Articles and Papers

Papers and articles seminal to the development of Child Theology produced by various authors are available here.

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	Children & Spirituality Symposium Friday 7 September 2012 Centre for Theology and Ministry 29 College Cres, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
	by
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	Australia; Theology; Faith; Worship; Children's Ministry; colonisation; adolescence; flesh; spirit
Introduction:	Held each year at the Centre for Theology and Ministry in Melbourne, the Children & Spirituality Symposium seeks to explore some of the practical consequences from the latest research taking place around ministry with children and their families. Following the success of the 2009 and 2010 events, the 2011 Symposium featured significant contributions from a range of fantastic Australian thinkers. In particular, gratitude is expressed to Dr. Glenn Cupit, Dr. Brendan Hyde, Beth Barnett and Claire Pickering for contributing so generously from their time, their experience and their research for the benefit of others. Whether you attended the Symposium or not, may you be challenged to reflect on your engagement with children and their families as you read this booklet. Chris Barnett (September, 2011) (Continued...)
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	A little child will lead them
	by Keith J. White
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	child theology, bible, children
Introduction:	There is a misconception of serious proportions among Christians that ‘the Bible says very little about children’. This particular quotation is taken from an otherwise well researched and documented Evangelical publication dated December 2000. It is the purpose of this paper to put the matter straight. After a brief survey of biblical material the beginnings of a theological framework for our role in God’s mission among children at risk is suggested. (Continued...)
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	Adopted into the Family: Toward a Theology of Parenting
	by David H. Jensen
	Journal: Journal of Childhood and Religion, Issue: Issue 2, Volume: Volume 1, Year: 2010
Keywords:	Family; Parenting; Altruism; Self-love; Aquinas; Browning; Adoption; Miller-McLemore; Gudorf; Gift; Commodity; Sacrifice
Introduction:	The Jensen family is somewhat erratic when it comes to mealtime devotions. We say grace before dinner, most of the time, if we’re not too hurried or harried at the end of the day. But usually we leave it at that. There have been seasons in our family’s life when we have tried other things: a brief lesson from the Bible, a short prayer from a children’s devotional, or some open-ended response time when each of us—Finn, Grace, Molly and I—have named something that we’re thankful for or something that we need help with. But even if the day doesn’t lend itself to family devotion, I usually experience the short time before we start eating as sacred. On many days, it’s the only time that the four of us are together in the same room. As a parent, I look forward to that time together in the evening: where the people I love most of all in the world are gathered in the same place, even if for a moment. That short time after we sit down and before we lift our forks is an instant to give thanks for the people that I can’t imagine living without. (Continued...)
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	Child Theology and the Emerging Theology of Development
	by Keith J White MA(Oxon) MPhil Ph D
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	Child Theology; International Development; NGO; FBO; Australia, Kingdom of God
Introduction:	The brief I have been given today encourages me! It is good to know that you are serious about the theology of development! In my experience it tends to get squeezed out in one of two ways. First it seems marginal to those engaged in the heat of the battle trying to combat poverty and to evangelise and transform the world before Jesus Christ comes again. Second, theology is marginalised by the theorising on development that relies on (excellent, but by definition, limited) secular models. Let me tell you how I went about this task. I read through a number of texts that those in development pointed me to, and listed the main issues in the theology of development that I found in them. Then I sifted and prioritised them into three clusters, before seeing how what I knew of Child Theology might throw light on them. There is risk inherent in such a way of going about things. The writers may not be representative. Things may have moved on. You may have quite other issues of pressing importance. Be that as it may the die is cast and I will share with you my work in progress. (Continued...)
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	Child Theology and the Reflective Practitioner: Is child theology relevant for missionaries?
	by Bill Prevette Ph.D.
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	Child Theology, Mission, Key Biblical texts, Practical application, Children's spirituality
Introduction:	Compassion Forum – Assemblies of God World Missions Day of the Child, St. Louis, MO -- August 17, 2009 Contents 1.1 First some open questions: 1 1.2 Personal background and interest in the topic: 1 1.3 Developing networks and learning about Child Theology 2 1.4 What is Child Theology 2 1.4.1 A key text: ‘He placed a child in the midst’ (Matt. 18:1-6) 3 1.4.2 A ‘working definition’ of Child Theology 4 1.4.3 Concepts that are being explored in Child Theology 4 1.4.4 Some ideas we are exploring concerning children in crisis and theology 5 1.5 Time for a visual lesson – what about the human and eternal nature of children 6 1.6 Do you expect a ‘child in the midst’ to challenge your thinking about God? 6 1.7 Some practical applications of Child Theology for your consideration 6 When I was first asked to address ‘child theology’ at this conference, I worried that that such a topic would provoke glazed eyes and questions like, ‘and just how is this topic supposed to help me as a missionary or practitioner?’ What follows is a short reflection and outline drawn from personal experience in working with both Child Theology and missionary practice. 1.1 First some open questions: How many of you have heard of Child Theology? Have you read anything? What do you think Child theology involves? Do you think this has relevance for academics, for practitioners – or both? 1.2 Personal background and interest in the topic: Let me give some personal background on this topic. It may help you to know I was raised in Methodist children’s home in North Carolina. I can testify that this was not exactly a pleasant experience. My ministry with troubled youth began after coming to Christ in 1982. I worked with Teen Challenge in Los Angeles and later with Teen Challenge in Asia (Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia). After finishing an MA in missiology at Fuller, our family moved to Thailand in 1988 and then Cambodia in 1995. In those first two terms we worked with churches and community outreach and responded to the needs of children and families in the slums in Bangkok. We also began a ministry with children from the Hill Tribes in Northern Thailand who were ‘at-risk’ from sexual exploitation. Later we met thousands of children in Cambodia that had been ‘marginalized’ and abandoned after the end of the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. We served as the country directors with AGWM missionaries who were assisting about 4,000 children in a number of projects (including orphanages, schools, clinics, and community development). It was in Cambodia that I first began to articulate theological questions about our work with children. A primary one which I would state today as: ‘how do we integrate our concerns for the physical and social needs of children with our concerns for the eternal needs of children?’ [I will speak on this a bit more later in the paper]. From 1998-2002, I was asked by my mentor and friend, Bob Houlihan to work with Mission of Mercy (MoM) in ‘international program development’. Bob asked me to evaluate a number of programs in Asia where MoM was assisting children. I looked at over 30 projects in the four years I was working with MoM. By the end of that time I had many more questions about children, mission, theology, missiology, and professional practice. I observed that AGWM missionaries and many AG churches were excellent at getting close to children in need. However, I found that simply responding to the immediate perceived needs of children tended to control our actions and thinking. Thinking theologically about children and childcare were new areas for us. Byron Klaus, Doug Petersen, and other friends encouraged me to do additional work in holistic theology and integral mission at Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. I recently completed a 6 year (part-time) research project while working as a missionary in Romania. This study was an investigation of partnership between Faith-based Organizations (FBOs) and Evangelical/Pentecostal churches in reference to children and youth in crisis between 1990 and 2004. My research interests were focused on the factors that enabled or hindered FBO-church collaboration as both organizational entities responded to children who had been institutionalized by the state policies of Nicolae Ceausescu. (Continued...)
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	Child Theology as a Seed
	by Keith J White MA(Oxon) MPhil Ph D
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	Child Theology; Gretchen Wolff Pritchard; Jane Clements
Introduction:	One way of describing Child Theology, as understood by the Child Theology Movement is as the rediscovery of a theological seed and the planting and replanting of it in different soils and environments around the world. The seed is so seemingly insignificant that it has been overlooked for the most part for two thousand years. But on closer inspection it has within it the potential to change everything. This paper explores just a few of the ways in which it might do this. (Continued...)
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	Child Theology In Canada
	by Shelley Campagnola
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year: 2010
Keywords:
Introduction:	As I think about the continued activity of the Child Theology Movement and my own heart for this, I wonder often how to express it in the Canadian context. There are many that assume we are much like the United States, but there are significant differences that have tremendous impact on how theology is understood and expressed. Consider for example, the following: (Continued...)
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	Child theology is born
	by Keith J. White
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	child theology
Introduction:	The title of this paper took form during Advent last year. In the run up to Christmas there were the usual tasks – decorations, pantomime practices, Christmas cards, and a few sermons and talks. I wrote my usual article for Children Magazine on the theme of the marginalisation of children, and the editor gave it the headline ‘Left Out in the Stable’. (I never can get the title right and I admire those who can.) I had been wrestling with ‘Child Theology’ for some time and it was as I focused on the child-Christ, the baby in the manger, that the image of birth became a metaphor that seemed particularly and amusingly apt. One day perhaps Child Theology will toddle, go to school, perhaps even become a teenager…….but that line of thought risks becoming allegorical! The paper is in two parts. First, let me say a few things about each word in the title: ‘Child’; ‘Theology’ and ‘Born’; and then I will seek to outline some of the opportunities, responsibilities and challenges that the process implies for those of us who are Christians living and working alongside children, young people and families. (Continued...)
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	Children and Childhood in the Bible
	by Dan Brewster (Compassion International)
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	Children; childhood; Bible; unborn; barrenness; miscarriage; childbirth; family; siblings; extended families; blessings; training; nurture; obedience; parental modeling; baptism; dedication; teaching; protection; infanticide; sacrifice; victims; abuse; rights; kingdom of God
Introduction:	Children and Childhood in the Bible (Continued...)
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	Hope
	by Haddon Willmer (notes) for Keith White and John Collier in preparation for the CT Experiment on hope at the Cutting Edge conference 2008
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	Hope, Child Theology
Introduction:	What is to be said about hope in Child Theology? First, in Christian theology and faith, hope is not only important, but also specific. We are not just to be hopeful, forward-looking, cheerful people. Hope is not just a question of temperament or attitude. It is not subjective or internal to personality. There is promise, and so hope has content: not merely do we hope for this rather than that, but what we hope for inspires and generates hope. We hope subjectively, because there is something to hope for. This I think is what N T Wright in his book on Hope at least begins with and is concerned with. Christians hope for the kingdom of God in Christ. It is not enough, however, to believe that and then to let Christ breed in us a hopeful outlook, to make us cheery people. That is very commonly done. To be hopeful people, forward looking in all circumstances – that is what we really care about – and Christ is useful and effective in making us hopeful. Christ gives people optimism, a spirit or attitude. Many years ago, I was turned off by a Wayside Pulpit, which said: “The world looks cheery from behind a cheerful face.” I do not want that kind of illusory make-believe of an internal attitudinal religion. But its popularity arises from the enormous difficulty of giving any other meaning to the word hope. Hope in itself is always difficult because it is insubstantial – it is a form of the future, i.e. the unknown. Uncertainty, the possibility of its being otherwise in the event, cannot be eliminated from hope. Hope always carries the threat and fear of disappointment. Hope is exciting, to those who like danger, because it is akin to a gamble or a close game or to life: the ancient wisdom that calls no man happy until he is dead takes account of the frailty of hope. Even those who have lived many years in goodness and prosperity may be disillusioned in their last days. (Continued...)
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	Insights into Child Theology through the Life and Work of Pandita Ramabai
	by Keith J. White
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	Pandita Ramabai,Child Theology
Introduction:	This paper links two subjects, the life and work of Pandita Ramabai, and Child Theology, with which not everyone is familiar, and so it contains a brief summary of the key elements of each. Next issues arising from the emerging process of Child Theology are identified. These are considered in turn to see what insights the life and work of Ramabai provide for Child Theology. The paper concludes with some ideas about future developments. It begins with a prelude in which I describe how I came to be engaged in studying Ramabai, and with the development of Child Theology. (Continued...)
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	Introducing Child Theology
	by Keith J White MA(Oxon) MPhil Ph D
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	Child Theology; Catherine Stonehouse; Scottie May; Religious Education; Children's Spirituality; Children's Theology
Introduction:	It seemed to me that it might be useful this evening to try to describe Child Theology in the context of my personal journey of discovery. The narrative will give us a chance to note related aspects of theology (like, for example Children’s Spirituality) that feed into and draw from Child Theology, but are not the same thing. And it will also help us get to know each other better. (Continued...)
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	INTRODUCING CHILD-THEOLOGY
	by Haddon Willmer
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:
Introduction:	Child Theology (CT) is not a teaching, existing in one authorised form, which I can expound to you. Child theology is the label we give to an enquiry a little network has been carrying on for a few years now. It may become bigger and influential. I cannot tell. I am working away at my own lines of enquiry, exploring and imagining what excites me and seems to be worthwhile and all I can do today is to share with you something of what I think about child theology. I believe Keith White and a few other people are working on similar lines, but we do not always agree. I hope this presentation will serve to invite you to engage for yourselves in imagining and developing child theology – I am not interested in getting you to agree with me, or to adopt my views, but rather to encourage you to think about God with the child as placed by Jesus in the midst. (Continued...)
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	Karl Barth – Child Theologian?
	by Haddon Willmer
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	child theology, bible, children, Karl Barth
Introduction:	Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen 'God’s Search for Man' (English translation, 1935) is a collection of sermons. It includes one called ‘The New Beginning’, on the text of Matthew 18.1-9. It shows Barth was a child theologian. The sermon begins: Jesus places children before us. He uses them as a parable in order to say something decisive to us. Children are people who still stand at the beginning of life…..For them… everything is filled with possibility and promise; life is an open book filled with unwritten pages…. For us (grown-ups) it is too late for almost everything. We do not have an undeveloped life before us. On the contrary, we have run ourselves fast into ruts or run our lives into an impasse……we have become fossilized in our vocation, our work…we work as in a treadmill….We are faithful in our married life, but we simply drag it along as though it were a burden… Still more important, our faults, our failings, our sins…. today we scarcely resist at all. But we groan and suffer. Is not this the really burdensome feature about growing older, that we are forced to see, in so many ways, that going back again is no longer possible? But listen! “Unless you turn and become as little children.” What does that mean? ….There is such a thing as a new beginning… [With Jesus] there is this possibility of a new beginning in a life that has already grown old. We have really said everything that can be said about Jesus when we say that….It means to be an old scarred man, in just such a predicament…one without hope, without possibilities, and then, of a sudden, to face this: “ Come to me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will revive you!” Revitalization that comes from Jesus [does not] mean that we must become actual children, childish people…..in many external and internal things we cannot go back again. But in the main thing we can go back… After this beginning, the sermon talks about the new creation in Jesus, the kingdom of heaven, which is Jesus himself, in the movement from God toward us, so that now we may know God is among us, and we are directed towards God. (Continued...)
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	The Child in the Bible: Chapter 16 "...Child in the Midst..." from TCITB Chapter 16 "'He Placed a Little Child in the Midst": Jesus, the Kingdom, and Children by Keith J. White
	by
	Journal: http://emergingkids.blogspot.com, Issue: Tuesday, July 21, 2009, Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	children; Bible; Matthew 18; review; "The Child in the Bible"; theology
Introduction:	Mr White explores the Gospel of Matthew in light of the child that Jesus placed in their midst. [TCITB p. 355] He finds ". . . some of the most significant child-related actions and teachings of Jesus" in Matthew 18:1-14 . Jesus talks about greatness in His kingdom, child-likeness, welcoming children, God not wanting any to be lost. The author says, ". . . Jesus freely and deliberately chooses a little child as a way of challenging and illuminating the disciples' theological "discussion" or "argument" about the kingdom [TCITB p. 353] Given all the other possible types of people Jesus could have chosen to place in their midst as examples, the author sees children as, among other things, a source of hope.[TCITB p. 354] Source: http://emergingkids.blogspot.com (Continued...)
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	The Contribution of Child Theology to the HCD Course and Beyond
	by Keith J. White
	Journal: , Issue: , Volume: , Year:
Keywords:	Child Theology, HCD, Compassion International, The Growth of Love, Holistic Child Development
Introduction:	My intention is to describe what Child Theology is and what it offers to the whole of the HCD course and to participating seminaries. It represents a unifying framework and foundation for HCD with contributions and challenges to each module. It also welcomes the contributions and challenges from the real life situations of students and the rest of the course: the “wisdom of experience”. (Continued...)
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