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

Doing theology with children: Some challenges for adult theologians

Jan Grobbelaar
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies | Vol 75, No 1 | a5636 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v75i1.5636 | © 2019 Jan Grobbelaar | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 02 July 2019 | Published: 12 December 2019

About the author(s)

Jan Grobbelaar, Department of Practical Theology, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract

Doing theology with children, which includes children as equal participants in the process, is no easy task. Adult theologians face many challenges in becoming involved in doing theology with children. The probing question is: What are these challenges? This article identifies and discusses a few of them. It does not provide an exhaustive list, nor does it discuss each challenge in detail, although more attention is given to the important and crucial challenge to scrutinise our conceptions of childhood. It rather wants to stimulate a conversation about why it is difficult to involve children as equal partners in doing theology and in theological research.

Keywords

Child; Children; Childhood; Child theology; Childist theology; Theologies of childhood; Epistemology

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