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The Evangelical Adoption Campaign
Missions & Evangelism
Written by aikalay   
Monday, 08 February 2010 20:32

At The Daily Beast:
The news of an adoption organization driven by missionary zeal surprised many, but it shouldn’t. Although New Life’s illegal actions [in Haiti] have been condemned by other religious adoption agencies, their sense of calling fits into a growing movement of American evangelical churches embracing a new orphan theology that urges Christians to see adoption and “orphan-care” as an integral part of their faith—and a means of spreading the gospel.
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holmegm   |2010-02-09 09:29:44
This opinion piece unfortunately follows a standard model of highlighting scandal to discredit adoption in general.

The links between evangelical Christianity and adoption are interesting, though. Many adoption "communities" - support groups, online communities, playgroups, whatever - are overwhelmingly evangelical.

Special needs adoptions tend to be ironically dominated both by evangelicals and a (considerably smaller) group of homosexual adopters (relying on the source countries - or the agencies that work with them, anyway - to turn a blind eye to anti-homosexual adoption rules or standards in those countries).

The issues with the "orphan" terminology are largely due to US immigration rules ... since you can only bring in an "orphan", having (say) an absent father and 14-year old mother means you still need to be classified an "orphan". That isn't the US adopter's fault.

Anyway, a subject deserving much deeper exploration than "whip up the lynch mob" stories like this (said mob, of course, will click off the news and go back to their 1.2 children, not really knowing or caring about the huge number of children who actually do need families).
PineHall   |2010-02-09 22:31:47
Christians have been adopting orphans for 2000 years. It has been a way to give them a better life and yes show them God's love. What parent would not want the best for their children and that includes in the spiritual realm too. You bring up special needs kids being adopted. Those kids require lots of extra effort, love, and care. I am acquainted with a few parents that have adopted special needs kids. They definitely have their work cut out for them and yet they did this fully realizing what would be needed to love and care for these kids. Christians have always been in the forefront of adopting orphans, and it seems like all the adoptions I know about have been though Christian adoption agencies. Though I was unaware of this "orphan-care movement", I doubt that there is any "colonialism" going on among the parents adopting. They are just people who have been touched by love and want to share that love by raising these children.
laika   |2010-02-10 18:38:41
holmegm wrote:
This opinion piece unfortunately follows a standard model of highlighting scandal to discredit adoption in general.


my bad. i actually hesitated to front page this, but in the end i thought it did contain actual news about evangelicals being encouraged to adopt. i thought her sense that adopting children and passing on your values to them was somehow slightly sinister to be just kinda funny.
TheophileEscargot   |2010-02-09 10:53:01
I'm a little reminded of the Janissaries in the Ottoman Empire. Take young children from another religion, indoctrinate them strictly from an early age, and you have a useful class of citizen conveniently isolated from other loyalties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissary
laika   |2010-02-09 16:37:42
TheophileEscargot wrote:
Take young children from another religion, indoctrinate them strictly from an early age, and you have a useful class of citizen conveniently isolated from other loyalties.


but adoption seems like a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money to go to just to proselytize a child, doesn't it?
emperorbma   |2010-02-10 09:34:51
It strikes me as rather specious to claim that a state-run institution is similar to random citizens voluntarily adopting children. The only similarity is that the children being adopted tend to be of differing religious backgrounds, but the rationale behind the activity is entirely different.

You couldn't even claim that they are being "forced" to adopt children because of their religion because they actually aren't.  Nobody is making people adopt except themselves, so even if there is a religious motive behind these adoptions, it is at a personal level. It's rather tenuous to claim it is like a forced conversion campaign, also, since natural parental rights are generally assumed to include sharing one's beliefs with one's children.

Any similarity with Ottoman Turkish religio-political enterprises is superficial and ancillary rather than intrinsic and intentional.
holmegm  - re:   |2010-02-10 20:06:53
laika wrote:
my bad. i actually hesitated to front page this, but in the end i thought it did contain actual news about evangelicals being encouraged to adopt. i thought her sense that adopting children and passing on your values to them was somehow slightly sinister to be just kinda funny.


No, it was good choice to publish. Important topic! Very thought provoking.

A dippy story can still provoke good discussion :)
manhattan42  - Not Adoption: Child Trafficking   |2010-02-21 08:56:16
When does 'adoption' become 'child trafficking'?

The recent arrest of some Evangelical Missionaries in Haiti seems to indicate that some religious groups are using their religion to mask their criminal intents.

When native parents are 'paid' to allow their children to taken out of the country and when adoption agencies receive fees to provide adoptive parents with these children, how is this anything but 'child trafficking'?

Ironically, Haiti has one of the largest percapita Christian populations in all the Caribbean.

Some using the argument that adopting in order to allow these children to grow up in a 'Christian" environment miss the fact these children were already being raised in such.

While there is nothing inherently 'wrong' in foreign adoption, there can be sin and crime in brokering such arrangements for profit, evangelization, or misquided 'good' intentions.
holmegm  - re: Not Adoption: Child Trafficking   |2010-02-22 11:11:52
manhattan42 wrote:
When does 'adoption' become 'child trafficking'?


Never. They are two completely different things.
manhattan42  - But In Haiti....   |2010-02-26 23:50:50
But in Haiti...

We apparantly have 'child trafficking' done under the guise of 'christian adoption' by having "christian" adoption agencies 'bribing' Haitian parents to 'traffic' their children through international adoptions for a fee......

Or rather put, Some "Christian" agencies are willing to pay a fee to separate a Haitian parent from their child for a price and place them up for adoption.....

So how are the two things..."child trafficking" or "christian adoption" different in this case?
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