Seeing Children, Seeing God: A Practical Theology of Children and Poverty

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Summary: Giving Grace
Review: ...Caring with vulnerable children is a means of grace, a vehicle through which God makes God's self known to us and to them. In their care we experience grace, the movement of God in our lives that allows us to give and to receive from others. We commit ourselves to love despite fact that no one in the world considers us or them obliged to love one another. " (2000, p.13) Understanding this responsibility, the author explains the importance of caring for those who have been pushed aside by life. She describes what is available for the disenfranchised child. Raising the Biblical admonition from both the Old and New Testament, the impetus is given for why the church in general and the practice of pastoral care in particular is called to give special attention to these young ones of our society.

Among the reason for emphasizing this particular ministry are two overlapping concerns, which the author says are the result of economics and tenuous connection. Whether the child is in a home with both parents, one parent, a caregiver or is on the streets alone, this speaks of the change and uncertainty that comes to the connection they have in life. The Biblical directive for this approach to ministry is many sided; there is the recognition of the image of God, in which they were created. Conture admits that it was in and through her Godchildren that she saw God mirrored. It is as we minister the grace of God to these little ones, we are able to see the face of God. The Biblical admonition to care for the widowed orphan and the needy, there is the need to manifest the nature of God in his love mercy and grace. Ministry to the vulnerable in life recognizes both the piety and the mercy in faith. "Our work of mercy deepens our work of piety. (2000, p.58) The point at which these aspects of faith meet is the point of God's grace. Ministry to the vulnerable calls for God's grace.

"Godchildren sometimes suffer, often intensely, and behavioral problems result from this suffering. The traditional language of sin, evil and depravity does not allow us adequately to articulate the problem. The concept of "han" from Korean minjung theology offers helpful distinctions that augment our traditional language. Han refers to the suffering that is accumulated in the victims of sin, burdening them with agony." (2000, p.62)

Helping these who are the vulnerable find the resources they need is a real part of pastoral Care. Recognizing the systems, which surround them as well as the interests that engulf them, will help the church meet these at their point of need. Compassion at this level does not happen simply because a need has been observed and defined. Showing genuine interest in and for the who are the vulnerable, makes known the mercy of God.

The author, Couture makes an excellent point. Beginning with describing the agency responses to the need of the young and the vulnerable, she challenges the church to also respond to those who are in need. It is in recognizing this responsibility and the willingness to see children, will we see God.

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Summary: Why the Church should care for poor children. . .
Review: A review of Pamela D. Couture book,
Seeing Children, Seeing God: A practical theology of children and poverty.

Couture has written a respectably good book about why the church should care for poor children, as she questions what the theological traditions have contributed children's resilience and how a theology of care can help build such ministries. Concerning the complexity of poverty, Couture declares, "Poverty is a social, economic, and political problem of enormous proportions and complexity, and children are its most vulnerable victims" (11).
Yet Couture stated that what is so tragic about poverty is that it is preventable. She continues by identifying four themes:
1)"Children's poverty is conditioned by two overlapping categories of poverty-material poverty and the poverty of tenuous connections" (14). Interestingly, although most parents in the United States experience a natural biological resilience that causes them to fight for their own children generally adults in the United States seem to resist sharing responsibility for one another's children.
2)Only by building relationship with vulnerable children can children's poverty be overcome. "This work of care is a means of finding God" (14). Works of mercy and works of piety, often called means of grace, connected rightly, "give deeper meaning to love thy neighbor and to love God"(15).
3)This work of care is biblically grounded. In the Old Testament caring for the orphan, widow and resident alien, was the most ethical center of mercy and piety, or care and worship. Jesus is our example of how the right relation of mercy and piety is the center of faith.
4) "Through this work of care. . . the church can genuinely transform itself and influence society and culture"(15).
Although Couture has done a thorough and convincing job of developing her themes (theories) she misses the heart of the great commission-evangelizing. She addresses every issue but the heart of God. We can provide food, clothing, and social needs and miss what true poverty really is-spiritual poverty. Spiritual poverty is separation from God, as Jesus said, "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark 8:36-37, NIV)

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Summary: Children Need Strong Reliable Relationships
Review: Pamela D. Couture examines economic poverty and the poverty of tenuous connections in her engaging, yet troubling book, Seeing God, Seeing Children: A Practical Theology of Children and Poverty. From the opening sentence in the "Foreword" to the final "Conclusion," Couture identified and discussed children as the most vulnerable victims of America's social, economic, and political systems (11). She does not reveal any new secrets about the causes and effects of children at risk. Rather, Couture's goal was to present a compelling case for pastors to be part of the solution of helping children move into situations of basic economic stability and of strong reliable human relationships.
In remembering the Great Depression (1929-1939), some people have commented nostalgically: "We were so happy we did not know we were poor." Those children, who are now eighty years old and older, lived without electricity, running water, or modern conveniences. Certainly, they were materially poor. However, they grew up with strong reliable family, school, and church connections and relationships. Many left the farm and became materially well off. Some continued to build upon their earlier relationships and maintained secure and familiar patterns to their lives. Others migrated great distances in search of the American Dream and severed connections and relationships.
World War II demanded labor. Rising material expectations coupled with the sacrifices required by war and the industrial demand for labor, resulted in societal dislocation. Whereas, farm folk continued to know each other, the dark joke of apartment dwellers was that people did not even bother to learn the names of their neighbors! The desire to escape material poverty was at the expense of reliable relationships.
Children, as well as adults, need a minimum standard of economic well-being. Children need reliable relationships. As Couture wrote: "A basic concept in pastoral care suggests that one cares better for an individual when one also cares for others in the individual's environment, including family and institutional staff" (49). Children learn from what they are taught, good and bad. Pastoral theology assumes the presence of God. Children need unconditional love: "an irrational commitment to the well-being of the child" (51). Adults are the teachers and the care providers. Couture implied that adults through their example of demonstrating "the deep mutuality of mercy" (68) convey the power of loving relationships. "The first step in the pastoral care of children is to think about broadening our own practice of the means of grace in our lives, beginning with 'works of mercy,'" wrote Couture (96). Children in seeing and participating in 'acts of mercy' are more likely to develop both empathetic attitudes and engage in loving relationships.
The children's poem, "If a child," concludes with the verse: "If a child lives with both acceptance and friendship, He learns to find love in the world," states Couture's case succinctly. Couture noted: "The founders of pastoral care went into communities, the hospitals, and other institutions, where they had neither acceptance nor a place at the table, learned by experience what they needed to know, and brought their unique perspectives into the fluidity of the situation. Are we not called to do the same?" (125). It is Couture's hope that pastors today will become part of the solution to the poverty of children's poverty and tenuous relations.