Animals and innocents - Theological reflections on the meaning and purpose of child-rearing

This article develops a Christian ethics of child-rearing that addresses the plight of children in the United States today. It seeks greater clarity on what Christians should view as child-rearing's larger meaning and purpose, as well as the responsibilities this meaning and purpose impose on parents, communities, churches, and the state. The article first explores three major but quite distinct models of child-rearing ethics in the Christian tradition - those of Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and Friedrich Schleiermacher - and then proposes a new "critical covenant" that appropriates these traditions, in conjunction with feminist and liberationist critiques, into a publicly meaningful Christian ethics of child-rearing for today.