Article Sidebar
Published:
Aug 13, 2021Keywords:
Article Details
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publishing rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose. AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Read more here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Main Article Content
Doing theology with children: A childist reading of the childhood metaphor in 1 Corinthians and the Synoptic Gospels
Jan Grobbelaar
Abstract
This article is written from the perspective of Child Theology and a childist reading of scripture. Firstly, the article deals with the links between children, childhood and Childhood Studies, as well as with Theology. Secondly, in terms of a childist reading of scripture, it explains the difference between a low and a high view of childhood. The fact that both views of childhood are present in the Bible is highlighted. Thirdly, the article discusses three texts in 1 Corinthians, where Paul used the childhood metaphor in a way that reflects a low view of childhood. Then, it investigates passages from the Synoptic Gospels as examples of Jesus’ implied high view of childhood. Finally, the article concludes with a challenge addressed to all adult theologians.
Contribution: This article contributes to the enhancement of emancipatory methodologies for doing theology and research with children by exploring the different ways in which the childhood metaphor is used in 1 Corinthians and the Synoptic Gospels through a childist reading of the relevant texts. Through this hermeneutical approach, which places the article clearly in the scope of this Theological Journal, it is established that doing theology with children in an emancipatory way adult theologians have to operate with a high view of childhood, as expressed in the way the childhood metaphor is used in the Synoptic Gospels.
