LAMENT

On the occasion of the front page of the Chattanooga Times Free-Press displaying the photos of 32 Black men arrested in a major drug sweep to break up gangs and the trade in crack cocaine.

A LAMENT FOR 32 BLACK MEN

It is sorrow

A sadness for the badness

32 Black men and their facing

Front, on the first page

Gathered, swept,

Rounded not up but down.

Facing not merely the camera

Where our eyes see them

As no longer simply a name

But an accompanied face,

Each a story, and the

Imminent possibility of

A great cumulative loss

To us, for themselves,

For our future.

 

They are men

Responsible for their own

Behaviors,

They are accountable.

Yet their collective loss

Hurts and haunts us all.

We lament for their victims;

The dead, the wounded,

The crippled, the intimidated,

The seduced, the addicted,

The impoverished.

We lament the children

They have produced

But whom they will not raise.

 

We lament the women,

Mothers, lovers, daughters,

Who if they see them

Will see them in places

Far, with spaces separated;

Bars, glass, and wire.

 

We lament the whole

Sorry story repeated

Once again in fatherless boys.

We lament the communities

Without their talents,

Initiative, leadership, and juice

They gave to crime;

Now stored away doing time.

 

We lament the schools

They condemn to children

Who know no discipline

And will nothing know.

No one at home to call them

Higher, No aspiration

For family, career, or meaning.

 

We lament the prisons

Full of others just like them.

We lament the system

That gives them longer years

And fewer tears than white boys.

We lament the system

That chooses one drug worse than another

We lament the profiling

The stops, the frisks.

We lament the

Racism that will

Accept that front page as

Inevitable but not

Regrettable.

We lament the politicians

Who will not stand for

Families, who reward

Immorals but not marriage,

The judges who never say

“No” to a divorce.

 

We lament the churches

Who will not send or stay

But leave the places

Where these men are from,

That could have mentored,

That could have shaped

That might have warned,

That should have loved.

 

Years in prison may protect us

But it will not heal us,

Nor change those we send away.

Growing old may slow them down,

But we should weep for our collective loss,

And we should wonder if the cycle

Will come around again.

 

Let us weep for our children

Let us weep for our loss

Let us see empty spaces

Which these mugged faces

Will leave us

As they leave us

And in our weeping

May we find resolve

That our city will stop

Losing what could have been.

 Randy Nabors

17 November, 2013

IS TRANSFORMATION AND RENEWAL POSSIBLE?

    All things are being put under the feet of Jesus.  In the flow of human history I wonder how that works out, I am wondering how we as the followers of Jesus make an impact in the world culturally?  I am wondering about things like transformation and renewal.
       As I travel around I sometimes read the vision statement of congregations that proclaim they are to be about the renewal of the city and of all things.   Then I look at the decay of culture, the degeneration of morals in our own society, and I wonder what good we have done.  I wonder what good we can do, about the temporal and material nature of our passing upon the earth, about how those who come after us may not, and often do not, continue the good we have tried to do, the justice we have tried to enact, the beauty we have tried to create.
    I realize that my own sins have contributed to this decay, this retrograde action upon the good work done before me.  Yet I have hope, as I realize that what God asks of me is not to attempt eternal transformation or eternal renewal but that which concerns my own space and time, my own impact upon the issues of justice, in acts of mercy to the poor, in the rebuilding of streets with dwellings, of bringing beauty for ashes.
    I believe that all acts of righteousness have eternal value and thus eternal effect.  Even if the cup of cold water that I give in Jesus name may be smacked out of the hand of the prophet to whom I extend it by some oppressive tyranny the act had meaning because God sees all things, and he remembers.  I also believe that what some call "proximate justice" is significant because cultures do change, economics change, politics change, neighborhoods change, relationships change, nations change even though those changes are temporal and material. We strive to make those changes positive by the revelation of God as to what goodness, justice, and love really are. What I am saying is that those changes are eternally significant, not because they create the Kingdom of God or bring it to earth, but because they reveal it, in terms of the righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit that is experienced during that momentatry reflection of the true Camelot.
    This means that my country matters, my local government matters, my police force matters, my school system matters, my neighborhood matters.  My act of being a neighbor, and being a citizen are arenas in which I reveal the glory of God in the good works that I and my family and my congregation and all of us as the people of God do.  Yes, in history positive change has often been swept away by the next regime of evil, or the next invasion of wickedness, political entitity or army; yet they mattered while they were here.
    Protecting the boundaries of the widow, caring for the fatherless, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, protecting the innocent from the slaughter are God given responsibilities and they make a difference to the people involved, and to the culture involved.  One's eschatalogical view may dismiss such activities as fairly meaningless in the light of the coming apocalypse, in light of an expected tribulation, but I do not see that being consistent with the importance Scripture puts upon our responsibility to do good while we are here. 
    Some believers live in periods of tremendous persecution, in periods of poverty, oppression, war, and suffering.  There may seem to be no hope that life upon earth can have any joy or any meaning and thus the hope of heaven, the cry "return oh Lord!" seems not only right but the only thing for which one can aspire.  Statements from some affluent church that they want to transform culture may thus seem like a joke.
      I believe in heaven, and I believe Jesus will return.  I believe in the necessity of people to see beyond the temporal and live for the eternal and to place their hope in things above because death is real and life is fleeting.  Yet I also believe God made human life the arena of importance, and how I treat the slave, the sexually trafficked, the unjustly imprisoned, the slaughtered unborn baby, the swindeled impoverished debtor to the payday loan company, the desperate single parent mom, the unloved child means something to God.  I also believe that when we mobilize our congregations, our Christians to do something about it, sometimes we win.  Sometimes we change the situation on the ground.  Our purpose, and our value is not that we be permanently triumphant in everything but consistently faithful in obedience, relevant as salt that keeps its savor.
   The situation was changed for me when the Deacons brought groceries to our house in the projects.  We would later learn that man lives not by bread alone, but that was not the time for that particular lesson.  The lesson for that time was love and mercy and it began to transform our lives, and our hope was renewed, and one family was eventually brought out of poverty, and institutions were yet to be built to stand, advocate, and fight for justice.   This was not for nothing simply because "its all gonna burn."  It has eternal value, and temporal too.  To those who say we cannot renew anything, nor transform anything, nor redeem anything I must say are as wrong as those who think we can change everything by the power of our own hands.  I know these cities may one day turn to dust, but I hope to make them liveable while we are here, as I long for the city whose builder and maker is God.

IN GOD WE TRUST

I have a lot friends who don't like the Affordable Care Act, or Obama care, if  you will.  There are certainly parts of it I don't like, and wish we could get changed.   I have some friends who don't like the government spending more money than it takes in.  I don't like that either.  I've been upset about that since the days of Reagan, when we kept spending money for defense without taxing for it, and I was upset during the time of President Bush for having two wars that we haven't paid for yet.
   The Republicans think it is okay to go into debt to pay for war.   Democrats think it is okay to go into debt to pay for social welfare programs.  It seems nobody thinks it necessary to pay our bills, at least not right away, maybe never.
    I think truth is more important than passion unleashed with imaginative diatribe.  Many of my conservative friends seem to get steamed, in my opinion, about the wrong things.  There are much worse things happening then they seem to post about on FaceBook (such as the closing of monuments,etc), but they seem to be caught up by demagogues and parrot often inaccurate, ad hominem nonsense. Unfortunately this leaves them without a lot of credibility.  I do think many folks interested in politics really want positive change, they want our nation on a solid financial footing, they want honesty in our accounting.  I respect that.  I don't think  that everyone who wants the government to make financial sense is a racist, which is what I hear conservatives say has been an accusation against them.
    Neither do I think that people who wish sick people from any economic category to be treated, without having to declare bankruptcy or to be left out of real and adequate health care, are Marxists.  To acknowledge that there is something terribly wrong with the way we distribute and provide access to health care in this country is not a declaration of wanting to steal freedom from other Americans.    Accusations that government supervised health distribution would lead to rationing have evidently missed the rationing that already exists, due to many working people being unable to afford it.  Declarations that "America has the best health care in the world" seem ignorant of both published health statistics and the reality that health care that is best but unobtainable by the working class of this country might as well not exist.
    I am glad I am a Christian, so that I can still trust in God when I despair for my country.   The anger of conservatives about the financial mismanagement of the government seems to have given them the idea that they are justified in being tyrants, which is the way they come across since they are a minority in the government, not having won the Senate or the Presidency, and seem to assume that blackmail to achieve their purposes is not an idea that can work both ways and come back to hurt all of us.
   I am sympathetic to the idea that we should dismiss all the politicians and start over.  I am sorry that those legitimate and important ideas that conservatives should bring to the table are now in danger of being crushed by their own intransigence.  This administration has failed the country in not listening to concerns of the conservative portion of the electorate.  We are rightly angry at the dismissal of our religious objections to an imposed tax upon us to further a liberal view of women's reproductive rights, let alone the rush to homosexual marriage and the danger of crushing our freedoms of speech or choice to stand up against it.  Some of these things we can take into a negotiation of the budget and health care, but it is disgusting to see such concerns advanced by the completely irresponsible use of government shut down and a refusal to take the debt ceiling seriously.  Any conservative Republican who causally fluffs off a government shut down as inconsequential doesn't deserve to be governing in my opinion.  They are prisoners to their anti-Obama prejudice and have been so impressed by the hatred they have built up in their own constituencies that I don't know if they can even see an exit or hallway to compromise and constructive change.
  I was appalled at the triumphalism I have seen among my conservative friends in thinking they have brought the government to a halt.  It is such a negative triumphalism as it comes across as breaking the order by which our system of government works.  I have read of marriages where there was so much animosity that one or the other would go so far as to burn their house down and murder the children, and feel justified the whole time.  We live in hope that our leaders will come to their senses in time to avert disaster but, knowing human beings, I am glad our forefathers made the national motto, In God We Trust, of course, who else? 

IT IS NOT ONLY ABOUT WHERE WE ARE GOING, BUT WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT?

    I have been on the road a lot over the last month, and while I have been on the road it seems the world has too, but there is a question as to where it leads.  How do we look at life?  Is it that all of history moves in a linear line toward its ultimate conclusion?  Is it that we as humans move along our path, or make our path, through the world and through time?  Is it that we stand still and waves of events sweep over us, or else wash us away in their wake?
    I am a believer, and I believe in One sovereign hand who controls time, and events, and history.  He  creates, shapes, and controls it so that it comes out just as He wills.  While believing that I also believe that I along with all the rest of us are totally responsible for the paths we choose, the lives we lead, the decisions we make, the trouble we cause.  I believe that we can do good, and that we should, and are created for that end.  So, I believe in a Sovereign preordaining God and lives that make a difference.
    These two simultaneous beliefs allow me to relax, and not worry, or fear that events might overtake and overwhelm me.  They give me confidence in the ending.  They also give me incentive along the way to shape the road I travel, to push in certain directions, to take responsibility for my own walk.  As I look back I am amazed at Someone controlling even the misdirection, the wandering, the stumbles, and using them to create a certain destination.  I realize of course that I don't know all of what lies ahead, I don't know the hills, valleys, obstacles that I may face.  I don't know the cliffs or sudden drop-offs, the rocks on which I might fall.  While I move so does the world, along a certain path, though often in total ignorance of a divine plan.
      I am afraid that in the face of "bad news" and sudden disaster or movements that seem to lead to the death of culture we believers abandon what we know to be the truth of  "all things working together for good, to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)  We sometimes  feel as flotsam in the current because sometimes the events are so big, the results so disastrous, that we make no effort to swim for reason, but only to stay above water.
    I went to a conference in New Orleans and arrived early.  The hotel was just finishing a conference before ours would begin in a day or two.  The conference we encountered was the National Conference on HIV/AIDS.  I am sure there were many kinds of folk at the conference, many heterosexuals, many researchers, with probably a myriad of views about homosexuality.  There was no doubt there were more homosexuals than I have ever seen at one time in one place.  Now, I got along fine with everyone, but being a very conservative committed Bible believer this was hard to handle. Whatever my theological, philosophical, and political opinions Jesus calls me to love people.  Yet, it was hard to handle because the homosexual movement seems to be so strong, the promiscuous licentiousness of our culture, the desire to have sex without guilt, without repercussions or responsibility, is so prevalent in our society.  The demand to redefine marriage, the redefining of family so there isn't any.  The current of current events that have led to this have felt like a water fall, and makes swimming against the current feel useless.
    I read that the one percent, or whatever the top "haves" might number, just got richer and the poor are poorer.  I read that even with "Obama Care" the poor in my state will be left out of the coverage they could have had if our state had cooperated.  I see the homeless on the streets, I see men who are not homeless pushing shopping carts of discarded metal to recycle it, not because they are environmentalists but because they are hungry.  My observation is that the poor, the working poor, the trying not to be poor poor, are drowning, and getting loans from sharks that make them sink even further. We hear the news that the Congress wants to cut out a lot of money for food stamps. It feels hopeless, and the poor feel hopeless.
    The prisons are full, the schools don't teach, there are not enough jobs, and the jobs that are offered can't get a family through the week.  If the Muslim terrorists don't kill us then the angry crazy man with a grudge or a psychosis will bring a shotgun to work and kill us, and if he doesn't then someone wearing certain colors will drive down the street and shoot our children.
    Why call for justice in such a stampede of idiocy and nonsense?  Why practice mercy when someone else will steal, abuse, or crush what you give or those to whom you give it?
    I have managed to sound like Ecclesiastes.  The validation of justice is not that I achieve it, and not even that I attempt to create it, but that it exists as an existential drive in the human heart and  is demanded by the One who made it exist in the first place. To admit the thirst for justice, and the human ability to perceive injustice, is to admit there is a God. The flood of evil, injustice, violence, poverty, and sorrow in the world doesn't diminish the power of mercy, or the need to love it, but only makes it more necessary, only more insistent.  If I don't believe there is Someone who controls the outcome and that things will be made right then the news of the moment or the decade will cause me to despair.  The odds seem too stacked against us, against the Biblical call for a life of morality, justice, hope, order, and restoration.
    It is senseless and selfish to hide in a illusion of personal safety, prosperity, health, and happy possibility, while the world goes to hell in a hand basket all around you.  Yet, that seems to be the strategy of the uninvolved, the unengaged, and in this I include the white middle-class Evangelical and the African American Prosperity Gospel aspirant adherent.  There is a rush it seems to denial.  Some seem to live their lives as if they swim in their own backyard pool, thinking they are safe, while the river of humanity is smashed against the rocks.
     We are all in the same river, and the danger is real, but we do not have to be adrift.  Danger and hope, destruction and salvation, acted upon and acting; real life needs not to be simply endured, nor should we attempt to evade its trouble with a life of pretend, but it needs to be faced and engaged. Our challenge is not only to float in the river, but to swim, and to change its course as God enables us..
    I am an optimist because I believe in final endings that are controlled by a loving, all powerful, and purpose driven God.  I am an optimist because I believe that effort, action, and work toward the things which reflect the character of God have eternal purpose, not simply momentary efficacy.  I am an optimist because I believe in final victory in which evil loses, good wins, justice prevails, the poor are lifted from the ash heap and are made to sit among princes.  I believe that in the midst of the torrent there is not only a rope of grace extended, but a grace that controls the river. I believe that facing, engaging, and fighting for those things now makes a difference, for myself, for the few I can help, for my children and others who watch my life.  Maybe even to change the current course of a river to the place of still waters, instead of a tide of events that wash many out to sea.

FULFILLING OUR CALLING

    Recently I was asked to speak at the African American Leadership, Development, and Recruitment weekend.  This conference was held at South City Church (PCA) and Covenant Theological Seminary.  This was the third annual AALDR weekend, held on Labor Day.  The first was at New City Fellowship in Chattanooga, the second at Reformed Theological Seminary, and the third one was at CTS. 

    I have included my outline here and I believe you can go online and hear the plenary sessions and workshops at the Covenant Seminary website.  I will add some notes here to give you some idea of what I tried to speak about.

ISSUES THAT INHIBIT OUR FREEDOM TO FULFILL OUR CALLING.

   We need the kind of freedom that the Apostle Paul speaks about in I Corinthians 9, where he says "though I am free and a slave to no man, I make myself a slave..."  Without that freedom our ministries are held back or inhibited, but when we are really free in ourselves, spiritually, in our personalities, we can finally really serve people (as we serve Christ).

  I spoke of four cultural issues, or one might describe them as phases, that people in cross cultural situations might experience.  I discussed this primarily from the point of view of the those in the "sub-dominant" or minority culture.  These phases are similar to what missionaries tend to go through, except that Western missionaries don't usually have the same threat to their core understanding of themselves as those whose ethnic or cultural group has been oppressed, or who live with a constant challenge to an attack on their cultural selves.

I.                 FOUR CULTURAL ISSUES THAT INHIBIT OUR FREEDOM

A.    Culture Shock

B.    Cultural Fatigue

C.    Cultural Alienation

D.    Cultural Confusion

    This dynamic can come from individuals who are in a time of ethnic or group shame or loathing, rejection of their own ethnic culture, a desperate desire to be accepted and assimilated into the majority culture, possibly living in denial about the reality of racism, and a disassociation from other individuals if there is any suggestion of racial or ethnic solidarity.

A combination of these issues can cause a kind of Cultural Trauma,

Leading to a reflection of PTSD (Anxiety, Fear, Sudden Anger, Transference, Social Inhibition.)

Spiritual Identity can liberate our cultural identity. 

   This is our great hope, that  we who are in Jesus Christ are loved by God in our full selves; our souls, our bodies, our heritage.  That we are sons of God, cannot be separated from his love, that we are righteous in his sight and forgiven.  The confidence we have in his love means that we can repent in regard to our own sins, and see the sins in our own culture(s), and still realize the love of God for ourselves and our people group.

We need a healthy CQ (Cultural Intelligence) to recognize how we are interacting with our cultural environment.

II.              FOUR PERSONALITY ISSUES THAT INHIBIT OUR FREEDOM

A.    Narcissism*

*Every person struggles with the innate human sin of pride.  It is a constant battle for every self aware person.  Narcissism is way beyond the regular temptation to feel superior to others, or feel slighted when we don't get recognition.  Narcissism is when there is never enough of you, never enough notice of you, the constant dynamic of having to speak or write about yourself.  It is insatiable, and makes people really want to avoid such individuals.  The more they trumpet themselves the lonelier they become.  We will speak about the danger of hubris when we come to sin issues.

B.    Man Pleasing

          This is a constant struggle for pastors and it carries with it the seeds of compromise and a loss of integrity.

C.    Competitive Insecurity

   Many pastors suffer from this, and it is a life of constant comparison and a feeling that we are never good enough unless we can outdo others.

D.    Manipulative Control

    This is where pastors start using guilt to intimidate people, leverage them to obedience (not to God but to their opinion) and spiritually abuse people.  It is a desire for control.

We need a  healthy EQ (Emotional Intelligence) to recognize ourselves.  Character can trump personality issues.

   One great hope for those of us with personality disorders is that we can still walk with God, and that though we are plagued by our fallen personality and tendencies we can still have some measure of victory over ourselves and the Lord can still use us, and many with these tendencies have been powerfully used of God.

III.            FOUR SIN ISSUES THAT INHIBIT OUR FREEDOM

  I think I will let these words preach for themselves.

A.    Dishonesty

B.    Fear

C.    Bitterness

D.    Self-Indulgence  (LUST!)

Sometimes when pastors become "full of themselves" i.e., filled with hubris, they set themselves up for sexual sin.  It is at this place that our success becomes our enemy, we begin to act as if we are not held to the same rules as others, that we have license to indulge ourselves because we are so special, helping so many people, etc.  Hubris is a swelling up of ourselves and it usually leads to a great fall.

Grace from the Holy Spirit is the engine of godliness in us.

IV.            FOUR BAD IDEAS THAT INHIBIT THE FULFILLMENT OF OUR CALLING

A.    Correcting Bad Theology Is More Important Than Winning Souls.

B.    That Protecting Yourself Is Necessary or Possible.

C.    That The Authentication Of Our Ministry Has Something To Do With The Way We Compare With Our Peers

D.    That The Things We Do Are As Important As the Goal

(Studying/learning, Pastoring, Defending Theology, Serving, Polemics, Participating In and Perfecting Church Polity & Discipline, Writing, Preaching, Innovating Liturgy, Innovating Discipleship Techniques or Small Group and Body Life Strategies, Perfecting Evangelistic Techniques, Family & Children Ministry, Counseling, Justice, Mercy & Development Ministry – and all the other things we can find ourselves busy in)

We must not fail to keep the end in view:

1.    The Personal – to know Christ

2.    The Product – to win as many as possible.

Keeping our eyes on Jesus enables us to finish the race by helping us reorient ourselves to what is important to Him.

   Well, that about sums it up.  May the Lord help us to take heed to the ministry that we have received, that we fulfill it; as the Apostle Paul challenged Timothy.

IDEOLOGICAL REJECTION IN THE FACE OF GOODNESS

  I have friends who are so ideologically opposed to civil rights leaders that they find it hard to give any praise to the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   I have friends who have hated Republicans so much that no matter if Reagan  or George W. Bush had done even one good thing (can you imagine it)they could not bring themselves to acknowledge it.  There are those who hate the Democratic party and President Obama to such an extent that if he says something (anything) that is righteous they will find a way to interpret it as meant for evil, that there is some nefarious agenda at work behind it.
    During the time of Dr. King there were many among theological and political conservatives who thought he was close to Anti-Christ.  The John Birch society had him pegged as a communist.  J. Edgar Hoover considered him to one of the most dangerous men in America.  To some degree ideology makes people idiots, they stop thinking clearly, logically, honestly.  It is certainly true that there are ideological agendas, and not all of them are equal.  Some ideas are just wicked, evil, and destroy people.  Sincerity of belief has nothing to do with truth or soundness of thought.  Yet, even among the wicked God lets himself be known.
    On this anniversary of the March on Washington and the famous "I have a Dream" speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.I find it hard to accept the opinions of those who would belittle, demean, or attempt to marginalize its significance for our nation.  I, like millions of others, love this speech.  I love it for its American ideals, I love it for its hope and its honesty about the reality of our nation's struggles with race.  I love it for its comprehensive call to all of us as citizens.  I love it for the way Dr. King delivered it and the glory it reveals of the African American church and the giftedness of the black preacher.  I love it because the man who delivered it strove to implement the principles he espoused with non-violence.
   The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 4: 8..."Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things."  On this day all Americans should be grateful for one of the great moments in our history.  One might say, "it is nothing but words."  True enough, but if you will consider it that is all America ever has been, words that capture ideas, hopes, beliefs, and dreams.  Look what God has wrought out of those lofty hopes.  We are not perfect as a nation, nor has any man been who helped it shape as such, but we have so much for which to be grateful and if your demand for perfection keeps you from seeing what is in fact good, and praiseworthy, you are truly blind.
   If you are one of those who just can't seem to get past all the problems you had with Dr. King, or that you have with present day Civil Rights spokesmen, or our present black president, maybe you could just think about the words and ask yourself if they do or do not correspond with your vision of what America is supposed to be about.  I think it might even be a good day for someone who was a bigot during that time to say to someone, even someone of another color, "I was wrong for what I thought."  Maybe you could even bring yourself to say, "America is better, America is greater, because of what Dr. King called us to be, and to do."  I am glad, as a preacher, that sermons do make a difference; if they are right, pure, lovely, admirable, and heeded.   

Parents Supporting Wicked Children

  Two stories have been in the Chattanooga papers recently.  One was the continuing legal complications of a family that are all locked up in prison.  They had appealed their sentences which came about due to a plea bargain over aiding and abetting a known fugitive, supplying a felon with weapons, etc.  Said felon was the son, brother, boyfriend of the family members now in prison.  The appeal was denied.  The crime of the "son" was killing a policeman in the midst of an armed robbery.
   The second story was the story of a female police detective who had applied for benefits for her lesbian lover/partner from the police authority/government where she works.  This story was about how the church in which her family were members had exercised  church discipline against the family due to their support of their daughter while she appealed for family benefits for her partner.  The disciplined the family not because they supported their daughter, but because they seemed to publicly support her lifestyle in appealing for family benefits.
    The local newspaper editorial of course mocked the church for taking the stand that it took.  This editorial actually referred to a a caricature used in a fairly liberal television drama as if it were a legitimate religious argument.  The news reporting typically interviewed a cross section of religious leaders who took different views concerning the decision of the congregation in question.
    One note about religious news reporting; it is simplistic if not misleading to quote religious leaders as if they are all equally qualified to speak for a certain religion.  Most religious leaders know that the religion of those who believe the Bible is a different religion from those who don't believe it.  Those who hold to a conservative theology actually believe and hold to the Bible as authority, while those who hold to a liberal theology use the Bible's words but only give it authority when they agree with it.  These are two very different things.
   I doubt most people have a problem with the condemnation of the family that supported their murderous relative.  I imagine most parents would find themselves in a horrible emotional state if one of their children broke the law, and while trying to maintain a tie of love and emotional support they would hopefully condemn the crime.
    This must happen frequently, seeing how many people we have in prison.  It is obvious that any parent can be in a situation where they don't approve of the moral choices of their children but don't want to completely end the relationship.  Most everyone is somebody's child, and all human beings have moral failings.  Sometimes they are fairly benign, but all too often they leave parents in a tough spot.
     How many parents have seen their kids strung out on drugs and alcohol and have had to struggle through co-dependency so as to love their child but not enable them in their addiction?  How many parents have watched their children get married, have children, and then commit adultery and leave that first spouse?  The parents (now grandparents) might have loved that first spouse, hate it that their grand kids are now in a divided family, and know they still have to somehow love and emotionally support that grown child that they feel has failed to have the character they had hoped to see.
    Yes, as in our first example, we have seen parents who have taken entirely the wrong approach.  When the police come they hide the child, even fight the police, and help the child break the law.  Some parents have so wanted to be accepted by their children that even though the child is isolated, morose, and bitter they keep buying them violent video games.  That hasn't turned out too well either.
    Over the last decade or so we have seen public figures whose children came out as homosexual take public stands to support them.   Even though these parents had never seemed to advocate this behavior they now seem to give public acquiescence to it based on the family relationship.  "I can't disown my own child," seemed to be the message.  I think the congregation in Chattanooga did the right thing.  They didn't condemn the loving and supporting of a child, even the child who the church considered to be living in known sin.  They did condemn the idea that a Christian family would stand with their child in the attempt to normalize and make acceptable that sin.
      This has been a dilemma many parents have found themselves in during this present cultural climate, and many have made the wrong choice.  We should always love our children, even the ones who are breaking our heart as we turn them over to the police if necessary.  Our children cannot determine our morality, that is left to a much greater family relationship, namely our Heavenly Father.  It is his opinion that counts not the Supreme Court, the President of the United States, public opinion polls, and certainly not the newspaper.
     People in the United States who think this is a passing commitment of conservative Christians needed to be disabused of that idea.  Though we hope to speak with greater and greater compassion, the idea that those who believe the Scriptures will somehow grow out of their stand against the practice of homosexuality is naive.  Some will lose their faith, that has always been a reality, but the Faith will not change.