Recent Reading

Three books I've read lately that were quite thought provoking . . .

Evangelical is Not Enough, by Thomas Howard
Howard is an evangelical who embraced the Episcopal church and later became a Catholic. Naturally I didn't agree with all his positions, but that's the point of reading and study - to expand your horizons and continue exploring your own belief system. I really enjoyed his explanations of the liturgy - "the work of the people" - and how it can be used to draw us closer to God. I agreed with his statements that we shouldn't discount the entire history of the church over the past two thousand years, just because some bad things happened (bad things always happen because sin is in the world); instead, we should focus on the methods other Christians have used to draw close to God and see what we can learn from fellow believers who have walked the road to Christ before us.

Middlemarch, by George Eliot
Okay, I'll be honest, I read Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss and, well, yuck. That is to say, I didn't enjoy them very much. But I thought I should give Eliot one more try, so I tackled Middlemarch. I loved this novel. It was long, with well-developed characters and a good outline for a story. But to me, it wasn't so much about the story Eliot is telling as it was a portrait of very different marriages - Casaubon to Dorothea, Lydgate to Rosamond, Sir James to Celia, and others, as all the citizens and generations of Middlemarch interact. Definitely got me thinking about what kind of marriage I want to have (ladies, here's a hint - Rosamond is not someone you want to emulate!). The story was enjoyable, the novel well-developed. Overall score would have been an A.

Adopted for Life, by Russell Moore
Aaron and I have been interested in adoption and possibly foster parenting for a long time. We started discussing these topics way back when, during the dating years. We're not quite sure what God has planned for us yet, but know that it will include adoption in some way. There will be more to come on this topic, I am sure. But this book is about the priority of adoption for Christian families and churches. It talked a lot about how God has adopted us as His sons and daughters, and how emulating the Father's example is part of the Christian life. Not that all are called to adopt, but that all are called to support adoption in some way, as a reflection of what God has done for us. I'll include some of my favorite quotes below.

"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." (65)

"Churches that don't celebrate children aren't going to celebrate evangelism. After all, the 'be fruitful and multiply' clause in Genesis is echoed in the Great Commission of Jesus (Matt. 28:16-20), a mission that also seeks to fill the entire earth. Jesus links procreation to new creation by speaking of new converts and newborn babies and of conversion itself as a new birth. When Jesus stands before His Father with the redeemed of the ages, He will announce us as 'the children God has given me' (Heb. 2:13)." (77)

"An orphan-protecting adoption culture is countercultural--and always has been. Some of the earliest records we have of the Christian churches speak of how Christians, remarkably, protected children in the face of a culture of death pervasive in the Roman Empire . . . This is still distinctively Christian in a world that increasingly sees children as, at best, a commodity to be controlled and, at worst, a nuisance to be contained. Think of how revolutionary it is for Christians to adopt a young boy with a cleft palate from a region in India where most people seem him as 'defective' . . . Think of how odd it must seem to American secularists to see Christians adopting a baby whose body trembles with an addiction to the cocaine her mother sent through her bloodstream before birth. Think of the kind of credibility such action lends to the proclamation of our gospel." (79)

"All of us are called to be compassionate. All of us are called to remember the poor. All of us are called to remember the fatherless and the widows. That will look different in our different lives, with the different situations and resources God has given us. But for all of us there'll be a judgment to test the genuineness of our faith. And for some of us, there'll be orphan faces there." (82-83)

"If God is moving you toward adoption, you'll need to make some decisions at the outset. The hardest decision, if you've decided to adopt, has already been made. The most important thing for you to know about these decisions is that whatever you decide, you're not going to wreck God's plan for your life. Whatever your views about how God's kingship fits with human freedom, you know as a Christian that God is at work in bringing about His good purposes for you. Your decisions fit, mysteriously, into that overall plan. Don't worry." (144-145)

"Who knows that the future holds for my sons--or for whatever children the Lord may call you or your loved ones to adopt? The question is, do you trust Jesus, with their stories and with yours?" (165)

"People speak of rearing 'adopted children' with hushed tones and raised eyebrows, as though this task is not for the faint of heart. They speak of the trials of 'adopted' children with all their identity crises and hidden hurts, as though one is predestined for misery because of adoption itself. Those people will always be with us. They're the same ones who tell newly married couples how tough marriage is 'once the honeymoon's over, you just wait and see.' They're the same ones who tell a newly pregnant woman to 'get your sleep now, 'cause you won't get any more for eighteen years.' The reality, though, is that in most ways parenting is parenting, and growing up is growing up. It's always hard. Some unique challenges go along with adoption--challenges related to finding a sense of belonging, to discipline and discipleship, to answering questions about origins. Count these as all joy. The point all of us--not just kids who were adopted--to the gospel. The gospel welcomes us and receives us as loved children. The gospel disciplines us and prepares us for eternity as heirs. The gospel speaks truth to us and shows us our misery in Adam and our glory in Christ. The gospel shows us that we were born into death and then shows us, by free grace, that we're adopted for life." (214)