Adoption challenge addressed in new booklet

The needs of children should come ahead of arguments about who should adopt - according to a new book (Adoption - A Challenge to the Church, £2.50) published this month by Grove Books and written by Methodist minister Sarah Lamb.

Speaking as the mother of two adopted children, Sarah says that the adoption process is too often about preserving cherished forms of family life which do not always lead to happiness for prospective parents and their adopted children.

"Adoption happens when a child who is not born to a family becomes a full member of it. Adoption transforms and creates a family, and yet it remains on the margins of Christian family life," Sarah writes.

In a clear challenge to the Christian churches in Britain to reflect more deeply and effectively on what adoption is, and where it places people in the community, the book emphasises the clearly held view that "a biblical view of adoption should make children the priority, rather than the issue of who should be able to adopt them".

Lamb says that those children who are waiting to be adopted are a challenge for the Church.

She writes: "The least desirable situation is for the numbers of children without permanent families to continue to be so high."

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