The background for the concept is secularism and religious plurality in Europe and that leads to the question: How can we pass on our religious tradition to our children? Over the past 20 years, Children's Theology has become an established concept in Europe within the academic field of religious education (Kraft, Roose & Büttner 2011b). Based on the point of view that children in institutions of public education have a right to their religion (Schweitzer 2000, 2011:10) and, particularly in religion classes, have a right to religious education and to information that is new to them, pioneers of Children's Theology such as Anton A. Bucher, Gerhard Büttner, Friedhelm Kraft, Petra Freudenberger-Lötz, Hartmut Rupp, Elisabeth Schwarz and Mirjam Zimmermann advocate ‘a hermeneutics of active acquisition rather than transmittal’ (Bucher 2002:23). They are convinced that children can be regarded as people:

Is seems that theologising with children is a concept that is primarily related to religious education at school, but there are also descriptions of possibilities with children in families.

The goal is to understand the theology generated by children, to interpret the ‘pattern (hypothetically) detected in this way’ (e.g. on prayer see Roose 2006:137–146) and finally to give new theological ideas, identify the nuances and make it more flexible.

Using the concept of the advancement of theological competency (Zimmermann 2012:131–164) allows the more open notion of ‘religious competency’, which is used extensively in the competency debate, to be expanded into an area so far neglected and to be brought back into the theological tradition of thought. The intention is to thoughtfully investigate a historical, contemporary or personal faith practice, while moving away from a spirituality of the child that is practiced but not reflected. Therefore, in order to advance theological competency, a process of confrontation, examination and reflection must take place in classroom situations.

Additionally, theologising gains connectivity in the religious-didactic field through its integration into the competency debate (Kraft, Freudenberger-Lötz & Schwarz 2011a:9–16). Competency in Children's Theology is defined as the empirically measurable ability of children ‘not only to articulate but also to reflectively penetrate and refine their own thoughts and ideas on theological questions’ (Reiß & Freudenberger-Lötz 2012:133). It is thus a cognitive ability that reveals itself in the posing and processing of theological questions as well as in narrative and metaphorical modes of thought and which enables one to deal with paradoxes and hermeneutical questions. It assists in the solving of theological problems, the points of origin which lie between the child and the theological issues. Its specificity to a field or domain is revealed through specific theological subject matters (e.g. the question of God, Christology, the Holy Ghost). This competency can be learned, tested, expanded and improved and it can be called up as a competency for communicating and acting in appropriate situations. It can be analysed in form and content, for example with regard to consistency, abstraction, dependence on language, the use of fundamental categories, the generation of causal systems and connectivity to interpretations and systems, and it can be evaluated and promoted according to didactic goals (for more detail see Zimmerman 2013:163).

Drawing on established definitions within the systematic-theological tradition, Children's Theology is defined as:

In every case it is closely tied to language as the medium for reflection (for more detail see Zimmermann 2012:88–92).

Many aspects concerning the goal and the road to be used still needs further definition and research. The central concern of researchers is to remain respectful of children and not to functionalise or romanticise their voices in order to come to a new vitality in theology. Certainly, the awareness of the position of children in theology is part of the actual hermeneutical turn in theology (Dillen 2007) and can also be seen as a ‘postmodern modus’ of doing theology (Roebben 2011:15), in which the difference between a child, an ordinary theologian and an academic professional theologian is not substantial, but graded (Bucher 2002:11).

Although the term ‘Children's Theology’ is quite new, the concept behind it has a long history. Individual aspects reveal analogies to insights and postulations from various phases of theology and religious education, such as:

Through child research in the social sciences the deficient image of the child, postulated by developmental and socialisation theories and measured against the norm of adults, has been replaced by the concept of the child who acts, thinks and speaks independently. Thus, the insight that children actively construct their own worlds and are capable of complex thinking, for example, of forming analogies, at a much earlier age than formerly assumed, has grown. This change of perspective has taken place over the past 30 years through sociological, psychological and pedagogical issues and has been taken up in theology and in the church especially through developments such as Children's Theology. In Religious Pedagogy, ‘Children's Theology, Child Theology or theologising with Children’ is explicitly spoken about within the religious-pedagogical discourse since 1992 and the discussion has become more intense since the appearance of the ’Jahrbuch für Kindertheologie’ (Yearbook of Children's Theology) in 2002.

Since then, several monographs, for example on the interpretation of Jesus’ death (Albrecht 2007; Zimmermann 2012), the resurrection (Butt 2009), prayer (Kammeyer 2009) et cetera, have been published and a bibliography up until 2010 is available (Zimmermann 2012:51–54). Since 2010, an additional focus on youth theology has been established (Dieterich 2012; Freudenberger-Lötz 2012; Schlag & Schweitzer 2011) and the ‘Jahrbuch für Jugendtheologie’ (Yearbook of Youth Theology) has been published alongside the Yearbook of Children's Theology since 2013.

Philosophy has provided a decisive motivating factor for the interest in conversing with children and for the appreciation of children's thoughts. Both through transfers and differentiation from the ‘philosophising with Children’ (Camhy; Matthews; Freese; Horster 1992; Lipman 1980 etc.), we have been able to learn essential aspects about establishing and structuring Children's Theology. The following can be considered to be common core beliefs:

However, in addition to these analogies, it is possible and necessary to make a clear distinction between the object of Children's Theology and that of the philosophy of children. In defining the object of theology more specifically, we gain a clearer separation between Children's Theology and the philosophy of children (Rupp 2009:170–181). Children's Theology develops clear contours through an orientation toward the established term of theology in the systematic-theological tradition. In the same way that theology must refer here to Christian faith, Children's Theology must also in some way be able to be referred to the history of God with people and people with God, which is transmitted through biblical tradition, proclaimed by the church and is experienced in the present day. Finally, theologising with children and philosophising with children differ in their claims to truth and validity. As philosophers in this field emphasise, philosophical thought cannot lead to normative security in the sense of life certitude. However, for Children's Theology, the essential aspects are a connection back to a faith which is externally authenticated – in theological terms: ‘extra no's’ – providing a claim to one's own self-discovery and the possibility of successfully managing one's life as well as the hope for a goal.

In an interesting book, which presents the essays of an international discussion in Danish Loggum-Abbey, the participants sorted out the two interesting positions:

Petermann, who adheres to the first position, wants to invite children ‘to make faith (also in the sense of its communications) reflective as an elementary dimension of human experience’ (Petermann 2009:144).

Apart from the idea of philosophising with children, there are two more concepts which have influenced Children's Theology.

Piaget and the psychology of children's development claims that children are not deficient in their way of thinking; they are just different. These differences might be promising, firstly for the understanding of how young children think, and secondly that their thinking provides a valuable and sometimes very creative and surprising contribution to the theological discourse itself in bringing up new questions and also new answers.

The other concept that formed the idea is that of ‘Children's Spirituality’. Especially in the United Kingdom, the concept of spirituality is also part of the pedagogical debate, which understands spirituality as part of the condition humaine. This concept reminds of Maria Montessori's concept, but it was developed in an interreligious, pluralistic context (Freudenreich 2009:131–144). Roebben asks (2011): How do this term and the underlying movement relate and respond to the Anglo-Saxon development in children's spirituality? Is it a more academic approach (therefore theology) to a more educational praxis (therefore spirituality) in the life of children? Are the German religious education specialists building on the ‘lived theology’ that comes out of the Anglo-Saxon empirical and hermeneutical research of children's spirituality?

Early on in the framework of theoretical reflection on Children's Theology, Anton Bucher (2002:9) differentiated between Theology of Children (Genetivus subjektivus) and Theology for Children (Genetivus objektivus). At the same time, we also find the term Theologizing with Children (Büttner & Rupp 2002, in the book title). In his leading article in the Jahrbuch der Kindertheologie (2003), Friedrich Schweitzer (2003:11) effectively differentiated among theology by, for and with children. The following table (Zimmermann 2012:123) gives a brief overview, which will be discussed below.

This system was also adopted in Youth Theology and was differentiated with regard to the various forms of youth theology: Implicit theology, personal theology, explicit theology, theological interpretation with the help of theological dogmatic, the specific theological argumentation of youth (Schlag & Schweitzer 2011; explained by Schlag at the conference for Children's Theology 2011). When considering Table 1, it is important to remember – due both to epistemological considerations as well as with regard to the integration of Children's Theology in practical religious-pedagogical contexts – that the various dimensions of Children's Theology have been differentiated with heuristic intention. Ultimately, there are three facets to Children's Theology.

Drawing on a working paper by Hartmut Rupp, Heinz Schmidt identified seven basic didactical forms:

Both this list and the contributions in the ‘Yearbook of Children's Theology’ on teaching methods reveal that the above basic forms do not fundamentally differ from those of classical religion or confirmation classes. The difference lies not in the method but in the goal of the pedagogical process. Here, the primary central interest is not on transmittal; instead, the children are regarded as equal discourse partners even on the factual level and are taken seriously if they express their theological positions on a topic or problem. Only by drawing on the theology of the children do the adults introduce other positions not mentioned in the group or by the child. The openness of the outcome is decisive and this must not be confused with arbitrariness. As an example of such a theological conversation we can use the image of a playing field upon which no entirely new areas are developed but rather limits are drawn and rules are outlined. The way in which the game develops within the limits, however, depends on the players.