Monday, April 30, 2007

Meet the ELCA's newest partner

The headline on the ELCA News Blog last Friday read: ELCA partners with Jolie, Global Action for Children. The release begins:

"Actress Angelina Jolie appeared at a news conference April 26 in Washington, D.C., to announce the launch of Global Action for Children (GAC), a coalition advocating for orphans and vulnerable children around the world. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a member of the leadership council of GAC with 20 other faith groups and nonprofit organizations."

Then after a paragraph describing GAC and Ms. Jolie's role in the lobbying group (read it all here) comes this:
"We shape our future by the way we raise our children," said Jolie, who serves as the honorary chairperson of the GAC board. "And orphan children are the world's children."
Ms. Jolie is correct about the the importance of how we raise our children. And her celebrity is certainly helping draw attention to the plight of orphans and other vulnerable children in the Third World.

But what kind of message is being delivered when a major Christian church body trumpets a "partnership" for children with someone for whom honoring marriage vows is distinctly not a part of the future she wishes to shape, at least for the child she has had with her current paramour, with whom she is also raising her adoptive children?

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