The Gospel and Orphan Care

Here is good followup reading after hearing Bryant's sermon last week on the Church's call to care for orphans. These words are penned by Russell Moore, whom Bryant quoted at the beginning and end of his sermon. Honest words here that do not sugarcoat or romanticize this calling that is catching a wave in Christendom today.

"Right now, there is a crisis of fatherlessness all around the world.
Chances are, in your community, the foster care system is bulging with children,
moving from home to home to home, with no rootedness or permanence in sight.
Right now, as you read this, children are “aging out” of orphanages around the
world. Many of them will spiral downward into the hopelessness of drug
addiction, prostitution, or suicide. Children in the Third World are languishing
in group-homes, because both parents have died from disease or have been
slaughtered in war. The curse is afoot, and it leaves orphans in its wake.

Not every Christian is called to adopt or to foster children. And not
every family is equipped to serve every possible scenario of special needs that
come along with particular children. Orphan care isn’t easy. Families who care
for the least of these must count the cost, and be willing to offer up whatever
sacrifice is needed to carry through with their commitments to the children who
enter into their lives.

But, while not all of us are called to adopt, the Christian Scriptures
tell us that all of us are called to care “widows and orphans in their distress”
(Jas. 1:27). All of us are to be conformed to the mission of our Father God, a
mission that includes justice for the fatherless (Exod. 22:22; Deut. 10:18; Ps.
10:18; Prov. 23:10-11; Isa. 1:17; Jer. 7:6; Zech. 7:10). As we are conformed to
the image of Christ, we share with him his welcoming of the oppressed, the
abandoned, the marginalized; we recognize his face in the “least of these,” his
little brother and sisters (Matt. 25:40).

The followers of Jesus should fill in the gap left by a contemporary
Western consumer culture that extends even to the conception and adoption of
children. Who better than those who have been welcomed by Christ to care for the
most feared and least sought after of the world’s orphans? After all, who are
we, as those who are the invited to Jesus’ wedding feast? We are “the poor and
the crippled and the blind and the lame” (Lk. 14:21). Since that is the case,
Jesus tells us, we are to model the same kind of risk-taking, unconditional love
(Lk. 14:12), the kind that casts out fear.

Yes, orphan care can be risky. Justice for the fatherless will sap far more
from us than just the time it takes to advocate. These kids need to be reared,
to be taught, to be hugged, to be heard. Children who have been traumatized
often need more than we ever expect to give. It is easier to ignore those cries.
But love of any kind is risky.

The Gospel means it’s worth it to love, even to the point of shedding your
own blood. After all, that’s what made a family for ex-orphans like us."

Read the whole article here.

Here are some other recent articles that journal this current awakening among evangelical Christians:

Wall Street Journal

Christianity Today