Is this the First Little Step to Stopping the Madness?

We have been pushing back on the adoption industry and their reckless campaigns to sign up PAPs en masse through churches. Many of the PAPs who are recruited are promised salvation and glory and yet have unrealistic expectations. Many cannot even pay for the process itself, let alone all of the possible costly out-of-pocket therapies and educational interventions that their children may need.

One minister that has been leading this push for over a year now and was quoted in Kathryn Joyce’s piece, which we featured in this post here, has provocatively titled one of his new posts Don’t Adopt[The Christian Post 10/14/11 by Russell Moore]

He seems to be moving onto the correct path. He is not quite there yet. But we have hope. We will fill in some of the missing details for him (in red text.)

“If you want your “dream baby,” do not adopt or foster a child: buy a cat and make-believe. Adopting an orphan isn’t ordering a consumer item or buying a pet. Such a mindset hurts the child, and countless other children and families. Adoption is about taking on risk as cross-bearing love.” [He is right about risks but he still is flaming the “spiritual reward” by associating adoption with cross-bearing love.]

“For years, I’ve called Christian churches and families to our James 1:27 mandate to care for widows and orphans in their distress, to live out the adoption we’ve received in the gospel by adopting and fostering children. At the same time, I’ve maintained that, while every Christian is called to care for orphans and widows, not every Christian is called to adopt or foster. As a matter of fact, there are many who, and I say this emphatically, should not.” [This sounds good on the surface but he doesn’t choose to give any examples. He still leaning towards that “battalion of Christians ready to adopt, foster, and minister to orphans.” If only that included in-depth preparation accompanied with ruling out those that shouldn’t adopt through meaningful homestudies instead of the rubberstamped kind that we have now, then he would be on the correct path.]

“Even beyond that, every adoption, every orphan, represents a tragedy. Someone was killed, someone left, someone was impoverished, or someone was diseased. Wrapped up in each situation is some kind of hurt, and all that accompanies that.” [What he misses here is that so many have been trafficked or children have been coerced from their families. If you are going to talk about reasons, face the realities and include them all. ]

“That’s the reason there really is no adoption that is not a “special needs” adoption; you just might not know on the front end what those special needs are.” [We totally agree!]

“Children are alive. Children are persons, with individuality that can’t ultimately be suppressed. Children, of all sorts, are, by definition, unpredictable. Children shatter your life-plan. Adoption certainly does.” [He speaks of both unknown personality clashes and adoption preparation in that PAPs need to be prepared to adapt and sometimes adapt their lives substantially.]

“If what’s behind all of this isn’t crucified, war-fighting, eyes-open commitment, you are going to wind up with a child who is twice orphaned. He or she will be abandoned the first time by fatherlessness and the second time by the rejection of failing to live up to the expectations of parents who had no business imposing such expectations in the first place.” [He boldly speaks of disruption and unrealistic parent expectations. We agree that lack of preparation increases the risk of disruption]

So, we will call this a baby step. That is about what we are going to get at this point. Bit by bit, the full awareness of how the adoption industry operates will come out.  We hope that it is sooner rather than later.

REFORM Puzzle Piece