[Vision2020] God is busy again

Art Deco art.deco.studios at gmail.com
Thu Aug 22 15:29:04 PDT 2013


 Gay detective's mother booted from
church<http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/22/gay-detectives-relatives-booted-from-church/>

By* Eric Marrapodi,* CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor
Follow @EricCNNBelief <http://twitter.com/EricCNNBelief>

*(CNN)–*The mother of a gay detective has been booted from the Tennessee
church she attended for decades.

Elders at Ridgedale Church of Christ told Linda Cooper and two relatives
that their public support for Kat Cooper, Linda Cooper's gay daughter, went
against the church's teachings, local media reported. In a private meeting,
reports say, Linda Cooper was given a choice: publicly atone for their
transgressions or leave the church.

Linda left the church.

Kat Cooper is a detective with the Collegedale Police Department. This
month, she fought successfully for health benefits for her same-sex spouse,
Krista, from the town.

The Board of Commissioners passed a resolution allowing for same-sex
partner benefits, becoming the first city in Tennessee to do so.

Along the way, the mother publicly supported her daughter. That support
appears to have led to a rift with her church.

"My mother was up here and she sat beside me. That's it," Kat Cooper told
the Times Free Press of
Chattanooga<http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/aug/21/repent-or-leave/>.
"Literally, they're exiling members for unconditionally loving their
children - and even extended family members."

"Her answer to them ... is that she had committed no sin in her mind.
Loving her daughter and supporting her family was not a sin," Kat Cooper's
father, Hunt Cooper, told CNN affiliate
WTVC<http://www.newschannel9.com/news/top-stories/stories/family-banned-church-speaks-out-6732.shtml>.
"There was nothing to repent about. They certainly couldn't judge her on
that because that was between her and her God, and it was not their place
to judge her for that."

"The sin would be endorsing that lifestyle," Ken Willis, a minister at
Ridgedale Church of Christ, told to the Times Free Press. "The Bible speaks
very plainly about that."

The news enflamed the passions of critics and supporters of the church's
action.

A phony Facebook page for the
church<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ridgedale-Church-of-Christ/113401812026832>was
created by one critic, who posted glib messages affirming same-sex
marriage shortly after the controversy went viral. "There's nothing about
girl on girl in Leviticus," one post reads.

Mary Sturdibint, a Collegedale resident, told WTVC, "I don't think they
should be kicked out of church. If you're going to kick out someone, it
needs to be the two that are same-sex that's married. I do believe in that."

Willis declined an on-camera interview with WTVC but released a written
statement.

"This is an in-church private issue. Because emotions are so inflamed at
this point, I choose not to comment any further," it read.

"The church is overseen by elders. I am a minister, not a pastor and
therefore, do not have the authority to speak further on this. The news is
getting mixed reviews."

Multiple calls to the church and the Coopers by CNN were not returned.

*Church of Christ structure*

What happens next for the small suburban church remains unclear.

There is no denomination to hand down an edict praising or condemning the
local church's decision.

Churches of Christ are a loosely joined group of independent churches that
are autonomous by design. There is no denominational oversight, formal
structure or even a denomination headquarters.

Local churches are governed by appointed elders in a structure the church
traces to the early followers of Jesus described in the New Testament, said
Ronald Highfield, a professor of religion at Pepperdine
University<http://www.pepperdine.edu/>
.

"They're organized in congregations with their own local leadership so that
no other congregation, no set of congregations, no convention can exercise
any ecclesiastical discipline over another congregation," said Highfield,
who is also an elder in his local Church of Christ congregation.

While there are no documents or position papers by the church on the issue
of homosexuality and how members ought to interact with lesbian, gay,
bisexual or transgender family members, he said that on the issue of sexual
orientation, churches in the denomination fall on a spectrum from
progressive to conservative.

Most churches, Highfield said, hold a traditional Christian belief that sex
is to be reserved for married men and women and that sex outside of that
marriage arrangement is wrong, regardless of what the church believes about
sexual orientation.

"There is an implicit covenant when you're a member of a congregation to
adhere to the scriptures and the authority," he said.

So, he said, supporting a view that could be seen as undermining the
teaching of the church could be grounds for excommunication.

Highfield was unfamiliar with this particular congregation until the story
broke and said as for its decision, "whether it's just or fair, I'm not
going to make a judgment."

*Not a new issue*

For decades, churches have wrestled with the issue of homosexuality,
leading to splits and schisms of individual congregations and entire
churches.

Some churches, like the Episcopal Church, have shifted from the traditional
Christian position on marriage to now bless monogamous same-sex unions and
perform same-sex marriages in states where they are
legal.<http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/09/washington-national-cathedral-to-wed-same-sex-couples/>

While churches that have formally shifted their policies on same-sex
marriage are in the minority, Americans' opinion of such marriage has
shifted significantly from opposition to support.

A CNN/ORC poll conducted in
June<http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/26/poll-majority-backs-same-sex-marriage/>,
when the Supreme Court was deciding the fate of the Defense of Marriage Act
and the validity of a California law banning same-sex marriage, 55% of
Americans said marriages between gay or lesbian couples should be
recognized as valid. That marked an 11-point swing from 2008, when 44% of
Americans said the unions should be legal.

The public outcry about the exile of the parents of a gay adult child from
this Tennessee congregation seems to mirror this shift in public opinion.

Some pollsters<http://publicreligion.org/research/2013/04/doma-gay-marriage-march-2013/#.UhZikRlhR_0>and
commentators<http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/>have
pointed to tension about same-sex marriage as a reason for an exodus
from churches, particularly among young people.

Many mainline Protestant churches have seen a decline in membership,
while pollsters
have noted a steady increase in
"nones,"<http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/category/nones/>or people
saying they have no religious affiliation.In its latest surveys, the
Pew Forum on Faith and Public life puts "Nones"
at 20% of the population.<http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/09/survey-one-in-five-americans-is-religiously-unaffiliated/>

Pew has also noted that at the same time younger Americans are leaving
churches, older Americans are returning in a pattern that matches
historical trends that have shown people become more religious as they get
older.

Because there is no central office for Churches of Christ, reliable numbers
on membership are difficult to come by.

When the Ridgedale congregation next updates its membership rolls, it will
be crossing out the Coopers. The family told the local newspaper they were
devastated to leave a church where they had been active for 60 years.

For now, both the Coopers and their former church are standing by their own
convictions, and after six decades of traveling together, they are heading
in different directions.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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