Book Review: “Adopted for Life” by Russell Moore

As many of the readers of this blog know, my wife and I are in the process of adopting a child. This is something we had decided we wanted to do before we were married and through various events and circumstances in our lives God showed as that now was the time. The process was exciting if not tedious at first as we decided on an agency, took the 10 classes required by state law to for adoption, completed personal profiles and underwent the home-study. This process began in March and was completed in October. Since then we have been doing the hardest thing imaginable….waiting.

During this time of waiting God has used different people and/or events to deepen our understanding and commitment to adoption. One Sunday a new friend loaned us the book “Adopted for Life” by Russell Moore. Emily was the first to read through the book and it wasn’t long before she was visibly excited and moved by the message that the author put forth. I have just finished reading the book, and the following is my brief review.

From the forward, written by C.J. Mahaney, to the conclusion this book is written not only for parents seeking to adopt, but for every believer. As Mahaney states in the concluding paragraph of the forward “In these pages you will not only encounter one couple’s adoption of two Russian children; you will encounter your own adoption. May we all become freshly aware of the adopting grace of God toward undeserving sinners like us.”

At the beginning, and throughout the book, Moore brings the reader into his own life. He shares his own joys and struggles from before during and after the adoption process. The Moore’s adopted two young boys from Russia that were three weeks apart in age. This of course set up the question he received that became the title of the second chapter: Are they brothers?

This question, along with many other questions that are directed toward adopted families and children that have been adopted reveal a lot about our understanding of the gospel. The second chapter is Moore’s theological foundation to the fact that while his two boys may not share genetic material, they are indeed brothers just as in the same way every believer is a brother in the family of God.

This theme carries throughout the book, right to the last chapter titled “Adopted Is a Past-Tense Verb”. Over and over again Moore reminds us that just as Christians become new creatures in Christ, the old being put away, so the child that is adopted into a family gains a new identity. Moore is careful to point out that it doesn’t change a person’s history. For example his two boys have a history in a Russian orphanage, but they are no longer Russian orphans but they are now Moore’s, culturally speaking, American sons of an American family preferring hamburgers rather than borscht.

Moore identifies the problem people have with adoption as part of an over-all spiritual war that takes place over children. Every adoption takes place because of ugly circumstances, death, divorce, abuse etc. Citing the Pharaoh in Exodus and Herod who ordered the extermination of children, and then fast forwarding through history to today’s war on children embodied by Planned Parenthood, Moore remarks that the protection of Children is part of a Christian’s responsibility. He states “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.” Later in the chapter Moore goes on to say: “An orphan-protecting adoption culture is counter cultural – 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.”

With stakes that high Moore begins the more practical section of the book. Yet even in these chapters he ties almost every action to its theological foundation. Chapter four deals with “How to know if you – or someone you love – should consider adoption”. Chapter five was my favorite chapter title: Paperwork, Finances, and Other threats to Personal Sanctification. A very practical though generic section that instructed on how to go about finding the specifics rather than providing the specifics of finding agencies, filling out paperwork etc. From their Moore spent chapters dealing with racial identity, and having community (church) support, both vitally important issues to think through for anyone who is adopting or knows those who have adopted. (The chapter on Church support began with the best line: “It still had that smell, like a mixture of new carpet and old Lady.”)

If you don’t want to read the entire book, you should at least read the last chapter (and by the way if your reading this and you’re related to me…heads up…this will be required reading). It’s titled: “Adopted is a Past-Tense Verb – How Parents, Children, and Friends Can Think about Growing up Adopted.” The chapters deal with belonging and acceptance, dealing with the past, and behavior and discipline. In the latter category Moore again goes back to the theological foundation. “Discipline is one of the ways, as God designed it, that children know they are legitimate and loved parts of the family…If you refuse to discipline, you’re preaching a false gospel to your child, a gospel that ignores the fact that God evaluates behavior and that actions have consequences.”

Moore begins the book setting forth the reasons why every believer should read this book. It is, as he puts it, ultimately a book about Jesus. It involves the theological motivation behind adoption as well as practical advice for those adopting, those considering adopting, those who have adopted, those who know people who have adopted and those who can’t or won’t adopt. But throughout the book it becomes clear that the most beautiful part of adoption is that it is a picture of the family of God, all believers adopted, becoming heirs with Christ, and sons of God…family.