Theology and Families | |
About half of children born in the UK are born outside marriage. My earlier work on marriage led me inevitably to thinking about how theology should respond to the diversity of family forms which has become increasingly evident. And my concern about the neglect of children in theology led me (in 2003) to begin a theological work where children are central to arguments about family forms and much else. There has been an explosion in Trinitarian theology in the last thirty years but only a fraction of it has been deployed towards practical or ethical outcomes. Theology and Families makes a strenuous attempt to utilise this essential Christian doctrine of God in thinking about what families are, and about the relations within them. The book appears in Blackwell's Challenges in Contemporary Theology series. In my prospectus I said the book responded to three challenges: 'The first challenge is to identify, release and utilise theological sources for thinking about real human families. The second challenge is to make a positive theological contribution to the intellectual and practical discussions about families that are taking place all over the world. The third challenge is to re-claim for the Christian church, and therefore to wrest from the grip of a part of it, real `family values` that are rooted in, and nourished by the life of the triune God. This challenge will entail scrutinising uses of the Bible which appear to impose particular family forms, and uses of tradition which remain bound to patriarchy and to unthinking notions of gendered relations.' The root question uniting all three challenges is `How can the resources of Christian faith contribute to the thriving of families, and in particular, to children`? |
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Wiley 2007 978-1405152754 | |
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