Doing Trinitarian Theology For and With Children

I have been entertaining the idea of doing a PhD ever since I enrolled for a Master of Divinity.

Stemming from my research project on Against Eunomius, my first serious idea for a doctoral topic was exploring when and how the doctrine of divine simplicity went from being a philosophical presupposition to a fleshed out doctrine. After making initial contact with a potential supervisor, I ended up deciding to get some experience in ministry first, and eventually landed a job at Lake Gwelup Christian Church. Once in ministry it didn’t take me long to realise that most people didn’t even know what divine simplicity was, let alone did anyone find it meaningful for their spiritual life. I decided that was the end of that topic…

While I really didn’t want to go into children’s ministry, I ended up leading Lake Gwelup’s kids ministry. There were two other pastors there who had experience with Godly Play, so they suggested we bring that in, and by the end of my time there I thought we were onto something pretty good. I also did my first intergenerational story-sermon at Lake Gwelup. It was received quite enthusiastically, and I started to wonder if developing intergenerational content was something I could take further… (more on that another day).

After I finished at Lake Gwelup I decided it was finally time to apply for a PhD. I was still keen on trinitarian theology, but I could also see the value in kids ministry, so, naturally, I tried to smoosh the two together. 😛 The topic I ended up with was “Doing trinitarian theology for and with children.” While my research proposal was accepted by multiple universities, I wasn’t able to secure a scholarship, so after two rounds of applications I decided that I would take it as a ‘closed door’ and would do another season of ministry.

While I don’t think I would choose the same topic again if I was to apply for a PhD. now, I did find my research proposal to be fairly compelling as I read through it again. I even thought to myself that if a generous benefactor happened to read this and wanted to fund it I’d be willing to consider it 😉

Lastly, I wanted to add a big thank you to Mike Mawson and D. J. Konz who supported me in writing my initial research proposal and application. Even though I hadn’t met either of them before, they were both very generous with their time. They responded to numerous emails, met with me over Zoom to discuss things, and provided thoughtful feedback on my topic, my application, and my research proposal. Thank you to you both, your support was greatly appreciated!

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Proposed Title

Doing Trinitarian theology for and with children in Australian contexts

Abstract

Until the latter half of the twentieth century, theology had mostly been done by and for the privileged. Since then various theologies of liberation – which are now situated within the broader discipline of contextual theology – have sought to give voice to the perspectives of marginalised and oppressed demographics. Children are one such group who have been largely neglected in theology until the early 1990s. The proposed research aims to develop a theology of the Trinity for children, then use it in conjunction with an existing model of doing theology with children to empower children in Australian contexts to meaningfully engage with this Trinitarian theology. (This particular stream of historical theology has been selected due to its centrality to the Christian faith and the challenge that its highly philosophical nature presents for the inclusion of children in the practice of theology.) From there it will use qualitative methods to establish what significance Trinitarian theology held for these children, and conversely, to identify any distinctive contributions that children may bring to Trinitarian theology. Concerning the significance of the study, very few published works approach the doctrine of the Trinity with children explicitly in view, and little to no qualitative research has been done on practicing Trinitarian theology with children. As such this research would make a significant contribution to its field. Its outcomes would include the development of a Trinitarian theology formulated for children, as well as empirical insights into both the significance of Trinitarian theology for Australian children, and the distinctive perspectives that children have to bring to Trinitarian theology.

Background

Until recently, the practice of theology has predominantly been reserved for the privileged. Consequently, prevailing theologies have tended to reflect the concerns and biases of the privileged, and failed to grapple with the circumstances of marginalised demographics. In 1973, this status quo was challenged by Gustavo Gutiérrez’s Theology of Liberation (Gutiérrez, 1973). This new theology was a response to the failure of European theology to address the extreme poverty that Gutiérrez had witnessed in Peru. Since then various theologies of liberation, or ‘contextual’ theologies, have emerged out of different contexts where oppression and marginalisation have been experienced, e.g. Black theology, Feminist Theology, and Queer Theology.

Over time it has become apparent that certain marginalised demographics are less able to represent their experiences at a theological level. One such group is children, who have been largely neglected in theology outside the realms of religious education and children’s ministry until the early 1990s. Since then, a number of approaches to children’s theology have emerged. Arguably, the first is Kindertheologie, which has been relatively overlooked in circles of English scholarship. The idea of Kindertheologie began to emerge in 1992 with the work of Anton Bucher, and then came into its own in 2002 with the publishing of Jahrbuch für Kindertheologie (Yearbook for Children’s Theology) (Bucher et. al). It has been notably influenced by Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children (Lipman et al., 1980, cited in Zimmerman, 2015), and seeks to enable theology “by, for, and with children” (Zimmerman, 2015, p. 3).

Another set of approaches could be designated ‘Child Theologies’, such as that of the Child Theology Movement and Child Liberation Theology. Some Child Theologies seek to do theology by approaching theological ideas or questions ‘with the child in mind’ (Willmer & White, 2013) or in a ‘child-attentive’ manner (Konz, 2017), while others seek to empower children to engage in theology themselves (Stollar, 2015). I would contend that the former must precede the latter, and would therefore include both approaches in my research.

Additionally, while most Child Theologies emphasise Jesus’ teaching that only those who become like a little child can enter the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ (Matthew 18:2-4), they interpret this teaching differently. Some understand this to mean children are uniquely qualified to enter the Kingdom (following Pais, 1991), whereas others view children as representative of all who are vulnerable to oppression and marginalisation (e.g. Jensen, 2005). I identify with the latter group.

Concerning content, while the doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most central and iconic doctrines of the Christian faith, its classical form was expressed in terms of Greek philosophical metaphysics, and has since been declared authoritative by most traditions of the church. This raises a significant problem from the perspective of liberation theologies, as anyone who doesn’t have the cognitive capacity, time, or resources to contemplate the metaphysics of God is excluded from meaningfully participating in the practice of Trinitarian theology. In short, the prevailing theology of the Trinity is inaccessible to many marginalised demographics including children. Consequently, those who wish to do Trinitarian theology with children may first need to critically engage with it for the sake of children.

Literature Overview

As there are a number of fields that may relate to my topic, I will provide an overview of some here. Namely, Montessori-based approaches to Religious Education, Children’s Spirituality, and Child Theologies. For the purposes of this early version of my research proposal, I will only provide an overview of the literature, focusing on key movements, figures, and events, as well as particularly significant works.

Montessori-based Approaches

With reference to the relatively new field of Children’s Spirituality, as well as more established fields such as education and child psychology, Italian physician Maria Montessori was well ahead of her time. For example, while her first major work, Il Metodo della Pedagogia Scientifica (The Montessori Method: Scientific Pedagogy) was published in 1909 (English 1912), parallels have been drawn between her philosophy of education and Jean Piaget’s constructivist theory, which only really began to emerge in La naissance de l’intelligence chez l’enfant (The Origins of Intelligence in Children) (1936, English 1952; cited by Chapman, 1988, p. 77). With the exception of the third edition of The Montessori Method (1926) and some of her later work, Montessori’s approach did not include Religious Education, but it did place a significant emphasis on the spiritual development of children (e.g. Montessori, 1949, cited by May). For this reason some proponents of Children’s Spirituality have identified Montessori as a predecessor of their movement (e.g. Nye, 1998).

While Montessori’s own approach did not major on Religious Education, a number of significant approaches to Religious Education have adopted her philosophy of education. For example, beginning in 1954, Old Testament scholar Sofia Cavalletti, in partnership with Montessori specialist Gianna Gobbi, began to develop a fully fledged approach to Catholic Religious Education based on Montessori principles, now known as Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (May, n.d.). Cavalletti first published about this approach in The Religious Potential of the Child (1983). Today, CGS is used in Catholic contexts all over the world.

In 1971, Episcopalian American educator Jerome Berryman met Cavalletti while studying the Montessori method in Italy with a view to developing his own approach to Religious Education (Allen, n.d.). He learned a great deal from Cavalletti, and in 1991 he published Godly Play which outlined the approach that he had developed. This approach is also used in many countries, and has been the subject of considerable empirical research. As we will see, many prominent figures in the field of Children’s Spirituality are associated with Godly Play.

Children’s Spirituality and Cognitive Development in Religious Education

In 1964, Ronald Goldman published Religious thinking from childhood to adolescence - perhaps the first attempt to apply Piaget’s stages of development to Religious Education. From his research, Goldman concluded that young children were unable to process the abstract concepts of religion (Grajczonek, 2017), and went on to propose the idea of religious readiness (Goldman, 1965). As such, young children were essentially excluded from religion until they had reached a sufficiently advanced stage of cognitive development. Similarly, in 1981, James Fowler drew from the work of Piaget for his Stages of Faith, particularly with reference to stages 1 and 2 which applied to three to seven year olds, and six to twelve year olds respectively. Both Fowler and Goldman approached the religious development of children from the perspective of cognitive development, and as such, their theories asserted the limited capacity of young children to engage in religion.

In contrast with Goldman and Fowler, zoologist Alister Hardy (1965) and his successor at the Oxford Religious Experience Research Unit (RERU), Edward Robinson (1977) stumbled not upon children’s capacity for religious thought, but for religious experience. They did so initially by accident while interviewing adults about recollections of religious experience. Robinson “was struck by the frequency (15%) with which reports of general spiritual experience referred to a childhood memory” (Nye, 1998, p. 29). Following in the footsteps of Hardy and Robinson (also at RERU) was David Hay (1982), who claimed on the basis of qualitative research that religious or spiritual experience was a universal phenomenon of humankind.

In 1985 in the UK, Jack Priestly, who had previously advocated the role of story and imagination in Religious Education against Goldman and Fowler’s cognitive approach (1981), wrote in response to ongoing debate about the meaning of spirituality in educational policy documents from the 1970s. Partly inspired by the work of Hay (1982), Priestley “made the radical suggestion that children may inherently possess their own spiritual awareness” (Nye, 1998, p. 17), and rather than enhancing children’s spirituality, education with it’s rationalistic emphasis may actually be having a negative impact. In this way, Priestly offered a radically different outlook on Religious Education than the majority of his field, locating spirituality outside of the cognitive and rational, and instead within felt experience.

Then in 1988, the Education Reform Act (ERA) was released, and it had retained the term spirituality. While the term had been in the previous Education Act for decades, its reaffirmation in the increasingly secular and multicultural context of the UK inspired a whole new wave scholarly debate (Nye, 1998). Aside from a notable chapter by Elaine McCreery (1996), the majority of responses to the retention of spirituality in the ERA were theoretical, and focused primarily on the role of spirituality in psychological well-being, and debates about whether spirituality was more emotional or cognitive, and personal or social (Nye, 1998). Concerning empirical studies, it is worth mentioning here that, outside of the UK’s context, American child psychiatrist Robert Coles had published The Spiritual Life of Children in 1990 from empirical research.

In 1996, the establishment of the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality was a sign that the field was here to stay. Then, in 1998, Hay, with the assistance of psychology researcher Rebecca Nye, published Spirit of the Child based off qualitative research done with primary school children by Nye. This work is considered to have established the empirical validity of children’s spirituality, and defined it as ‘relational consciousness’ (Hay & Nye, 1998). Hay and Nye’s work has since become the flagship text of the field of children’s spirituality.

Since the publication of Spirit of the Child, a number of newcomers have made significant contributions to the field, such as Tony Eaude and Kate Adams in the UK, and Tobin Hart in the US, however, here I would like to focus on the Australian context. The term spirituality first entered Australian curriculum in 1994 (Fisher, 2010). While there was some Australian scholarship on children’s spirituality prior to this (e.g. Rossiter and Crawford, 1991), there has been a considerable increase in the field since then. Notable figures include Catholic educator Brendan Hyde, who has elaborated on the work of Hay and Nye (2008, 2018); psychologist and educator John Fisher, who has developed a measure of spiritual wellbeing for children (2004, 2010); and educator, theologian and counsellor Vivienne Mountain, who has sought to establish links between Children’s Spirituality and Child Theology (2011).

At this point it is worth noting the significant role of educational legislation in the emergence of the field of Children’s Spirituality. While it is possible that it would have emerged from the work of Hardy, Robinson, and Hay - or perhaps the field of psychology - it is less certain that it would have had such a significant influence on the field of education, nor that it would have taken the name ‘Children’s Spirituality’. The ambiguity of the term ‘spirituality’ as well as the imposition of this term on both secular and religious schools has caused significant tension between secular humanist and religious scholars in the field.

Child Theologies

Aside from Suffer The Children by Janet Pais (1991), English language Child Theologies did not begin to emerge until the early 2000s. Most prominent is the Child Theology Movement (CTM), which seeks to empower adults in different contexts to consider theological questions from the perspectives of children (Willmer & White, 2013). Figures associated with this movement, including Marcia Bunge, Keith J. White, and Jan Grobbelaar, have published a number of significant works including The Child in Christian Thought (Bunge, 2001), The Child in the Bible (Bunge, 2008), and Entry Point (Willmer and White, 2013).

CTM is also involved with another group that has taken up child theology, involving the study of Christian missions, and poverty development studies. This has been championed by Compassion International with key figures including Dan Brewster (2010) and Nico Botha (2016).

Another set of prominent voices in the literature is that of feminist practical theologians including Joyce Ann Mercer (2005, 2019), Bonnie Miller-Mclemore (2003), and Julie Faith Parker (2017). A less prominent approach that is starting to gain traction is Child Liberation Theology, which seeks to use the practice of theology to prevent child abuse and empower children to do theology themselves. This can be traced back to the work of Janet Pais (Pais, 1991), but was further developed by Ryan Stollar from 2015-2016 and then contextual theologian Craig Nessan (2018), among others.

Lastly, it is worth specifically mentioning practical theologians Adrian Thatcher and David Jensen, as their individual works Theology and Families (Thatcher 2007), and Graced Vulnerability (Jensen, 2005) are the only published works to my knowledge that approach Trinitarian theology for the sake of children.

While an increasing number of theological disciplines are giving attention to this general field, it seems very few have approached the doctrine of the Trinity for children, and little to no qualitative research has been done on practicing Trinitarian theology with children.

Research Questions

1. How, and to what extent, may Trinitarian theology be made accessible to children in Australian contexts such that they are able to meaningfully interact with it?
   1. What are the main factors that affect the ability of children to meaningfully interact with this theology?
2. What significance, if any, does interacting with Trinitarian theology hold for these children?
3. How are the ideas of Trinitarian theology clarified or altered through these interactions?

Aims and Objectives

Aims

1. To establish how, and to what extent, Trinitarian theology may be made accessible to children in Australian contexts such that they are able to meaningfully interact with it.
2. To establish what significance Trinitarian theology may hold for children in Australian Contexts.
3. To identify any distinctive contributions that children may bring to Trinitarian theology.

Objectives

A. Survey relevant literature on key issues surrounding the research questions as outlined in the below Detailed Chapter Outline

B. Identify and prepare suitable aspects of Trinitarian theology

C. Identify suitable qualitative methods

D. Identify a suitable existing model for doing theology with children (making minor adaptations if necessary)

E. Secure ethics approval

F. Pilot test and refine research design

G. Engage in qualitative research

H. Perform qualitative analysis and discuss findings from focus groups in relation to existing literature.

I. Arrange findings into a coherent whole that addresses the research questions and aims.

Detailed Chapter Outline

After an introductory chapter, and a chapter to set out the theological methodology of the research, the broader structure of the dissertation would include two parts. Part one would cover doing Trinitarian theology for children, part two, doing Trinitarian theology with children.

Opening Chapters

Much like this research proposal, the first chapter would introduce the research by providing a brief overview of its background, focus, significance and methodology. It would conclude with an outline of the structure of the dissertation and a summary of its conclusions. The second chapter would set the theological method of the research within its historical and theological context. The decision to do theology for and with children would be situated in relation to child theologies, and the tension between contextual and historical theology would be explored within the theoretical framework of Social Realism (Maton & Moore, 2010), which seeks to balance the socially constructed nature of knowledge with the existence of objective reality.

Part 1: Doing Trinitarian Theology For Children

The opening two chapters of part one would be devoted to exploring the relationship between children and theology. This would be done in order to establish criteria for determining what the characteristics of ‘theology for children’ might actually be. The first chapter would draw from the empirical stream of Children’s Spirituality to determine what theological content might resonate with children. It is anticipated that ideas such as ‘relational consciousness’ (Hay & Nye, 1998) will correspond well with Trinitarian theology.

The second chapter will explore the capacity of children for theology, drawing from the debate within Children’s Spirituality and Religious Education about the role of the cognitive and affective within theology. It is anticipated that this will help to determine what age of children to work with, and what will and will not be accessible to children.

The third chapter of part one would then review works that consider the doctrine of the Trinity in relation to children. As part of this process I will seek to determine whether each source is engaging in theology about children or theology for children, and I will evaluate sources that engage in theology for children according to the criteria set out in the previous two chapters. The literature on this topic is reasonably scarce, but so far I have identified Theology and Families (Thatcher, 2007), an unpublished thesis on the child in Karl Barth’s theology (Konz, 2017), and Graced Vulnerability (Jensen, 2005). No doubt I will find more sources throughout the course of my research.

The next chapter would consider representative aspects of contemporary Trinitarian theology from the East and West ‘with the child in mind’. That is, it would consider what elements of these theologies are likely to be meaningful to children, or conducive to the meaningful theological participation of children. At this stage I am intending to use the recent debate about the complementarian doctrine of the Trinity as a rich but contained vantage point for exploring Western theology (see Giles, 2017), and John Zizioulas’ Being in Communion as an Eastern voice (Zizioulas, 1985). While I do not want to jump to conclusions, I anticipate that features of prevailing Trinitarian theologies such as appeals to the authority of historical orthodoxy, and emphasis on mystery and philosophical metaphysics will be factors that exclude children from participating in Trinitarian theology.

The final chapter of part one would draw from the above research in order to develop an approach to Trinitarian theology that is for children. In doing so it would seek to balance the concerns of contextual theology with the weight of historical theology. That is, it would seek to highlight what is meaningful to children and conducive to the meaningful theological participation of children, without losing sight of the objective reality that historical theology bears witness to.

Part 2: Doing Trinitarian Theology With Children

The first chapter of part two would focus on identifying, evaluating, and selecting qualitative methodologies for gathering and analysing data about how participating children interacted with Trinitarian theology, and what significance these interactions held for the children. In doing so it would draw from the qualitative approaches of Children’s Spirituality, as well as considering the contribution of the field of Congregational Studies. It is anticipated that a multimethod approach to ethnography would be necessary.

The next chapter would analyse and evaluate a sample of existing models for doing theology with children, with a view to either selecting a model to be adapted for the purposes of the research, or drawing from the strengths of various models to form a hybrid approach. The models selected might include Godly Play, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Kindertheologie, and Philosophy for Children (while this is not a theological method, aspects of its approach may be relevant).

The third chapter of part two would outline and possibly discuss or justify the resulting model and content developed from the synthesis of the above research, as well as the selected qualitative methodologies. It may prove necessary to pilot test the different elements to determine whether they are suitable before engaging in the final qualitative research. Details of this process could be included here.

The next chapter would present the results and analysis of the qualitative research. This would be followed by a chapter discussing the findings in relation to previously explored literature.

The final chapter would then present the conclusions of the study, reflect on the outcomes of the research, and make suggestions for future study.

Methodology

As my methodology has been implicitly covered in the Detailed Chapter Outline, I will here limit my focus to discussing my methodology for the qualitative aspects of the research.

While Children’s Spirituality is not concerned with theology as much as it is concerned with children’s experience of what has been ambiguously termed ‘spirituality’, the field has put considerable research into qualitative ways of studying children in contexts that include the religious, and so will be a valuable source for the qualitative aspects of this research. Similarly, while the field of Congregational Studies is more interested in ecclesiology rather than the theology of children, there are figures within such as Joyce Ann Mercer who have adapted the tools of this tradition for the study of children (Mercer, 2005). Also, Congregational Studies, like Social Realism, helpfully draws attention to the significance of social and cultural context in the formulation of the theology of individuals. As such, even if I foray into texts from the social sciences, these fields will provide my primary point of reference for determining my qualitative methodology.

From my perspective, it is fairly clear that: (a) it will be necessary to take a multimethod approach (Boyatzis & Newman, 2019), (b) my method will include children drawing and interpreting their drawings, and (c) I do not intend to incorporate any quantitative elements. However, there are a number of other decisions that will need to be taken into account. These include the tension between considering each child as an individual and the vitality and complexity of group dynamics (Nye, 2009); whether and to what extent to do research on the various social contexts of the children in question (e.g. family, church, local area) (Ward, 2012); the way that religious language and contexts can trigger “impersonal ‘learned’ response rather than reference to the child’s personal experience” (Hay & Nye, 1998, p. 88); and the extent one goes to in order to practice participant-observation (Boyatzis & Newman, 2019).

I also recognise that I will need to secure ethics approval for any ethnographic work done with children.

Summary

In summary, I am proposing to engage in research on doing Trinitarian theology for and with children. The research sits within the tradition of Contextual Theologies relating to children such as the Child Theology Movement, Child Liberation Theology, and Kindertheologie, but will also draw from the field of Children’s Spirituality, amongst others. The research questions revolve around developing an approach to Trinitarian theology that is meaningful to and accessible to children, then determining empirically what significance Trinitarian theology holds for these children and vice versa. The dissertation will be structured loosely around two parts, one on Trinitarian theology for children, and one on Trinitarian theology with children. It will include both theoretical engagement with literature and ethnographic work with children. My qualitative methodology will be drawn primarily from the fields of Children’s Spirituality and Congregational Studies. I recognise that this research will require ethics approval. The significance of the research project lies in the scarcity of literature on the relationship between children and Trinitarian theology.

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