73. Foster Care, Adoption and the Church: 2022 Year End Round Table

About this Episode

It’s time for the year-end round table! Episode 57 on Foster Care, Adoption & the Church was a hit, so we are revisiting the theme of foster care, adoption, and the church while adding new voices. Our guests are Darren Freidinger, Amber Nelson, and Jessica Autrey, each has fostered and/or adopted children including special needs children and international adoptions. In this episode, we discuss ways in which churches and individuals can practically care for orphans and their families ensuring vulnerable children will grow up in loving families.

Our guests are here to share their experiences with the state, private adoption agencies, and churches. If you have ever considered adoption, this episode is a must! And if you haven’t ever considered adopting or fostering, this episode is still a must, as our guests are passionate advocates for children and want to see more placements in Christian homes.

If our guests cannot convince you to foster or adopt, you will still be given food for thought as we ask questions like: What do Christian anarchists think about the state being involved with vulnerable children? Is adoption easier through the state or private adoption agencies? How many families are willing and waiting to adopt children? Why are churches not ensuring children have healthy and safe homes? What can Christians do to help families rearing adopted children?

Connect with Jay:

Amber Nelson’s fan page

Episode Timestamps:

1:05 - Guest introductions

• Darren

• Returning guest from episode 57

• Popular episode with good response

• Two adopted daughters

• Fostering 3 younger children, waiting to begin their adoption processes

• Jessica

• Eight children, 3 are adopted from Ukraine in 2011

• Amber

• Music Teacher in public school

• Three sons

8:15 – How do we feel about the state being involved in child foster care?

• Craig: 

• Doesn’t like the state being involved in child protection

• Darren: 

• As bad as the situation is for children right now, the state made the right call on the girls in his care

• Christ following parents need to be involved

• The church could do better than the state

• Amber: 

• The children of addicts and mental health problems need better equipped helpers.

• Child safety is top priority

• As a schoolteacher, she saw that the caseworkers were so overwhelmed that referrals did not help suspected abused children

• Jessica: 

• Real cases fall through the cracks

• But when parents make decisions such as not vaccinating them, the state may become involved

• Wanted to adopt from her first child to ensure children had the love she wanted to give her son

• Saw a blog about the conditions of special needs orphans in Eastern Europe

• Special needs children are discarded

• Orphanage care is patchy, but especially terrible for special-needs children

• Experience in helping people with Downs Syndrome

22:09 – Roe v Wade

• When people are happy about the overturning, they should be willing to adopt kids

• It is easier to adopt children from other countries because the US government interferes

• It took Amber a year to get a license to adopt

• There are a lot of arbitrary rules that change between case-workers

• There are invasions of privacy while you foster

• The state is an obstacle to adoption

• There is a waiting list for adopting infants

• The children come with traumas

• Roe v Wade did not end abortion, just sent the decision back to the states

• It’s just politics

• Older children, sibling groups or those born with health issues face barriers to adoption

33:20 – Adoption and the church

• Why are churches not ensuring children have healthy and safe homes?

• Craig has never heard it in church

• When Amber has heard it is has been an addendum to the service

• The Baptist church sometimes runs training for foster parents

• There’s no sermons about it

• Darren’s experience in church has been hit-and-miss

• His church has a November adoption month

• Darren wants individuals helping families adopting children

• Babysit the children and let the parents go shopping

• Hang out with parents with eight children

• Have an adult conversation

• At least don’t judge or ask silly questions

• Amber had some good experiences of help from individuals

• Jessica has not seen adoption preached

• Christians helped Jessica to make the adoption process happen through donations

• Now attends a pro-adoption church

47:21 – Is the state still involved in private adoptions?

• Yes, there is paperwork and administrative processes

• Even privately there is a mountain of paperwork

• In Darren’s experience fostering through the state was easier

• But the state is involved to an intimate degree though

52:30 – What can individuals do to help families with adopted children?

• Jessica:

• Voice your support for families with adopted or fostered children

•  Tell them if you are praying for them

• Don’t give useless advice

• Do give hand-me-downs

• Just show up and play with the kids or give adult conversations

• Show up to fundraisers and get the word out

• Amber:

• Think about what the kids go through, then consider adopting

• Do laundry, that would help

• Darren:

• Agrees with Jessica and Amber

• Consider adopting or fostering

• The children need Christians

• Take someone a meal when they take charge of their children

• Take the kids to the park for an hour

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72. Christian Nationalism: Waging an Unholy War with Jay Newman

About this Episode

Jay Newman from Catacomb Podcasts joins Craig to discuss voting and Christian nationalism. Jay’s day job is pitmaster at Shotgun Willie’s Barbecue in Nashville, and he also runs his own barbecue catering service, Newman Family Barbecue. When he’s not transforming meat into award-winning tasty goodness, Jay bravely ventures into the culture wars on Twitter. While debating Christian nationalists and exposing their beliefs, he’s been accused of “reading too much evangelical pop theology” from those caught up in the military mindset of taking the reigns of power to expand the physical territories of the gospel.

Although George Bush was blasted for using the term “crusade” in the early 2000s, Christians are arming themselves for the new crusades and crying out for “jihads for Jesus”. This is the natural progression of Christian nationalism and does not look like what Jesus wants from His followers. Jesus was a pacifist and not interested in using the mechanics of state power to achieve the bringing of His Kingdom. When He came to earth, Jesus rejected the opportunity to reign over earthly kingdoms and allowed His enemies to kill Him. 

The early church understood this and were also anti-state pacifists. Even after the church and state became friends with Constantine, attempting to grab state power has never worked well for Christians. Jay would prefer Christians leave state control to non-Christians. In truth, any Christian who tries to exercise power antithetical to the Kingdom will have to deal with their inherent hypocrisy.

Connect with Jay:

Instagram: Newman Family BBQ

Podcast: Catacomb Podcasts

Episode Timestamps:

2:48 – Who is Jay Newman?

• BBQ Pit Manager

• Transforming meat into beautiful goodness

• Thinker and Writer

• Contrarian

• Doubting and testing new ideas

• Multi-cultural ties

• Brazilian and French family members

• Pastor’s kid

• Parents appalled by the merging of church and state

• No party loyalty

• Felt lied to by Bush after 9/11

• Learnt what politics does to people watching Mike Hukabee

• He drastically changed

• Became more Republican than Christian

• He sold out

• Ron Paul 2012

• Realized the whole thing is rigged

13:50 - Are you morally culpable for who you vote for? 

• People sanitize their favourite candidates 

• Society seems to have accepted that you are morally culpable for the actions of your candidates

• No nuance in liking some, but not all of a candidate’s policies

• All politicians commit atrocities

• Drones

• Aiding the rich and oppressing the poor

• None are consistent with Jesus

• Then who can we vote for?

• What power is there in voting?

• Maybe its time that all Christians stopped being a voting block

• Politicians would stop quoting scripture

• Politicians would stop pretending to care about Christian things

• Anarchy and Christian anarchy are separate issues

16:50 – Is voting a sin?

• Craig says yes

• If rejecting God is not a sin, then what is?

• The early church’s response to the Roman Empire

• Jay won’t judge others

• Sin comes from an individual’s intentions

• One can vote with a clean conscience

• Through being detached from outcomes

• Daniel was not removed from the state where he lived

• Christians should have a loud opinion on the state’s injustices

• Life in society means you have some influence

• Political influence is a part of that

• Jay leaves room for those who believe that working in the state is where God wants them

• It will probably corrupt them

• Historically it typically goes bad

• Why risk it?

• Perhaps people need to figure it out on their own

• Craig can’t force people into believing the same as himself

• People become more entrenched in their places if forced

• We’ve been electing Christians since the founding of the US

• Things are still getting progressively worse

• The country is an Idiocracy

• The upside of Trump being elected is it exposes the cultural Christians

• Baptist church choir “Make America Great Again”

• Nationalism was a sin of Israel

• Christians advocate repeating Israel’s folly

• Christians call themselves “Christian Nationalists”

• Christians should repent of putting people in power 

• America has killed a holocaust of people

• Killed children in Yemen

32:41 – Are we Americans or Christians first?

• Who is the biggest enemy of Americans?

• The biggest threat is the American government

• The largest church growth is happening in Iran, China and Russia

• The interests of the American state are opposed to the Kingdom

• Christians are thriving in places of persecution

• Christians should be more loyal to the church family than their national goals

• The US is sanctioning them, making life harder for Christians

• The populations of those nations are not our enemies

• We should be pro Christians in other states more than our national borders

36:06 – Jesus was not a statist

• Jesus was a snark

• All anarchists are snarks

• The leaders tried to trap Him 

• Everything belongs to God

• Pay your taxes to be a good citizen

• Trust God for financial provision

• It’s good for the gospel

• Don’t make decisions out of fear of lack of resources

• When you need money, He will give it to you

• When you put your trust in Him

• Jesus was passive-aggressive towards the state

• He turned down ruling the state when the devil offered it

• Why would Christians want to try it?

44:13 – Twitter conversations

• A pastor once said: “Start taking hills for Christ”

• Military terminology

• Jay’s response: “You take hills by dying; that’s what Jesus did”

• Jesus came to bring peace to the world

• The opposite of military actions

• Christians seem nervous about what would happen if Christians wielded power

• More than infidels, pagans and demons having political power

• Defending the crusades and name calling

• The early church were all pacifists and anti-state

55:39 – Spiritual warfare versus worldly warfare

• Jay sang on hills in India that had never heard the praises of God

• That’s how to take hills for Christ in the spiritual realm

• Not with military might, not physical territory

• Nations are a group of people with a common cause

• Christian nationalists want control of the state for Christians

• This has never worked before

• People agree with “jihad for Jesus”

• People want to take physical territory for Christ

• And enemy nations

• Christians arming themselves for the next crusades

• This is the logical conclusion for Christian nationalism

• We should be considering ourselves exiles rather than citizens

• The political system doesn’t give us a real say

• If Jesus was alive today, who would he vote for?

• Kings don’t vote

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