Children, Adults, and Shared Responsibilities Jewish, Christian and Muslim Perspectives

This collection of essays by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars underscores the significance of sustained and serious ethical, inter-religious, 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, educators, and those engaged in inter-religious dialogue.

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.

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).