‘All You Need Is Love, Love… Love Is All You Need’

Abstract

This paper retells the story of the events that led up to the murder of James Bulger. It then explores the contribution of the video footage, captured on the surveillance equipment, to the construction of the ensuing moral panic. What then follows is a description of how the murder fed into wider cultural and political anxieties around children and childhood. These fears led directly to a change in the law in which the age of criminal responsibility was fixed at 10 years old. The last section of the paper explores Christian views of childhood and refers particularly to the work of the Religion, Culture and Family Project, University of Chicago and Rowan Williams. The paper finally argues that a new theology of/for children needs to be developed, one which is essentially concerned with the reproduction and recreation of society itself.

Keywords:

• James Bulger
• child murderers
• society
• theology