As we celebrate our adoption agency’s 10th Anniversary, I’m posting brief introductions of the Carolina Hope staff. March 10 I told you a little about our Assistant Director, Lisa Prather. Today I would like you to meet our Director of Ministry Outreach, Dan Cruver. I’ve asked him a few questions, and here are his answers.

JJ: You’ve taught Bible and theology for many years. When did theological adoption begin to be a prominent part of your thinking?

DC: I can’t identify a decisive moment when theological adoption really began to become prominent in my thinking. My growth in this area, at least the first couple years, was a fairly gradual, almost imperceptible process. As I think about it now, my thinking in this area really started a few years before our first adoption as I began to consider the practice of transracial adoption through the lens of Scripture. God used my study in this area to move my wife and me to joyfully embrace transracial adoption, in part, as a wonderful and powerful picture of what God is doing through the gospel, namely, creating a mulit-ethnic family through His work of adoption. Then, after our first transracial adoption, my thinking gradually broadened out to consider Scripture’s teaching on adoption in general terms to the point where it is now my primary theological focus. I can honestly say that nothing has grown my understanding and amazement of God’s grace more than the theology of adoption over the past several months.

JJ: Has the doctrine of theological adoption affected how you relate to your sons and daughter?

DC: One of the main ways it has affected my relationship with my two sons by adoption and my 11 year old biological daughter, is that even though I grew up in the home of my biological parents, I can look my two sons in the eyes and tell them that I too know what it is like to be adopted. Since God has adopted me as His child, I know the experience of being brought into a family that was not originally mine. My daughter is also able to relate to her brothers on this level. Adoption is not unique to just those two members of our family. As a result of our vertical adoption (i.e., God adopting my daughter, my wife and me as His children), we are better able and equipped to rejoice in the horizontal adoption of our two boys. Vertical or theological adoption gives us great reason to make adoption a cause for celebration in our household. It enriches and informs our experience as an adoptive family.

To read more about Dan, go to his staff page at our main site.

:: posted by josh ::