God the Child: Small, Weak and Curious Subversions
By Graham Adams
SCM Press, 2024, £19.99
As a preacher, I have occasionally had the sense that I have misled or misinformed my congregation – not quite scratching where they itch. One reason has been, I think, that I have insisted on speaking about a God who is, in Graham Adams’ terms, an adult; a God who is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. Such greatness, and such confidence, can be problematic for the suffering and the marginalised, particularly when even God’s suffering and dying are not real vulnerability, but the fulfilment of a great plan. God the Child seeks to disrupt such thinking by proposing that God is also small, weak and curious.
In God the Child, Adams steadfastly resists idealising children, and infantilising God. Instead, he offers a series of resonant images of a God who is involved in the world, but does not control or dictate to it. Adams reprises the theme of open-handedness from his previous book Holy Anarchy (review Issue 193). Here God’s hand is not just open and undefended, it is also dirty, bloody and scratched from involvement with the world. God is in solidarity with us, sometimes ‘under the radar of adult attention’ (p. 45). God the child is in solidarity with us, suffering because of adult behaviour in a similar way to the child on the stairs, overhearing carers argue. God is chaos-event, ‘disruptive, question-pursuing, adventurously rebellious’ (p. 90). One of the book’s gifts to preachers is its persistently imaginative language and imagery!
In three parts, ‘Wherever God Is, God Is Small’; ‘However God Acts, God is Weak’; ‘Whatever God Knows, God Is Curious’, Adams engages with a range of ideas and theologies that undermine the image of God as white, male and all-powerful. The introduction to each part lays out the issues that will be addressed. Each chapter is supported by questions for reflection, an original hymn suited to the theme and set to a well-known tune. There is appropriate playfulness in the writing, with some chapters opening with a conversation between God and a child, or, in one case, God speaking (with a warning that this might be precocious). Toward the end of the book there is the beautiful creed, ‘We believe in God the Child.’
Personally, I was particularly struck by the introduction to Part Two, which begins ‘How powerful is God?’ Adam’s proposal is that we move away from contemplating a powerful God who is ultimately in control, to a God who is chaos-event, causes things but does not control them; or God as like a mustard seed, constantly and insistently growing.
In many ways, the book raises more questions than it answers, and Adams is conscious of this, concluding ‘this is unfinished. It is still growing’ (p. 189). From a theological perspective, more thoughtful exploration may be required, but if the inspiring image of a God who genuinely turns things upside down is to make a difference to the church, God the Child needs to be preached.
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