VALPARAISO | There is growing concern around the world for children and society's obligations to them, says the director of Valparaiso University's Project on The Child in Religion and Ethics.

Valparaiso's project n a four-year initiative funded with a $538,000 grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. n has directly addressed challenges facing children and contributed to burgeoning academic and political debates about children and their well-being both in the United States and abroad.

"The tremendous needs of children today as well as political tensions, international conflict and even environmental concerns, are all prompting more people to ponder the future of our planet," said director Dr. Marcia Bunge, a professor of theology and humanities in Valparaiso's honors college. "Thinking about children and our shared obligations to them provides a creative starting point for speaking about future hopes and as well as contentious moral, economic and political issues in ways that cut across conventional or ideological positions."

Dr. Bunge launched the grant project in 2004 and since that time has edited three new books and been invited to participate in conferences and consultations throughout the world.

"Although childhood was once a subject explored mainly in the areas of education or psychology, scholars from almost all fields are now publishing books or presenting papers in the area of childhood studies, and more college students are taking classes in the subject," Dr. Bunge said.

The first of three books by Bunge is "The Child in the Bible," a collection of essays by biblical scholars who explore themes of children and childhood in the Bible. The second book n "Children, Childhood, and Religious Ethics: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Perspectives" n provides reflections on children by leading scholars and ethicists from each of the three religious traditions.

The third book, "Children and Childhood in World Religions," is co-edited with Dr. Don Browning of the University of Chicago and provides an introduction to religious understandings of children and childhood in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.

Dr. Bunge has strengthened the scope and aims of the project by developing the Web site childreligionethics.org, where scholars can share information about courses they are teaching in the area of childhood studies.

"The subject of childhood is compelling, in part, because every person on earth either once was or is a child," Dr. Bunge said. "That's one of the few roles we all share, no matter what our religious, national or ethnic backgrounds. Furthermore, since many people do care deeply about children and their well-being, talking to people of different faiths about children builds hope and mutual understanding."

- For The Times