An Introduction to Child Theology

James M. Houston

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781725285620
  9781725285613
• eBook ISBN:
  9781725285637
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

These essays in this book are pastoral and scholarly, to encourage parents to nurture and foster Christian family life by learning from scripture and history. The Bible, in both testaments, offers us stories that provide moral and spiritual substance to the nurture of the child and the family. Beginning with the mythopoetic story of Adam and Eve, and the fratricide of Abel by the envy of Cain, the stories of the sacrifices parents made, then moving on to the stories of Abraham and Isaac, Ruth and her mother-in-law, Hannah and her son Samuel, Jeremiah the child prophet, these stories form our moral imaginations. Further, for Christians, they all augur the promise of the Incarnation, with the birth of Jesus to Mary and Joseph. Then through the history of the Church the role of the Child is further unfolded. It begins with Jesus teaching that to be as one of his disciples is to be a child. This is so radical that the subsequent churches have found it hard to follow. Perhaps one symbolic attempt was that of the monks' cowl which is a child's garment, and still worn in their monasteries. The book even explores the way that Christian maturity is one of childlikeness.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Childhood of Humanity in the Biblical Narrative
• Chapter 2: Isaac the Son and the Shadow of Ishmael
• Chapter 3: Fear and Love in the Book of Ruth
• Chapter 4: Wise Child-Rearing According to Proverbs
• Chapter 5: “Only a Boy”?
• Chapter 6: While Knit In My Mother’s Womb
• Chapter 7: The Genius of the Greek Mind
• Chapter 8: Scripture on the Birth and Infancy of Jesus
• Chapter 9: Childhood in Islam and the Heritage of Shame
• Chapter 10: Memory and Character Formation
• Chapter 11: The Child in the Early Middle Ages
• Chapter 12: “Let the Little Children Come to Me”
• Chapter 13: John Macmurray’s Vision of the Personal Based on Child Development
• Chapter 14: Child Resilience Despite Extreme Trauma/Deprivation
• Chapter 15: My Childhood Theology
• Chapter 16: And That Is What We Are
• Chapter 17: To Be a Christian Was to Be a Child to God
• Chapter 18: “A Childhood into Which We Have to Grow”
• Chapter 19: To the Time before Time Began
• Chapter 20: The Child in the Midst
• Bibliography