My new book,  Adoption Unfiltered, has three chapters in it devoted to religion and adoption. My co-authors and I each researched and covered a chapter. Sara Easterly, an adoptee and a Christian, wrote about religion’s pain points for adoptees. Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard, a birth mom, wrote about religion’s role in relinquishment. I, an adoptive parent, wrote about reexamining religious narratives that guide us on our journeys to adopt, and later, in the ways we parent our children. In each case, we interviewed people of various faiths who had witnessed ways in which religion – not God – had caused harm.

No parent wants to cause harm, at least, not knowingly. So what do you need to know about some of the unexamined ideas you may have around your religion’s messages and their effects on your child and their birth parents?

With us this month is Amber Jimerson, a birth mother and a preacher’s wife, who has dived very deeply into this ocean of thought. When is the word “adoption” used in the Bible? Who uses it in the Bible, and who doesn’t? How have things been misinterpreted over the millennia, and what ideas and verbiage need some current critical thought?

Are you open at this moment to seeing an old thing in a new way? I love when that happens to me! Which is why I’ve invited Amber to share what she’s learned from her research.