Many newspapers around the U.S. today are carrying an insightful article from Jennifer Marshall, an incisive social analyst and director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation.  Marshall accurately depicts the deep challenges facing children in foster care.  Just as important, she also points accurately to the singular solution:  caring families and communities of faith must stand up and say, “We will embrace and care for those children.”  Thankfully, as Marshall notes, that is increasingly happening.  From Florida to Kentucky to Texas to Arkansas to Colorado, Christians are opening their homes as never before to welcome in foster children—via both foster care and adoption.

As Marshall describes, “Thankfully, for each child waiting to be adopted from foster care, America has three houses of worship. Child and family services with religious affiliations have large, established networks of prospective parents and caregivers. With more than 100,000 children waiting for homes, policymakers should encourage, not create barriers for, these providers.”

Marshall is right.  The Church does possess a clarion call in Scripture to welcome the parentless child.  And government, for its part, possesses a solemn duty to remove barriers that make it harder for faith communities to care for children in need—not create new ones.

Read the full article.