Children, Adults, and Shared Responsibilities

by Bunge, Marcia J.

• ISBN13: 9781107011144
• ISBN10: 1107011140
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-11-11
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

This collection of essays by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars underscores the significance of sustained and serious ethical, interreligious and interdisciplinary reflection on children. Essays in the first half of the volume discuss fundamental beliefs and practices within the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam regarding children, adult obligations to them, and a child's own obligations to others. The second half of the volume focuses on selected contemporary challenges regarding children and faithful responses to them. Marcia J. Bunge brings together scholars from various disciplines and diverse strands within these three religious traditions, representing several views on essential questions about the nature and status of children and adult-child relationships and responsibilities. The volume not only contributes to intellectual inquiry regarding children in the specific areas of ethics, religious studies, children's rights and childhood studies, but also provides resources for child advocates, religious leaders and those engaged in interreligious dialogue.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Religious Understandings of Children and Obligations to Them: Central Beliefs and Practices

The concept of the child embedded in Jewish law

Children's spirituality in the Jewish narrative tradition

Christian understandings of children and obligations to them: central Biblical themes and resources

Human dignity and social responsibility: Catholic Social Thought on children

Islam, children, and modernity - a Qur'anic perspective

Linking past and present: educating Muslim children in diverse cultural contexts

Imagining childism: how childhood should transform religious ethics

Talking about childhood and engaging children: a Christian perspective on interfaith dialogue

Specific Responsibilities of Children and Adults: Selected Contemporary Issues and Challenges

Will I have Jewish grandchildren?: Cultural transmission and ethical concerns among ethnoreligious minorities Sylvia

Muslim youth and religious identity: classical perspectives and contemporary challenges

Honor your father and your mother: a Christian perspective in dialogue with contemporary psychological theories

Work, play, labor, and chores: Christian ethical reflection on children and vocation

Orphans and adoption: Biblical themes, Christian initiatives, and contemporary ethical concerns

Second-hand children: a Jewish ethics of foster care in an age of desire

Christianity's mixed contributions to children's rights: traditional teachings, modern doubts

Children's rights in modern Islamic and international law: changes in Muslim moral imaginaries

Selected primary texts

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

Index of names

Index of subjects

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