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Some Theological Issues around Child Protection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Duncan Reid
Duncan Reid
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Abstract

This short piece seeks to offer a theological framing to the issues raised by Garth Blake in his very fine article ‘Child Protection and the Anglican Church of Australia’. What are some of the theological issues behind the current state of affairs with regard to child protection, and the church's attempts to remedy past failures to protect the children in its care? Very briefly I want to mention several clusters of theological issues: responsibility, or the duty of care; forgiveness and betrayal of trust; sin and scapegoating; gospel and law; and the problem of meaning.

Keywords

childrenabuseprotectionduty of careforgivenesstrustlawretrospectivity
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , June 2006 , pp. 107 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) and The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2006

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References

1. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Ethics (London: Collins, 1964), pp. 224–27.Google Scholar

2. Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 238.Google Scholar

3. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, The Brothers Karamazov (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958), I, pp. 283–88.Google Scholar

4. Claire Sargent, whom I thank for reading this article in draft form, has pointed out that some child protection protocols, for example those in force in the Diocese of Melbourne, are careful to cover all forms of abuse.

5. Garner, Helen, citing one of her interviewees in The First Stone: Some Questions about Sex and Power (Chippendale, NSW: Picador, 1995), p. 148.Google Scholar

6. See Theodoret (c. 393–466 CE), Ecclesiastical History, V.17–18, from Davis, William Stearns (ed.), Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources (2 vols.; Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912–1913), II, pp. 298–300.Google Scholar