The religious imagination of children project: an initial research report

ABSTRACT

The article presents a report of ongoing research into children’s religious beliefs and practices. Three sources of research are put into conversation with each other: 1) new findings in cognitive and developmental psychologies; 2) original empirical research utilising interviews with children; and 3) theological understandings of childhood. The author makes the case that childhood imagination and cognition are more sophisticated than prevalent developmental paradigms have allowed (ones rooted in Freud and Piaget). Likewise, the author raises the possibility that children’s religious imaginations may be more sophisticated than often appreciated, potentially helping them navigate existential threats and challenges. Charles Taylor’s notion of a porous self provides a conceptual framework for considering the ways in which children’s religious imaginations may represent an openness to a sense of transcendence even in the midst of a general disenchantment of reality in secular societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Imagination
• religious imagination
• children
• cognitive development
• developmental psychology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. To protect anonymity, names and other identifying details have been changed or disguised.

2. In this report the focus is much more on the children interviewed than their parents. But in a fuller treatment (eventually in a monograph) more attention will be given to parents and congregations.

3. The project was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary for research with human subjects.

4. Technically the children were Yukatek Mayan as there are many ethno-linguistic groups within the Mayan world. But in Yucatán there is only one indigenous ethnic group, so they refer to themselves as simply ‘Mayan.’

5. This is not to deny history or linear time. Patterns of life, institutions, knowledge, and information can accumulate over historical time and create powerful conditions and contexts for our lives. This is precisely what Taylor tracks in A Secular Age.

Additional information

Funding

The research has been supported by the Luce Foundation through its Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology programme administered by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada.

Notes on contributors

J. Bradley Wigger

J. Bradley Wigger is the Second Presbyterian Church Professor of Christian Education at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and has conducted extensive research in the area of childhood cognition and development.