KTF Weekly Newsletter: Adoptions Going Down, Burned out Brains, Baptized by a Rabbi
Hi everybody,
Friday will be the first of our monthly subscriber-only episodes for this period between seasons of Shake the Dust, and it’s a very good one! Preview below as always. Alright, here we go with this week’s highlights.
Sy’s recommendations:
Well, here’s something I did not expect. Last week, I recommended this piece about the well-known Christian camps called Teen Challenge, and their extreme control and abuse of teenagers whose parents send them there for various kinds of behavior modification. This week I came across an op ed arguing for reform in the “troubled teen industry” and telling the author’s personal story of physical, sexual, and medical abuse in Teen-Challenge-style facilities. The author? Paris Hilton. As it turns out Hilton has been campaigning for reform at these institutions for a while now. She tells her story compellingly, highlights a number of specific problems, and proposes government monitoring and a federal statutory bill of rights for kids in these programs. In addition, an article like this by someone who became famous essentially because of a sex tape and a lot of partying is a good reminder that there is often a ton of trauma and pain lurking behind behavior that most of society is quick to judge, including the behavior of the most privileged among us.
Hey guess what? I have a positive trend to talk about for once! In the Atlantic this week, an encouraging article discusses the decreasing number of children available for adoption. I say “encouraging” because the cause of the decrease is mostly fixes to truly awful problems that have plagued the adoption system and society at large. There is less corruption in the system, declining stigma surrounding single motherhood, increasing insistence overseas on adoptions by family members or compatriots before westerners, and much more. The article also discusses the American church’s central role in the skyrocketing of adoptions in the late 20th century, giving us an opportunity to reflect on the assumptions we made about the superiority of our families and culture, and to hopefully repent of the damage we caused by separating so many children from their families and homelands.
On a significantly less happy note, a recent, long Mother Jones investigative piece about Moody Bible Institute tells the stories of students who experienced sexual harassment and assault at the school, only to find the administration that was supposed to protect them acting in the interests of their abusers. The article echoes the reports about Liberty University in two episodes of the podcast series Gangster Capitalism, a previous recommendation of mine. But unlike at Liberty, the Moody administration has undergone an independent investigation (though the survivors and others have a lot to say about the limitations of that investigation). The author of the Mother Jones article grew up evangelical and is a survivor herself. She handles the stories with care and nuance, probing the questions they raise about the often-blurred line between Christian doctrine and patriarchal culture. This is definitely worth a read, though it is not an easy one to get through given the subject matter.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
“Burnout: Can We Fix Work?” is an episode of Science VS, a podcast hosted by Science Journalist Wendy Zukerman. This informative, fast-paced conversation delves into the damage that long-term, work-related stress can do to our bodies, including brain damage and heart disease. We may not see it but our bodies are marked by the frenetic pace at which many of us work day in and day out. While listening to this episode I was reminded that the Fourth Commandment is to sabbath. It is not an invitation, suggestion, or comment on our relationship with work. Instead, God’s message via Moses is a commandment to orient the beginning of our weeks around God and not productivity or labor. If we are to leave the greed and endless pursuit of material wealth of colonialism, and thrive in the kingdom and family of God, we must divorce our identity and self-worth from our ability to generate income.
“When a Jewish Hospital Chaplain Was Asked to Perform a Catholic Baptism” appeared in America Magazine this week. This powerful piece tells the story of a chaplain named Hope Fried, a baby who would die soon after being born, and a Spanish-speaking mother who desperately wanted her little one to be baptized. Fried, in the midst of a pandemic, pressed into loving her neighbor in a way that was specific, tension-filled, and beautiful. Fried’s mentor said of her, “People have their own convictions, but the beautiful work that she did was to dig deeper within herself and find that love was a deeper value; that love and care and compassion compelled her more to facilitate this meaningful ritual for this family, at such a profound time of loss in their life.” I sincerely hope that when we are confronted with situations such as these, love is our choice as well.
When it came to the approval of social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the fight over who had access to them was fierce and deeply personal as much as it was political. Core to the argument was the question: who deserves the government’s help? Journalist Li Zhou puts this question front and center while reporting on the reconciliation bill crawling its way through the US Congress. Zhou explains the case against means testing for government benefits. Many argue that the more hoops a program puts in place, the less likely it is to be used, the more likely stigmas can develop around people who use it, and the higher the chance that poor and marginalized folks will be left out altogether. And it is precisely these exclusionary tactics that should trouble followers of Jesus.
Shake the Dust preview
Tomorrow’s episode is Sy having a conversation with Jonathan about living as a blind Christian, how disabled people think about disability differently, the church’s interactions with disabled congregants, ableist theology and church practice, and a lot more. You’ll also find a link in the show notes to a Twitter list of some of Sy’s favorite disabled people to follow!
Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you next week!
The KTF team