“Mom,” asks Evan, my nine-year old son, “Will we see Bubbles in heaven? Because she belonged to an evangelical family?”
My husband Andrew and I snort back our laughter and Andrew, a pastor, launches into his theological exposition on whether or not animals have souls. But Evan’s right – Bubbles was an “evangelical” bunny. In more ways than one.
~~~
“Will you adopt my bobby?”
Bubbles represents our first “adoption.”
In her book, The Child Catchers, Kathryn Joyce criticizes the growing trend of evangelical adoptions in preference for her own pro-choice stance. She accuses adoption of being an “industry driven largely by money and Western demand, justified by a misguided savior complex that blinds Americans to orphans’ existing family ties and assumes that tickets to America for a handful of children are an appropriate fix for an entire culture living in poverty”
That’s a pretty hard-hitting (and cruel) commentary on Evangelical culture. But even if adoption is a mere trend, or a bored first-world response to privilege and luxury, every child still deserves the chance to know Christ. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, whether the gospel is preached from good motives or bad, we should rejoice that the gospel is being preached. So if adoption is a new bandwagon for young evangelicals, then I guess I wear that badge of young, orphan-loving evangelical.
This post was first published at ibelieve.com. Mosey on over there to read the rest…