Apologetics and Adoption!

It is interesting that since we started our adoption journey, we have been having chance meetings with adoptive parents and also reading adoption articles in some of the magazines we subscribe to. This weekend, my husband and I went to an apologetics (a conscious, articulated defense of the claims of the Christian Faith ) conference and the topic of adoption is not quite the topic you expect to be addressed at such a conference. However, one of the speakers (Voddie Baucham) is an adoptive parent who is passionate about families. In one of the sessions, he was discussing a biblical view on love as opposed to the greco-roman myth we have regarding love. I cannot do justice to what he said, so I will excerpt his summary:

Myth 1: Love is a Random Force: "We don't choose who we fall in love with."
Myth 2: Love is an Overwhelming Force: "Love, according to the Greco-Roman myth, is an overwhelming force against which we mere mortals cannot hope to prevail.'"
Myth 3: Love is an Uncontrollable Force: "Love sometimes goes away as quickly and mysteriously as it came."
Myth 4: Love is a Sensual Force: "Love is equated with sex."

According to Baucham, the result of our culture largely buying into these myths is that "this kind of love. . . doesn't translate into other relationships. If love is a random, uncontrollable, overwhelming, sensual force, how do I love my kids?" It also makes love very tenous. Baucham points out that with this kind of notion of love, "Can we blame children of divorce for wondering when Mom or Dad is going to stop loving them the same way that they stopped loving each other?"

In contrast to the Greco-Roman myth, Baucham defines Christian love as "an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object."

If Christians had a biblical view on love, then they would never ask if adoptive parents love their adopted children as much as they love their biological children!

I had never heard of him, but he is a man after my own heart. For a sample of this thoughts, you can visit his website at:
http://www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/home.html