Sometimes it pays to listen to the other side.
Especially when they tell you how to win.

Iris GOES on a rant:

I think that God's righteous army fighting the evil Satan worshipers who are slaughtering innocent little babies that result from their uncontrolled sexual urges should adopt those babies. But for some reason, they don't. They just want to outlaw abortion and then leave the mother and child on their own. Then they complain about welfare.

Now, ignoring her ludicrous assertions about how pro-lifers just want to find out who the slutty girls in church are so they can hit on them (c'mon, it's not like no one knows anyway), the "Why don't you adopt them?" argument she brings up is one of the most common taunts of the pro-choice side and most ignored statements by the pro-life one.

But why don't we?

I seem to remember Jesus talking about a certain judgment of people who had ignored the cries of their fellow man: "They will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you?' And he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, to the extent you did not do it for the smallest of these, you did not do it to me.'"

It also seems to me that necessary corollary of the pro-life position is to truly care for the hungry ourselves. I think people are correct to complain about welfare, which feeds more bureaucrats than hungry and which has disasterous life incentives in and of itself. Impersonal welfare is simply plunder that traps the poor in dependence. But we are not correct, especially when pursuing political policies that WILL result in more children in foster homes, in adoption, and in poverty, to ignore the personal sacrifice necessary to deal with the real problems that are likely to result from these kids.

Some Christians do that - we have a Ministerial Alliance here in FS that runs a food pantry, a clothing bank...they truly put their money where their mouth is. Heck even the public high school collects goods (don't tell the ACLU) to help. But too many do not. Too many seem content to rely on the political process and calling their opponents names than actually personally sacrificing for these kids. That's one reason kids languish in the court systems for years - not the only reason, of course, but one reason.

Rather than chalking up Jesus Points(tm) by being on the correct side of a political battle, we ought to take the words of his brother James to heart: "If your brother or sister is naked and without daily food and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' and does not give those things which the body needs, what does that profit? Even so, faith alone - if it has no deeds - is dead."

Faith without deeds doesn't do us - or the kids - any good.

But there's one final reason that I note only because we are seeing the results of it in France this week. Less than 10% of those living in France are Muslim. But more than 30% of those under age 20 are. It does not take a genius to see France's future.

What if every conservative, pro-life Christian adopted a kid or two? What would our future be then? What if we grabbed up every one of these kids who languishes on the streets or in the courts or in foster homes and gave them the Bread of Life? What if we wanted the unwanted, loved the unloved, and personally (not through government) provided for these kids as our Lord commands us?

Could we not build a better future by obeying our Lord than by trying to get the rest of the world to do that?

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