Archbishop's plea for childhood: youngsters are growing up too fast, warns Williams in sermon

By Colin Fernandez
Last updated at 11:24 PM on 25th December 2009

Children are being forced to grow up too soon, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned in his Christmas message yesterday.

Dr Rowan Williams also spoke out against the exploitation of young people 'abducted, brutalised, turned into killers, used as sex slaves'.

He said that in our rush to make children become independent, we are robbing them of the ability to learn and grow.
Warning: Dr Rowan Williams spoke about against the exploitation of children

Warning: Dr Rowan Williams spoke about against the exploitation of children

Preaching at Canterbury Cathedral, he said: 'There is a basic impatience about learning  -  we want to get to the point where we can say, OK that's enough, I know what I need to know  -  and about receiving  -  we don't want to be indebted to others, we want to stand on our own two feet.'

Part of the problem was that society was confused about the meaning of ' dependency', he added.

'We speak of "dependent" characters with pity and concern.

We think of "dependency" on drugs and alcohol; we worry about the "dependent" mind set that can be created by handouts to the destitute. In other words, we think of dependency as something passive and less than free.'

But by trying to avoid dependency, he said, 'we get trapped in the fantasy that we don't need to receive and learn'. Dr Williams, 59, also said he was worried that children were being 'bombarded with highly sexualised' advertising.

'In the case of children, we shall do our level best to turn you into active little consumers and performers as soon as we can,' he said.

'We shall do all we can to make childhood a brief and rather regrettable stage on the way to the real thing  -  which is "independence", turning you into a useful cog in the social machine that won't need too much maintenance.'

He added that children were being ' overtested' in schools, before going on to urge adults to 'guarantee that there is nourishment and stability' for the people in most need.

He highlighted the plight of hundreds of thousands of children exploited in 'the meaningless and savage civil wars in places like Congo and Sri Lanka  -  children who are abducted, brutalised, turned into killers, used as sex slaves'.

He said: 'To hear of these experiences is almost unbearable, yet the scandal continues.

'Their suffering is an insult to the purpose of God and a contemptuous refusal of the gift of God by those who keep them in their different kinds of slavery.'

The Archbishop added that Christians must learn to become 'dependent on God'.

'That word tends to have a chilly feel for us, especially us who are proudly independent moderns,' he said.

Dr Williams has two children himself with wife Jane, a theology lecturer he married in 1981.

Son Pip is aged 13 and daughter Rhiannon, 21, attended the £11,000-a-year Latymer school.

Yesterday the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales also spoke about how young people are increasingly being drawn into gang membership to bolster their weakened sense of identity.

In a sermon at Westminster Cathedral, the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols said that a recent visit to Feltham Young Offenders Institution in West London reminded him of the plight of 'so many' children.

He also warned that happiness was not to be found in wealth, status or celebrity.

He said: 'We know that our happiness lies much closer to home  -  in our steady relationships of friendship and love  -  in family and community.'



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1238325/Children-robbed-innocence-Archbishop-Canterburys-Christmas-warning.html#ixzz0aobFLeOy