Listening to Africa’s children in the process of practical theological interpretation: A South African application

Ignatius Swart,Hannelie Yates

doi:10.4102/hts.v68i2.1310

Abstract

As part of the theological task of developing a publicly oriented ministry that will do justice to the social plight of children in Africa, this article adopted as its point of departure an appreciation of the new ‘hermeneutics of listening’ that is advanced today by an interdisciplinary movement of scholars from the disciplines of practical theology, theological ethics and religion studies. Emphasising the fact that this new hermeneutics is by and large the result of this scholarly movement’s newly-found engagement with, and exposure to, the social science field of childhood studies, the article moved from a more general appreciation of the new hermeneutical line of thinking to a more pertinent evaluation of the unfolding of this line of thinking in the scholarly context of Africa. In a further development that narrows the African focus to South Africa, the results from a recent empirical investigation amongst members of the South African practical theological academy were discussed in particular to determine the extent of this group’s shift to the new line of thinking. This led the article to make a concluding statement, in the light of its overt practical theological interest, about the way in which the new ‘hermeneutics of listening’ to children could still be seen as an important ongoing challenge, not only for practical theological scholarship in South Africa but also within the larger context of Africa.

Highlights

As part of the theological task of developing a publicly oriented ministry that will do justice to the social plight of children in Africa, this article proceeds from an appreciation of the new ’hermeneutics of listening’ that is advanced today by an interdisciplinary movement of scholars from the disciplines of practical theology, theological ethics and religion studies
In a way similar to the new hermeneutical position adopted by this movement, the article advances the thesis that listening to children in the process of practical theological interpretation will offer newly found opportunities for Christian theology and the church to contribute to the well-being of children as a local, national, continental and global public concern
Theme 2: Significant attention to a normative basis for viewing and treating children is lacking The responses from participants suggest fairly strongly that the normative basis that should guide practical theologians’ views of children is lacking and that this lacuna has an impact on the perspectives formed in practical theological research and training

Summary

Introduction

As part of the theological task of developing a publicly oriented ministry that will do justice to the social plight of children in Africa, this article proceeds from an appreciation of the new ’hermeneutics of listening’ that is advanced today by an interdisciplinary movement of scholars from the disciplines of practical theology, theological ethics and religion studies. It can be concluded that, apart from the few publications discussed above, very little has been done so far in the field of academic theology in Africa on the issue of children and childhood In this regard, it is heartening to mention that, as the first of its kind, an international academic conference on the theme, ‘African Christian Scholars and the Plight of the African Child’ was held from 09 to 11 November 2011 at the Daystar University in Kenya, organised by its School of Human and Social Sciences. In view of the normative theological perspective on children as created in the image of God and worthy of human dignity and being acknowledged as co-creators in an ongoing creation story, these discussions about the crises and problems children have to cope with should be complemented by positive stories about children’s ability to endure hardship, withstand severe socio-economic challenges and act in their own right as agents of social transformation. The large majority of participants agreed that theological perspectives on children, ethical norms and best practices in the Christian

Participants

Findings

Conclusion