The Child in Christian Thought

The Child in Christian Thought Edited by Marcia J. Bunge WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PuBLIsHING COMPANY GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN / CAMBRIDGE, U.K. IRAJ. TAYLOR LiBRARY THE IL1FF SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY DENVER, COLORADO I © 2001 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. All rights reserved Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 255 Jefferson Ave. SE., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503 / P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K. Printed in the United States of America 0504030201 7654321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The child in Christian thought / edited by Marcia J. Bunge. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8028-4693-9 (pbk.) 1. Children (Christian theology) — History of doctrines. I. Bunge, Marcia I. (Marcia JoAnn), 1954- B1705.C45 2001 261.$’3423 — dc2l 00-041732 www.eerdmans.com ,!, y9tcj %1;: YAI 1 .. !1’l 17. “Let the Children Come” Revisited: Con temporaly Feminist Theologians on Children BONNIE J. MILLER-McLEMORE hile widespread concern for children has generated an interest in chil W dren on a number of academic fronts in the past several years, research on children has not exactly proliferated in either theology or women’s studies. A library word-search combining the terms “feminism,” “religion’ and “chil dren” does not turn up many articles or books. More disturbing, a recent Dic tionmy ofFeminist Theologies, edited by Letty Russell and I. Shannon Clarkson, skips from “character” to “Christ, Jesus’ leaving out an entry on children.’ Un fortunately, some people assume that when it comes to religious values and children, feminists have focused solely on women’s right to choose abortion. Such quick appraisals only feed the common suspicion that feminists, includ ing feminist theologians, are anti-child and anti-famil) Yet, these random observations shd’uld not mislead us. Feminist theolo gians have said more on children than one might suppose at first glance. That the Dictionary of Feminist Theologies does contain entries on “family” and “mother/motherhood” tells us a great deal about the current state of the discus sion: Feminist theologians have attended directly to both motherhood and family and indirectly, through these interests, to children. Thus, reading be tween the lines for ways in which feminist theologians have understood the na ture of children, their education and formation, and adult responsibilities and obligations for the nurture of children is a far more fruitful project than the usual carping about feminist oversights. In undertaking this task, we will find that many feminist scholars in religion 1. Dictionary of feminist Theologies, ed. Letty Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996). 446 “Let the Children Come” Revisited have given more attention to children’s needs from a wide range of academic, reli gious, and ethnic perspectives than other contemporary theologians. In the first two sections of this essa I will attempt to situate the feminist theological discus sion in the context of the mid- to late-twentieth-century, characterizing three sorts of groups that have emerged. In the final section, drawing on the work in each group, I will characterize what feminist theologians have said about chil dren, concluding with a brief appraisal of the implications of feminist theology for an enriched theological discussion. Among their primary contributions, I will argue, are a material appreciation for the labors of love, a psychological grappling with early developmental issues, a spiritual understanding of the gifts of children, and a political declaration of the vulnerabilities and rights of children. As American society reconsiders the needs of children and as parents and congregations struggle to care for them, feminist theologians remind us not to lose sight of these important material, psychological, spiritual, and political re alities. Many feminist theologians have not only thought about children; they have acted as primary caregivers of children. It is from this vantage point in part that they have distinctive contributions to make. Because feminist theol ogy has addressed the issue of children more indirectly than directly, I will ar gue that it needs to make a bolder articulation of its indirect remarks about children and to provide a fuller theological vision of children and our obliga tions to them for the sake of children and for the sake of the vitality of theology itself. I’s’Iodern theological anthropology, centered largely on adult cognition and volition, has become a hollow, narrow rendition of the lively unpredictabil ity of human life with children. The Contemporary American Context In Western culture, during the period from the eighteenth to the mid-nine teenth century, the movement of men out of the home and into the workplace had a powerful impact on American family life that has been well documented. Broadly speaking, men had less immediate involvement with domestic life and hence with children. In matters of education and spiritual formation, children had fewer male role models readily available. The impact on children of work ing women, especially among the lower classes, received less attention until the more recent alarm over the employment of white middle-class women. Be tween 194$ and 1993, the percentage of married women in the workforce with children under six rose from 10.8 percent to 59.6 percent.2 Unfortunately, pa 2. Children’s Defense fund, The State ofAmerica’s Children Yearbook: 1994 (Wash ington, D.C.: Children’s Defense fund, 1994), 76. 447 BONNIE J. MILLER-McEEMORE ternal involvement in child care and household chores has not increased pro portionately. As a result of these and many other interconnecting factors,3 the care and religious formation of children have been under increasing duress in the last century. Yet scholarship on children has not been a high priority in twentieth-cen tury theology, even though congregations and denominations have maintained important ministries for children. As Todd ‘vVhitmore observes, the associated institutions of the U.S. Catholic Church have written documents and provided services, but “there is no developed teaching on children” by the church itself.4 A similar indictment could be made of the lack of theological deliberation in Protestant denominational policy statements and in the work of Protestant theologians. In feminist theology there are understandable reasons for the silence. As I have argued in an earlier essay on children, “On children women have much to say but little time, less energy, and almost no means of voice. Children rapidly consume these elements. This essay itself was hammered out in small pieces be tween minor crises in tending my children.”5 The passions of maternity and all the work that comes with attending to children can fracture or destroy the fo cus required for second-level erudite deliberations. These impediments are magnified by cultural presumptions and social strtictures that discourage women’s creative passions beyond their children. Another powerful reason has also been operative: feminists in general have worked hard to undermine the “inexorable tie between mothers and chil dren.”6 Unlike first-wave feminism in the nineteenth century, second-wave feminism of the twentieth century deeply disturbed the U.S. public precisely because it contested assumptions at the heart of American home life: a man’s domestic headship and the subordination of a woman’s desires and power in relationship to her husband and children. Women and mothers, feminists as serted, have needs independent of and sometimes in immediate conflict with the needs of children and men. Housework and childcare ought not to con- 3. For a more developed exploration of the multiple factors influencing families, see chapter 2 in Don Browning, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Pamela Couture, K. Brynolf Lyon, and Robert M. Franklin, From Culture Wars to Common Ground: Religion and the American Family Debate (Westminster John Knox Press, 1997). 4. Todd David Whitmore, “Children and the Problem of formation in American Families,” The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics (1995): 273, emphasis in text. 5. Bonnie ]. Miller-McLernore, “Let the Children Corne’ Second Opinion 17, no. I (July 1991): 12. 6. Ann Snitow, “feminism and Motherhood: An American Reading,” feminist Re vicw4O (Spring 1992): 36; see also Barbara Easton, “Feminism and Contemporary Family,” Ivlarxist Perspectives 1, no. 1 (1993): 11-36. 448 “Let the Children Come” Revisited sume the mother’s very lifeblood. Certain texts, such as Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex, have been especially “demonized, apologized for, endlessly quoted out of context,” often to protest that the feminism of the late sixties and early seventies was, among other negative family sentiments, anti-children.7 finally, the hotly debated issue of women’s right to procreative choice claimed a great deal of attention. Battles over a variety of religious issues, such as the moral authority of women, the participation of women in ministry, and celibate views of sexuality, became narrowly focused around abortion. Conflict between U.S. Catholic feminists and the Vatican, for example, came to a head when ninety-seven prominent Catholics, including twenty-six nuns, signed a New York Times ad that ran on October 7, 1984, claiming that a diversity of opinions existed on the morality of abortion.8 Perhaps no other issue has caused such splits, with religious women taking polar opposite sides. For many feminists across the moral spectrum, however, the emphasis fell on the labors of raising children, recognizing overtly, perhaps for the first time, not only the blessing of children but the real costs of caring for them. Feminist concern with the welfare of born children raised problems for Christian theological reflection on human nature and responsibility that remain unsolved. Undoubtedly, hid den behind many anti-abortionists’ love of children lay misogyny or hatred of women. Hidden behind many abortion advocates’ words was a love of women and already existing children.

Load more