Doctrine of children

In the conclusion to his account of the role of children in theology and the church, Jerome Berryman recalls the words of a girl who had seen him walk by on his way to the sacristy before a worship service. The girl's mother reported her words: "There goes the man who is always glad to see me."

Berryman knows a great deal about theology and about child psychology, but what permeates his life and his writing is a disposition that "suffers the little children" in ways that are profoundly creative for them and deeply prophetic for the church. Toward the end of a career most celebrated for producing the catechetical program Godly Play—one of the Holy Spirit's greatest gifts to the contemporary church—Berryman lays out the theological foundations for his deepest convictions.

He does so in characteristic style. The book is laid out as a story that is bursting with incidental detail, riveting insight, quirky circumstance and personal anecdote. Like most stories, it starts with a problem. The problem is that the gifts children bring to the church and that the church can bring to children are inhibited because adults underestimate children's capacity to experience God and reflect on that experience. What is at work is what Berryman calls a de facto doctrine of children—one that "holds an ambivalent, ambiguous, and indifferent view of children with a hint of grace."