Children and Adolescents in Theological Anthropology

This course centers the experiences of children and adolescents in theological reflection on what it means to be a human person. This serves to reframe the often unreflected-upon assumption of middle-age as a norm in theological anthropology. It also introduces an “already and not yet” quality into these theological reflections, affirming that children and adolescents are already fully human and beloved of God, while recognizing that they are not yet fully grown. The course will explore some of the traditional categories of theological anthropology (such as freedom, grace, sin, and the imago Dei) in order to understand how these categories are experienced by children and adolescents and how these experiences can inform a more capacious theological perspective on all of humanity.