Original Research - Special Collection: Doing Theology with Children: Exploring Emancipatory Methodologies

Doing theology with children through multimodal narrativity

Anthony Adawu
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies | Vol 75, No 1 | a5494 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v75i1.5494 | © 2019 Anthony Adawu | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 08 April 2019 | Published: 07 August 2019

About the author(s)

Anthony Adawu, Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy, Mount Mercy University, Cedar Rapids, United States; and, Faculty of Theology, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Abstract

Doing theology with children, in a systematic and focused way, is a new practice. This article contributes to this theological practice by examining its emergence, nature and mission and proposing multimodal narrativity as a practical theological methodology for doing such theology. The article argues, from a practical theological standpoint, that doing theology with children should be understood as a synodal event – a journeying together with children about their faith; as a way of seeing the mysteries of God through the eyes of the child and of encouraging a robust understanding of God and God’s plan for humanity and the entire creation; and as a way of seeing the faces of children and hearing their voices, thereby accounting for their suffering and hope. Children themselves are sources and disruptors of hope. The use of multimodal narrativity creates space for these narratives and disruptions of hope and encourages children to theologise their experiences in the midst of their different communities.

Keywords

Theological methodology; Multimodal narrativity; Theology as synodia; Theologising with children; Children as sources of hope; Eulogising Jesus; Christ the eternal child

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