i was talking to a friend of mine the other day about interracial adoption. she comes from a very”unusual” Christian home background: she has a brother who is korean, and two sisters–one black, one white. (my friend is black, although not biologically related to her black sister.) to my surprise, my friend described interracial adoption as something that is either highly smiled or highly frowned upon. this reaction surprised me: my question is, “why in the world would it be bad?”

i know a few families that have adopted, and all of the adoptions have been international in nature: chinese primarily, but also some from Africa, one from Korea. i think it is great.

but then i started thinking about the arguments the other side might propose: that we have a lot of kids that need adopting here in the states . . . why in the world would we go to other parts of the world to bring them here, ignoring the american kids that need to get out of “the system.” okay, a seemingly valid question–but then i realized a flaw in my thinking. for whatever reason, i was connecting interracial adoption with international adoption. and since that isn’t always the case, the argument doesn’t really apply. the american adoption system can be and is, for some families, an interracial adoption system. (my friend was a intranational interracial adoption; her korean brother was an international interracial adoption.)

i really wasn’t prepared for the arguments against interracial adoption–but they shouldn’t have surprised me. my friend’s mom, a lecturer advocating interracial adoption, received these types of excuses against it: “it is best for a child to grow up in a happy, safe, same-colored home,” “a child needs to know his identity,” and ” the parents won’t understand him.”
some problems here: does happiness in a family come from being the same color? (umm, no. how many unhappy same-colored homes can you think of?) do children really need to identify with a color or culture to have a meaningful existence? (umm, no. welcome to the melting pot. and just because a person appears to be a certain color, doesn’t mean that it is “unadulterated.” most southern white families, traced back far enough, would be surprised to find out they are more interracial that what they thought . . . ) is it a criteria for people to be of the same color to understand basic human ideas/feelings? (umm, no. as the saying goes, we all bleed red. my ability to understand another human being doesn’t derive from an identical melanin match.)

what’s interesting is that a lot of people would advocate interracial adopting– in part. if a white couple wanted to adopt a black child, that’s okay. but a black couple adopting a white child? that’s entirely a different story . . . why? i’ll get there in a minute.

interracial adoption. interesting conversation in and of itself, but the conversation evolved to more “race-based” issues: interracial dating, racism, and ultimately, religion.

i have grown up in the south all of my life. after talking to some people who lived during the civil right’s movement, i realize that the racism issue has drastically improved– my friend and i now drink out of the same water fountain. however, that doesn’t mean that racism ceases to exist.

we still see it in the mindset, especially in the generations before us. the news talks about a crime wave in an area, or the rise in pregnancy in teens in a certain school district, and who’s to blame? “the blacks.” (let’s ignore the statistics that say that uneducated, single-parent, caucasian homes are the predominant problem propagating the welfare woes in our area . . . ) if the statement is unfounded on facts, where does it come from? the over-arching answer didn’t die at the abolishment of slavery or when the civil rights movement came to a close: racism. although not as “radical” as before, it still stays as the root of the ideological problem.

however, it is the grip it still holds in religion (especially in the south) that is the most inexcusable. As Joy McCarnan states in her article “Diff’rent Strokes in the Family of God,” with few exceptions “churches today are segregated, and, contrary to what we biblical separatists would wish to believe, the lines of division are not always doctrinal, but racial and cultural. Corporate fellowship with ‘other’ races and cultures is an exception rather than the rule. When we do accumulate a few minorities in our congregations or institutions, they’re treated almost as celebrities—poster children—walking proof that ‘no, we’re not [racist]!’ Aren’t we?”

she says concisely thoughts and observations i have had since high school. why are there “black” churches and “white” churches? the separation isn’t a doctrinal issue. now, don’t get me wrong. i understand that there are churches out there that we all would agree with “mainly.” they believe in all the “fundamentals” of the faith. the Gospel is preached. but we don’t go there–why? because of “undoctrinal” reasons that make us more comfortable: issues such as music, hats vs. no hats, etc. and it just so happens we are free to make those choices in the buckle of the Bible belt–where there are more independent, fundamental, baptist churches than starbucks and mcdonald’s combined (a–slight–exaggeration).

however, not every region has that luxury. even a half-hour away, i have talked to black families that have chosen churches based on culture/color, even though they have to “unpreach” some things to their children once they get home. why? because the doctrinally-sound, white churches in the area didn’t make them feel at home. they didn’t seem to want to have them there or get them involved.

i was told that it was more than the fact that we don’t wear robes in the choir, clap, and sing “go down, moses.” it is because there seems to be an air of insecurity– a “what do we do with them?” attitude. newsflash: they don’t expect us to speak ebonics on their arrival.   do “they” expect “us” to completely change the way that we normally worship to accommodate them? no. just as we wouldn’t expect them to change if we were to visit a service of theirs. do they expect “normal” treatment? yes. and that really isn’t too much to ask . . .
i’m not naive. if there were two churches that were doctrinally sound in my area and i was more culturally comfortable in one over the other, i would probably choose it. however, for our attitudes to make someone so uncomfortable–to be a big enough stumbling block– that any visitor would even consider going to “less-doctrinal” church because of us and any cultural/color mindset we possess is wrong. and it needs to change.

racism, even in it’s less-offensive forms than the 60s, has no place in an equal society. and it should definitely have no place in our churches–because it has absolutely no place in the Church.

“Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons . . .” (Acts 10:34). if He sees no difference, than neither should we.

just a thought.