Children, Adults, and Shared Responsibilities

Marcia J. Bunge is Professor of Humanities and Theology at Christ College, the Honors College of Valparaiso University (Indiana); Director of the Child in Religion and Ethics Project; and the University's W. C. Dickmeyer Professor. She is the translator and editor of selected texts by J. G. Herder entitled Against Pure Reason: Writings on History, Language, and Religion (1993). She has also edited and contributed to The Child in Christian Thought (2001); The Child in the Bible (2008, co-edited with Terence Fretheim and Beverly Roberts Gaventa); and Children and Childhood in World Religions: Primary Sources and Texts (2009, co-edited with Don S. Browning).

Collected essays discussing religious and ethical perspectives on children and obligations to them within the traditions of the Abrahamic religions.

Introduction Marcia J. Bunge; Part I. Religious Understandings of Children: Central Beliefs and Practices: 1. The concept of the child embedded in Jewish law Elliot N. Dorff; 2. Children's spirituality in the Jewish narrative tradition Sandy Eisenberg Sasso; 3. Christian understandings of children: central biblical themes and resources Marcia J. Bunge; 4. Human dignity and social responsibility: Catholic social thought on children William Werpehowski; 5. Islam, children, and modernity - a Qur'anic perspective Farid Esack; 6. Muslim youth and religious identity: classical perspectives and contemporary challenges Marcia Hermansen; 7. Imagining childism: how childhood should transform religious ethics John Wall; 8. Talking about childhood and engaging with children: a Christian perspective on interfaith dialogue Nelly Van Doorn-Harder; Part II. Responsibilities of Children and Adults: Selected Contemporary Issues and Challenges: 9. Work, labor, and chores: Christian ethical reflection on children and vocation Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore; 10. Honor your father and your mother - a Christian perspective in dialogue with contemporary psychological theories Annemie Dillen; 11. Will I have Jewish grandchildren? Cultural transmission and ethical and religious concerns among ethnoreligious minorities Sylvia Barack-Fishman; 12. Linking past and present: educating Muslim children in diverse cultural contexts Lily Zakiyah Munir and Azim Nanji; 13. Orphans and adoption: biblical themes, Christian initiatives, and contemporary ethical concerns Keith Graber Miller; 14. Second-hand children: a Jewish ethics of foster care in an age of desire Laurie Zoloth; 15. Christianity's mixed contributions to children's rights: traditional teachings, modern doubts Don S. Browning and John Witte, Jr; 16. Children's rights in modern Islamic and international law: changes in Muslim moral imaginaries Ebrahim Moosa.