As we go through the Lenten season trying to understand who God is calling us to be and how God is calling us to act, I think about the role of everyone in the congregation.  A few years ago, I took a class at the United Nations on children and the church. I think this is one of the great struggles that the church has, because connecting with children and youth is foundational for a lifelong relationship with God. But this is a very difficult discussion, because we really do not have a very developed theology of the child.  This is actually a remarkable aspect of our tradition that we have not really systematically dealt with a theology of the child. In fact, within the faith traditions, there is still a debate as to the definition of the terms child and childhood. Though more sociological than theological, the definition of the child often holds us back in understanding the role of the child in the church and may complicate our perception of the theology of the child.

On the most basic level, defining the demarcation between adult and child is very difficult. For some, childhood ends with a physiological change; for others it has to do with age; still others use acquired knowledge and wisdom. All three make good arguments, but still fall short in being helpful to discern the parameters of childhood.

The United Nations, through its Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is now over 28 years old, places an end to childhood at 18. This seems to be a clear demarcation. However, 18 years of age is not a clear demarcation here in the United States. In this country, the last legal demarcation between children and adults is 21. What this has created is a confusing dichotomy, since children as young as 12 are often treated as adults in legal matters. However, in some social spheres, childhood has extended into the mid-20s. Thus, the fluidity of childhood makes it difficult to dive into a theology of the child because once again we are called to look at a different set of parameters.

As a denomination, this is made even more difficult because we really do not have a coming-of-age ceremony. Unfortunately, we are relegated to using confirmation, which is not really a good substitute since it is about making a public profession of faith more than transitioning between child and adult. This often creates an awkward time for youth in the church where they are no longer little kids, yet not fully connected with the adult activities of the church. This frequently makes it hard to dive into the complexity of the child and may very well contribute to some of the difficulty that churches have with ministering to high school and college-age youth. But that is a different article altogether.

Sadly, when we do discuss childhood and youth, often the church dwells upon the social side over the spiritual side. Buying into the social understandings of the child frees the church and theologians from having to come up with a deep understanding of the child from a theological standpoint. In the introduction to one of our texts, Marcia Bunge points out that “ … the absence of well-developed and historically and biblically informed teachings about children in contemporary theology helps explain why many churches often struggle to create and to sustain strong programs in religious education and in child-advocacy ministry (Bunge 4).”

Churches often find themselves reacting to the needs of the child as issues and problems arise—usually cutting out the child from the process. Seeing the child as a vital part of the planning and ministry means that when we are working with children, we must include them in the process. When we discovered this, the response from one member of the class was, “But that takes a lot of time,” and it does. To really dive into the process of working with children, we have to open up and listen to them. We must look below the surface. It means that we may have to be uncomfortable by trying something new or abandon things we hold dear that serve no purpose for the child.

At the root of any good ministry is a clear theology directing us to action. Expressing that theology is quite difficult because we have so many different views of the child. This was evident in the UN class as each faith-based speaker came before us. They all seemed to have different perspectives and ideas. If I were to have one complaint about the class, it is that these thoughts tended to veer toward the social end rather than theological end. I am going to venture out and make my own theological claim about children. Let me know what you think:


As we come to understand the child from a theological point of view, the basis of our understanding is rooted biblically in the fact that we are all created in God’s image. Therefore, children are a vital part of the church and body of Christ. Children are human and thus prone to selfish want and desire. Thus, children, like adults, are imperfect. The child is growing physically, mentally, and spiritually, and it is the role of the church to empower the child to have a relationship with God.
 This recognizes two issues: the relationship of the child to God, and the fact that children are neither superhuman nor less human than adults. In fact, a child’s life is as complicated as an adult’s, though in different ways. Starting at that point, this theology calls us to approach children and their needs, recognizing that they may have vital knowledge about their own needs that we may not see, but need to hear. More than anything else as a church, we are called to empower the powerless. Often the ones with the least power are the children.

In Christ,
Bryan

I get the question a lot this time of year: “If God loved the world so much, why is there suffering?”  This is not one of my favorite questions. In fact, I know every time I hear it what the person is asking is often much more complex than the question's apparent simplicity might suggest. Sadly, people far too often jump to John 3:16 and give the promise of the Resurrection, but don’t really deal with the pains and struggles of this world.
The fact of our faith is that while we are looking towards the Resurrection and the life that is to come, we are firmly grounded in a world from which it is impossible to separate ourselves. Unfortunately, this means that suffering is part of life. This makes life hard because the gospels and Paul’s letters teach us that in our suffering we must keep our humility and connection to the hope of our Lord Jesus.  For he gave us the charge that “. . . whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.”
Often, in the times when we are at our weakest and allow for the spirit to work, we grow in our faith exponentially when we encounter the true difficult times of our lives, not false, manufactured ones.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:
There are so many experiences and disappointments that drive sensitive people toward nihilism and resignation. That is why it is so good to learn early that suffering and God are not contradictions, but rather a necessary unity. For me, the idea that it is really God who suffers has always been one of the most persuasive teachings of Christianity. I believe that God is closer to suffering than to happiness, and finding God in this way brings peace and repose and a strong, courageous heart.1
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran by training and member of the Confessing Church, an anti-Nazi church coalition/denomination, was an early 20th-century theologian and martyr. He wrote this personal note to a family, in a time when his society was at war and the Nazi government's persecutions of the people were intense.

The question asked was probably one that is asked often today, "Where is God in the midst of the world we live in today?" Or, "If God offers peace, where is it?" This is a different perspective from pop theology, which tends to pick out the bits and pieces of faith that make the desired point, but in the midst of many stories, Old Testament and New, is struggle. Whether it is the fathers of the faith, the prophets, the disciples, or even Paul, the struggle and suffering is evident. But the promise and power of Christ is the hope and truth that the life of suffering and struggle of this world is based in this world and we must be of this world in order to move to the next.

Bonhoeffer, whose life mirrored the apostle Paul’s in many ways, was given an opportunity to make a choice. Though he was a strong pacifist, there came an opportunity for Bonhoeffer to participate in a plot to have a German officer get close enough to put a bomb right next to Hitler. This was a struggle for Bonhoeffer, but in the end, he concluded that to withdraw from the political and military resistance would be a flight from responsibility as a citizen of this world in which God had placed him, so he dedicated himself to assignments for the Confessing Church and the Resistance. Bonhoeffer was incarcerated in a Gestapo prison for his work with the Resistance before the assassination attempt took place. Following the botched Operation Valkyrie, he was shuttled from one prison to another. While jailed, Bonhoeffer often wrote, and we understand him and his situation and faith through his letters and papers from prison. In the camps, as we now know, the Jewish people, homosexuals, nonconformists, and political prisoners were not treated as human, but were starved, experimented on, and often killed. Survivors speak of the terror of living day to day in those conditions.

In the midst of this terror, Bonhoeffer reminds us that:

Christian hope in resurrection differs from that of mythology insofar as it directs us to life here on earth in a completely new and, compared to the Old Testament, even more incisive fashion. Unlike believers in the myths of redemption, Christians have no ultimate refuge from earthly tasks and problems in the eternal. Christians must partake of earthly life to the very end, just as did Christ (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?), and only by doing so is the Crucified and Resurrected with them and are they themselves crucified and resurrected with Christ. This life here and now may not be prematurely suspended. This is the link between the Old and New Testaments. Myths of redemption arise from the human experience of limits, whereas Christ addresses us at the very center of our lives.2 It reminds me of the lyrics of a favorite hymn: My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. In the midst of the struggle that is life and that is the full nature of life, we cannot separate ourselves from the struggles of this world, but we can embrace them and allow Christ to embrace us through the Holy Spirit in the midst of our suffering. 


In Christ,
Bryan