Children and Childhood in World Religions: Primary Sources and Texts

Don S. Browning · Marcia J. Bunge

Aug 2009 · Rutgers University Press

About this ebook

While children figure prominently in religious traditions, few books have directly explored the complex relationships between children and religion. This is the first book to examine the theme of children in major religions of the world.

Each of six chapters, edited by world-class scholars, focuses on one religious tradition and includes an introduction and a selection of primary texts ranging from legal to liturgical and from the ancient to the contemporary. Through both the scholarly introductions and the primary sources, this comprehensive volume addresses a range of topics, from the sanctity of birth to a child's relationship to evil, showing that issues regarding children are central to understanding world religions and raising significant questions about our own conceptions of children today.

About the author

DON S. BROWNING was a professor emeritus at the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Christian Ethics and Moral Psychologies and coeditor of American Religions and the Family: How Faith Traditions Cope with Modernization and Democracy. With Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Browning also edited Children and Childhood in American Religions.

MARCIA J. BUNGE is professor of theology and humanities at Valparaiso University and director of the Child in Religion and Ethics Project. She is the editor of The Child in Christian Thought and coeditor of The Child in the Bible.