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‘The Whole Nature of the Child’: Children and Youth at the Lambeth Conferences
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 February 2023
Abstract
This article examines the ways the Lambeth Conference resolutions discuss children and youth. It is a contribution to the work of identifying historical Anglican theological perspectives on children. Opening with a brief definition and review of theologies of childhood, it then presents chronologically (1857–1998) and briefly analyzes the resolutions which name ‘children’ or ‘youth’; it closes with an analysis of how the Lambeth resolutions map onto three basic claims shared by the reviewed theologies of childhood.
- Type
- Research Article
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- © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust
Footnotes
1
This opening phrase is taken from Resolution 11 of the 1908 Lambeth Conference.
2
The Revd Emily J. García is a priest serving in Boston in the Diocese of Massachusetts; she works with children and youth in a parish and in a school.
References
3 As Marcia J. Bunge and Megan Eide say, ‘Although the definition of a child can change across time and place, their presence does not’ (‘Introduction: Strengthening Theology by Honoring Children’, in Marcia J. Bunge [ed.], Child Theology: Diverse Methods and Global Perspectives [Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2021], pp. xiii-xxv [xiii]).
4 John Wall, Ethics in Light of Childhood (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2010), p. 1.
5 Bunge and Eide, ‘Introduction’, pp. xiii, xiv.
6 Marcia Bunge, ‘The Child, Religion, and the Academy: Developing Robust Theological and Religious Understandings of Children and Childhood’, The Journal of Religion 86.4 (2006), pp. 549-79.
7 ‘Womanist theology is a form of reflection that places the religious and moral perspectives of Black women at the center of its method. Issues of class, gender … and race are seen as theological problems … This form of theological reflection cannot be termed “womanist” simply because the subject is Black women’s religious experiences … This kind of analysis is both descriptive (an analysis and sociohistorical perspective of Black life and Black religious worldviews) and prescriptive (offering suggestions for the eradication of oppression in the lives of African Americans and, by extension, the rest of humanity and creation).’ Emilie M. Townes, ‘Womanist Theology’, Union Seminary Quarterly Review 57.3–4 (2003), pp. 159-76 (159).
8 Bunge and Eide, ‘Introduction’, p. xv.
9 Keith J. White, ‘An Introduction to Child Theology’, in Marcia J. Bunge (ed.), Key Topics in Child Theology Series (London: The Child Theology Movement Limited, 2006), p. 3.
10 Bunge and Eide, ‘Introduction’, p. xiv.
11 Joyce Mercer, Welcoming Children: A Practical Theology of Children (St Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2005), 11.
12 Bonnie Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come: Reimagining Childhood from a Christian Perspective (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), p. xxvii.
13 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, p. xxv.
14 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, p. xxi.
15 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, pp. 1-23.
16 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, pp. 25-55.
17 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, p. 55.
18 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, pp. 57-81, 83-104 and 105-35.
19 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, p. 137.
20 Mercer, Welcoming Children, p. 244.
21 Mercer, Welcoming Children, pp. 244-45.
22 Pamela G. Couture, Seeing Children, Seeing God: A Practical Theology of Children and Poverty (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000), p. 20.
23 Couture, Seeing Children, Seeing God, pp. 13-15.
24 Couture, Seeing Children, Seeing God, p.93.
25 Herbert Anderson and Susan B.W. Johnson, Regarding Children: A New Respect for Childhood and Families (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), p. 1.
26 Anderson and Johnson, Regarding Children, pp. 112-29.
27 Ruth A. Meyers (ed.), Children at the Table: A Collection of Essays on Children and the Eucharist (New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1995).
28 This Consultation describes itself in part as a result of a resolution in the 1968 Lambeth Conference as well as the changes in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.
29 The 1985 Boston Consultation, ‘Children and Communion: An International Anglican Consultation Held in Boston U.S.A. 29–31 July 1985,’ in Meyers (ed.), Children at the Table, pp. 127-40 (132).
30 Ruth A. Meyers, ‘‘Infant Communion: Reflections on the Case from Tradition,’ in Meyers (ed.), Children at the Table, pp. 146-64 (160).
31 Meyers, ‘Infant Communion’ p. 160.
32 Meyers, ‘Infant Communion’, p. 161.
33 Leonel L. Mitchell, ‘The Communion of Infants and Little Children’, in Meyers (ed.), Children at the Table, pp. 165-87 (171).
34 Mitchell, ‘The Communion of Infants’, p. 175.
35 Mitchell, ‘The Communion of Infants’, pp. 173-74. Christian discussion of (assumed able-bodied) children and disabled people of all ages often involves theological interpretation of (in)ability, dependence and verbal expression.
36 Mitchell, ‘The Communion of Infants’, pp. 174-75.
37 Urban T. Holmes, III, Young Children and the Eucharist (New York: Seabury Press, 1972).
38 Geiko Muller-Fahrenholz, And Do Not Hinder Them: An Ecumenical Plea for the Admission of Children to the Eucharist (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982).
39 Bonnie Miller-McLemore’s article ‘Whither the Children: Childhood in Religious Education’, Journal of Religion 86.4 (2006), pp. 635-57, examines how much writing on religious education is not actually focused on children themselves, which perhaps is why this literature review does not include Westerhoff and others who are otherwise frequently cited.
40 Maria Montessori, The Mass Explained to Children (Kettering, OH: Angelic Press, 2015).
41 Montessori, The Mass Explained to Children, p. 1.
42 Montessori, The Mass Explained to Children, p. 2.
43 Montessori, The Mass Explained to Children, p. 2.
44 Montessori, The Mass Explained to Children, p. 4.
45 Montessori’s 1929 book was in 1965 released in an English collection called The Child in the Church, with additional articles by others, translated and edited by E.M. Standing (Lake Ariel, PA: Hillside Education, 2017).
46 Montessori, The Child in the Church, pp. 27-28.
47 Sofia Cavalletti, The Religious Potential of the Child: Experiencing Scripture and Liturgy with Young Children (trans. Patricia M. Coulter and Julie M. Coulter; Oak Park, IL: Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Publications, 1992).
48 Cavalletti, The Religious Potential of the Child, p. 44.
49 Cavalletti, The Religious Potential of the Child, p. 47.
50 Cavalletti, The Religious Potential of the Child, pp. 52-53.
51 Cavalletti, The Religious Potential of the Child, p. 177.
52 Marcia Bunge (ed.), The Child in Christian Thought (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2001).
53 Marcia J. Bunge, ‘Introduction’, in Bunge (ed.) The Child in Christian Thought, pp. 1-28 (13).
54 Bunge, ‘Introduction’, p. 8.
55 Diana Wood (ed.), The Church and Childhood: Papers Read at the 1993 Summer Meeting and the 1994 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994).
56 Janet L. Nelson, ‘Introduction’, in Wood (ed.), The Church and Childhood, pp. xix-xxiv (xix).
57 Nelson, ‘Introduction’, p. xxii.
58 Bunge, ‘Introduction’, p. 7.
59 Natalie Carnes, ‘We in Our Turmoil: Theological Anthropology through Maria Montessori and the Lives of Children’, The Journal of Religion 95.3 (2015), pp. 318-36.
60 Cristina L.H. Traina, ‘Children and Moral Agency’, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 29.2 (2009), pp. 19-37.
61 Other potential Anglican sources for (fragments of) theologies of childhood would be in the curricula recommended by national or diocesan bodies across the Communion; in what Anglican clergy or lay leaders write for newspapers in response to current events regarding children; in Anglican books for parents; in what official Church publishing houses publish for use by children or their ministers; or in seminary syllabi related to parish or hospital ministry with children.
62 Ephraim Radner, ‘Christian Mission and the Lambeth Conferences’, in Paul Avis and Benjamin M. Guyer (eds.), The Lambeth Conference: Theology, History, Polity and Purpose (London: T&T Clark, 2017), pp. 132-72 (132).
63 Gregory K. Cameron, ‘The Windsor Process and the Anglican Covenant’, in Avis and Guyer (eds.), The Lambeth Conference, pp. 234-58 (234).
64 In 2022 the fifteenth Lambeth Conference met, postponed from the scheduled 2020 gathering due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
65 Paul Avis and Benjamin M. Guyer, ‘Editorial Preface’, in Avis and Guyer (eds.), The Lambeth Conference, pp. viii-xiii (ix).
66 Stephen Pickard, ‘The Lambeth Conference among the Instruments of Communion’, in Avis and Guyer (eds.), The Lambeth Conference, pp. 3-22 (3).
67 Norman Doe and Richard Deadman, ‘The Resolutions of the Lambeth Conference and the Laws of Anglican Churches’, in Avis and Guyer (eds.), The Lambeth Conference, pp. 259-93 (260).
68 Cameron, ‘The Windsor Process’, p. 234.
69 Doe and Deadman, ‘The Resolutions of the Lambeth Conference’, p. 260.
70 ‘The Anglican Communion Document Library’, The Anglican Communion, available at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/resources/document-library.aspx?author=Lambeth+Conference (accessed 19 December 2016).
71 Beginning in 2008, the Lambeth Conference did not produce contained resolutions, but narrative reflections. These are such a different format that I have chosen to focus on the continuous format from 1897 to 1998.
72 This might be expanded to include ‘girls’, ‘boys’, ‘sons’ and ‘daughters’ (there are a few resolutions which use these words), as well as ‘young people’. However, I chose my terms to capture the broadest categories and to specifically aim for all people under the age of 18 (the current global legal definition of ‘child’). This does leave out some interesting resolutions that might be discussed in terms of theologies of childhood, such as 1908 Resolution 4 and 1920 Resolution 71. I have also decided to leave out three resolutions which describe all humans, including adults, as ‘children of God’; these are 1948 Resolution 2 on ‘the Christian Doctrine of Man’, 1978 Resolution 1 on ‘Today’s World’ and 1978 Resolution 34 on ‘Human Relationships and Sexuality’. While this might offer some interesting ideas for child theology, I’m interested here in theologies of childhood, that is, concerning people under the age of 18.
73 This is not to say that the earlier authors were not concerned with the actual lives of children – only that the expressed focus of these anxieties and the solution to them was not expressed with a description of children or the outcomes for children.
74 The reference numbers in parentheses throughout the rest of the paper are the numbers of the resolutions cited, not page numbers. These are available on the Anglican Communion’s Document Library. Lambeth Conference, ‘Resolutions Archive from 1897’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127725/1897.pdf (accessed 28 January 2023).
75 This could be because the creators of the resolution took for granted a shared view of outcomes, but this seems unlikely as elsewhere shared views are still expressed.
76 Lambeth Conference, ‘Resolutions Archive from 1908’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127728/1908.pdf (accessed 28 January 2023).
77 The concept of ‘race’ has developed and shifted over time; see Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010) for the continuities within Christianity.
78 Resolution 4 does not mention ‘children’ or ‘youth’ and so is not in the scope of our analysis; but it should be noted that it asks ‘that Christian parents be urged to encourage signs of vocation in their sons’. Here, too, the focus is the child’s future role in countering ‘the serious decline in the number of candidates for Holy Orders’, rather than the present effects of the child’s present spiritual life.
79 Lambeth Conference, ‘Resolutions Archive from 1920’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127731/1920.pdf (accessed 28 January 2023).
80 Perhaps they meant a white race, like the idea of ‘the Anglo-Saxon race’ that was popular at that time; perhaps they meant each child within ‘their own race’, as it were. If the latter, this would connect to the judgment of mixed-race relationships in 1930 Resolutions 23 and 24.
81 Lambeth Conference, ‘Resolutions Archive from 1930’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127734/1930.pdf (accessed 28 January 2023).
82 Resolutions 15 and 16 comment on the related topics of birth control (acceptable when done ‘in light of … Christian principles’ – quite a change!) and abortion (a ‘sinful practice’ viewed by the Conference with ‘abhorrence’).
83 I use these words because the resolution says ‘the procreation of children’ not ‘the care of children’ or ‘the raising of children’, which are separate activities and not necessarily connected.
84 This could be read as an extension of 1908’s Resolution 4 on vocation.
85 Lambeth Conference, ‘Resolutions Archive from 1948’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127737/1948.pdf (accessed 28 January 2023).
86 The accuracy of these descriptions is of course debatable. See, for example, ‘Parental Conflict, Marital Disruption and Children’s Emotional Well-Being’, Social Forces 76.3 (1998), pp. 905-36.
87 Lambeth Conference, ‘Resolutions Archive from 1958’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127740/1958.pdf (accessed 28 January 2023).
88 Resolution 25 does not say ‘children’ or ‘youth’ but it should be noted that this resolution prompted a significant discussion and consideration of both children and childhood among Anglicans, as it recommended ‘that each province or regional Church be asked to explore the theology of baptism and confirmation in relation to the need to commission the laity for their task in the world, and to experiment in this regard’. The Episcopal liturgical resources named in the literature review above describe themselves as being prompted by this resolution call.
89 Lambeth Conference, ‘Resolutions Archive from 1968’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127743/1968.pdf (accessed 28 January 2023).
90 In this year are two resolutions which refer to all humans as ‘God’s children’. My reasons for not including these are given above in note 72. Lambeth Conference, ‘Resolutions Archive from 1978’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127746/1978.pdf (accessed 28 January 2023).
91 Lambeth Conference, ‘Resolutions Archive from 1988’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127749/1988.pdf (accessed 28 January 2023).
92 Lambeth Conference, ‘Resolutions Archive from 1998’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/76650/1998.pdf (accessed 28 January 2023).
93 For example, Mercer is a minister in the Presbyterian Church, is part of ‘the progressive side of the Reformed Christian faith’ (p. 9) and uses Karl Barth and Karl Rahner for her conception of the moral nature of children. Couture is an elder in the United Methodist Church, and uses ‘Wesleyan theology’ (p. 48) as well as minjung theology (p. 62) to speak of our responsibility to children.
94 Mercer, Welcoming Children, p. 244.
95 Mercer, Welcoming Children, pp. 251-52.
96 Mercer, Welcoming Children, p. 156.
97 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, pp. 164-65.
98 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, p. 122.
99 Anderson and Johnson, Regarding Children, p. 9.
100 Anderson and Johnson, Regarding Children, pp. 13-16. Janet Nelson, in her ‘Introduction’ to the volume The Child in the Church, notes that one of the themes that emerged from the papers gathered was of ‘the child’s dual role as passive object of ecclesiastical concern and active religious subject’ (p. xx).
101 1920 Resolution 77.
102 1988 Resolution 28.
103 1908 Resolutions 13, 19 and 67; 1930 Resolution 12; 1948 Resolutions 34 and 98; and 1958 Resolution 122.
104 1930 Resolution 14.
105 1948 resolution 34.
106 1958 Resolution 122.
107 1930 Resolution 12.
108 1908 Resolution 12.
109 1908 Resolution 67.
110 A question for further thought is what value we place on a child when we speak of them as ‘the continuation of the human race’ or of their ‘procreation’ as being the purpose of marriage. In what way does this value their humanity? In what role do we place them in the family and the human family?
111 ‘There are some of those who think that the child’s only value for humanity lies in the fact that he will some day be an adult. In this way they detract from the true value of childhood by shifting it only into the future. This cannot be justified.’ Montessori, The Child in the Church, p. 6.
112 1930 Resolution 75.
113 1968 Resolution 28.
114 1968 Resolution 29.
115 1988 Resolution 48.
116 1998 Resolution 5.4.
117 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, p. 165.
118 Miller-McLemore, Let the Children Come, p. 167.
119 Mercer, Welcoming Children, p. 245.
120 Mercer, Welcoming Children, p. 66.
121 Mercer, Welcoming Children, p. 244.
122 Anderson & Johnson, Regarding Children, pp. 49-56.
123 Anderson & Johnson, Regarding Children, p. 113.
124 Couture, Seeing Children, p. 14.
125 Couture, Seeing Children, p. 16.
126 Couture, Seeing Children, pp. 75-77.
127 1948 Resolution 30.
128 1930 Resolutions 14 (‘the duty of parenthood as the glory of married life’) and 12; 1908 Resolutions 13 and 19; 1948 Resolutions 104 and 108; and 1958 Resolutions 115 and 127.
129 1948 Resolution 107.
130 1897 Resolution 48; 1958 Resolution 114 and 122; 1988 Resolution 48; and 1998 Resolution II.8.
131 1998 Resolution II.8.
132 1908 Resolution 15.
133 1920 Resolution 77.
134 1948 Resolution 97.
135 1958 Resolution 127.
136 1988 Resolution 28, 1998 Resolution I.3.
137 1968 Resolution 14, 1988 Resolution 39.
138 1998 Resolution I.15
139 1948 Resolution 4, one resolution out of 118 that year.
140 1998 Resolution I.3, one resolution out of 107 that year.
141 1908 Resolution 13.
142 1948 Resolution 97.
143 1920 Resolution 77.
144 1968 Resolution 14, 1988 Resolution 39, 1998 Resolution I.15.
145 Mercer, Welcoming Children, p. 255.
146 Mercer, Welcoming Children, p. 201. Her closing chapters explore this issue with many detailed case studies, focusing on North American mainline churches.
147 Andrew and Johnson, Regarding Children, p. 113.
148 Andrew and Johnson, Regarding Children, p. 115.
149 In an Anglican context, this could include not just receiving baptism or receiving the Eucharist, but also praying (looking, smelling, tasting) as a congregant at weddings and funerals, and participating in the rite of reconciliation in developmentally appropriate ways. Cavalletti’s lessons on confession have been successfully adapted in Anglican and Episcopal contexts for this last purpose.
150 1897 Resolution 48.
151 1908 Resolution 62.
152 1948 Resolution 104.
153 1988 Resolution 26.
154 1897 Resolution 48.
155 1948 Resolution 10.
156 1948 Resolution 107.
157 1948 Resolution 108.
158 1908 Resolutions 13 and 19, 1958 Resolution 122.
159 1948 Resolution 30.
160 1958 Resolution 114.
161 1930 Resolution 12.
162 1968 Resolution 28.
163 1968 Resolution 29.