Rise up Church

There is so much that could be said about the events of today, but writing is strongest when the topic is narrow, so I'll stick with the narrow for the evening. 

More than one post caught me eye this morning celebrating the decision and then announcing in some way or form that now the church needed to rise up and take care of the children. While there was always the added 'and those in foster care', the tacit implication was loud and clear. There will now be many children born who cannot be raised by their birth mothers, so make sure you, Church, are ready to stand in the gap. 

I find this disgusting. Let me count the ways.

1. This implies that the Church only now has a duty to widows and orphans. Now that they have legislated draconian measures without any added supports to women before they are charged with murder. Um, this is call to aid the widows and orphans in their distress hardly a new expectation (and I might add, it doesn't say to create widows in distress, either). Children needing families have always existed. Children have always needed families regardless of the legality of abortion. If the Church actually cared as much as they say, then the number of older children or children with health issues needing families would be a lot smaller in number. You're joining the party a wee bit too late. Or does saying this just to make you look as if you cared?

2. This also has the appearance of looking like a supply of infants has always been one of the intended by-products of the need to do away with Roe v. Wade. It sure makes the Church look as though it sees poor women with few resources as merely the producers of a desired commodity. I'm not sorry if that sounds harsh and ugly to you, because it is harsh and ugly. 

3. Adoption is not the simple thing, filled with rainbows and happy trees, that some would want you to believe. Adoption is filled with loss and trauma and grief. Yes, of course, there are also joyful moments, but at its root is the loss and trauma and grief. The idea that all a child needs is parents who are able to provide material goods and a modicum of affection is rubbish. It is not a simple exchange of parents and all will be good. 

4. Even a child adopted at birth can be affected by trauma. Trauma changes a child's brain. Trauma causes a child to have a lot less margin. Trauma can cause behaviors that are challenging. Trauma is a beast. A sense of duty, which is what this call to the Church is counting on, is not enough to raise a child affected by trauma. Duty is not sacrificial love.

5. I can guarantee that those who would be drawn by this call and this sense of duty more than likely also ascribe to a very traditional consequence-based form of parenting. (No shame there, so did I.) But I've lived in adoption land for nearly two decades now and I can tell you that there is a thing. The more traditional and religiously conservative the family, the more rigid their parenting, and the less likely it is that those parents will be willing to change to accommodate the needs of their hurting child. There will always be some reason found as to why the child cannot stay in their home and the adoption will disrupt, causing yet another gaping wound in a child already covered in them. So, this sense of duty will heap trauma upon trauma and result in more children needing homes rather than less. 

6. Yes, I have grown exceedingly cynical in the past two decades.

7. And let's look at some other issues. What if this same family adopts a child with a disability or is a child of color? What if this child who is adopted is gay or trans? Does the family ignore the racism their child experiences? Will the family be able to see that life is not always fair or kind to those who are not straight and white? Will the family continue to love their gay or trans child and fight for their rights as a person? The comments made by Justice Thomas make me think that no, they won't. The child will be cut off because they do not fit the accepted parameters and that child will experience more loss. And the family will always, always, always blame the child for the family rupture and not their rigid and unloving beliefs. 

Church, if you are the part of the church that these posts have been directed to, you are not kind or loving or pro-life, no matter how often you say otherwise. Jesus did not legislate morality. Jesus actually seemed to avoid politics completely. I don't know where the idea that the Church and politics would make good bedfellows came from. Oh, right, I do know: power and fear. This comes from a system of belief that is so terrified of doing something wrong... of having a wrong belief, of talking to the wrong person, of reading the wrong thing, of making any number of unforgivable sins... that there is no room for grace. Because really, their own belief system has no room for grace for themselves. I do not worship that God and I don't know why anyone would actually want to.

You may be happy with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. But if you can open your mind just a little bit and see what type of precedence this sets, made by a group of people who answer to no one, perhaps you can see why the rest of us are terribly, terribly afraid of what the future will bring.