Adoption, Race, and the Family of God

From Chapter 2 in Russell Moore's Adopted for Life:

"Our adoption means, though, that we find a different kind of unity. In Christ, we find Christ. We don't have our old identities based on race or class or life situation. The Spirit drives us from Babel to Pentecost, which is why 'the works of the flesh' Paul warns about include 'enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy' and so forth (Gal. 5:19-21). When we find our identity anywhere other than Christ, our churches will be made up of warring partisans rather than loving siblings. And we'll picture to the world an autopsied Body of Christ, with a little bit of Jesus for everyone, all on our own terms (1 Cor. 1:12-13).

What would it mean, though, if we took the radical notion of being brothers and sisters seriously? What would happen if your church saw an elderly woman no one would ever confuse with 'cool' on her knees at the front of the church praying with a body-pierced fifteen year-old anorexic girl? What would happen if your church saw a white millionaire corporate vice president being mentored by a Latino wage-earning janitor because both know the janitor is more mature in the things of Christ?

Here's where, I think the nub of hte whole issue lies. Adoption would become a priority in our churches if our churches themselves saw our brotherhood and sisterhood in the church itself rather than in our fleshly identities. For some Christians - maybe for you - it's hard to imagine how an African-American could love a white Ukrainian baby, how a Haitian teenager could call Swedish parents 'Mom' and 'Dad.' Of course that's hard to imagine, when so many of our churches can't even get over differences as trivial as musical style.

If we had fewer 'white' churches and 'black' churches, few 'blue-collar' churches and 'white collar' churches, maybe we'd see better what Jesus tells us when he says we've come into a new household with one Spirit, one Father, one Christ. In fact, maybe the reason we wonder whether 'adopted' children can 'really' be brothers and sisters is because we rarely see it displayed in our pews.

If this will ever happen, though, we have to learn to discover who we really are, together, as the adopted children of God. That isn't easy because our identity is constantly questioned-by our circumstances, by our consciences, by the accusing powers in the air around us."