Family matters

If one were to make a list of things evangelical Christians like, it's bound to include adopting orphans from overseas. It's become a major trend, so much so that some nations now limit out-of-country adoptions by Americans. Kathryn Joyce, author of Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, now explores the dark side of international religious adoptions in The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption (PublicAffairs, $26.99). Turns out, many of the children are not actually orphans. Rather, their cultures don't see adoption as severing blood ties, and their families believe the children are temporarily relocating to the United States for an education. Joyce details individual cases and big-picture patterns to explain the current rage for “conversion by adoption.”