Let the Children Come
Reimagining Childhood from a Christian Perspective
- Marriage, Family & Relationships
- Publisher: Fortress Press (Augsburg Fortress)
- Published: 2019
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Publisher's Description
Explore what faithful parenting might look like today In Let the Children Come, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore explores the question, What does faithful parenting look like today? As she addresses this query, she updates outmoded and distorted assumptions about and conceptions of children in popular US culture. She also shows important insights and contributions religious traditions and communities, Christianity in particular, make as we examine how to regard and treat children well. Miller-McLemore draws on historical and contemporary understandings of Christianity, psychology, and feminism to push back against negative trends, such as the narcissistic use of children for adult benefit, the market use of children to sell products, and the failure to give children meaningful roles in the domestic work of the family and the life of wider society. Miller-McLemore views children as full participants in families and religious communities and as human beings deserving of greater respect and understanding than people typically grant them. In particular, the book rethinks five ways adults have viewed (and misperceived) children--as victims, sinful, gifts, work (the labor of love), and agents. Reimagining children, she proposes, will lead to a renewed conception of the care of children as a religious practice.
Endorsements (6)
“This book will help us to live with and care for children with greater understanding, compassion, and respect.”
“In this appealing book, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore rescues the traditional themes of Christian theology for a positive, practical theology of children and child raising.”
“Let the Children Come blends the best insights of sources once thought to be incompatible—the Christian tradition, feminism, and the modern social sciences—all deliciously mixed with Miller-McLemore’s own personal experience of raising children.”
“Let the Children Come is sure to provoke and sustain a conversation between secular and religious mothers that is at once enjoyable and necessary in our culture.”
“Miller-McLemore has written a timely book on a subject of great urgency. Drawing on feminist psychology, cultural criticism, religious history—and on her own experience as a parent—Miller-McLemore offers a compelling rethinking of children’s lives in Christian settings.”
“In lucid, insightful prose, the author both challenges and empowers us for the task of caring for the children of our shared blessing and responsibility. Courageous and illuminating.”
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