Customer Reviews

Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches

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4 star:		(7)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

In the years since I began reviewing books, I have read titles on a wide variety of topics. But it occurred to me as I considered Russell Moore's title Adopted for Life that I had never read a book that dealt entirely with adoption. Sure, adoption has factored into books on family and books on theology, but never had I read a full-length treatment of the subject. Having heard so much positive press surrounding Adopted for Life I thought it might be wise to give it a read. I'm glad I did.

It might be easy to write off a book like this one, assuming that it only has relevance to families who are actually considering adopting a child. But Moore's ambition goes beyond asking young families to adopt orphaned children. "In this book I want to call us all to consider how encouraging adoption--whether we adopt or whether we help others adopt--can help us peer into the ancient mystery of our faith in Christ and can help us restore the fracturing unity and the atrophied mission of our congregation." As Moore explains, "The gospel of Jesus Christ means our families and churches ought to be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans close to home and around the world." It is the gospel that calls us to adopt but it is also the gospel that teaches us how to understand adoption. In fact, "as we become more adoption-friendly, we'll be better able to understand the gospel." And so this book is for anyone and everyone.

It is important to note that this is not a how-to book; it does not provide step-by-step instructions for adopting (since there are already plenty of books that do just that and do it well). "Instead I want to ask what it would mean if our churches and families were known as the people who adopt babies--and toddlers, and children, and teenagers. What if we as Christians were known, once again, as the people who take in orphans and make of them beloved sons and daughters?" No one can claim that every person is called to adopt. But it does seem that all Christians are meant to think about the issue since we all have a stake in it. After all, God himself has a stake in it as the "Father of the fatherless" and the One who tells us that pure and undefiled religion is to comfort orphans.

Through nine chapters, Moore first lays theological groundwork for adoption and then turns to matters that are perhaps just a bit more practically applicable (not that I wish to draw too firm a line between theology and practice). In the first chapter he explains why you ought to read the book, even if you do not want to. In chapter two he explains what some rude questions about adoption taught him about the gospel of Christ. After that he turns to what is at stake in this discussion and then gives pastoral counsel on how to know if you or someone you love should consider adoption. He looks to practical aspects of navigating the adoption process (reassuring readers that it is not nearly as bad as most people seem to believe it is) and then covers some of the uncomfortable questions that arise--health concerns, racial identity, and so on. The seventh chapter explains how churches can encourage adoptions and the eighth shows how parents, children and friends can think about growing up adopted. He closes with some concluding thoughts which tie theology and practice into his own family (in which he and his wife adopted two boys before the Lord opened the womb and granted them two more, though he playfully insists he can no longer remember which of his sons are adopted and which are not!). In fact, Moore and his family figure prominently throughout the book as he describes the joys and challenges of welcoming adopted children to his family.

I know from talking to friends who have adopted that there are good books detailing the practicalities of adopting, whether that involves fund-raising or family integration or any other of the many factors involved. I know as well that there are many good books on the gospel and the doctrine of adoption. But I do not know of any that so perfectly put one within the context of the other. This book would make a valuable read for any Christian; perhaps I say that for too many books; I don't know. But I do know that every Christian stands to benefit from reading this one. I believe it is a must-read for anyone who has ever considered adoption and for anyone who has a friend or family member who is in the midst of it. It is a must-read for any young couple, even those who have never thought about adoption. And it ought to have a place in every church library.

When watching sports you sometimes hear a coach tell his players to "leave it all on the field (or on the court or on the diamond)." This coach expects his players to give it their best effort, to walk into the locker room at the end of the day knowing that they could not have done any better. And I really felt this is what Moore did here; I felt like he put a lot of himself into this book, that it took a lot out of him to write it, and that it really does represent a passionate effort on his part. And it shows. The book perfectly combines the theological foundation with the practical outworking of that theology. It has wisdom for the adopter, the adopted and the families, friends and churches of both. It is undoubtedly one of the best books I've read this year. I hope you'll consider reading it too.

My wife and I are currently going through the adoption process and as a Christian I have been very disappointed with most of the books on adoptions that I have read. Not all, but many books are humanistic and have little regard for God's role in the adoption process. With "Adopted of Life" Moore does an amazing job of looking at the link between a physical adoption and spiritual adoption while also weaving in him and his wife's own story of their decision to adopt. I laughed and cried as I read this book and gained much insight from it. Dr. Moore does not look on adoption as a negative experience as many authors do but instead focuses on God's grace and plan in the adoption experience. One of the best books I have read, you won't be disappointed.

Adopted for Life is a compelling, thought provoking book that looks at a theology of adoption. Moore is the dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

This is a very readable book that links adoption and the gospel in persuasive way. Moore has thought deeply about the doctrine of adoption and its intrinsic relationship to the gospel. He has also thought very deeply about adoption as a reality in today's world. He and his wife have adopted two boys and are walking through the process of raising their family. His insights are moving; his style is gripping. As a pastor with families that have adopted, it has given me a fresh understanding of how to apply the gospel in that context.

The first part of the book is densely packed with parallels between the gospel message and adoption. The final chapters deal with some of the issues that adoptive parents face during the adoption process and after, as they raise their families.

Dr. Moore is passionate about this topic and he is very thoughtful of his exposition of pertinent Scriptures. That makes for a credible read. My eyes filled with tears more than once as I considered this vital topic.

I highly recommend this book for potential adoptive parents, for grandparents, for pastors, and for thoughtful Christians who want to be biblically informed regarding this topic.

I had a reason from real life for wanting to read this book. My sister adopted three children recently, so adoption is a subject we've all been talking and thinking about lately. I had a copy of Adopted for Life sent to her first and then decided that I should request a copy for me to review.

Russell Moore wants Christians to be known "once again, as the people who take in orphans and make of them beloved sons and daughters," because, for one, we are called to be like our Father, doing what he does, and our Father "is fighting for orphans, making them sons and daughters. And second, adoption is evangelistic:

"What better way is there to bring the good news of Christ than to see his unwanted little brothers and sisters placed in families where they'll be raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?"

It's this last point that my sister mentioned when she gave me her assessment of this book. She has, as you might imagine, read lots of books on adoption, some by Christian authors, but this book was unique in setting adoption in the context of the gospel. My sister struggled when deciding whether or not to adopt. She is not young and doesn't have a big income, but, she says, she kept coming back to the fact that these children "might not otherwise know Jesus." She found Moore's book to be encouraging, like "a big pat on the back."

Adopted for Life starts with what I'm calling the theology of adoption: What it means that God has adopted us and how our understanding of our adoption as sons of God should influence believers and the church to make adoption of children a priority. The last part deals with things of more practical nature, like paperwork, finances, issues of race and health, how churches can encourage adoption and how we all--parents, children and friends--should think about growing up adopted. But always, the theological and the practical are intertwined, for it's understanding the theology of adoption that guides Moore as he works out the practice of adoption, and the practical questions are answered by modeling God's adoption of his sons. (And I purposefully use the word sons when speaking of our adoption rather than sons and daughters. In Christ, women and girls receive sonship, for we are true heirs of all of the promises.)

Reading Adopted for Life may make you reconsider some of the ideas you may have about the right way to raise adopted children. For example, Moore and his wife don't see their adopted sons' Russian heritage as their true heritage any longer.

"[W]e hardly want to signal to them that they are strangers and aliens, even welcome ones, in our home. We teach them about their heritage, yes, but their heritage as Mississippians. They hear, then, about their great-grandfather, a faithful Baptist pastor from Tippah County. ... They learn about their people before them in the Confederate army and the civil rights movement.

...They share our lives, and our story. They belong here. They are Moores now, with all that entails."

The theological foundation for this view is that when we were adopted by God, our heritage changes:

"Whether our background is Norwegian or Haitian or Indonesian, if we are united to Christ, our family genealogy is found not primarily in the front pages of our dusty old family Bible but inside its pages, in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Our identity is in Christ; so his people are our people, his God our God."

This goes against the usual advice given to parents adopting children of a different race or nationality, but there is theological warrant, it would seem, for raising adopted children without an emphasis on learning about their original culture. I'm still unsure exactly what to make of this, but I'm glad Russell Moore raised this issue.

Though his book is strong on theology, Moore's style is conversational. The text is laced with illustrations from stories of his own experience as an adoptive father or the experiences of his friends and acquaintances who have adopted. Theology and stories--it's an engaging package.

How can I not recommend a book as unique as Adopted for Life? There is no other book quite like it, a book to help you understand your own adoption by your heavenly Father and how you can be like him by helping to make adoption a priority in your family and in your the church. Who will benefit from reading it? Those who've adopted, those who've been adopted, those who are considering adoption, those who know someone in the previous categories on this list, and those who've experienced the adoption that comes through Christ. That's any believer, isn't it?

I'll be donating my own copy--marks and all--to my church library because I think every church library should have one. It would also, I'd suggest, be useful to read Adopted for Life and discuss it in a church study group, since the ideas beg to be implemented in the community of the church.

I was a young teen when God first started hinting that I was going to be an adoptive mom someday. At the time, I had a rosy picture of adoption. Babies who didn't have parents were matched with couples who didn't have babies- perfect for everyone! In the ensuing years I've become more acquainted with some of the ethical problems with adoption. At this point I have no interest at all in adopting a child a living parent (though I would be happy to foster such children when situations necessitate). I have no interest in competing with other couples for white American infants in a supply-demand market flooded with demand. But I still plan on adoption. Until reading this book, I was pretty set on adopting a healthy infant with no living parents, knowing that my waiting period would likely be longer with those critera.

As a relatively new Christian, the ideas presented in this book about how the theology of biblical adoption should inform the practice of child adoption were brand new to me. I was particularly moved by the idea that God doesn't selectively adopt the most promising available people, and I felt convicted of my pride in assuming that it would be best for me to seek a healthy infant as opposed to an older child or a child with special needs. As a psychiatric nurse, I have a background that makes me uniquely prepared (though no one, I'm sure, is ever really prepared) to raise a child adopted at an older age. Reading this book has likely changed the course of my life in that way.

This book was really reassuring and informative about the basics of the adoption process. He discusses choosing a good agency and letting them help with decisions, raising money, and other details, but mostly he reminds readers that the details of "how" are less important than "what" and "why" and are generally able to be worked out in the end. While every journey has difficult surprises, this reassurance was helpful for me.

Like another review mentioned, the author mentions that he places little priority on teaching his adopted children about their birth heritage. The author's children are white and this may be easier for him for that reason, but I feel (and so does my Hispanic husband) that all adoptions, particularly interracial adoptions, necessitate some special attention to a child's heritage of birth. Children who look different than the people around them need to know about where they come from in order to be proud of their skin color. I was fairly uncomfortable with that part of the book, hence the four stars.

Overall I really enjoyed and highly recommend this book.

Dr. Moore has done a wonderful service for orphans and the church alike with Adopted For Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christians Families & Churches.

The church has so many competing priorities clamoring for attention (and money) and many of them are only superficially Kingdom work. Adoption can be lost in the shuffle but we lose sight of adoption at our peril. There is a consistent theme of God's concern for the orphan and the fatherless throughout the Scriptures and adoption of an orphan into a loving family is the single greatest picture of the grace of God we can be involved in. We can talk and talk about theology all day long and quote our favorite Puritan to impress people at a party but when we adopt a child we show people the Gospel instead of just talking about it. There are of course other ways to care for orphans, such as supporting groups like The Haiti Orphan project, but adoption is one of the clearest pictures of the Gospel a Christian family can engage in.

Adopted for Life is a comprehensive survey of adoption and it attempts (and for the most part succeeds) in covering the gamut when it comes to adoption, looking at the theological underpinnings of adoption, examining practical considerations, offering helpful advice, hammering those who oppose "cross-racial" adoption and providing advice for the Body of Christ on ways to support adopting parents and foster a culture of adoption in the church. Because Dr. Moore covers so much ground, none of the sections gets a truly thorough treatment but this book is clearly aimed at introducing people to adoption and has to cover a lot of ground. As far as an introductory survey to the topic, I can't imagine there is a better treatment out there.

I liked the way he dealt with our usual view of adoption, which is often seen as something to be considered as a last resort when a couple is unable to have children. After trying everything you can ethically to have a child, when you finally give up, then consider adoption. I would love to see families that have children "naturally" and are adopting children at the same time. What a wonderful blessing that would be for that family, for the children being adopted and for the witness of the church! I also appreciate that Dr. Moore has no use for those who question cross-racial adoptions. There are a ton of children who are not Caucasian who need families and a lot of Caucasian families who are in a position to adopt. Should we deny these children a home because they have different color skin or differently shaped eyes?

The weakest chapter dealt with adoption and the local church. While I think Dr. Moore's advice would be great in a traditional church setting, I think it also is held captive by our traditional understanding of what the local church is, how it should function and where its priorities should be. Dr. Moore calls on the local church to financially aid couples seeking adoption but suggests restricting aid to "members" and he reassures readers that the local church can financially support couples without interfering with the general budget. Given the very real call to care for the orphan in Scripture and the silence in the same for most of what local churches spend their "general fund" money on, i.e. buildings and staff, I would rather he call on local churches to make adoption a priority over hiring another pastor or buying the latest, greatest VBS curriculum. If you don't have room for adoption in your general fund, your general fund priorities are out of whack.

In some places, especially early on, Dr. Moore gets a little scattered. His thoughts sort of meander a bit which can make it difficult to follow his reasoning but he also is often putting down his own personal experiences and the emotionalism of those events makes it hard to write cogently. He also tends to force Scripture into his ideas, I found some of the parenthetical Scriptural references to be a bit of a stretch. I am always a bit nervous when you toss a parenthetical Scripture reference at the end of a sentence with no context.

Overall though, this as an excellent book, a great resource for those who are thinking about adopting and those who are personally familiar with adoption or even people who have no prior interest in adoption. I would hope it spurs people to action and not be a read, think "That's nice" and return to the shelf kind of book. Dr. Moore's bold and passionate plea for the fatherless should move Christians to respond. We already have eight kids of our own so we seem like unlikely candidates for adoption but the call of the fatherless is an insistent one. There is no lack of orphans waiting for adoption and if we can find a way to overcome the financial barrier and regulatory hoops, we would love to welcome a child into our home and family. It is what God has done for us.

The BEST book I've read in a few years. It is a theological look at adoption. Dr. Moore looks at the steps and challenges facing families that adopt, and in the process shows the beauty and wonder of the spiritual adoption accomplished by the work of Jesus Christ on his people's behalf. Excellent book. Very moving. Highest recommendation possible, even if (like me) you are not currently thinking about or pursuing adoption.

There seems to have been a lot of excitement surrounding this book which is, frankly, surprising for a book on adoption. I expected this to be a niche book, consumed by those contemplating adopting a child or by skeptical family members trying to understand the motivation for choosing to adopt. Moore's book spans the gap between personal vignette and theological treatise. Any book on adoption is going to be intensely personal, and Moore doesn't spare any tears in describing the process he and his wife went through before the Lord impressed international adoption on their hearts. And yet, I didn't turn the close the back cover of the book thinking about what a wonderful story it was about the Moore family. Rather I closed the book thinking of how great a God we serve to have adopted us into His family.

And that's why this book is truly something special. Rather than argue from a "this is what my family did and you should too" perspective, Moore spends the first three chapters of Adopted for Life passionately explaining our adoption as sons of God. God could have planned to justify us, sanctify us, and glorify us without making us members of His own household, Moore argues. But that isn't what He has done. He has made us his legal and relational family, meaning that we are co-heirs with our Brother, Christ Jesus. As such, the gospel is all about adoption. The good news is about God adopting wretched sinners into His own family. The church is not like a family. The church is our family.

I'm not typically an "everybody needs to read this book" kind of person. I think it's the height of arrogance to assume that everyone is going to be transformed by what God has recently revealed to me. There are many others who are already much further along the path. But I've never read a book that has so clearly and so freshly explained the relationships within the family of God before. The first three chapters of this book are relevant to absolutely every churchgoer. We don't talk about adoption much within the church. But it's one of the cornerstones of our hope in and love for our Father.

Moore refers to the idea that adoption is plan-B, only for those who cannot have children on their own. Wrapped around his own testimony of committing "genetic idolatry," he states, "The protection of children isn't charity. It isn't part of a political program fitting somewhere between tax cuts and gun rights or between carbon emission caps and a national service corps. It's spiritual warfare." And again, "Not every believer is called to adopt children. But every believer is called to recognize Jesus in the face of his little brothers and sisters when he decides to show up in their lives, even if it interrupts everything else."

The remainder of the book discusses different challenges in adoption, from interracial differences to the legal ramifications of domestic adoptions. Throughout the whole the process, each issue is continually examined from through the light of what Christ has done for us and the eternal realities that surround adoption. It certainly is a messy process, but then again so was our adoption into the family of God.

One great blessing God brought into my own life was being able to watch as a young student my college discipler and his wife adopt a baby boy from Uganda. Pictures of unwanted babies in flea-ridden Russian orphanages and undernourished orphans in Ghana easily become guilt-laced white noise under the sheer feeling of helplessness to make any kind of difference. But putting a face and a personality behind the concept of an orphan child rescued and adopted into a fiercely Christ-centered home strips away that feeling of helplessness. Meet Moore's children in this book, and the self-deceiving lie of helplessness to make a difference will dissolve very quickly.

My appreciation for this book is probably evident from what I've already written. As a church, we're called to be at the forefront of adoption. This book would be a good place to start for anyone who wants to know how he or she can respond being an adopted child of God. Not everyone is called to adopt. But we're all called to participate. As Moore writes, "The Father adopts children, and we're called to be like Him. Jesus cares for orphans, and we're being conformed into His image. If you're in Christ, you're called to be involved in this project somehow."

Nate Brooks
[...]

A few months ago, two of the blogs that I follow regularly both commented on this book, and I was interested. While Kristie and I have talked about adoption from time to time, I'd never really want to read a book on the subject. For some reason, I thought it would be a list of reasons how we can navigate through of tower of bureaucratic paperwork and nefarious dealings overseas, while making the newly adopted kid feel at home in his new bed. Perhaps this idea of adoption books reflected my view of adoption itself. More recently, our good friends Mark and Jennifer are planning on a temporary move to Thailand next week to finalize the adoption of their daughter. This pulled the topic of adoption to the forefront of my mind, and I ordered the book.

Adopted for Life is primarily a work of theology, using the doctrine of adoption as a framework for the book. Moore uses the idea that we, as Christians, have all been adopted into a family, leaving behind the filthy orphanages of the world and becoming heirs of the living God.

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God" (Galatians 4:4-7).

Since we are no longer orphans but sons, Christians should have an especially sensitive heart for the orphans in the world. We are told to care for the widows and orphans as an act of justice. This focus is the one in Moore's book, not telling us the best agencies or the most accommodating countries for adoption. We should adopt mainly because we were adopted.

Our worldview leads us into being a part of families and churches where adoption should be the norm, not the exception. Who more should care for the fatherless than the ones who were once themselves fatherless and homeless?

In addition to the powerful content, Adopted for Life is creatively written. Moore has a readable style that is concrete and vivid, funny, and honest. I feel like I know this man after reading this, or, at least, I feel like I want to know him more. Because of this, I highly recommend this, wherever you are in thinking about adoption.

As soon as I closed the book, I was online looking into agencies to see what God has for us because I am grateful to no longer be in the "cosmic orphanage."

Adopted for Life by Russell Moore

How often have had experience where you end up thinking to yourself "I definitely did not think about this before entering upon this venture." I can think about several examples. Clearly marriage and parenthood are two such examples. No matter how hard I seem to prepare myself for things, there is always something that sneaks up on me.

After reading this book, I felt like I got to go through the author's experience of being an adoptive parents of two little boys from Russia. I came away from the book pondering all of the little things that I would have never considered. For instance...

If you adopt two children of the same race, how will you react when people ask "are they siblings?"

If you adopt a child of a different race than yours, will all of your family members openly welcome that child into their family?

How will you react when people ask you about "your own children" as if the adopted children are second class citizens in your family?

What do you say when an adoption agency asks about physically punishing your child?

How much do adoptions actually cost?

Along with the details, and unexpected twists and turns of adoption, Russell Moore leads the reader through a very biblical basis for adoption, reminding us that our own Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was adopted by Joseph of Nazareth. Not only was Jesus adopted though, but we are adopted sons of the Living God.

Theologically this book is very solid. Practically the book is very helpful. Thankfully though, one thing that Russell Moore avoids is the "how to" part of adoption. He goes into some details of different kinds of adoptions, but you will not find information on how to contact different agencies. I believe this was done on purpose. Anybody with a connection to the internet can find what he or she is looking for in this area.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to anybody who follows Christ whether you have a heart to adopt children or not. Allow God to use this book to open your heart at the very least to aiding others as they pursue adding fatherless and motherless children into their own families.