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Ecological Conversion as Conversion to the Child: Becoming Caregivers, Becoming Childlike

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2020

Christy Lang Hearlson
Christy Lang Hearlson*
Affiliation:
Villanova University
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Abstract

In an age of environmental crisis, ecological theologians call for the “ecological conversion” of humanity. This article, a work of practical theology, plays on the grammatical ambiguity of Mark 10:15, in which disciples are told to “receive the kingdom as a child,” to argue that ecological conversion is a twofold conversion to the child. One conversion is a turn to the well-being of children in an age of climate crisis, which involves an adult personal transformation into the role of caregiver—and thus greater maturity. The other conversion is a recovery of certain childlike capacities, including presence in the moment, interdependence in relationship, urgency, animism, and love of the small. The article draws on Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, discussions of childhood by the nineteenth-century Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, and contemporary explorations of children and childhood, including the author's own experience of caregiving with children.

Keywords

ecological conversionSchleiermacherchildrenchildenvironmentLaudato Si’parenting
Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , December 2020 , pp. 232 - 255
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Copyright
Copyright © College Theology Society 2020

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References

1 McMullen, Jay L. and Severeid, Eric, “The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson,” CBS Reports (New York: Columbia Broadcasting System, April 3, 1963)Google Scholar. I thank my colleague Dr. Timothy Hanchin for reading and commenting on early drafts of this essay, as well as for sharing his expertise on Lonergan's views of conversion.

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4 Francis, Pope, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2015)Google Scholar; hereafter cited as LS.

5 Protestant and Catholic thinkers have sought to describe the depth, extent, and ongoing quality of conversion. Protestant theologian James Fowler describes Christian conversion as a “release from the burden of self-groundedness,” an acceptance that we are children of God, a “recentering of our passion” and “falling in love with God,” forming “an attachment to the passion of Jesus Christ.” To Fowler, conversion is “a realignment of our affections, the restructuring of our virtues, and the growth in lucidity and power of our partnership with God's work in the world.” It is also “an ongoing process—with, of course, a series of important moments of perspective altering convictions and illuminations—through which people (or a group) gradually bring the lived story of their lives in congruence with the core story of the Christian faith.” See Fowler, James W., Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian: Adult Development and Christian Faith (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000), 115Google Scholar; italics original. Protestant practical theologian Katherine Turpin, drawing on Fowler and John Wesley, writes, “Conversion is an accrual of events that show the gradual placement of trust and reliance in a different grounding, a different imagination of the world.… Ongoing conversion is the gradual shift of imagination and life practice from one object of devotion to another.” See Turpin, Katherine, Branded: Adolescents Converting from Consumer Faith (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2006), 74Google Scholar. Jesuit theologian Bernard Lonergan writes of conversion more generally, “By conversion is understood a transformation of the subject and his world. Normally it is a prolonged process though its explicit acknowledgement may be concentrated in a few momentous judgments and decisions … It is a resultant change of course and direction. It is as if one's eyes were opened and one's former world faded and fell away. There emerges something new that fructifies in inter-locking, cumulative sequences of developments on all levels and in all departments of human living.” See Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 130. Joseph Ratzinger describes a “radical” process “that affects one's entire existence—and one's existence entirely, that is, to the full extent of its temporal span—and that requires far more than just a single or even a repeated act of thinking, feeling or willing.” See Ratzinger, Joseph, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 55Google Scholar. Others such as the Reformed James Loder and the Roman Catholic Rosemary Haughton have focused on “transformation,” often used synonymously with “conversion” as described previously. See Loder, James, The Transforming Moment (Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1989)Google Scholar; Haughton, Rosemary, The Transformation of Man: A Study of Conversion and Community (Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers, 1967)Google Scholar. Michael Hryniuk offers an excellent survey of theories of transformation, adding his own insights into disability and community, drawing on Eastern Catholicism. See Hryniuk, Michael, Theology, Disability, and Spiritual Transformation (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

6 Johnson, Ask the Beasts, 259.

7 Edwards, Partaking of God.

8 Ormerod and Vanin, “What Is Ecological Conversion?,” 336.

9 For a helpful overview, see Gaventa, Beverly R., From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

10 Peter Spitaler, “Welcoming a Child as a Metaphor for Welcoming God's Kingdom: A Close Reading of Mark 10:13–16,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31, no. 4 (June 2009): 425. My thanks to Peter Spitaler for discussing his view of this passage with me and to Paul Danove for leading me to Spitaler's work. See Danove, Paul L., Theology of the Gospel of Mark: A Semantic, Narrative, and Rhetorical Study of the Characterization of God (New York: T&T Clark, 2019), 82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Spitaler, “Welcoming a Child as a Metaphor for Welcoming God's Kingdom,” 425.

12 Ibid.

13 Campagnola, Shelley, “Unless You Become as One of These: Biblical Perspectives on Children's Spirituality,” in Children's Spirituality: Christian Perspectives, Research, and Applications, ed. Ratcliff, Donald (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2004), 87Google Scholar.

14 Joyce Ann Mercer, Welcoming Children: A Practical Theology of Childhood, annotated edition (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2005), 53.

15 Marcia J. Bunge, “Historical Perspectives on Children in the Church: Resources for Spiritual Formation and a Theology of Childhood Today,” in Children's Spirituality: Christian Perspectives, Research, and Applications, ed. Donald Ratcliff (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2004), 42–53. Bunge notes other views of children in addition to these two: children are also gifts of God and sources of joy, sinful creatures and moral agents, developing beings who need instruction and guidance, and fully human persons made in the image of God.

16 “Conventions on the Rights of the Child” (The Policy Press: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1989).

17 Mercer, Welcoming Children, 52.

18 Edmund Newey, Children of God: The Child as a Source of Theological Anthropology (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), 2.

19 Mercer, Welcoming Children, 19–20.

20 Ibid., 19. In more recent work, Mercer describes one subset of children, those with ADHD, as experiencing time differently: “They live almost exclusively in the present moment.” See Joyce Ann Mercer, “Attending to Children, Attending to God: Children with ADHD and Christian Spirituality,” Journal of Childhood and Religion 2, no. 7 (November 2011): 22, http://childhoodandreligion.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Mercer-Nov-2011-JCR.pdf.. Her work suggests the difficulty of avoiding generalizations about children's experience, and also the fruitfulness of careful observation of children.

21 Bonnie Miller-McLemore, In the Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007); Danya Ruttenberg, Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder and Radical Amazement of Parenting (New York: Flatiron Books, 2016); Marcia J. Bunge, “Introduction,” in The Child in Christian Thought, ed. Marcia J. Bunge (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 1–28.

22 Hutchinson, Growing Up Green, 116.

23 Ibid., 59–77.

24 Ibid., 115.

25 Ibid., 115–16.

26 Fowler, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian, 115.

27 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 238ff.

28 Bernard Lonergan, Collection: Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 4, eds. Frederick Crowe and Robert Doran (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 224.

29 Walter Conn, Christian Conversion: A Developmental Interpretation of Autonomy and Surrender (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006).

30 Janet Currie and Oliver Deschênes, “Children and Climate Change: Introducing the Issue,” The Future of Children: Children and Climate Change 26, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 3.

31 Ibid., 4.

32 Joshua Graff Zivin and Jeffrey Schrader, “Temperature Extremes, Health, and Human Capital,” The Future of Children: Children and Climate Change 26, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 31–50.

33 Richard Akresh, “Climate Change, Conflict, and Children,” The Future of Children: Children and Climate Change 26, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 51–72; Carolyn Kousky, “Impacts of Natural Disasters on Children,” The Future of Children: Children and Climate Change 26, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 73–92.

34 Allison S. Larr and Matthew Neidell, “Pollution and Climate Change,” The Future of Children: Children and Climate Change 26, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 93–114.

35 Rema Hanna and Paulina Oliva, “Implications of Climate Change for Children in Developing Countries,” The Future of Children: Children and Climate Change 26, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 115–32.

36 Currie and Deschênes, “Children and Climate Change,” 4.

37 Orr, Earth in Mind, 147.

38 Ibid. Orr reflects themes in Rachel Carson's The Sense of Wonder. See Rachel Carson and Nick Kelsh, The Sense of Wonder: A Celebration of Nature for Parents and Children (New York: HarperPerennial, 1998). He also anticipates work by Richard Louv on children's need for contact with the natural world. See Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2008).

39 Bunge, “Historical Perspectives on Children in the Church.”

40 The twentieth-century Catholic Karl Rahner also discussed children as models for adult spirituality in terms quite similar to Schleiermacher. See Joyce Ann Mercer, Welcoming Children; Mary Ann Hinsdale, “‘Infinite Openness to the Infinite’: Karl Rahner's Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child” (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 406–45. Hinsdale points out the commonalities between Schleiermacher and Rahner, who did not reference his Protestant predecessor but appears to have read him. See Hinsdale, “Infinite Openness to the Infinite,” 438. Likewise, the great Catholic spiritual writer Henri Nouwen said, “Conversion is claiming again and again and again the truth of myself. And what is the truth of myself? That I am God's beloved child.” See Karen Pascal, Journey of the Heart: The Life of Henri Nouwen, documentary (Windborne Productions, 2004).

41 Newey, Children of God, 93.

42 Ibid.

43 Cited in Dawn Devries, “‘Be Converted and Become as Little Children’: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Religious Significance of Childhood,” in The Child in Christian Thought, ed. Marcia J. Bunge (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 349.

44 Cited in ibid., 335.

45 Newey, Children of God, 94.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid., 87.

48 Ibid., 101.

49 Ibid., 108.

50 Devries, “Be Converted and Become as Little Children,” 339. Schleiermacher problematically suggested in the novella that women never leave this childlike state and therefore do not need conversion. This should probably not be read as his systematic statement on soteriology and gender. It is, in any case, beyond the scope of this article.

51 Carson and Kelsh, The Sense of Wonder, 44.

52 Paul Ricouer's concept of a “second naiveté” is apt in that the sort of maturity we seek is itself a recovery of certain childlike capacities on the adult level. Explorations of Ricoeur's “second naiveté” generally take place within discussions of textual hermeneutics but have ramifications beyond that field. See Linard Jansons, “What Is the Second Naiveté?: Engaging with Paul Ricoeur, Post-Critical Theology, and Progressive Christianity” (Australian Lutheran College, October 30, 2014), https://www.academia.edu/14690650/What_is_the_Second_Naivet%C3%A9_Engaging_with_Paul_Ricoeur_Post-Critical_Theology_and_Progressive_Christianity; Mark Wallace, The Second Naiveté: Barth, Ricoeur, and the New Yale Theology (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1996).

53 Friedrich Schleiermacher Sämmtliche Werke, vol. II/6 (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1834), 71–72, cited in Devries, “Be Converted and Become as Little Children,” 339.

54 Devries, “Be Converted and Become as Little Children,” 339.

55 Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993), 41.

56 Ibid., 42, my italics.

57 Alexandra Horowitz, On Looking: A Walker's Guide to the Art of Observation (New York: Scribner, 2014), 21.

58 Ibid., 29.

59 Ibid., 30.

60 Schleiermacher's observations on children's interdependence are echoed in the work of pediatrician and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott, who emphasized the primordial link between mother and child. Winnicott argued that infants do not distinguish themselves from the primary caregiver, but see the “mother” as an extension of themselves. See Donald W. Winnicott, The Child, The Family, and the Outside World, 2nd ed. (New York: Perseus Publishing, 1992).

61 Newey, Children of God, 90.

62 Devries, “Be Converted and Become as Little Children,” 348.

63 Ibid., 341.

64 Marilyn Brouwer, “Picasso and the Women's Prison of Saint-Lazare,” Bonjour Paris, November 26, 2018, https://bonjourparis.com/history/picasso-and-the-womens-prison-of-saint-lazare/.

65 I thank Tim Hanchin for bringing this pertinent example to my attention.

66 Jean Piaget, The Child's Conception of the World, trans. Joan Tomlinson and Andrew Tomlinson (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1929), 207.

67 Ibid., 174.

68 Horowitz, On Looking, 38.

69 Ibid., 39.

70 Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 49.

71 It is important to distinguish the animism of children and of indigenous cultures lest we suggest indigenous cultures are “childish” in the sense colonial Europeans assumed. Moreover, whether cultural or developmental, animism is not homogeneous. Still, indigenous and child animism may be treated together here because modern Western cultures have dismissed animism in any form as in need of correction and development. For more on Piaget's stages of child animism, see S. W. Klingensmith, “Child Animism: What the Child Means by ‘Alive,’” Child Development 24, no. 1 (March 1953): 51–61.

72 Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 55.

73 Ibid., 140.

74 Ibid., 57–58. Her argument resonates with C. A. Bowers’ claims that environmentalism must consider the examples of sustainable societies of indigenous cultures and that of Emma Restall Orr, who argues for a pagan ethics based on a coherent philosophical animism. See Orr, Emma Restall, The Wakeful World: Animism, Mind, and the Self in Nature (Alresford: Moon Books, 2012)Google Scholar; Bowers, Educating for Eco-Justice and Community.

75 Beck, Shawn Sanford, Christian Animism (Alresford: Christian Alternative Books, 2015)Google Scholar; Wallace, Mark, When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World (New York: Fordham University Press, 2018)Google Scholar.

76 Carson and Kelsh, The Sense of Wonder, 67.

77 Ibid., 82.

78 Ibid., The Sense of Wonder, 38–40.

79 Horowitz, On Looking, 26.

80 Mischel, Walter, Ebbeson, E. B., and Zeiss, A. R., “Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification,” Journal of Personal Social Psychology 21, no. 2 (1972): 204–18CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

81 Again, Mercer's description of children with ADHD is apt. She links their orientation to the present to their sense of urgency and impatience and suggests that they “call for the church's spirituality of immediate action.” See Mercer, “Attending to Children, Attending to God,” 28.

82 Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 1963, https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html.

83 Greta Thunberg, “Our House Is on Fire” (Speech, Davos Economic Forum, January 2019), https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/25/our-house-is-on-fire-greta-thunberg16-urges-leaders-to-act-on-climate.

84 Gilligan, Carol, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

85 Noddings, Nel, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

86 Tronto, Joan C., “An Ethic of Care,” in Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology, eds. Ann E. Cudd and Robin O. Andreason (Oxford, England, and Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 251–63Google Scholar.

87 Miller, Vincent J., “Integral Ecology: Francis's Spiritual and Moral Vision of Interconnectedness,” in The Theological and Ecological Vision of Laudato Si’: Everything Is Connected, ed. Miller, Vincent J. (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 15ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 Berryman, Jerome, “Children and Mature Spirituality,” in Children's Spirituality: Christian Perspectives, Research, and Applications, ed. Ratcliff, Donald (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2004), 39Google Scholar.

89 Carson and Kelsh, The Sense of Wonder, 49.

90 Goto, Courtney, The Grace of Playing: Pedagogies for Leaning into God's New Creation (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016)Google Scholar; Hanchin, Timothy, “‘From Below Upwards’: Worship and Wonder in Catholic Higher Education,” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 20 (2017)Google Scholar; Berryman, Jerome, The Spiritual Guidance of Children: Montessori, Godly Play, and the Future (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2015)Google Scholar.