Stripping the Vanity from Christianity

BACKPORCH THEOLOGY

Lisa Harper is known for her sense of humor and storytelling ability. Her new podcast Back Porch Theology is the vehicle for this as she talks about some of life’s most challenging issues.

She explains, “The reason we are calling this podcast Back Porch Theology is because, in the American South, where I’ve spent most of my life, porches are comfortable casual kind of places where you can relax and swap stories. Back porches are typically even more comfortable. It’s where you invite close friends and family because you don’t need to impress them.”

Lisa wants to let everyone know that God’s love is accessible and available to all—not just a polished, select few. On her podcast, Lisa has already covered topics like:
•    The necessary synergy between orthodoxy - that is what we believe to be true of God - and orthopraxy - that is how we live in light of what we believe to be true of God.
•    God's redemptive plan for humanity is set in the context of community. 
•    The concept of imago Dei, and how every single human being, regardless of ethnicity, gender, culture, or creed is made in God's image and therefore inherently valuable and worthy of respect.
•    The necessary sacrament of confession and saying “I’m sorry.”
•    Having a high view of Scripture and a low view of yourself.

ADOPTING MISSY

At 40, Lisa felt she had missed the biological window for motherhood. Although she was “a mostly happy middle-aged woman, single that had never been married,” she longed to nurture a child. Lisa prayed about adoption and asked for some friends at church to pray for her too. One of those friends told Lisa that because she had been sexually abused in the past and gone through Christian counseling she might unwittingly transfer that drama onto a child.

This individual said Lisa would not be a good candidate for motherhood but might want to consider adopting a dog.  Lisa says this lady’s words resonated with the deepest fear in her that there was something in her so damaged that it could not be redeemed. She placed her adoption application in the back of her drawer and did not touch it again until seven years later. When she started the process again, she lost two domestic adoptions before a friend called her and told her about a young mom who died of AIDS in Haiti and left behind a two and a half-year-old year old who was really sick.

The little girl had HIV, tuberculosis, and cholera, and doctors were saying she was not going to make it. Lisa’s friend told her about the girl because she knew that Lisa had said she would take a child no one was standing in line to adopt. Her friend asked Lisa to pray about the possibility of adopting this girl, but Lisa said, “Nope, I’ve been praying about this for 30 years. Sign me up!”  

Six weeks later she was in Haiti where she got to hold Missy for the first time. Missy said, “Hello Mama Blanc” which means hello white mama. The adoption process took two years. When Lisa finally got the call that she could come pick up Missy from Haiti she was so excited. She went by herself to Haiti to bring Missy home. Friends of hers gathered at the airport to welcome them home.  

“Every day since I brought Missy home seems sweeter than the day before,” reveals Lisa. “Missy’s health today is nothing short of a miracle. Her HIV is the lowest level of undetectable …there is no HIV in her blood right now. There is not one single scar from tuberculosis on her lungs. Her life expectancy is exactly that of a child who never had HIV,” shares Lisa.