by Ron O'Grady

A theology of the child

Christian beliefs were founded and formed in a tribal era. By the time of Jesus, some tribes had moved from being nomadic to a more settled life-style. Small towns and villages were built around trade routes, religious centres or areas of arable land, but most communities remained tribal based. From time to time tribes would combine to defend their own self-interest from invaders but there was little sense of nationhood as it is understood today.

In this context, children played a critical role. They were the tribe's best hope for future defence and they provided social security for members of the family as they grew older. Not surprisingly, the bearing and rearing of children was an essential part of a tribe's life-style and dominated the thoughts and attention of the people.

Was Sarah barren? This was a shame and a disgrace. Let her husband take a slave woman to bear children. Did David's son die in an accident? Then let the whole tribe go into mourning. At the most basic level of survival, the child was the centre of importance for the whole community. Without many children the tribe had no future.

The Old Testament records show that being childless was thought to be a great tragedy and a punishment from God. The strongest curse Isaiah could invoke upon Babylon was that its women would become barren. A family without children was a disaster for the tribe.

Conversely, it was seen as the blessing of God when a family had many children, especially if they were sons. In the days before women went to war, the sons would be the first line of defence against a marauding tribe.

Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the sons of one's youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
He shall not be put to shame
When he speaks with the enemies in the gate.
(Ps. 127:3-5)

But there was a qualification. It was not enough to bear children, they must also conform to tribal norms and values. The mother looked after the domestic side of the family while the father took responsibility for training his sons in the ways of warfare and teaching them the religious basis from which the tribe developed its cohesion and strength.

Training the child meant discipline.

"Hear, my child, your father's instructions,
and do not reject your mother's teaching."
(Prov. 1: 8)

"A wise child loves discipline."
(Prov. 13:1)

The child was never seen as an isolated individual but as a part of the community. A major function in life for every member of the tribe was to conform to the common values and thus ensure the survival of the clan. Punishment was meted out as a means to ensure conformity and dependence, though there are several examples in history of it causing some children to rebel and leave their tribe.

In biblical times before property or legal rights were established, most ownership was built on traditional assump-tions rather than on law. It was customary to assume that children were "owned" by the parents. Children could be given away or sold by the father; children were a property, a chattel of the family, until they had passed through the rites of passage which made them full members of the tribe. Even then, strict tribal hierarchy made them subservient to tribal elders. The attitude of the church towards children during the first period of the Christian era continued to be based on tribal survival and led to four basic beliefs:

• a family without children is bad;
• having many children (especially sons) is good;
• children should be disciplined through punishment;
• children are the property of their parents.

The position of children today

Society has changed dramatically in the last century and with these changes many of the assumptions on which tribal community was built have lost their significance. In a welfare state, a large family with many children is no longer needed as a form of social security. And with the growing sophistication of surveillance, law enforcement, conflict and warfare, the security of a household or community is not dependent on large families for its defence and protection.

Many other factors such as improved health care, increased longevity, working parents and modern city life-styles have contributed to a sharp decline in the size of families in almost all economically developed countries. Children are no longer a requirement for living a full and happy life, and increasing numbers of young people are aware that they can survive quite well in life without being parents.

The other tribal imperatives of stern discipline towards, and ownership of, children are also fast disappearing. Faced with a wide range of choices, the modern young person who is subjected to old-fashioned discipline is likely to walk away from the family and set up an independent life, or even lodge a cruelty case with the authorities. Such independence, obviously, was not possible for most young people in biblical times.

There are exceptions in the modern era, even in developed countries. Cult religious groups, which regard themselves as being constantly persecuted by the wider community, or groups of foreign migrants trying to retain their identity as a minority community in a much larger population, still continue to follow Old Testament patterns as a form of preservation. They are more inclined to have large families and to see discipline and the use of severe punishment as key factors in ensuring the survival of their community.

If the traditional biblical understanding of children is no longer relevant for the majority of people, where do we look for guidance and inspiration?

It has become customary in the church today to speak of the need for a return to "family values", but it is not clear what the church means by this. If it means mum and dad and a large number of children held together by a strict discipline standing around the piano singing hymns, then it will almost certainly fail - and deservedly so. The world has moved into new and more creative forms of elective tribalism, and survival is no longer dependent on having large families of dis-ciplined warriors. In the new global society, the old norms of family life can no longer determine our life-style.

The life-style of the Western world in particular is creating a new understanding of the role of children and the church is threatened with the likelihood of being left irrelevant on the margins of society unless it can understand these changes and contribute to them in a more positive manner.

The new direction for children in society was articulated in some detail in September 1990 when the nations of the world signed, and subsequently ratified, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The convention received wider and faster endorsement by nations than any previous UN document and is now universally accepted. What is more, the convention includes a reporting mechanism which ensures that the values and ideals included in the document will eventually be the basis on which all countries of the world formulate their laws and treat their children.

The understanding of children inherent in the convention represents a quantum leap from the traditional Jewish and Christian values that we have been teaching for years and which were the basis on which we built Western society. But the convention itself has hardly been noted by the church and is little known outside a small circle of child advocates. Even to speak of children possessing rights is a foreign language for many Christians. The ideal child for many is still "the one who is seen and not heard", and most Christian parents will make their own unilateral decisions on what is right for their children.
Some continue to quote the Old Testament:

Those who spare the rod, hate their children but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.
(Prov. 13:24)

This may be a comforting thought for some parents but a modern life-style makes such a viewpoint extremely difficult to realise. Many children spend more quality time in school with teachers and friends than they do at home, one or possibly both of the parents will be away from home for long hours; and the church, once the arbiter of behaviour, has little attraction for most young people. When you put these three factors together, the possibility of the family exerting the control over children that was exercised by earlier generations is quite remote. Today, much of the training to which children respond comes from their television sets and computers or from their peers and celebrity role models rather than from their parents. The changed social context in which we live is already leaving many church leaders behind when it comes to the place and role of children. This is shown quite clearly in the responses made by some clergy in relation to allegations of child sex abuse. They attempt to minimise the significance of their action with throw-away lines. "It happens to all kids", or "it's just part of growing up, they'll get over it". Such comments can be read as simply justification for irresponsible adult behaviour and fail to recognise that the child has rights that must be observed.

The traditions of the past left adults free to make whatever judgements they chose in relation to their children and the only option for the child was obedience. But the days when adults were automatically right and a child was just a child have gone for ever. Children of today will increasingly be seen, heard and (usually) believed.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child turns the old concepts upside down. It asserts that there are independent and inalienable rights which the child possesses simply by being a child, and that these have priority over alternative rights which some parents or members of society might consider more appropriate. There are still many glitches in the implementation of this convention but the principle of chil-dren's rights, like the Declaration on Human Rights, is here to stay. It requires a thorough reassessment of our theological understanding of children and their place in society.

For example: Does this mean that the child has the right to participate in decisions that affect him or her? Note that we are asking whether the child has the right, and not has the child the possibility. This right is one of many enshrined in the convention but, apart from a few tentative experiments with this radical concept by some governments and youth programmes, it has largely been ignored and is, consequently, ineffective.

As presently structured the church will find it an even more difficult, if not impossible, step to give children the right to participate in decision-making processes which affect them. Almost all churches operate on a hierarchical system in which seniority gives added authority. The idea that children and young people have decision-making rights is the antithesis of traditional church views where rules are handed down from above. The design of most church build-ings reflects this hierarchical view with the congregation seated in formal rows facing the clerical spokesperson for God. The people stand when told to, close their eyes when praying, and sit obediently and without question when they are told what the teaching of the church is. To reinforce this authority, the minister will often be standing in a defensive pulpit or on an elevated platform, six feet above argument. In the church, seniority, age and rank still have priority over youth.

Children of today do not understand this world. They are growing up in an atmosphere where it is appropriate to ask questions and where they are encouraged to seek answers for themselves. If the UN convention is universally implemented children will soon be demanding their own rights. New technologies have provided them with access to information and knowledge more extensive than their parents could ever know. Most parents are strangers in this new world and have little experience in knowing how to act appropriately. In the area of pornography, for example, many parents have become anxious and paranoid about the way their children use computers, but they are dependent on what others are telling them since they have little understanding of how the internet works. But they do understand that their authority is slowly being eroded by their own children, whose expertise in technology has already begun to challenge the parents' status in the family.

Whatever changes occur in the next decades, the concept of children's rights will have a central place in the new world and it will force us into fresh recognition of the importance of children. Viewing children in this new way has the potential to provide mechanisms that will protect children from those who would exploit them. This in turn will place knowledge and information at our fingertips and offer new ways of creating an international society in which all people can develop to their full potential in security and love. The church should welcome such a development. But first it has to understand it.

Excerpted from The Hidden Shame of the Church: Sexual Abuse of Children and the Church., Risk Book Series no. 94, Geneva, WCC, 2001.
Ron O'Grady is currently the honorary president of ECPAT International (End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism), the organisation which deals with issues of child prostitution, child pornography and trafficking in children.