UNNATURAL TIES AND HOW THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE BENDS REALITY

EVALUATION: NATURAL AND UNNATURAL TIES

Conference Theology of Adoption, May 24-26 2010, Aberdeen
© R.Ruard Ganzevoort

I have argued that adoption changes the family just as much as it changes the child. I have advocated a dialectical approach to the natural and the unnatural, hoping that that will help us move beyond a view of adoption as changing, adapting, normalizing the child. Let me conclude by pushing it one step further. If we reflect theologically on the non-procreation based family, we first have to affirm the natural, the earthly, the physical. Obviously that includes procreation.

Our human existence commences on being born, or if you want on the occasion of the merger of male and female genetic material. Being born and becoming part of humankind means sharing this physical existence. It also creates a very specific connection with the man and the woman whose bodies created ours. To overlook the centrality of that connection is to develop an illusionary theology that negates
our fundamental physicality.

And yet, even if this is a necessary condition for our existence, it is not a sufficient one, especially when we talk about becoming part of a family. Even when one is born into a procreation-based family, it is not until the parents receive, accept, adopt that is, the child that a family comes into being. Acceptance, care, love, responsibility: terms like these define the family ties. But they are not defined by procreation, they are part of the process of adopting the child. If parents do not build that kind of relations, there is no family. In that sense, we all have to adopt our children, whether or not they are biologically our own. The defining element
of family is not procreation, it is adoption.

And so we have come full circle in critically reflecting on the natural and unnatural ties. Theology’s preference as lived out by the church may traditionally have been with the natural order, in the end it should probably be with the unnatural. A critical theological examination challenges our preference for the natural and shows that procreation is just not good enough. This very specifically implies that adopted children are not the exception. They are prototypical for human family life. To speak of adoption is to speak of family, I said at the beginning. But that is not because family life is constitutive for adoption. It is the other way around. Adoption is constitutive for the family.

Yes, the non-procreation based family may indeed symbolize mercy and grace, but not because solitary individuals are restored into the normal situation of family life by adoption. Non-procreation based families are a symbol of grace because they show us that life depends on undeserved acceptance and love, not on any quality in and of ourselves. They are a symbol of grace, of life, because they remind us that it is not our natural origins that count, but our relational future. They are a symbol of grace because they embody that we are not determined by the limitations of natural life, but called into the unnatural freedom of loving care.

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Extended Families in Africa and International Adoption

International Adoption and the Western Mindset

by Dan Cruver Published Dec 9, 2010

Conrad Mbewe, the pastor of Kabwata Reformed Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, recently returned home from a visit to the United States. While here, he was surprised to learn how popular the adoption of African children has become in the United States. I found his thoughts about the practice of international adoption and the Westerner’s view of the African context very helpful. His blog post provides a necessary corrective to our sometimes blind enthusiasm. That’s not to say that we should not adopt internationally. This is to say, though, that when we do adopt from African countries, we should do so in a way that serves our African brothers and sisters in Christ and takes their cultural context into account—in a way that doesn’t value our desires and culture over theirs. We also need to remember that international adoption will never be the solution to the global orphan crisis, nor should it be. Rather, international adoption is one small component of a multi-faceted and complex solution. If there is a major component to a solution to the global orphan crisis, I’m convinced it is a gospel-centered movement of indigenous, in-country adoption and orphan care. Our primary focus as American Christians, then, should be to humbly come alongside our African brothers and sisters in Christ to work toward this end. There is so much that I probably should write about this now, but if I did, you would never get to reading Pastor Conrad Mbewe’s very helpful thoughts. Consider this post a conversation starter:

I have just returned from the USA. One of the major changes that I have observed from my earliest days of visiting that nation (i.e. from the late 1990s) is just how many families there are excited about and actually adopting African children. Whereas this phenomenon is not new, it has certainly grown exponentially. What I found rather surprising, however, was the lack of knowledge and appreciation of the African extended family system. So, although I initially set up this blog in order to give my church a peep into the outside world, I thought of writing a blog to inform the West about what is common knowledge back home. Whereas to the Western mind, an orphan, having lost both father and mother, is destined to either be adopted or spend the rest of his or her childhood days in an orphanage, to an African mind, the child still has many fathers and mothers, and consequently many homes to live in. Let me explain. (I apologise in advance for the unusual length of this blog).

In Africa, south of the Sahara, we have a system that is foreign to the social life of people in the West. It is popularly known as the extended family system. It goes something like this. My biological father’s brothers are also my fathers and my biological mother’s sisters are also my mothers. If your mind has processed that, let me add a little more. The wives of my biological father’s brothers are my mothers and the husbands of my biological mother’s sisters are my fathers . . . Often we speak in terms of ba tata mwaiche (younger father) and ba tata mukalamba (older father) when referring to the younger and older brothers of our fathers and ba mayo mwaiche (younger mother) and ba mayo mukalamba (older mother) when referring to the younger and older sisters of our mothers. However, it is not uncommon, especially when one is talking to a foreigner from the West for us to simply say in English “my father” when in the strictest sense we are referring to an uncle.

Read Pastor Conrad Mbewe’s entire blog post. It’s worth reading the comment section as well.