God the Child: Small, Weak and Curious Subversions

We express the mystery of God with diverse metaphors, but mostly in Adult terms. In this experimental theological adventure, Graham Adams imagines what might flow from a more thorough ‘be—child—ing’ of God. Aware that the Child can be idealized, he selects particular characteristics of childness in order to disrupt God’s omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience.

The smallness of the Child re—envisages divine location in sites of smallness, like an open palm receiving the experiences of the overlooked. The weakness of the Child reimagines divine agency as chaos—event, subverting prevailing patterns of power and evoking relationships of mutuality. And the curiosity of the Child reconceives divine encounter as horizon—seeker, imaginatively and empathetically pursuing the unknown.

These possibilities are brought into dialogue both with other theologies (Black, disabled and queer) and with pastoral loss, economic/ecological injustice, and theological education. Through these conversations, God the Child emerges not only as a new model for God, but intrinsic to God’s new social reality which is close at hand.