four distinct emphases. First, Jesus identifies children as pri

mary objects of care and service by his disciples. As vulnerable and dependent ones, chil

dren should be served with humility by anyone who is seeking to be great in the reign of

God. Second, children are identified as co-recipients and model entrants into the reign of

God. They are receivers of God's reign primarily because, along with the poor and the

oppressed, they are lacking in social status: they bring nothing and simply depend on the

goodness of God to uphold them. Children also exemplify the right way of receiving God's

reign in their attitude of trusting dependence. Third, children are those who have true

insight into spiritual things, for God reveals to infants what is hidden from the learned. The

spiritual insight of children does not rest on their education but on their openness to being

vehicles for divine revelation. Fourth, children actually represent Jesus, so that those who

receive children gladly also receive Jesus and God.8 In each of these emphases of Jesus'

teaching on children, it is clear that the child's value is not instrumental but intrinsic. By

holding up children as models for adult faith, possessors of spiritual insight, and even rep

resentatives of himself, Jesus provocatively reverses instrumental reasoning. What counts is

not what the child will be but what he is right now.

It was precisely this emphasis on the child's being in the present moment that struck Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) about Jesus' identification with children. The difference between adults and children, he said, is that children play and adults practice. Play is an activity that is done for its own sake, for the present enjoyment of the activity, without regard to future outcomes. Practice, by contrast, is the arduous repetition and development of skills for the purpose of mastery and perfect execution of some future production or artifact. While it would be wrong to allow children never to grow into the task of developing their skills through practice, it is also wrong to become so preoccupied with correcting past mistakes in the interest of future performance that one can no longer be present in the moment. Preoccupation with play might lead to irresponsibility, but preoccupation with practice can make a person rigid and closed off from fresh insights that arise as one actually experiences life in the moment.

Schleiermacher argued that childhood and adulthood were best understood not as successive phases of human development but as distinct spiritual perspectives that could coexist in any human being at the same time. Of course, we would expect that young humans would tend more naturally to the child's perspective and older humans to the adult's. But it is wrong when either side exclusively takes over in any stage of human life. Growing up, then, should not mean leaving childhood behind. The insights of childhood are not illusions that must be replaced with the cold hard facts of adult reality.

Schleiermacher found it particularly fascinating that Jesus claimed that the disciples

8J. M. Gundry-Volf, "The Least and the Greatest: Children in the New Testament," in The Child in Christian Thought, ed. M. J. Bunge, 29-60.




had to change or "convert" to be like little children (Matt 18:1-5). Perhaps reading his own understanding of children and childhood into the text, Schleiermacher focused not on the humility of children but on their ability to be in the moment and open to whatever reveals itself to their senses. The promise of eternal life, he argued, is just such a being with God in

Christ in the present, without regard

to past or future. Christ opens us to

Children are not simply small and I t h e e t e r n a l n o w > a n d children have a

deficient adults, and their worth is more natural entrée into this experi-enee than the typical adult. For this

not to be reduced to what they will reason, it is not an accident that

become in the future. I c M d r e n md aduks are m a d e to be

together in communal life. Adults

grow in sanctification through their

care of children, whose complete dependence upon them challenges them to live for others.

At the same time, children within a community give a gift to adults: they draw them back

into the spiritual perspective of the child. Without this gift, many adults would become so

jaded and cynical that they would be incapable of receiving the gift of reconciliation that

Christ has to offer them. Childhood, then, is intrinsically valuable as the spiritual perspec

tive most easily able to draw us into fellowship with God.9

Karl Rahner (1904-1984) also argued that childhood is not a stage to be superseded and hence valuable for what it contributes to something else. Although, biologically, children grow so as to become adults, Christians seek to perfect the gift of being made children of God. A child is open to others based on a natural need to accept vulnerability and dependence and to trust others to provide. Not surprisingly, then, children are also open and carefree in their relationship to God: they have no pretensions, for they realize they have nothing to offer God. It is for this reason, Rahner argued, that Jesus identified with children. Not that they are perfect or sinless, but that they expect everything from God. As adults, he maintained, Christians should seek to cultivate the openness, trust, and receptivity of the child as the essence of true saving relationship with God. The "infinite openness" of childhood is the promise of the eschatological future that is the gift of God.10

Of course, not every part of the New Testament view of children presents the radical reversal of instrumental reasoning we can discover in the teaching of Jesus. In particular, the household codes of Ephesians and Colossians and the few insights on child rearing in the Pastoral epistles present children as subordinate members of the household of faith who must be disciplined and instructed in the faith by their superiors—especially by fathers.11

These teachings are not entirely consistent with Jesus' view of children and have perhaps

9For a fuller discussion of Schleiermacher's views, see D DeVnes» "Be Converted and Become as Little Children Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Spiritual Significance of Childhood," in The Child in Christian Thought, 329-49

10For more on Rahner's views, see M A Hinsdale, " 'Infinite Openness to the Infinite' Karl Rahner's Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child," in Bunge, ed, The Child in Christian Thought, 406-45

"See the discussion m J M Gundry-Volf, "The Least and the Greatest," 53-59 at Open University on January 6, 2015int.sagepub.comDownloaded from



exercised a greater influence on the history of Christian thinking about children than Jesus'

own instruction. Children have been seen as weaker, subordinate members of the commu

nity of faith, whose physical, emotional, and spiritual immaturity render them objects of

adult discipline but not bearers of spiritual insight or models of faith.

The time has come for theology to recover the resources in both Bible and tradition for

a fully intrinsic valuation of childhood. This perspective is quite contrary to the dominant

cultural theories and discourses of childhood and, for that reason, it has transformative

potential. Children are not simply small and deficient adults, and their worth is not to be

reduced to what they will become in the future. The child's perception of reality is valuable

and provides a necessary corrective to the more measured perceptions of adulthood.

Children are by nature trusting, curious, and open to the wonders of life. Children also see things simply—without the complicating obfuscations that so often reduce adults to passivity. Gareth Matthews has argued that Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development does not do justice to the sometimes arresting ability of children to prick the moral conscience of adults. When children see homeless people sleeping in cardboard boxes on sidewalks, they do not ordinarily think about the web of addiction, moral turpitude, failed social policies, and other aspects of the "big picture" that so often prevent adults from responding with help and compassion to a human being in need. Can we really comfort ourselves as adults, then, with a theory of moral development that says our children, no matter what questions they may raise, are "pre-moral"? Can we condescend to our children, as innocent and uninformed people who cannot understand the full complexity of the moral problems that plague us? Matthews concludes that "such condescension is unwarranted . . . [because] children, in their simple directness, often bring us back to basics. Any developmental theory that rules out, on purely theoretical grounds, even the possibility that we adults may occasionally have something to learn, morally, from a child is, for that reason, defective; it is also morally offensive."12

If we take Jesus' teaching about children seriously, we have many reasons to agree with the arguments of Matthews. God reveals to the simple what is hidden from the learned, and to receive children and their perspectives is to receive Jesus. Christians should resist any theories of childhood that make the life of the young child seem fleeting and unimportant. Even more, they should be eager to see through the eyes of children the experiences of God they have had. If the reign of God belongs to children, surely we have something to learn from them.

A SOTERIOLOGY FOR CHILDREN

The doctrines that fall under the rubric of soteriology, such as justification and sancti-

12G. B. Matthews, The Philosophy of Childhood (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994) 66-67. at Open University on January 6, 2015int.sagepub.comDownloaded from



fìcation, take their starting point from the felt needs of the sinful adult human being. For Martin Luther, the question was, "How can I find a gracious God? How can I be sure that my sins are forgiven?" In more recent times, the question that the doctrine of salvation seeks to answer has shifted somewhat. Now many people ask instead, "Is there a God? How can I be sure that life has meaning and is worth living?" But interestingly, when we examine these questions more closely, it is clear that both kinds represent the questions of adults. While teenagers may begin to pose questions about guilt, forgiveness, and the meaning of life, few young children regularly wrestle with these questions. Does this mean that children have no existential questions, no ultimate concerns, that drive them to recognize the role of God in their lives? Of course not. We must simply listen to our children to discover their own distinctive questions and existential struggles. Much of the repertoire of classical Protestant theology on the question of salvation is written for the presumptive adult. Few children can really understand the problems for which grace and faith offer an answer. Must theology offer one-size-fits-all doctrine, or are there ways to contextualize our theology, not only with regard to gender, race, and class, but also with regard to age? What are the problems from which children look to God for salvation?

Children's experience, of course, is diverse, and it cannot be reduced to a single monolithic account. And when we go in search of documentary evidence of children's experience, it is sometimes hard to come by. Memoirs of childhood written by adults cannot be assumed to represent the child's perspective—even when the authors feel relatively unalienated from their childhoods. As an experiment in showing the fruitfulness of reincorporating children's experience into the sources for contemporary theology, I have combed Jonathan Kozol's books Amazing Grace and Ordinary Resurrections for the words of children themselves that would give some clues about their existential concerns. The children he writes about in these powerful books are not middle class or white, but poor minority children, black and Hispanic, living in one of the roughest parts of the Bronx. One might object that their concerns are not typical, and yet throughout these books, Kozol is able to show us just how ordinary these little children are, in spite of the extraordinary challenges they encounter day by day. But for now I want to put aside the question of whether or not their narratives are representative and simply ask what they can tell us about the meaning of "salvation" for a child.

One theme that comes up repeatedly is the need for safe space. A young girl remembers with nostalgia the apartment she and her family had in Harlem, because when she lived there she could ride her bike in Central Park. The new home, in the middle of a drug-infested block in South Bronx, has no place for her to play. "It's too dangerous to go outside . . . [t]he drug dealers . . . snatch children away." Her father adds, "There's no such thing as safe around here This here is a burial ground. People walk the streets like they're




The needs of the individual child—for safety,

nurture, and hope—can only be met through

the transformation of community.

already dead."13 Children who live with daily anxiety about their physical safety are alienat

ed from the careless play that should characterize the stage of early childhood. Yet even

well-meaning parents forced by race

and economic circumstances to live

out their lives in urban ghettos can

not create safe fortresses for their

children. Kozol ends Amazing Grace

with a memorial testimony to 23

children and youth from the neigh

borhood who died violent deaths during the time he was researching and writing the book.

It is no wonder the children worry about their safety.

A second central theme that reappears is the need for sufficient food. In an interchange

with a young boy who has confessed the sin of stealing food, Kozol reveals that the child

sometimes has nothing more than cold oatmeal with milk for supper at night. Sometimes

he goes without food. Other times, he turns to the pastor of the church to give him extra

food.14 One of the main programs at St. Ann's of Morrisania Episcopal church that Kozol

writes about is the regular feeding of supper to school-age children. Children who cannot

take for granted their ability to secure regular meals do worry about food.

But the children are not only focused on material needs. When prompted to describe what "plagues" were present in his own neighborhood, one young boy responds, "Sadness is one plague today. Desperate would be a plague. Drugs are a plague also, but the one who gets it does not have to be the firstborn. It can be the second son. It could be the youngest."15

The children of Mott Haven see the hopelessness of the adults around them, and they understand that faith, hope, and love are gifts from God. One young girl suggests that it is God's heart that pumps love into the world, and that all of her neighbors need more of this love. God needs to "push it harder," she claims, and so her prayers are encouragements to God to keep trying.16

The child's-eye view of salvation defines wholeness as the conditions that make for human flourishing, both physical and spiritual. Although the adults in their lives seek to provide safe haven, sufficient nurture, and a hopeful disposition, these children look ultimately to God to fulfill their needs. Salvation is not so much a matter of overcoming sinful pride and the alienation of a guilty conscience as it is coming to rest in the goodness of divine providence; it is not so much a matter of discovering the worth of existence, as it is securing the sustaining elements of a life that is already deemed good. To be saved is to be

13J. Kozol, Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (New York: Crown Books, 1995) 198.

14Ibid., 217-18. 15Ibid., 84. 16Ordinary Resurrections, 72-74.




confident that God will provide the means for survival.

But what then is sin? It seems these children take the spiritual state of hopelessness as a

sign of sin or soul-sickness. The grinding poverty and illness that wear down the spirits of

the older members of the community lead to a sense of despair. One young boy describes

how he prayed that his brother would not succumb to the temptation to try cocaine. He

had seen before how the drug dealers hid packets of the white powder in both hands and

then asked someone to choose one hand. "Whichever hand you pick, there's powder in it,"

the boy laments.17 Whatever the challenges of life in the ghetto, this young boy understands

despair and the drug culture as a manifestation of sin and evil that God can overcome.

What is striking about the vision of salvation one can glean from the witness of these chil

dren is that it is fundamentally communitarian, not individualistic. The needs of the indi

vidual child—for safety, nurture, and hope—can only be met through the transformation

of community. The congregation of St. Ann's church is a proleptic disclosure of what truly

redeemed community will look like: children can work and play there in safety; no one is

hungry; imaginations soar and hope abounds.

AN ESCHATOLOGY FOR CHILDREN

One of the most unfortunate experiences of my own childhood was unwittingly reading Hal Lindsey's best-selling book The Late Great Planet Earth. In great detail, he read the "signs of the times" against the backdrop of Cold War politics in America, and his conclusion was that the end was coming soon for our miserable planet. I remember being so frightened by his words and images that I did not sleep well for months afterwards. Children are naturally fascinated with beginnings and endings, and it should not be surprising that the Christian doctrine of last things has always gripped youthful imaginations. The great American Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards used horrifying images of hell in his sermons to children in order to scare them into conversion experiences. Hell would be like children's worst nightmares: bad children would "spend eternity in a dark pit; they would be tormented by monsters; and no matter how much they wept for mercy, they would be utterly alone, forsaken by their [godly] parents,"18 One of the best-selling series of books among youth today, the "Left Behind Series" written by Tim E LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, tells of the adventures of those who have been "left behind" after Christ's first return to remove believers from the earth before the trials of the last times. But once again, the fantasies of unrelenting torment, divine abandonment, and lost opportunity for repentance are spun from adult imaginations, not children's. What does the end that we can expect look like through the eyes of children?

17Amazing Grace, 219. 18C. A. Brekus, "Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child

Rearing," The Child in Christian Thought, 317. at Open University on January 6, 2015int.sagepub.comDownloaded from



Kozol had no trouble getting the children to share their images of heaven with him.

God's coming kingdom or heaven is a place of glory, not of pain, states one young boy.19 It

is the place to which God delivers those who have finished their work on earth, and even

though many children in their neighborhood die young, God's purpose in their deaths is

good. As one young girl puts it: "You can be eight years old and still your work is done

God knows when somebody has suffered long enough. When it is enough, He takes us to

His kingdom. In heaven there is no sickness. Here, there is sickness. In heaven there is love.

Here, there is hate. On earth you

grow old or else you die in pain. In

heaven you are young forever."20 T h e m o | , e ***Η*Φ& demand is for us to

Heaven is a peaceful place, where accept children as our guides and teachers

only the innocent live.21 Many of the as well as our students and dependents.

children have formed vivid images

of heaven because one or more of

their immediate family members live there. Perhaps the most carefully drawn picture was

offered by an observant young boy who hopes to be a writer. He responds to Kozol's ques

tion, "How long would you like to live?" with a provocative answer: "I would like to live to

see the human race grow up."2 2 Later, he shares with Kozol a "report" on the nature of the

kingdom of God.

God will be there. Hell be happy that we have arrived. People shall come hand-in-hand. It will

be bright, not dim and glooming like on earth. All friendly animals will be there, but no mean

ones. As for television, forget it! If you want vision, you can use your eyes to see the people that

you love. No one will look at you from the outside. People will see you from the inside. All the

people from the street will be there. My uncle will be there and he will be healed. You won't see

him buying drugs, because there won't be money. Mr. Mongo [a drug addict] will be there too.

You might see him happy for a change. The prophets will be there, and Adam and Eve, and all of

the disciples except Judas. And, as for Edgar Allan Poe, yes, he will be there too, but not like

somebody important. He will be a writer teaching students. No violence will there be in heaven.

There will be no guns or drugs or 1RS. You won't have to pay taxes. You'll recognize all the chil

dren who have died when they were little. Jesus will be good to them and play with them. At

night he'll come and visit at your house. God will be fond of you. How will you know that you

are there? Something will tell you, "This is it! Eureka!" If you still feel lonely in your heart, or bit

terness, you'll know that you're not there.

It is interesting to contrast this hopeful vision of a future reign of God with the projec

tions of one of the slightly older children in the community. She says:

Do you ever hear of cities that existed long ago and are extinct today?... I believe that this will

happen here. Everyone will get so sick of life in Harlem and the South Bronx that we'll just give

up and move to somewhere else. But it will be the same thing there again until the new place is

19Amazing Grace, 84. 20Ibid., 106. 21Ibid, 123. 22Ibid., 217.



172 Interpretation APRIL 2 0 0 1

so sad and ugly it's destroyed and then we'll move again to somewhere else, and somewhere else, until the whole world is destroyed and there is nothing to look back on but the ashes.23

The children hope for a future in which God will remove all suffering, heal all illnesses,

break all addictions, remember all lives that have been cut short. The future holds release

from relentless violence and from the voyeurism that infects our minds and hearts in this

media culture. The future is one in which people are known from the inside out and yet are

accepted and loved just the same. Jesus is the divine playmate, vindicating the right of all

children to play. For the older child, however, this future only comes after the fiery destruc

tion of the present world through the desperation of the poor. The future that the children

imagine is not one in which individuals receive their private rewards or punishments; on

the contrary, they hope for a renewed community in which every individual takes his or her

place. There is generous forgiveness available for the restoration of those who have sinned,

although there are also limits. Judas and the worst drug lord in the neighborhood are

beyond redemption. And yet, in spite of the fact that many of the children have witnessed

incredible scenes of violence and abuse, their visions of the end do not include fantasies

about horrific punishments for the perpetrators. The worst sinners simply disappear from a

future to which they cannot be habilitated.

Jesus' teaching about children boldly reverses the values of this world. As Judith

Gundry-Volf has argued, "He cast judgment on the adult world because it is not the child's

world. He made being a disciple dependent on inhabiting this 'small world.' He invited the

children to come to him not so that he might initiate them into the adult realm, but so that

they might receive what is properly theirs—the reign of God."24 Perhaps it is only through

the eyes of children that we can truly imagine what the divine reign will be.

CONCLUSION

The current cultural and political struggles over children will continue. But the landscape cannot help but be changed if the churches reclaim the radical message of Jesus' teaching about children. Advocacy on behalf of children and concern with their proper nurture and education, however, is only part of that message. The more challenging demand is for us to accept children as our guides and teachers as well as our students and dependents. There is needed wisdom in the child's view of the world. Sometimes the complications and subtle distinctions that maturity brings to our perspective do not really clarify but rather blind us to the truth. The child sees things simply—sometimes disarmingly so—and is prepared to speak straightforwardly about what she sees.

In order to lay claim to Jesus' teaching in its most radical potential, churches must resist the instrumental valuation of childhood that has dominated contemporary discus-

23Ibid., 42. 24"The Least and the Greatest," 60.




sions. The church can model a different set of values by listening carefully to the voices of

children, and by incorporating their insights into our understanding of Christian faith.

Ministry with children and youth should not be seen as second-class work for those who

are not up to the really important jobs in the church. Nor should we condescend to chil

dren themselves as second-class citizens in the household of faith. While children certainly

need the nurture, protection, and service of adults, at the same time they deserve our full

respect. Only as we ourselves change and become like little children will we begin to know

the promised wholeness of God's future.



Toward a Theology of Childhood

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