The movement within faith towards adulthood in children who have been nurtured in a Christian context: a longitudinal account of how children develop perspective in interpreting the biblical creation narrative

Abstract

In 2006 and then, seven years later in 2013, a small scaled research project was carried out into Christian children’s developing perspectives as they encounter sacred text from the context of their home lives (Worsley in Br J Relig Educ 28(3):247-257, 2006, Br J Relig Educ 35(1):55–71, 2013). Fourteen years on in 2020, these same children and young people were contacted with a similar interview and the results are offered, giving a rare longitudinal insight into the process of meaning making. In order to comment on the meaning-making interpretative processes that children employ at different key stages of development, the insights of hermeneutic phenomenology and of developmental psychology have been used, detailing their former stage in 2006, the seven years later in 2013 and finally their current stage. This article offers qualitative insights into children’s and young people’s perspectives from within their developing world views. The scriptural understanding of these children is given alongside an hermeneutical commentary.