Parenting authors avoid shallow end

Regarding Children: A New Respect for Childhood and Families by Herbert Anderson and Susan B.W. Johnson, John Knox/Westminster Press, 1996, 138 pages. Reviewed by David Wiebe, Director of Christian Education Ministries (Canadian MB Conference), father of three teenagers.

In the paradigm shift to the post-modern era, the church is struggling to find a suitable understanding of the healthy family.

Most advice nowadays centres on solutions to specific family problems like discipline, teaching your kids your values, and how to keep your kids off drugs or alcohol. We still need help sorting through the deeper issues of what the family is supposed to do or be like in our rapidly changing world.

Here's a book that addresses those deep issues. It's not a "how to" book. You won't find a curriculum to help you teach a parenting class here. You will find some stars to steer by in a somewhat trackless culture.

It begins by making a case for the greatness of a child. The world has had a history of not honouring the value of a child, In light of this, the authors explore the gift and challenge of adding a child into a family in the second chapter understatedly entitled "Children Change Things."

Their core purpose is to explore what families are for and what constitutes a biblical family. They deliberately stay away from recommending a particular form; the two-parent family may be most likely to offer financial security and emotional stability, but even two parents are not enough without the support of wider environments.

They focus on what a family is to do. Be hospitable; show compassion; be just (in discipline, in teaching moral fibre); and be reconciling (dealing with sinfulness, repairing broken relationships). These core competencies characterize the healthy biblical family.

How are families to achieve this? It takes a village to raise a child. There is an almost symbiotic relationship between families and the surrounding community. What if society is deteriorating and families are struggling for models? The church is the key to providing what society cannot. In the church we must find hospitality, compassion, justice and reconciliation and thus find sanctuary for childhood.

Regarding Children provides a solid philosophical foundation for the Christian family in the late 20th century. It doesn't read like an evangelical book, but it has much to offer evangelicals. I highly recommend it to pastors, family pastors, and Christian education pastors who can use it to give perspective to family ministries in their church.

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