Children and Childhood in American Religions

Price: $23.95  

Editors: Don Browning and Bonnie Miller-McLemore
Subject: Religion
Paper ISBN: 978-0-8135-4481-6
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4480-9
Pages: 224 pages
Publication Date: March 2009
Series: Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies

Whether First Communion or bar mitzvah, religious traditions play a central role in the lives of many American children. In this collection of essays, leading scholars reveal for the first time how various religions interpret, reconstruct, and mediate their traditions to help guide children and their parents in navigating the opportunities and challenges of American life. The book examines ten religions, among other topics:

• How the Catholic Church confronts the tension between its teachings about children and actual practice

• The Oglala Lakota’s struggle to preserve their spiritual traditions
  

• The impact of modernity on Hinduism

Only by discussing the unique challenges faced by all religions, and their followers, can we take the first step toward a greater understanding for all of us.

Don S. Browning is a professor emeritus at the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Christian Ethics and Moral Psychologies and American Religions and the Family: How Faith Traditions Cope with Modernization and Democracy.

Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore is a professor of pastoral theology and counseling at the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Let the Children Come: Reimaging Childhood from a Christian Perspective and In the Midst of Chaos: Care of Children as Religious Practice.