Transracial Adoption and the Gospel

Years ago I was adopted into a family of a different ethnicity than my own, and it was traumatic. You should see how long it took me to learn Hebrew.

This, and the fact that I've adopted two children from the former Soviet Union, led me to read with great interest a current report about so-called "transracial adoption," the phenomenon of parents who adopt children of a different ethnicity or cultural background.

The report -- issued by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute -- is against trans-racial adoption. The New York Times reports that the report does not conclude that transracial adoption produces any kind of psychological or social harm in children, but that "these children often face major challenges as the only person of color in an all-white environment, trying to cope with being different."

Now, on the one hand, I can see why the social workers would have such concern. As I've asserted repeatedly elsewhere, contemporary American rootlessness atrophies the human spirit. It is probably impossible to quantify just how damaging to our happiness this current age of hyper-mobility and commercialized sameness is.

Moreover, the 1970s and 1980s gave us a popular culture view of transracial adoption as novelty at best, condescension at worst. Movie audiences roared with laughter when Steve Martin narrated in the opening minutes of The Jerk: "I was born a poor black child." Television audiences cooed as the theme song to one seventies sitcom told the story, "A man is born, he's a man of means; then along come two, and they got nothing but their genes, but they got diff'rent strokes."

The joke in both instances is how nonsensical the concepts seemed: a white Midwesterner with African-American parents; two streetwise African-American kids growing up in a Park Avenue penthouse. The laugh tracks belied an American wink-and-nod at the idea of a familial racial unity-in-diversity.

Even so, the discouragement of trans-racial adoption is counter-productive and dangerous. Yes, we live, even still, in (in the words of one transracial adoptee quoted in the Times) a "very race-conscious society," often to the point of hatred. But is the solution to this to discriminate on the basis of race at the adoption process, to allow homes to be knit together, separate but equal, decided on the color of skin?

Old George Wallace once stood in the schoolhouse door, and now his much more progressive-seeming heirs stand in the orphanage door. But both are saying the same thing, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." And both pretend that they're just being "realistic" about racial discrimination.

Right now, there are untold numbers of children, many of them racial minorities, languishing in the foster care system in the United States. Would the social workers really have us believe that it is better for an African-American child to grow up bounced from home to home in this bureaucratic limbo than to be a child to parents whose skin is paler than his? Do they really believe that a white Russian child would do better to live in an orphanage until she is dismissed at eighteen to a life of suicide or homelessness than to grow up with loving African-American parents?

This approach loves the abstract notion of humanity more than actual humans. It neatly categorizes persons according to their racial lineages rather than according to their need for love, for acceptance, for families. Our love for neighbor means we ought to prioritize the need for families for the fatherless -- regardless of how they're skin colors or languages line up with one another.

But there's an even bigger issue here: the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I'm not surprised that a group of secular social workers believe racial identity is more important than familial love. The Scripture tells us we always, if left to ourselves, want to categorize ourselves "according to the flesh." Whether it is the Athenians clinging to their myth of superior origins or Judaizers insisting on circumcision or Peter refusing to eat with pig-devouring Gentiles, we love to see ourselves first and foremost in fleshly categories -- because it keeps us from seeing ourselves in Christ.

The gospel, though, drives us away from our identity in the flesh, and toward a new identity, indeed a new family, defined by the Spirit. This new family solidarity is much less visibly obvious; it's not based on marks in the flesh or skin color or carefully kept genealogies. It's based on a Spirit that blows invisibly where he wills, showing up in less visible characteristics such as peace, joy, love, righteousness, gentleness, kindness, self-control.

That's why my heart is broken about the transracial adoption debate. It's not just because some white kids could miss out on some godly black parents, or vice-versa. It's because we're, in part, to blame.

The family, after all, is constructed around another, deeper reality. It points to the church -- that household of God in which Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers. I wonder what kind of witness we could have in this kind of racially polarized culture if our churches demonstrated the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace?

What if our congregational households were not so divided: white Republican enclaves down the street from black Democratic ones, upper-crust suburban churches down the highway from blue-collar rural churches? What if we demonstrated with the makeup of our own churches that we believe in the unity of the Spirit, not the divisions of the flesh?

I mentioned earlier that I was trans-ethnically adopted, and that's quite true. Now, I grew up biologically birthed into a very rooted family, a family I can trace back for generations. But the gospel tells me that I've been brought into a different household. I am hidden in Christ; therefore, in him, I am the offspring of Abraham, grafted onto the vine of Israel. God accepts me because, in Christ, I am his beloved son in whom he is well pleased. I receive with Jesus everything that he receives as an inheritance -- the whole cosmos.

I'm now of the tribe of Judah, one of the brothers -- right along with a number no man can number from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language. I'm no longer a stranger and alien (as I am biologically), but I am fellow citizen with the saints and a member of the household of God (Eph 2:19).

When I learned Hebrew back in seminary, I was learning the language of my forefathers -- the children of Abraham -- even though I probably don't have an Israelite gene in my bloodstream.

That's why when I pray every night for my sons to marry a godly woman one day; I don't care if she's white, black, Latino, or whatever. I beg God that she knows Christ. It doesn't bother me one bit if my grandchildren have a different skin color than any of the previous generations of Moores. I pray they'll know Christ, and the power of his resurrection. And if something should happen to my wife and me, there are all kinds of people I'd be happy to see raise my children in our stead. But please, if you're in on the decision, don't make it on the basis of who's "white."

In any given day, I talk to multiple couples seeking to adopt children. And every week I hear through tear-choked voices of extended family members who are upset because the child is of a different race. You'd be surprised by how many of these extended family members are deacons or women's ministry directors in Christian churches, blissfully unaware of the spirit of antichrist resting on them, unaware of how their own devotion to their flesh would disqualify non-Semitic folks like them from the promises of God, if not for the mercy of Christ.

Some of us need to think about whether the Lord's calling us to adopt a child, and to put aside whether or not he or she is of our same race or background. Some of us need to put aside our hidden racist or elitist hatreds and hostilities. We need to crucify them, in fact.

But all of us need to pray, and hard, for transracial -- and trans-economic and trans-generational -- churches. The social workers will divide us up into categories of race -- and some of the church-people will too. Jesus will do otherwise, though. He'll sit us right down at the same table, in a common household, and he'll feed us bread and wine -- together.

What if the outside world could see church directories and family albums filled with people who look nothing alike -- but who call each other "brother" and "sister" and mean it, and who unabashedly hug and kiss one another?

Perhaps the outside world would be better able to understand how black parents can love and raise an Asian daughter, how a Latino child can love his white Iowan mother, if they were to see our churches filled with people, red and yellow, black, and white, who are precious in the sight of one another.

Comments

[W.E.D. Godbold]

As a biochemist, and an occasional watcher of Different Strokes in the 70s, I'm pretty sure that Dr. Moore's rendering of "genes" in the title song should be "jeans".

[Bill R]

The irony, of course, is that none of these social workers really means "race" in any genetic sense. Is Obama black? Or is he white? He identifies himself as black, so he is considered such. But his culture and background were hardly black, so he has had to develop a black identity as an adult. Most adoptive children do not have a racial identity yet so these social workers believe it is their right, indeed their duty, to determine what that identity will be, not what it is (or isn't) at present. This isn't traditional racism, the hated of others based on a perceived skin color, but is rather a politicial ideology, the belief that race, like sex (gender), like sexual orientation, is something we fashion for ourselves. What motivates such leftists is their belief that "inter-racial adoption" by whites is a form of imperialism, a destruction of minority culture by the majority. They would, frankly, look the other way if the issue were the adoption of a white child by black parents. Fortunately for them, this particular circumstance is so rare and unlikely that they don't have to confront their own assumptions.

[W.E.D. Godbold]

I wholeheartedly agree with this entire post. My sister is half-Vietnamese. My mom worked for the better part of two decades finding permanent homes for hard-to-place children (older kids, kids with siblings, and those with emotional problems, often minority).

I know I've probably said this before, but human racial classifications make little sense genetically. There is no single gene (or gene product) that one can point to and say "Aha! This identifies the holder as being of one particular race" There are suites of genes that are indicative (but not determinative) of such what we would identify, morphologically, as being of a particular racial group. But any particular set of genes just isn't possessed by only one set of people. (Which is good, because this means I don't have to worry much about "ethnic weapons".)

The greatest amount of genetic diversity is found on the African subcontinent, with the second greatest in Europe and the least in Asia. This supports the hypothesis that we all came "out of Africa". A sub-population left to become "Europeans" and a sub-group of them became the "Asians".

[Tony Esolen]

How enlightened the Roman Empire seems by comparison! Does anybody know really whether Augustine was Roman-Caucasian, Punic-Semitic, Berber, Coptic, other African, or some melange thereof? Nobody knows. Nobody bothered to say. He was a Roman citizen....

[Judy K. Warner]

The issue of interracial adoptions was a creation of the National Association of Black Social Workers. As the NYT article points out, white families began adopting more black children in the 1970s. It then glides over what happened next by saying:

Congress passed the Multiethnic Placement Act in 1994 after several white couples said they had not been provided the opportunity to adopt minority children. The law prohibits delaying or denying a child’s foster care or adoptive placement on the basis of race or nationality.

Actually, the National Association of Black Social Workers adopted a policy in 1972 that black children should not be adopted by white parents. Their fantastic rationale was "the preservation of the African-American family." They pushed this very hard, accompanied by a lot of rhetoric that seemed to have mau-maued other social workers into going along. The policy was so ridiculous that finally the law in question was passed in 1994, and these adoptions have increased every year. The study's ostensible purpose was to examine the law's impact.

This story is a prime example of how leftist policies harm the people they are supposedly designed to help. Or maybe how mentally ill the association of black social workers is. Without checking, I am certain this organization opposed welfare reform, though welfare has destroyed the black family more thoroughly than slavery, Jim Crow or anything else in history, certainly including interracial adoptions. It would be interesting to find out how many of the black social workers who have pushed this policy call themselves Christians.

[GL]

There is also the Indian Child Welfare Act, passed by Congress in 1978, which is aimed at restricting the placement of Native American children in either foster or adoptive homes which are not headed by Native Americans.

I actually was involved in a case in which this act was at issue. I argued that it did not apply to the child at issue in my case as his mother was a member of a part of the Cheyenne tribe which resided in Canada. The ICWA defines "Indian child" as a child who is a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe (that is, recognized by the Interior Department, which maintains a list of recognized tribes), or is eligible for membership in such a tribe and is the biological child of a member. Since the Interior Department only recognizes tribes which are located in the United States, the child at issue was not an "Indian child" as defined by the act. I still use this example in class when teaching the students that terms used in statutes do not always mean what they mean in other settings.

[Judy K. Warner]

Did your argument convince the court, Greg?

[GL]

Yes. The court found that the 1/2 Cheyenne child was not an "Indian child" as defined by the act because his mother was Canadian.

[holmegm]

But all of us need to pray, and hard, for transracial-and trans-economic and trans-generational-churches. The social workers will divide us up into categories of race-and the church-people will too. Jesus will do otherwise, though. He'll sit us right down at the same table, in a common household, and he'll feed us bread and wine-together.

Amen.

This story saddened me too when I read it. We definitely do not need to go back to the period of openly turning parents away from children who need homes, simply because their skin color is different.

It's worth noting the dishonesty of this "report" as well - it even uses (without recognized irony) that lying phrase "one of many factors".

I've found that how people really feel about race and culture is revealed by how they react to a multi-ethnic family (we are a white couple with four non-white children). It still amazes me how many people simply can't process that we are just a family; parents who love children.

[Judy K. Warner]

Another thing that is interesting is how the parents of children of a different race or nation deal with their origins. Some people who have adopted baby girls from China send them to Chinese lessons when they get older. This has always struck me as the height of stupidity and does not make for a cohesive family. It makes me wonder whether the parents truly consider the children their own. I know a family that has three adopted kids from Korea. I once heard the mother tell her son something about "your great grandfather, who was a rabbi." I did a double-take and then thought yes, of course his great grandfather was a rabbi.

[Nick]

Indeed. My Hebrew is very limited but I'm hoping that I get a chance to use it with some of my family eventually.

Children need homes. They don't need "racial" identities.

[labrialumn]

Considering the genetic makeup of African-Americans (not counting Somalis and Sudanese), it is far too late to enact racial segregation.

Isn't Obama roughly 6% 'black' (and thus took federal money illegally in college?) So I've heard, anyway.

The fact is that the genetic bottleneck at 74k eyears (or at the Flood) means that we are all one race, genetically-speaking. Much closer than most species, similar to the genetic variation in the cheetah, I've read somewhere.

What the CPS civil 'servants' want is power. Power over children, over families, over taxpayer monies. Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy at work, combined with sanctimonious pseudo-moral superiority.

There are oddities in human genetics. Why the Yakut show Orkneyar ancestry, why most people groups show a radiation out from the north-east side of the Hindu Kush. (technically within the general designation of the 'Mountains of Ararat') And many other interesting things.

Holmegm, culture is not racial, it is of the cultus, of folk traditions, of various forms of art and manners. I don't think that they should be abolished into a bland McWorld.

Reminds me of a very true story of a woman in my home town wondering how the adoptive mother of a Korean baby was going to understand the baby when the baby started to talk!

[holmegm]

Holmegm, culture is not racial, it is of the cultus, of folk traditions, of various forms of art and manners. I don't think that they should be abolished into a bland McWorld.

Who was suggesting that they should be? Not I.

[Mark Diebel]

It is good to see that Mr. Moore is so concerned for people of color and the adoption of children into permanent families! Perhaps he could read the report and see what it really says.

As an adoptee in both senses of term (adopted in Christ) and adopted otherwise... and transracially adopted in 1957... his message shows no research to establish his implication: all a child needs is a loving family. A child needs a loving family and an educated family: the family adopting him or her needs to know what sort of life their transracial child will find in this racist society.

Moore has his axes to grind.

Don't take Mr. Moore's word about the report. Read the report for yourself. Go to the adoption institute dot org / publications. Look for the paper MEPA.

[holmegm]

Mr. Diebel, it's clear that Mr. Moore read it. He disagrees with you about it's tone, intent, and conclusions.

[James A. Altena]

“Isn't Obama roughly 6% 'black' (and thus took federal money illegally in college?) So I've heard, anyway.”

As folks here know, I have no brief for Obama, and think he may be worse than Hillary. But this statement is on a level with the rumors that Obama is a practicing Muslim. For the record, Obama Barack is 50% black. His father was of the Luo tribal ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya.

This information is widely and easily available. (Hint: try a Google search using the terms “Barack Obama Biography”)

But some people apparently can’t or won’t bother to check out preposterously libelous rumors before they circulate them. “So I’ve heard, anyway” serves as a paper-thin fig leaf of ostensible disclaimer.

[zach albertson]

Great post. But white people (majority in the states), PLEASE do a lot of educating yourself on minorities and white privilege in America before you adopt a minority into your home. It will help.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>white privilege in America<<<

Just what would that be? I'm curious, because I seem to be missing out on it.

[David Gray]

>Just what would that be? I'm curious, because I seem to be missing out on it.

According to the Chicago priest apparently all white people are entitled to a turn at being President. At least until the advent of Obama...

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>According to the Chicago priest apparently all white people are entitled to a turn at being President. <<<

OK. When is my turn? I need to get ready, all my many enemies need fair warning to leave the country. And Iran needs to prepare for its unconditional surrender to my non-negotiable demands.

[Judy K. Warner]

You don't have a turn, Stuart. Obama has come -- didn't you hear the priest?

[Bruce]

I want my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren to look like me. I want them to have blond hair and blue eyes and identify with the same ancestral groups that I indentify with. Can I be part of the Body of Christ?

[GL]

Bruce,

Given that you have no control over the genetic make up of your grandchildren and later descendants, would you receive with as much love and acceptance a descendant who is of mixed race as you would one who has blond hair and blue eyes? Would you accept and love to the same degree such a descendant who identified with their non-caucasian ancestry?

>>>I want them to . . . identify with the same ancestral groups that I indentify with.<<<

By your use of the plural "groups," I must assume that you recognize that you are almost certainly descended from more than one "ancestral group" (however you define that term).

[Bruce]

No.

I don't necessarily love my actual children to the same degree as one another. Isn't that biblical, particuarly OT?

[Bruce]

I don't believe that I am required as a Christian to love all men in the same measure or degree in order to be in charity.

[Bruce]

In my opinion, this piece was unnecessary and a bit of a stretch. Both Christians and non-Christians in our society are engaged in trans-racial adoptions at an unprecedented rate. So frequently, in fact, I sometimes wonder if many intentionally seek out a child of another race to demonstrate what good people they are and to make themselves feel good about,well, themselves. Despite this or that report from secular social workers, there's no serious movement to limit or discourage trans-racial adoption that I can see.

Albeit, I appreciate the attempt to stick it to secular liberals and show their hypocritical behavior e.g. the similarity of Wallace and secular liberals. Actually, there's no hypocricy when one realizes that under advanced liberalism, racial idenity is only morally wrong for whites. I'll bet all the tea in China that secular liberals are only thinking of the damage done to the racial/ethnic idenity of non-whites.

[Bruce]

Historically, Christians seemed to see no conflict between identifying with Christ and identifying with the flesh in the manner that the author insinuates as demonstrated in the fact that European Christian art almost invariably racially-Europeanized Christ (I have no issue with Jimmy "JJ" Walker's black Jesus on the TV sitcom "Goodtimes" and rather liked that episode) Heck, that trend has continued into modern times. My son's "Children's Golden Bible" depicts Jesus as positively ultra-Nordic. So what? These people knew that God Incarnate was born a Middle Eastern Jew.

[James A. Altena]

"I don't believe that I am required as a Christian to love all men in the same measure or degree in order to be in charity."

This is one of those sorts of unreflective statements that ostensibly states a truth, but turns it into a falsehood.

As a matter of fact, we do not "love all men in the same measure or degree," and it is not necessary to do so "in order to be in charity." That is (as Aquinas argued) true of God a well as man; one thing is better than another because it is more beloved of God. (One must be careful here, as Aquinas in saying this is speaking in terms of theological relation, not in everyday terms or in a sense of quantitatively measureable intensity.)

Where the falsehood enters in is the preceding phrase: "I don't believe that I am required as a Christian" to do so. the unspoken implication is that *I* should be able, and want to be able, to determine, to *choose* how much to love someone else -- which means having a choice whether or not to love them at all. In other words, *we* want to be in control instead of God.

Our culture is enamored of independence, of autonomy, of freedom of choice -- when too often this is an illusion for enslavement to our appetites and passions. (Screwtape is very proud of the work of the philological department Down Under here.)

Let us immediately set aside red herrings by noting that "love" is something quite different from "like," and that agape love is not an emotion but an orientation of the entire person (mind, body, and soul). It should be manifestly apparent to any Christian how profoundly un-Christian such an attitude this is. Love is God's gift, being ultimately the very constitution of His triune Being. We could not truly love at all, were we not made in His image and likeness; and given our present fallenness, we certainly could not love unless He first infused His love into us. And since love is God's gift and not our creation, it is He, not us, who determines the measure of it. From whence comes the idea that we can determine to what degree we will exercise that gift?

Look, in vain, for any passage that states that we may determine to love another person to any degree less than the most for which we can strive. then reflect instead on Luke's recapitulation of the Sermon on the Mount (6:27-38), concluding 6:38)

"Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again."

Jesus commands us to love even our enemies -- and He sets no limit on that. Remember that God loved us, and came to die for us, while we were yet His enemies (Rom. 5:6-10). What if God had decided to limit how much He loved us? That should be a thought to strike terror into our sin-hardened hearts.

And my good friend GL is right on the money in His response. The desire to want our children, grandchildren, etc. to look a certain way -- particularly, like ourselves -- when that is utterly out of our power to determine, is nothing other than the idolatry of self-worship. Once again, it implies the desire for control, to be God instead of God. This is even more true when one gets to grandchildren and beyond, because then the expressed desire necessarily extends to wanting to determine who our children, grandchildren, etc., marry -- and, ironically, thereby to deny to them the "choice" we demand for ourselves.

And so, what if the children, grandchildren, *don't* look like us? Do we have a right or choice to love them any less for that than the full extent to which we are able? We don't *wan't* to have children with birth defects either (one of GL's children has a rare an serious genetic disorder) -- but if that is what God chooses for us to have, do we again have any right or choice to love in how much to love them? And what about elderly parents who don't act or look the way we want as well?

In sum, the statement quoted at the opening of this post is the hidden rationale for abortion, euthanasia, cloning, etc., etc. We want to be able to determine how much we love other people -- which is to say, to determine whether they are even loveable at all. And, if not, then we have a rationale for disposing of them.

I am sure this is not what Bruce had in mind at all, and that the statement was made unreflectively. But what I have described here is the necessary and bitter fruit of that statement, and it needs to be scotched immediately.

[Bill R]

Fortunately my kids look like their mother, not like me. Which makes them much more loveable!

[David Gray]

>My son's "Children's Golden Bible" depicts Jesus as positively ultra-Nordic.

Sounds like a case for the Second Commandment...

[Maggie Fox]

Thank you for this beautiful post. It has come at the perfect time for me. Although I have for most of my life anticipated adopting a child without regard to race, I have been given pause recently by my reading of various blogs written by trans-racial adoptees critical of the situations in which their adoptive parents placed them. (Ethnically Incorrect Daughter may be one of my favorites -- loving but able to eloquently express her ambivalence.)

I would love to adopt a child of any race, but I think I need to think carefully about the impact of bringing a minority child into my overwhelmingly white community, and how to handle that in the best interests of the child. Zach's comment is right on. A white adoptive parent needs to be aware of his or her white privilege and how to overcome it. That may sound like a snotty leftist statement, but bear with me. As a white person in a white community, I have had the "privilege" of never having been judged by my schoolmates and neighbors based on my skin color. It is easy for me to assume that racism doesn't really exist in my community in this day and age, and it is easy for me to assume that my child's different appearance will be no big deal. I have the "privilege" of being colorblind, but my child may not because he or she may be judged for her color more than I expect.

The reference to "privilege" is just a way of saying that as a white person, I don't know what it would be like to be a minority child adopted into a white community. If I am to be a responsible parent, I need to educate myself about these issues so that I can do right by my child. I remain strongly in favor of trans-racial adoption and the old "melting pot" idea, but I think that white people should be aware of the naivete of brushing race aside as an irrelevant issue, when in fact it remains very relevant to people who are still judged on their race (including perhaps our own different race children.)

[Bruce]

He didn't specify love as the word is commonly understood or agape although I guess the latter could be presupposed at a site devoted to Mere Christianity.

"the unspoken implication is that *I* should be able, and want to be able, to determine, to *choose* how much to love someone else -- which means having a choice whether or not to love them at all."
No. I don't have a plan or formula to determine to what degree I would love them. Since I haven't been throught that, I simply carried out a Gedanken-Experiment and that was my reaction. Apparently my reaction is "un-Christian" and the "spirit of the anti-christ" rests on me. I'm wondering if I should question my very conversion and whether or not the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of Christ is truly nourishing me every Sunday. I'll bet ya prior to the 60's the attittudes the author describes would have been almost universal among Christians. I wonder if the spirit of the anti-christ rested on all people except modern Christians.

We pray every week that all the law and the prophets hang on Jesus' summary of law in the 2 great commanments. I thought that meant loving God (first 5) and loving neighbor (last 5). I certainly don't feel like I want to transgress the last 5 against my hypothetical non-white descendents. Am I in charity with them?

[Bruce]

The extent to which the anti-racists invert reality is amazing. For the last half century, whites have dispensed the greatest degree of racial benevolence in the history of the world. Whites (Christian and non-Christian) now love to adopt non-white children and the trend is rapidly accelerating. What planet does the author reside on? There's virtually no white families who resist their family members adopting black, latino, asian children. They are fully onboard with the multi-racial agenda and they love it. The few that don't fear being accused of harboring the spirit of the anti-Christ (or Hitler).Bill R. in the 2nd post is the only one who even comes close to the truth.

The author writes: "But please, if you're in on the decision, don't make it on the basis of who's "white" and "And every week I hear through tear-choked voices of extended family members who are upset because the child is of a different race [READ HERE, NON-WHITE, as Bill R. suggests is the phenomena]...... spirit of the anti-Christ... devotion to the flesh..."

Slow down. You're not too far behind the liberal Episcopals.

[GL]

Bruce,

Don't defame Bill R. I know him quite well; I can guarantee you that he is not a party to your racists rants and deciding, a priori, to treat, at least in his heart, a grandchild who is not white as less worthy of his love than a grandchild with blond hair and blue eyes.

We are all sinners. I know that I am quite well. Whether you are a Christian is a matter between you and God. But deciding to love a child less because of his skin color, hair color and eye color is a sin.

[James A. Altena]

Bruce's reaction is un-Christian. But no-one said anything about the spirit of anti-Christ resting upon him -- an indulgence in mawkish self-pity that is also un-Christian. the first does not imply the second, since Christians can sin without being subject to anti-Christ.

It has been suggested off-line that Bruce is a troll, which may well be the case.

[Bill M]

We have four children. The older three are not adopted, the youngest is adopted. She was born in a coastal city in China, and spent the first 2 years of her life in orphanage and foster care.

The decision to adopt her was a long one, and we processed all kinds of information. I read the opinions of Americans who are now adults, adopted as children from Asian countries. Some of these (including a cousin in our family) have struggled with their place in family and community. Some have had to deal with overt racism. Others have apparently had little or no trouble, and are quite happy with their lives.

Reading the wide range of experiences and opinions made our own decision to adopt very difficult. How could we know, ultimately, if we were doing the right thing? We cannot provide a "Chinese heritage" for our daughter, even if we wanted to. What ugliness - if any - will she have to deal with in our predominately white community?

Our adoption agency was very good at talking about these issues ahead of time, and providing training materials to work through. Still... there's only so much a person can do in advance. The racial issues are real, but it is hard to tell how big a factor they will be, and how much is unnecessary hand-wringing.

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to be tested, when several kids on the local playground called my daughter "rice picker" while she was playing. Thankfully she was engrossed in her play, and did not hear them (and is too little to understand anyway). But it was a sign of things to come, and my heart was heavy.

Nevertheless, we thank God for her life, and her joy. We thank God that in some way beyond our understanding we were brought together as a family.

[GL]

It is abundantly clear in Scriptures that God does not love every human equally, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." And it is also clear that He does not believe we need to know why He loves some more than others. Some things simply are not our business. "When Peter saw [the disciple whom Jesus loved], he said to Jesus, 'Lord, what about this man?' Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (That Isaac loved Esau more and Rebekah loved Jacob more and that Jacob loved Joseph more does nothing to prove that doing so by them was a good idea and not sinful. It is clear from Scripture that their overt favoritism of the child most loved lead to all sorts of misery.)

Here, however, is where silly slogans like WWJD (What would Jesus do?) work there damage. We are not God. The question for us is not "What would Jesus do?" but, rather, "What would Jesus have me do?" And on this issue we know what He would have us do since He told us, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Bruce's answer makes it painfully obvious that he would choose to love a dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed grandchild less than he loves himself (because he would choose to love descendants who look like him more than those who don't which, as James A. points out, amounts to self-worship), thus breaking what our Lord called the second greatest commandment. Let us hope that if such a grandchild is actually born to Bruce, God will soften his heart.

I too am a sinner and my sins are at least as bad, likely worse, than Bruce's. I will not judge his eternal state. It is not my place to do so and I could not do so without being a hypocrite. However, what he advocates is a sin.

With that, I believe it would be best if I disengaged from this discussion with Bruce. If he is a troll, I don't want to feed him. If he is not a troll, I'll let others engage him.

[James A. Altena]

This is not the first time among very sincere Christians that I have encountered the belief that a Christian does not have to love everyone, or can choose how much to love others. It seems to rest upon a belief that love is a static and fixed quantity, rather than a dynamic activity that grows with exercise. The former attitude implies a zero-sum game -- if I love X more, I must love Y or Z less, because I have only so much love to go around (Note again the fallacious belief that it is "my" love, my own property which is finite, rather than God's love, His gift which is infinite, that is at issue.) And, if so, then Christian stewardship calls on me to evaluate how much love I should give respectively to X, Y, and Z.

The logic behind the initial fallacious assumption is very insidious and, as previously mentioned, Screwtapean. It directs attention away from what we should be doing un-self-consciously (loving others) onto a self-conscious focus upon one's own internal psychological processes instead ("I am loving this person to degree X"), whereas when one is truly being loving the focus is entirely upon the beloved and not on self at all.

[Bill R]

I'm often at a disadvantage being on the West Coast with a three-hour time zone difference. I'm nearly at a loss for words at how my jest was misinterpreted by Bruce . Not that I'm concerned: those who know me know that I fully agree with James Altena and GL on this issue. My comment ("Fortunately my kids look like their mother, not like me. Which makes them much more loveable!") was meant to mock Bruce's comment about wanting his children to look like himself. I'm sure my kids are better off not looking like their dad, but whether they look like their mother or another is irrelevant to me: they are my children. Do you love the left side of your heart more than its right side? Is that nonsense? So is the question of different measures of love for any of one's children.

[Gina]

James A: Amen.

GL re "Esau have I hated": Hyperbolic language?

Due to my age and health, we (married one year) have considered adoption and though I would allow the Lord to lead however He might, I would start by looking for a child of our ethnic and religious background. I think there are things imprinted on our memories that are not merely acculturation. It doesn't mean you couldn't love a "different" child less, but these things do mean something. The fact that our restless, rootless, novelty-seeking culture has loosened most people's hold on their own sense of who they are across time and space doesn't mean this is a good thing.

[Gina]

I meant to say "couldn't love a 'different' child just as much."

[GL]

>>>GL re "Esau have I hated": Hyperbolic language?<<<

I don't think so. That would be the easy way out. Instead, I take God to mean exactly what He said . . . and I tremble and am in awe.

[Bruce]

Where to begin. First, give me a minute to gather five smooth stones (just kidding!).

I'm not big on the jargon but if a troll is what I think it is, then that's not me.

The "blond-hair, blue-eyes" comment was intentionally a bit exaggerative for rhetorical effect. Just a desire to state a plain truth matter-of-factly and unapologetically. Don't take it too literally. I love my brunette son here as much as my other children. Ditto "Look like me." Don't take it too literally.

James Altena "no-one said anything about the spirit of anti-Christ resting upon him -- an indulgence in mawkish self-pity that is also un-Christian" The author said it in the entry as a broad statement directed at people to whom continutity of ancestral idenity is important.

James Altena I don't think I said that a Christian didn't have to love (in the Christian sense of the word) everyone. I said manner or degree. You wrote: " It directs attention away from what we should be doing un-self-consciously (loving others) onto a self-conscious focus upon one's own internal psychological processes instead ("I am loving this person to degree X")." You make me sound so calculating as if I have a formula but I don't. I'm just stating a reaction and a reality that I think is valid and normal and universal. I don't think it's a "choice" as much as a reality. God created distinct peoples and He tells us that his creation is good (not perfect). God will take people from all nations which presupposes that distinct peoples will continue to exist. Social and biological distinctions aren't ultimate distinctions but they exist and have a valid place.

Lewis said that the devil usually sends errors into the world in pairs so that your hatred for one drives you to the other. I think this applies to racism and anti-racism.

Bill R. I wasn't referrig to the writeback you assume. I was referring to your first post,the second writeback: "What motivates such leftists is their belief that "inter-racial adoption" by whites is a form of imperialism, a destruction of minority culture by the majority. They would, frankly, look the other way if the issue were the adoption of a white child by black parents. Fortunately for them, this particular circumstance is so rare and unlikely that they don't have to confront their own assumptions." I think you are basically right. They care about damage done to minority racial/ethnic idenity. White racial/ethnic idenity is forbidden.

[Bruce]

Here's an excerpt from the Confraternity Edition of the Baltimore Catechism, published in the late 1940s discussing "discriminatory" degees of love. Again, not a formula, just basic principles:
"Love for our neighbor, to be charity, must be based on a supernatural motive--namely, the fact that everyone of our fellow men either possesses grace or is capable of possessing it. If we love a person merely because of his natural qualities, we are not making an act of charity. When Our Lord told us to love our neighbor as ourselves, He meant that we must love all our fellowmen in the same MANNER as we love ourselves--that is, supernaturally--but not necessarily in the same MEASURE. Moreover, we are not obliged to love all our fellow men in the same degree. We can and should have greater love for those who are united to us by the bonds of relationship, faith and nationality."

Just curious. Who's a Roman Catholic here?

[Bill R]

You're coming across more reasonably now, Bruce. The quote from the Catechism isn't referring to love within one's family, however, but to the commonsensical notion that the measure of love we have for family, faith, and country is naturally greater than that shown to strangers, pagans, or aliens. (For what it's worth, I'm Lutheran.)

[GL]

Bruce,

Your last post is much more reasonable . . . and much less trollish. ;-)

[James A. Altena]

Bruce,

Your more recent posts are somewhat more reasonable. But my main point, which you evade, remains. The issue is not the existence of measure (I never said that), but *who* determines that measure. You still want to be the one to determine the measure of your love for others, instead of God doing so. Behind all the new rhetoric, you still want a rationale for either not loving certain people at all, or for loving them less than God provides you grace to do.

E.g., your comment

"Social and biological distinctions aren't ultimate distinctions but they exist and have a valid place."

illustrates this in spades. You want a rationale for loving other to a greater or lesser degree based on those distinctions. Well, show us where Scripture says that social distinctions are a basis for loving one person more or less than another -- and square that with what Scripture says about not being a respecter of persons.

(And let's be clear here: "Nationality" refers to common citizenship and corresponding love of country, not to social distinctions. Likewise, "faith" is not a social distinction, but a distinction of shared belief. And "relationship" is not limited to genetic blood ties, but also refers to friends, co-workers, etc. Let's not have a rationale that e.g. allows someone to love an adopted grandchild child of a different race less than a natural born one.)

My good friend Bill R. pegs the end of the Catechism quote correctly. And I'd like to know how you square it with your previous statement

"I want my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren to look like me."

which unavoidably implies that you would love them less if they do *not* look like you than if they do.

You also completely misread my reference to "The Screwtape Letters" -- from which it appears you either haven't read or don't understand that estimable work. I said nothing about that shift in attention being a calculating rationale. It is an objective description of what actually happens, whether the person doing it is aware of that or not. (Indeed, as Screwtape points out to Wormwood, it is critical to prevent the "patient" from being aware that he is doing it.)

FWIW, I am a catholic Christian -- albeit Anglican, not RC, which may not count in your book. But it's rather beside the point here, as this is a point in the realm of "mere Christianity," not doctrinal disagreement between denominations. So let's not drag any red herrings on that score in here.

I will be away for three days, and will likely not have access to MC during that time. I presume the discussion will move far beyond this without me, and that this is likely my last post on this thread.

[Bruce]

"FWIW, I am a catholic Christian -- albeit Anglican, not RC"

Me too. TAC.

If I'm reading you right, you seem to be saying that admitting (even to ourselves) that our love for others is discriminatory in measure is un-Christian because it seeks to put ourselves in control re who determines the measure. Or are you just saying that admitting such with particular circumstances or conditions in mind like I did (presumably the principle would not just be limited to the one circumstance I named) leads to the error you perceive? Are you saying that we should believe that Christian love is indiscriminant in measure, take the sacrament, let God work in us (sincerely of course), and if discriminatory measures of love result then we can be assured that we're still being turned into angels and not devils?

What we believe Christianity teaches does effect the results and even more so for many (yourselves not included of course) people now days who see the sacraments as quaint superstitions and have replaced them with lots of precious-moments-greeting-card sentimentality and emotion not to mention the good feelings that the modern cult-of-the-self person gets from holding certain PC positions.

PS. I'm not trying to win an argument and I don't consider my trying to learn from more mature Christians such as yourselves by asking questions and presenting scenarios to be "trolling."

[Bruce]

Is the quoted catechism un-Christian? It says we SHOULD have a greater measure of love for some than for others based on certain conditions (whether or not they're the ones I suggest are relevant). This would lead one to determine a priori based on our understanding of Christian morality that we will love some more than others based on some sort of class or distinction whether ethnic or not and whether or not we identify a specific person whom we will love less.

You say again that I "still want a rationale for either not loving certain people at all..."
Horse apples. I never said we can choose to love (in the Christian sense) someone "not at all." If that were the case, I could go find the person who is most genetically different from me and do anything I want to to him.

As Bill says, these things reflect a commonsensical notion (as Bill says and I wholeheartedly agree with). It's a commonsensical notion to me that people need some sense of continuity of ancestral idenity.

[GL]

>>>It's a commonsensical notion to me that people need some sense of continuity of ancestral idenity.<<<

My last post here was an attempt to extend a hand and give you the benefit of the doubt after your first post. However, your post from which I quote herein requires a different response.

As an amateur genealogist, I understand your point and, as such, I also understand that one is hopelessly naive if he takes it as far as your first post here would have it. For what one finds if he searches back far enough into his ancestry is that he descends from a wide variety of folks. I, for example, am primarily of Northern European descent, with ancestors from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England and Germany. I also, however, have Native American ancestry and, perhaps (though I cannot prove it) through the same line, some African ancestry. (I have reason to believe that I can count Melungeons (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon) among my ancestors, a people group from the Appalachians whose origins are in some dispute, but most likely include a mixture of early European settlers, Native Americans and run away slaves). While you would not guess that I had such ancestry by looking at me, you might if you were looking at some of my first cousins. In fact, many, if not most, white Southerners have at least some amount of Native American ancestry. In the early days of the settlement of the South, the type of prejudice against interracial marriage evidenced in your first post was not present.

As to my present extended family, I have cousins who have Mexican ancestry. Indeed, one of my dear childhood playmates, now sadly deceased, was a first cousin once removed whose father was Mexican. I never knew my grandparents to discriminate in anyway against him and it broke the heart of all of our family when he was murdered in his early twenties. I have another first cousin once removed who is married to a man whose ancestry is a mixture of Cajun and Vietnamese. My wife has a first cousin once removed whose father is African American. While perhaps less objectionable to you, my sister is married to a very wonderful man of Eastern European descent.

Given my family history, I frankly found your first post highly offensive. However, I refrained from saying so and decided to address your post in a less confrontational tone. I am not much for folks carrying around chips on their shoulders. Nonetheless, that someone would decide, a priori, to love a family member less simply because he did not look like himself is extremely unChristian and has not the slightest support anywhere in Scripture. Of course, one can find examples of family members who objected to the outsider spouse chosen by a sibling or other family member, (e.g., "Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman." Number 12:1, but a reading of Numbers 12 would not lend to support to one advocating your views who would wish to point to them as an approved example). And, of course, our Lord included in his own ancestry Moabites, a nation not exactly near and dear to the heart of the people of ancient Israel.

The fact is that the Bible teaches that we are all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve and that "[t]here is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

In summary, one can find some sense of continuity of ancestral identity without treating family members who fail to meet some fantasized ideal as lesser members. You really should get over your view of some idealized pedigree. If your family has been in America for many generations, your idealized ethnically pure line is likely less ethnically pure than you think. If you are a more recent arrival, your ethnically pure line will soon be less ethnically pure than you would apparently like. In either event, your ideas of ethnic purity are misguided to say the least.

[Bill R]

"As Bill says, these things reflect a commonsensical notion (as Bill says and I wholeheartedly agree with). It's a commonsensical notion to me that people need some sense of continuity of ancestral idenity."

What I said related to what the Catechism referred to, namely, family, faith, and country. Neither the Catechism nor I mentioned ancestry or race. I heartily second GL's post, above. The "ancestral identity" that I identify with is Christian: the Church Triumphant. And what I see is not a common facial feature or hair color, but rather a common heart and a common faith. That is my identity.

[GL]

>>>The "ancestral identity" that I identify with is Christian: the Church Triumphant.<<<

Amen and amen. And that is the identity which I pray that all my descendants have, whatever the color of their skin, hair and eyes.

[Bruce]

GL,You read lots of things into what I wrote. You previously falsely stated that I said we are free to choose to show no Christian love to people. I never said anything about "purity" and think it's a silly concept that doesn't exist and never did. "some sense of continuity of ancestral idenity" doesn't equal racial purity. What I see is a consistent tactic to scare people by reading in your fears and anxieties. "the statement quoted at the opening of this post is the hidden rationale for abortion, euthanasia, cloning, etc"-Altena and "fantacized ideals" of "purity"-GL

Neither of you attempted to answer my questions (which were sincere). In Altena's absense maybe you could take a stab at them. Must we spread our love uniformly across the whole human race in an indiscriminant manner or is the catechism quoted correct? If so, what discriminants and distinctions are valid? Family? If so, how far out? Nation? Which definition of nation? The traditional which included ties of blood? The modern nation state? Nations based on propositions? What principles do we use to decide which ones aren't valid as discriminants. Why are ties of blood anathema?

[GL]

You, Bruce, are attempting to obfuscate. This began with your saying, "I want my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren to look like me. I want them to have blond hair and blue eyes and identify with the same ancestral groups that I indentify with."

I then asked you a couple of simple questions, "Given that you have no control over the genetic make up of your grandchildren and later descendants, would you receive with as much love and acceptance a descendant who is of mixed race as you would one who has blond hair and blue eyes? Would you accept and love to the same degree such a descendant who identified with their non-caucasian ancestry?"

You answered those questions as follows: "No.

I don't necessarily love my actual children to the same degree as one another. Isn't that biblical, particuarly OT?"

You have since tried to justify a stated decision on your part to not love one of your own descendants as much before he was even conceived and before you could know anything about him based solely on the color of his hair and eyes with a tangentially related quote from the Confraternity Edition of the Baltimore Catechism. We aren't talking here about unrelated (actually, distantly related) folks from other nations and we are talking about people who already exist and of whom you have some knowledge. You said you would not love and accept as much a grandchild of your own of mixed race as you would one who looked like you simply and for no other reason than his not looking like you.

I'm not sure that I have the competence of answering the questions you asked. It certainly would take more time and reflection than I care to give to it. I do have the competency to address the issue that got us started here. Deciding that you would not fully love and accept your own potential grandchild because he doesn't look like you, assuming that such a grandchild were to be born to one of your children, is a sin. You haven't confessed that you know that such an attitude is a sin. In fact, you have given every indication that you believe such an attitude is not only understandable, but perfectly acceptable and licit.

I never wrote that you said we are free to choose to show no Christian love to people. If anyone said that, it wasn't me. Nor am I using scare tactics. I am, however, trying to communicate that I find what you said in reply to my questions repugnant.

I am through with this thread.

[GL]

That should have read: "We aren't talking here about unrelated (actually, distantly related) folks from other nations and we are nottalking about people who already exist and of whom you have some knowledge."

[Bill R]

"Must we spread our love uniformly across the whole human race in an indiscriminant manner or is the catechism quoted correct?"

I'll bring this to an end as well for myself, after one last comment. Affection (storge) is based to a large degree on familiarity. We love family, faith, and country based largely on our familiarity with them. But pace C.S. Lewis's definitions, our duties of love as agape are much broader and, ultimately, deeper than are our duties of love as storge. It is when we confuse the "loves" that we have problems. Bruce, if you're not to devolve into "trollishness" once again, read (or re-read) Lewis's "The Four Loves" and come back for a visit. The conversation will still be going on, albeit most likely in a new thread.

[Bruce]

Forgive my trying to get the last word. Before he left, GL wrote (my comments inserted):

"You have since tried to justify a stated decision on your part to not love one of your own descendants [THAT IT'S MY OWN DESCENDENT SEEMS TO ESPECIALLY BOTHER YOU BUT "DESCENDENT" IS A CATEGORY OF THE FLESH EVERY BIT AS MUCH AS RACE OR EXTENDED FAMILY, WHY'S ONE OK AND ANOTHER ANATHEMA??] as much before he was even conceived and before you could know anything about him based solely on the color of his hair and eyes [I SAID I USED HYPERBOLIC LANGUAGE TO GET A POINT ACROSS DIRECTLY, ABOUT HALF THE PEOPLE IN MY FAMILY DON'T HAVE BLONDE HAIR AND/OR BLUE EYES, YOU MIGHT STOP TARRRING ME WITH THIS BRUSH SINCE I ADMITED MY INDISCRETION] with a tangentially related quote [YES IT WAS SOMEWHAT TANGENTIAL, I INCLUDED IT FOR DISCUSSION NOT TO PROVE MY PARTICULAR POINT]from the Confraternity Edition of the Baltimore Catechism."

I won't know how I'll really react until it happens. What was provided was a reaction to a hypothetical situation. I wouldn't not feed him if he were hungry. I wouldn't not clothe him if he were naked. I wouldn't want to transgress the commandments against him. That much I can tell you.

God made distinct peoples. Distinct peoples wouldn't exist without a preference for one's own. This doesn't imply we owe nothing to others. Distinct peoples always have existed during the Christian era. Presumably, historic Christians believed in these realities.

I like Lewis too Bill and I like to quote him. But he's not the final say on "Mere Christianity."

What really provoked my indescretion was the implicit slur of whites by the author. It's enough that we have to have multi-cultism shoved down our throats from dawn till dusk. But to have the reality of our overwhelming racial benevolence inverted so that we need to put away our racist hostilities(a non-existant phenomena among whites whom I think this was directed at but it's vague enought that he could deny this) and battle a non-existant phenomena. Well, that's just rubbing our nose in it. Again, what planet does he live on? All around me I see enormous numbers of whites (both Christian and non-Christian)adopting non-whites (usually after the Christian father gets castrated... err.. vasectomized). There's no resistance to this. He seems to be jousting at phantoms.

[James A. Altena]

Having returned from my travels, I can only say that Bruce's posts have become so thoroughly disingenuous, in his twisting of both his own previous words and those of others, that there is no point in further response to them. One cannot have a genuine, let alone civil, debate with someone who resort to tactics so thoroughly dishonest.

[Bruce]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Bernadette]

The big question is: as Christians, who are we immidating? Christ! And...what would Jesus do? Find the same race parents for the respective child? I don't think so...
The love of Christ does not see color/race/tradition/culture etc.