Exploiting the “little ones”

The Biblical faith comes with a theology of children. In Genesis, a promised Seed is prophesied to undo the Curse of the Fall. In Exodus, we find God opposing an infanticidal regime and blessing the midwives subverting that regime’s genocide. God’s supreme judgment and mercy climax in the great Passover, which is thereafter memorialized in rituals that involve childbirth and infants.

The Psalter proclaims, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.” When we look at the New Testament, we find a Messiah who bids that little children be brought to Him and blessed, revealing that they are the prototype for any member of the Kingdom of Heaven. And anyone who is a cause of offense for “little ones” (all members of Christ’s flock, but we cannot help but imagine infants and children) is warned, “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea.”

Even as we approach Christmas, the themes become all the more explicit. We celebrate the nativity of an infant King. We mourn the martyrdom of the innocents. We even traditionally commemorate St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of children.

As the Church evangelized the known world, civilization obviously changed, and the biblical theology of children was part of that change. As some have argued, the pagan West did not take for granted the worth of children in their innocence, vulnerability, wonder, and otherwise immense, unique value. This vision of the child was, make no mistake, a cultural product of Christianity.

Obviously, we have developed caricatured mutations of this trope that is sometimes two parts sentimentalism and one part emotional manipulation. But, even when our society indulges the “think of the children” trap, it is haphazardly recapitulating a Christian insight. The Christian tradition affirms that children are to be treasured and protected, and that abusing, violating, depriving, or corrupting them is a uniquely grievous evil. As Tom Holland and others have pointed out, these notions of inherent, universal human dignity didn’t arise in a vacuum, nor did they seem to arise inevitably or naturally from classical paganism.

So what can we expect to happen if a culture decides to repudiate its Christian heritage? And what if the religion or worldview replacing that Christianity is sexually permissive? Or unquestioningly endorses self-indulgence and self-realization? Or reduces the world to power and its dynamics, perhaps while envisioning people and the whole universe as a collection of random physical processes working themselves out? Condemns criticizing the morality of certain desires? Embraces consumerism, even to the point of discounting the nobility and worth of human beings?

I think we can expect that our culture’s theology of children to radically change. In fact, we are seeing the clear fruits of this and have been for quite some time. The racist eugenics movement, which started on the cutting edge of cultural progress, expressed horror at the “excess” breeding of “bad stock.” Similarly, the weakest and silent—the unborn—have been legally slaughtered for decades. No-fault divorce commonly sacrifices children’s best interests for those of adults. In surrogacy, children are reduced down to a consumer product, not begotten as the fruit of a union between husband and wife.

But what has really gotten peoples’ attention in recent months is the continued sexualization of children, particularly in the form of pro-LGBT messaging in education and entertainment, exposure of children to drag queen culture, and various endorsements of transgender behavior at schools (often without the knowledge of children’s parents). Many westerners know that this betrayal of children’s innocence is wrong, but they don’t know why. They cannot articulate the “why” because the Christian faith that undergirds their view of children has been forsaken.

It’s not like young people in ages past were sealed off from the “facts of life” (especially since so many more children in those days grew up around livestock). But more Americans are finally seeing that the sexual revolution’s demands—that moral corruptions be legalized, socially endorsed, and even celebrated—have immense costs, and one of them is the corruption of childhood.

As we celebrate the Babe in the manger, let us also soberly reflect on the past year or so, with the angry school board meetings, outrage at children’s entertainment moguls, attacks on pregnancy centers, and the rest. Is it not obvious that the dignity of children is in the crosshairs? Wake up, and let the light of truth reveal this ugly trend.