Educational Theory
Jerome W. Berryman
The educational theory of Godly Play is rooted in the pre-history of our species with respect to the use of ritual, story, and the creative process. Unfortunately, postmodern children are losing their ability to be active participants in narrative and ritual, which impairs their use of their own natural creativity (imago dei). The use of Montessori’s approach to education has been adapted to Godly Play in order to stimulate children’s active participation in story and ritual and to awaken their creativity for the learning of the language ,sacred stories, parables, liturgical action and silence of the Christian tradition. This is the most appropriate kind of language to cope with the existential limits to our being and knowing.
The above combination of factors enables children (and adults) to become playfully orthodox. They become rooted in their own tradition and at the same time open to others, to new ideas and the future in creative ways.
Please see Volume 1 of The Complete Guide to Godly Play for more information.
Theological Reflection
The Director of Theological Reflection at the Center is Dr. Marcia J. Bunge, a Chicago Divinity School trained theologian, who is now associate Professor of Theology and Humanities at Christ College, Valparaiso University, Indiana.
She is the Editor and a contributor to The Child in Christian Thought (2001). This important book traces theological thinking about children from Jesus to the present. The views of children by such theologians as Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and Karl Barth are presented by an expert on his or her thought. Dr. Bunge is also the author of many articles in academic journals.
Empirical Research
The Director for Empirical Research at the Center is Dr. Rebecca Nye, a child psychologist on the Divinity School Faculty at Cambridge University in England.
She is the author of The Spirit of the Child with David Hay and a contributor with Fraser Watts and Sara Savage to Psychology for the Christian Ministry (2002). She is the author of many articles in academic journals.
Ethics of Childhood
The Director of Ethics of Childhood at the Center is Dr. John Wall. He is Assistant Professor of Religion in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Rutgers University and also Associate at the Rutgers University Center for Children and Childhood Studies.
Dr. Wall is co-editor of Paul Ricoeur and Contemporary Moral Thought (Routledge 2002) and Marriage, Health, and Professions: If Marriage is Good for You, What does it Mean for Law, Medicine, Ministry, Therapy and Business? (Erdmanns 2002) He is also author of numerous articles on hermeneutics and religious ethics, Paul Ricouer and contemporary continental thought as well as the relation of ethics to poetics, marriage and children.
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