The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption: A response

When I used to teach marriage conferences with my late coauthor, we drew on John Gottman’s research-based work that identifies the four most damaging patterns in marriage: withdrawal, escalation, invalidation, and negative interpretation. In the case of the latter, “no good deed goes unpunished.” If a husband brings home movie tickets for his wife, she assumes he bought them only because he wanted to see the film. If she buys him a pair of boots, he assumes she did so because she thinks his shoes are ugly.  In thewords of my father, “Damned if you do; damned if you don’t.”

Negative interpretation, like the other three communicationpatterns, is lethal to a marriage. And what negative interpretation is to amarriage, Kathryn Joyce’s book The ChildCatchers is to evangelicals in the world of adoption.

That word “Gospel” in the title was clearly chosen for itssemantic domain. Indeed, the dust jacket makes the connection overtly: the abusers of the adoptionsystem are the “tens of millions of evangelicals to whom adoption is the newfront in the culture wars.”

Let me state up front that I’m the parent of an adoptee, and I believe in adoption: biasnumber one. And I’m an evangelical: bias numerodos. Yet while these two truths about me could not help but influence how I read Kathryn Joyce’sbook, I agreed with much of what she had to say. So much so that I think those involved in the adoption triand should read herwork. The fact is, Christians and adoption could benefit from acourse correction.

In my husband’s capacity as East Africa field leader forEast-West Ministries—which has a child sponsorship program in Kitale, Kenya—oneof his tasks is to find sponsors to help keep kids in school. For children withno living parents, the African nationals who do the work on the ground haveseen to it that all orphaned children stay with their extended biologicalfamilies. The child sponsorships help make this possible for poor people. And parentless children who have no extended families to care for them go to the homes of theirlocal church members. No one goes to an orphanage. And no one comes to America.We are committed to keeping these children in their home communities. Why? Noone should lose access to a family member just because that family is poor.

But enter the millionaire do-gooders. They come along and,without consulting the local churches or organizations, erect orphanages andput their names on them. And some nationals see filling those orphanages as a way to get Western funds. So the would-be saviors inflict harm and feel goodabout it.

Indeed, often Westerners’ wealth contributes tocorruption. Poverty-stricken parents may be told their children have beenoffered an education program. Only later do these parents learn that the “exchangeprogram” they signed up for legally terminated their parental rights.

About such situations Joyce writes, “Western parentscontinue to display an incredible willingness to believe the stories of theirchildren’s provenance despite the fact that so many read as remarkably the same:hundreds of children allegedly left on police station doorsteps, swaddled inblankets and waiting to be found—a modern-day version of Moses’ basket amongthe reeds. In reality, the abandonment of babies is not such a commonoccurrence.”

Up to this point in the paragraph I agreed. But then she added,“But among Christian adopters lining up, the stories usually go unchallenged”(133). Yet she knows the phenomenon is not unique to Christians.

Only a few pages earlier, she had written about abirthmother saying that “unless she placed her child for adoption with a Mormonfamily, she would not get to the highest level of heaven” (124). She lumps in Mormons with evangelicals?

Joyce tells stories of corruption and injustice that includeeven Angelina Jolie (136), whose efforts the author sees as misguided—a reference that might be fine if the bookwas broadly about adoption. But it’s about adoption andhow evangelicals have messed up.  Sobasically, the author has gathered all the negative examples she can find andblamed the entire fire in Rome on the Christians. Never mind that many of thepeople in her stories who suffer at the hands of unethical adoption brokers areChristians themselves.

At times it seems Joyce is driven to bring up every beef she’sever had with evangelicals. In one chapter she criticizes the campaign to getrid of Kony (what does that have to do with adoption?), likening it toChristian fad advocacy (40). Shemakes Christians guilty by association (there's lots of guilt by association in this book) with the “Orphan Train” of theChildren’s Aid Society (45). She accuses Rick Warren of grandstanding (53) andassigns ill motives to those whose intentions she can’t know. She describes themovement within Christendom toward adoption as “a way for conservatives todemonstrate their compassionate side, making their antiabortion activism seemmore truly pro-life (56). She cynically describes microbusinesses as  being “money-making ventures” (150). You get theidea.

If someone does approach adoption in a way that sheconsiders just or right, she uses words withnegative nuances to describe the way they dress or wear their hair. She accusesChristians of not helping birth mothers. So the reader might expect that shewould applaud the work of Pregnancy Resource Centers (PRCs) with their free servicesthat include sonograms, classes, cribs, and diaper bags. But no Christians get a free pass. Instead, Joycequotes a critic’s assessment of PRC’s: “They say they want to help people in acrisis pregnancy, but really, they want to help themselves to a baby.” Thefacts do not bear this out. Adoption discussions are rare in PRCs, which focus onhelping birthmothers parent.

Like a good journalist, Joyce interviews people onboth sides of a story. But then she always sides with the person criticizingthe adoptive parents (e.g., 122). Part of her bias is that she is self-describedas “secular and pro-choice”—so much so that she cannot seem to imagine thatsomeone else could hold an opposite point of view from her and simultaneously be a reasonable person.

All this bias is bad. Especially because she says somethings we need to hear, and her inability to judge fairly gets in the way of her journalism.

Still, I committed to sorting through her negativeinterpretations. And having done so, I found that I agreed with about 70percent of her analysis. We evangelicals have made some mistakes—some big,huge, gaping-wound ones—in the world of adoption. The following areas arewhere I had points of agreement with her.

We should be able to assume that Christians havethe highest standards of ethics and justice. But believers have often been sofocused on rescuing that we've even bent the rules, justifying our behavior bypointing to the desperate kids. In the process we hurt ourtestimony and provide an incentive for corruption.

Birthparents andadoptees need better advocates. The people in the adoption equation withmoney are usually adoptive parents, not birth parents. Thus, the laws are moreskewed toward adoptive parents’ rights, not birth parents’, and certainly notthe adoptees. Because of this power differential, Christians should be on thefront lines speaking up for those who can’t speak for themselves (Prov. 31:8).

Money corrupts. Anytimewe show up with money in a context of deep poverty, we provide an incentive forcorruption. That is not to say we should not show up. But it does mean weshould have many checks and balances in place, and we must serve the nationalson the ground who know their subcultures better than outsiders do. And weshould never give money to people to do things they could do for themselves.

It is in the bestinterest of families for them to stay together. We should be more focused on keeping families together than rushing kids into the arms of waitingfamilies. The trauma that comes from having kids taken away, from being rippedaway from parents, from losing a community connection—these stay with peoplefor life and leave gaping wounds. We should look to adoption only as a lastresort. When nations slow their process of approving international adoptions in order to better investigate the babies' backgrounds, we should be slow to criticize.

We should cry ratherthan only rejoicing. When a new family is formed by adoption, thatpronouncement evidences someone’s brokenness. And this is where human adoptiondiffers significantly from our spiritual adoption. God created us in the firstplace. So when we become his children through adoption, we are actually twicehis. Thus, spiritual adoption is a picture of restoration. Not so with humanadoption. While it reflects deep unconditional love and choice on the part ofthe parent, it still does not picture restoration. Rather, it is sometimes a goodsolution to a tragic situation. But we often deny the tragedy.

If Jesus is the truth, weshould be zealous about truth-telling. That means we stop exaggerating thenumber of children available for adoption. It also means we go to great lengthsto verify that a child actually has no parents when we classify him or her asan “orphan.”

We must stop “caringfor orphans” at the expense of widows. We wrongly separate the phrase“widows and orphans” (Jas. 1:27); the two often go together. In many parts of theworld, when the dad/husband disappears for whatever reason, the family getssplit up. So our compassion to widows should involve fighting to keep thatfamily together rather than guilting destitute moms into giving their kids a“better life.” It is bad enough to lose a spouse; but to lose a child becauseyou lost a spouse…and to lose that child only because you are poor—Christians! Wemust do a better job of speaking up for the widow! Sending such a child toricher parents is not the best way to care for widows—or orphans.

We need a moreaccurate understanding of biblical adoption. We say adoption is a biblicalconcept, but often there’s a big gap between what we mean by “adoption” andwhat the biblical writers meant. We use Moses as an example of adoption, butMoses is actually an example of a failed adoption.Through his story we see that children never stop identifying with theirpeople—a good reason to keep families together. God used Moses’s tragedy forgood, but that does not make what happened to him a beautiful thing. Moses’sseparation from his family of origin was a disaster caused by great evil.We use Esther as a biblicalexample of adoption. But Esther was raised by a family member, not strangers.Inall the laws laid out for the people of Israel, everything from instructionsabout textiles to medical concerns, not one word is written, not one lawdictated, about adoption. People dealt with infertility either by resorting topolygamy (e.g., Hannah, 1 Samuel 1) or levirate marriage. People dealt with thedeath of parents through extended family. In either case the inheritance stayedwithin the family unit.

BeforeAbraham impregnated Hagar or Sarah, he assumed Eliezer would inherit his goods (Gen.15:3). At that time, the whole point of adoption was that a man needed a maleheir—and he found an adult male if he had no son. The emphasis was on inheritance. It was not about a littlechild entering a new family and being nurtured as if that child were their own.

Somesee adoption in Psalm 2:7: “I will proclaim the LORD’s decree: He said to me, 'You are myson; today, I have become your father.'” The emphasis here is on the Father’s choice. And also on inheritance. Thinkof this in Messianic terms: The Son who was already the Son inherits all theFather has—the world.

Inthe intertestament period, Julius Caesar made provision in his will—that is,posthumously—to adopt his great-nephew, Gaius Octavius Thurinus, 19, known tous as Octavian, or more likely, Caesar Augustus. This legal pronouncement madeAugustus the heir. Everyone in the world of Paul and John, the two New Testamentwriters who spoke of adoption, would have known this.

Inthe New Testament, Paul writes, “For you did not receive the spirit ofslavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whomwe cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that weare God’s children. And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and alsofellow heirs with Christ)…  (Rom. 8:15–17).Note the contrast with slavery and the connection of adoption with inheritance.

Inheritance is not the first thingWesterners think of when we adopt, but it would have been an integral part of theNew Testament writers’ perceptions of adoption.

InGalatians 4:4–5, Paul writes, “But when the appropriate time had come, God sentout his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who wereunder the law, so that we may be adopted as sons with full rights.” Notice theemphasis on rights. The contrastwould be with slavery, in which a person had no rights, not even to his or herown body.  

In Ephesians 1: 5–6 we read thatGod “did this [choosing us] by predestining us to adoption as his sons throughJesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will— to the praise of the gloryof his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son.” Theemphasis here is on God’s choice, not ours. We did nothing.

Inshort, while biblical adoption is secondarily about love and affection, it isprimarily a picture of choice and benefits, especially of inheritance.

Some parents need torethink the language they use with adopted kids. Parents who viewthemselves as saving waifs who should be eternally grateful for the gift ofparents have it backwards. Yes, children are to honor their parents, butScripture says “Children are a giftfrom the Lord” (Ps. 127:3, italics mine). The parents are the ones who shouldbe expressing gratitude. Imagine if Pharaoh’s daughter had communicated, “Youare so lucky you got pulled away from those slaves. Here in the palace, you arerich. And loved. Your life is so much better than it would have been. Youshould act more grateful.” Our kids are better served by our grieving with themabout their loss as we express our gratitude to God that he has blessed us withthem.

Nobody should adopt akid to gain gold stars with God. Nor should they speak of adoption asrescuing, doing good works, or as anything remotely associated with charity.That’s insulting. Nor should they assume they will “save” kids spiritually byadopting them.

We should never usethe Bible as an Ouija Board. That is—opening the text and getting a“message” that has nothing to do with the context or authorial intent. Theauthor objects to this, and I agree. Some believers she interviewed spoke ofreceiving messages from God this way. Often they justified their questionable practicesbecause they said God told them to do what they were doing. Certainly God canspeak through a donkey, but that does not mean it is his preferred method. Suchan approach is not “handling accurately the Word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).

Children with specialneeds require a lot of extra love and affection. Let me say that again. If the kids have special needs, they require extra love and attention and services. Parents who keep adopting sixteen more kids when they have already adopted some with special needs should do so only in a context of much accountability and counsel. Because in thesame way that some people can’t seem to stop having plastic surgery, some can’tseem to stop looking for babies to adopt.  The church and adoption agencies musthelp them. We have a responsibility to the kids, if not the parents, in suchsituations.

Sometimes God chooses those who oppose us to help us see thetruth. In the ironic story of Jonah, the lost sailors were more righteous thanGod’s prophet. In the story of Baalam, the donkey—not the person chosen as God’smouthpiece—spoke the truth. In the case of TheChildcatchers, an author who negatively interprets just about everything Christiansdo still gets some things right.

Our Father twice-over accepts this as pure and faultless:that we look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep ourselves frombeing unstained by the world. May the apple start to fall a little closer to the tree.