Lincoln Theological Institute

The recent publication of The Children Society’s report A Good Childhood has provided a contemporary example of an older approach to social issues in which faith communities interact with specialists in different field and arrive at policy recommendations which are general enough to receive widespread support while specific enough to make an impact on government and churches, who must work out the detail of how to put them into practice (in the past these policy recommendations have been called ‘middle axioms’). This was the approach brought to prominence by William Temple in his highly influential Christianity and Social Order of 1942.  It also found expression in Faith in the City, the influential report of 1985.  The publication of A Good Childhood suggests that this approach still has mileage.  Is this the case?