Though Moses’s mother is the first recorded woman to courageously defy government edicts to save her baby’s life, her story rings true to mothers today. This spoke to another truth-thousands and thousands of birth mothers had taken their lives in their hands, defying the law and strict penalties, to ensure their baby girls made it to orphanages. 6 But unlike in India, this resulted in a deluge of girls in their orphanages. When forced to choose, families submitted to their underlying belief system which required a boy to carry on the family name and ancestral rights. The brutality of this law pushed parents to abort or kill additional children. Meanwhile, the one-child policy was still in effect in China. What had we missed in scientific breakthroughs, inventions, new ideas, and spiritual nurture when as a world we turned our back on these girls? It was in these rural Indian villages that I knew if a low-caste birth mother made the courageous decision to save her daughter’s life and get her to an orphanage, I wanted to join in that loving act and give her daughter a chance. I mourned not only for her and her lost opportunities, but for me and our world. Time and time again I would meet a brilliant young girl who had been deprived of education and thought it radical to dream that she could learn to read. Part of my responsibilities had included overseeing adolescent girls’ clubs and literacy classes. By then I had earned my master’s in public health and devoted three more years of my life to working in rural North India. When my husband and I married, rather than having children through the usual route, we decided to adopt. Paul’s inclusion of women in Galatians 3:28 only confirms this good news. As she said, “For some years after my baptism, I was comparatively happy to think that I had found a religion which gave its privileges equally to men and women there was no distinction of caste, colour, or sex made in it.” 5 Like Ramabai, the Indian context revealed to me just how radical Jesus’s good news is for women. 4 Ramabai converted to Christianity because she was convinced that Jesus was good news for women. Pandita Ramabai, a famous Hindu religious scholar in the late 1800s, attributed the severe discrimination against girls to the Hindu belief system that excludes females from moksha, or salvation. When I was interning in the hospital, I watched mothers sob at the birth of a baby girl, while others celebrated the birth of a boy. I witnessed and heard doctors’ heartbroken testimonies of husbands who allowed their ill pregnant wives to die rather than allowing simple healthcare interventions. Girls born alive are killed or neglected in the hopes they’ll die. 3 Sex-based abortions, though illegal, are regularly performed to kill baby girls. India has one of the lowest ratios of girls to boys in the world. 2 Yet perhaps the experience that best helped me understand women’s global exclusion was my summer college internship in rural North India. I understand why women from my generation are leaving the church in higher numbers than any other demographic: we have been hurt by the exclusion. Women and Girls Are Excluded GloballyĪs a woman, I intuitively understand that when women are excluded or limited, the church-the family of God-suffers. We, the family and body of God, flourish best when all our differences are honored. In another metaphor he teaches that our baptism into the Holy Spirit makes us one body, but it is our differences-and here he references nationality and class-that make us a functional body (1 Cor. Paul spent a lot of time talking about the family of faith, specifically encouraging and praising its diversity and unique giftings. 1 Beyond just becoming part of the religious elect, their unique identities were elevated as equal parts of the family, Abraham’s offspring (Gal. Jesus’s bodily representation of the religious elect-male, free, and Jewish-overturned exclusive election to now include the woman, the slave, and the Gentile. I’m looking forward to sharing those lessons in Atlanta at CBE’s 2022 International Conference during my workshop, “Parenting Toward Galatians 3:28: Lessons Learned Through Interracial, International Adoption.” For now, I offer a preview that begins, expectedly, in Galatians.Īt the end of Galatians 3, Paul presents a baptismal creed that mixes metaphors of family with Jewish election to create a new reality for believers in Christ. My family’s interracial, international adoption journey presents us with many lessons learned and the opportunity to move closer to the fullness of Galatians 3:28. “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” (Gal.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |