Adrian Thatcher is an Honorary Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter in England. An Anglican theologian, Thatcher is interested in applying theology to family matters: marriage, gender roles, sexuality, etc. While these are traditional topics, Thatcher says he approaches them from “a robust but very open theological point of view” as he is “committed to the tradition of modern, liberal theology.”
One way that Thatcher approaches family matters with theological openness is by figuring out how Christianity can help families become safe and empowering for everyone—women and children included. “As a straight, wealthy, white, male academic I am very privileged,” Thatcher writes on his personal website, “and I dedicate all my current academic work to the full recognition and flourishing of people who are not like me.”
This interest in empowering the marginalized within families has led Thatcher to consider the idea of applying liberation theology to families, particularly children. Thatcher has explored what a child liberation theology can and should look on multiple occasions, most notably in his 1999 book Marriage After Modernity, three articles published on his website between 2004 and 2006, and his 2007 book Theology and Families. We will look at each of these in turn.
Marriage After Modernity (1999)
Marriage After Modernity: Christian Marriage in Postmodern Times is Thatcher’s first piece of writing addressing child liberation theology. The book itself is “an unreserved commendation of Christian marriage.” Marriage needs defending, Thatcher writes, because it is “a universal institution” that is “given with creation itself,” inherently “written into the way things are.” But despite being “created and uniquely blessed by God,” humans have used marriage poorly, turning it into “a violent, loveless institution” filled with abuse of women and children. Marriage today is thus often “delayed, avoided and terminated” (p. 9-10).
While women avoiding and leaving abusive marriages is positive, Thatcher is also worried. He is worried because he holds a common conservative belief about intact, heterosexual families being the best families. As a result, he views non-traditional family structures (anything other than a father married to the mother of their children) as inferior or damaging. To remedy society’s steady slide into non-traditional family types, Thatcher proposes using the progressive field of liberation theology to argue for a conservative position: that preserving heterosexual and monogamous marriage is the best means to putting children first.
We see these arguments developed in Chapter 5, titled “A Theology of Liberation for Children.” In this chapter, Thatcher hopes to “establish a renewed emphasis on the importance of children to the institution of marriage.” Children matter to marriages because broken marriages lead to suffering children: “Many children deprived of the long-term care of both parents suffer. They experience childhood as a form of oppression” (emphasis in original). In light of this, Thatcher argues, “A theology of liberation for children is required which represents children’s interests.” While liberation theology is traditionally progressive, Thatcher tells readers that his version “shares considerable common ground with ancient theologies of marriage” (p. 132).
Thatcher begins by explaining his “social context”—meaning, the real problems that children face today that child liberation theology must address if it is to be relevant and helpful. For Thatcher, the social context is a world where children suffer without relationships with their biological parents. “A vast amount of evidence,” Thatcher claims, “has been gathered in the USA and Britain which shows children who grow up with one parent, generally with their mother, are less likely to thrive than children who grow up with their two natural parents” (142). To support his claim, Thatcher cites a 1991 report issued by the U.S. federal government, titled Beyond Rhetoric: A New American Agenda for Children and Families.
The Beyond Rhetoric report was written by the National Commission on Children. Created by Congress in 1987, the 34-member Commission was headed by Democrat and West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller, great-grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. The Commission featured diverse people with a spectrum of social and political beliefs: progressives like Marian Wright Edelman and centrists like Bill Clinton but also conservative evangelicals like Allan Carlson and Wade Horn. While these individuals would normally be opponents, they came together to create this report.
But compromise came with a cost: the Commission’s report is pervaded by rightwing language and ideology about the superiority of patriarchal, nuclear families led by heterosexual, married couples. The report declares “families formed by marriage” are “the best environment for bringing children into the world.” But not just any families. The families should be “intact nuclear families” led by fathers and mothers. The report concludes with calling for a “renewed commitment” to “marriage, parenthood, and childhood” (p. 143-144). In short, this report is a rightwing fever dream. It is unfortunate Thatcher gives it credibility and amplifies it instead of questioning and challenging the obvious rightwing bias.
After citing Beyond Rhetoric and several other (similarly suspect and biased) studies and arguments in favor of intact nuclear families led by heterosexual couples, Thatcher considers how liberation theology can address the problem of broken families. He cites fathers’ rights advocate Jon Davies, former CEO of Families Need Fathers, who appropriates ideas and language from liberation theology to argue for a “preferential option for the family.” While acknowledging that Davis “uses the term ‘liberation’ in a pejorative, even sarcastic way,” Thatcher insists there is still “a striking convergence here between conservative critics of family breakdown and liberationist critics of social justice.” Both conservatives and liberationists start from “the plight of unwanted and neglected children throughout the world” and both argue “a Christian heterosexual ethic must be one which safeguards children’s interests and which therefore sanctions only those sexual practices which do so” (p. 149-150, 153).
A “Christian heterosexual ethic” is ultimately Thatcher’s solution to the problem of unwanted, neglected children. For heterosexual couples, for whom reproduction is a possible result of sexual activity, casual sex outside marriage should be seen as sinful because it risks bringing an unwanted child into the world. Agreeing with Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, Thatcher argues, “Casual sex is a sin against the practice of neighbor-love, and the neighbor sinned against is the possible child” (p. 154). He suggests “mutual consent” for sexual activity in adult relationships is thus not adequate as “the sole behavior-guiding norm”; instead, Christian partners should also remember “the procreative potentials of sex” (p. 158).
In addition to saving sex for marriage, Thatcher argues heterosexual couples should strive to create “the ideal Christian family.” Positively citing Catholic theologian Lisa Sowle Cahill, he states “the ideal family” is one where “both biological parents nurture children physically and emotionally”—in short, a nuclear family led by heterosexual parents. In Thatcher’s ideal family, however, there are several differences from today’s nuclear families. First, ideal families put “children first,” which “requires attending to their vulnerability and to their long-term needs.” And second, ideal families are not patriarchal. Rather, they uphold “fairness in gender roles, allowing women the same economic, social, and political opportunities as men if they wish them” (p. 160, 156, 168).
Thatcher concludes this chapter in a confusing way. After arguing for the importance of intact nuclear families led by heterosexual couples (and arguing aberrations from this family model are inferior and/or damaging to children), Thatcher claims he is not “defending the industrial or post-industrial nuclear family,” and is not “supporting any particular type of family or household, beyond the insistence that children and marriage, like procreation and sexual union (between women and men), finally belong together” (p. 167-168). Thatcher seems unaware that “the insistence that children and marriage, like procreation and sexual union (between women and men), finally belong together” does require supporting and defending a very specific, patriarchal family structure.
Miscellaneous Articles (2004-2006)
Thatcher published 3 articles on his personal website between 2004 and 2006 that help us better understand his uniquely conservative take on child liberation theology. The first I want to look at is titled “A Theology of Liberation for Children” and was published in March 2004.
The article begins with a short history of how Thatcher became interested in child liberation theology and covers the same ideas and studies he wrote about in Marriage After Modernity. He explains that, as he wrote that book, he “became increasingly aware of research findings regarding the relative well-being of children of divorced parents compared with the children of so-called ‘intact’ families.” As he learned about how much unwanted and neglected children suffer, even in wealthy Western countries, he realized that the field of liberation theology was “applicable to the plight of many of the children” and the field’s preferential option for “the marginalized” (p. 1) could be fruitfully extended to children.
But there is a problem. Theology today treats children as unwanted subjects of study and thus often neglects them. “One of the most disturbing features of contemporary theology is the hiddenness of children,” Thatcher explains. This neglect even applies to progressive theologies: “Feminist theology wants liberation for women, but says almost nothing about children. Sexual theology, lesbian and gay theology, queer theology colludes with the invisibility of children” (p. 3-4).
This neglect of children runs parallel to another problem: patriarchy pervades our world, “requiring obedience from children ‘in all things’ (Col. 3:20).” Patriarchy is even in the Bible: “From the household codes of the New Testament to biblicism of the present day, patriarchy models the child-parent relationship as one of submission: it is more about control than nurture” (p. 4).
To address the problems of theological child neglect as well as patriarchy, Thatcher proposes a liberation theology that centers children. He says this child liberation theology should have 5 qualities: First, the theology should “begin with real children” and be “relevant to the lives of real children.” Second, it should “listen to children.” Third, it should “see children as young persons and agents” rather than as “unfinished projects under adult control.” Fourth, it should identify children with Jesus because “Jesus identifies himself with children” (p. 6-7) repeatedly in the Gospels. Fifth and finally, a child liberation theology should consider how adult sins harm children.
For this final point, Thatcher condemns adults who engage in irresponsible sexual behaviors and bring unwanted or neglected children into the world “despite the armories of contraception available everywhere.” Such adults, he says, are creating “a culture where heterosexual love has come apart from marriage, and marriage has come apart from parenthood.” Thatcher cites Thomas Aquinas again and explicitly states he agrees with Aquinas that “casual sex between fertile men and fertile women” is “a mortal sin because it might affect the entire life of the possible child who might be conceived.” Thatcher finds this “a refreshing methodological approach to sex” because “it puts children first” (p. 9).
The next article to consider continues this theme of prioritizing children in adult heterosexual relationships and is titled “Justice for Children Too.” This article, from July 2006, is a speech Thatcher gave at a Christian conference about sexuality. He begins the speech by highlighting neglect of children in theology as well as “ecclesial polemics about sexuality,” contrasting that neglect with how “in the teaching of Jesus [children] are center-stage.” To counter this neglect, Thatcher affirms that, “For straight partners, having children remains one of the meanings of sexuality and embodiment” (p. 1).
Thatcher next contrasts Jesus’s love for and centering of children in the Gospels with other parts of the Christian Scriptures that marginalize children. Whereas Jesus “had a particular and intense love for children” and “critiques the hierarchical and androcentric structures of households,” Thatcher notes “the atmosphere changes when we move into the rest of the New Testament.” There, “the Household Codes affirm a hierarchical order in the household.” Additionally, Thatcher points out, “the Hebrew scriptures authorize the corporal punishment of children,” which has given “incalculable encouragement” to “abusive fathers” (p. 2-3, 5).
When we encounter tensions in the Bible between passages that support patriarchy and passages that challenge it, Thatcher says we should ask what Jesus would do: “Our vocation is to be faithful to Christ, and not to behave towards children like his disciples.” He reminds Christians we are “redeemed not by the written word, but by the Word made flesh.” Giving the Household Codes and the Tanakh references to corporal punishment “an equivalent status” (p. 6) to Jesus and his teachings is thus wrong.
While Thatcher rightly critiques patriarchy in families in this article, he also continues his advocacy of patriarchy by promoting nuclear families led by heterosexual partners and warning readers that Christians cannot be neutral towards “non-traditional families.” Once again citing rightwing sources, Thatcher alleges that non-traditional families harm children in multiple ways: trapping them in poverty, future failed relationships, and school failure. Non-traditional families increase infant mortality, domestic violence, and even child abuse, with Thatcher repeating the popular evangelical canard about how “a child who is not living with his or her own two married parents is at greater risk of child abuse” (p. 9-10). While correctly noting “it cannot be claimed that the teaching of Jesus honors nuclear families,” Thatcher still believes this family structure deserves advocacy because “empirical secular research” (p. 10-11) demonstrates its necessity.
The last article I want to mention is one that Thatcher wrote in June 2006, a month before his “Justice for Children” speech. Entitled “Theology and Children: Towards a Theology of Childhood,” the article summarizes many of Thatcher’s aforementioned key points. Thatcher once again “accuses Christian theology of neglecting children” and suggests that “one way the church can be child-friendly is to advocate and practice lifelong, egalitarian marriage.” This would help because “children are more likely to flourish when they are brought up by their biological parents.” Yet again, Thatcher advocates traditional purity culture teachings as helpful to advancing “the principle ‘children first.’”
Thatcher also adds two important arguments in this article. First, noting that “there is a remarkable breadth in the teaching of Jesus about children” because the teaching of Jesus “is about all children” (emphasis in original), Thatcher deduces that “the language of our time which is capable of such breadth is the secular language of rights.” If this is so, Thatcher argues, “the Christ Child is the foundation of children’s rights.”
Second, Thatcher claims that Christians should ground their theology for families in the egalitarian relationships that make up the Trinity, or, “in the Relations that constitute Godself.” Thatcher says, “The doctrine of the Trinity requires that the relations between the divine Persons are co-equal, symmetrical, and mutual. Let there be equality, symmetry, mutuality in human relations too, where subjection and obedience are replaced by reciprocity and communion.”
Theology and Families (2007)
The very last text of Thatcher’s to consider is his book Theology and Families. This book is the culmination of all of Thatcher’s theological thoughts about families, how they are changing, and how best to support family members (children especially) through those changes. And right in the middle of Chapter 5, “Spouses and Partners,” we find a section with a familiar title: “A theology of liberation for children?”
In this section, Thatcher really drills down into his claim about how intact, nuclear families are the best families and thus the model for Christians to follow. He begins with his previously stated qualification: “It cannot be claimed that the teaching of Jesus honors nuclear families.” While Jesus does not “honor” nuclear families, he does “support” “whatever [familial] arrangements best assist the thriving of children”—and “that is treated in the social research as a largely empirical matter” (emphasis in original, p. 127). In other words, Thatcher believes the rightwing arguments and research about nuclear families are factual and thus nuclear families best “support” (but not “honor”!) Jesus’s vision of healthy families. (I personally find the distinction here between “honor” and “support” useless—and Thatcher himself does not state what his distinction means.)
Thatcher is so convinced by his logic here that he even proposes a syllogism: “A very simple theological argument is available which consists of two uncluttered premises and a simple conclusion. It goes like this: Premise 1: Jesus Christ wills the flourishing of all children. Premise 2: Children are more likely to flourish within marriage. Therefore: Jesus Christ wills marriage for bringing up children” (p. 127).
If Jesus wills marriage as the proper context for raising children, that means other contexts (non-traditional families) are inferior or harmful and thus children deserve to be liberated from them. And Thatcher makes this very argument: “Children need to be liberated from parenting which does not put their interests first.” Since children “are almost always against” “their parents’ prospective divorces” (p. 128-129), that makes preserving nuclear families the top priority for Thatcher.
Conclusion
It is important to articulate and understand Thatcher’s conservative approach to child liberation theology because it is very similar to the so-called “child rights advocacy” promoted by evangelical activists Katy Faust and Stacy Manning and their nonprofit organization, Them Before Us. Both Thatcher and Them Before Us baptize rightwing ideas and research in progressive language to argue for the necessity and superiority of intact families and to attack non-traditional families as dangerous. While Them Before Us is unabashedly conservative, Thatcher is not and presents himself as progressive. This makes his promotion of rightwing ideas and research by using the progressive framework of liberation theology all the more troubling.
When Thatcher invests time to actually develop child liberation theology, his insights are fascinating and provocative. For example, his grounding of familial relationships in the Trinity renders children as equals to adults, paving the way for age egalitarianism. Unfortunately, Thatcher spends far more time on his rightwing colleagues’ ideas and research than he does on developing the contours and depths of child liberation theology. While that does not make Thatcher’s writings a Trojan Horse for extremism like Them Before Us, it does significantly undercut and corrupt many of the important advances Thatcher makes in the field of child liberation theology.