John – I just re-read your open letter to Chambers, and the shoot first expression might be close. You make assumptions about Alan’s motives and the timing of various events for which you don’t have evidence. My impression is that you have your mind made up about the guy and what is going on there.
Skepticism is warranted when public leaders make big changes; I get that. However, as Richard noted above, it is the manner of expressing your skepticism that is troubling to me. In my case, you told me that I was asking people to lie by passing out Golden Rule Pledge cards. In Alan’s case, you wrote:
“And if that’s the case, then of course you’re not really apologizing at all. Then you’re no different from the guy saying, “I apologize for being the leader of a group of white-hooded KKK guys who burned a cross on your lawn. That was wrong. You niggers still need to go, of course. But we’re gonna stop with the hoods and the cross burnings. People just don’t get behind that the way they used to. So we’re gonna regroup, lose the name ‘KKK,’ and come up with a more acceptable way of promoting what we believe. Isn’t that great?!””
First, the use of the n-word and reference to the KKK is offensive and way out of line. Second, your analogy doesn’t describe what is happening. It does manage to inflame and is “fierce” but is not constructive.
John, we have to live together, people who are side A and side B. Demonizing each other is not going to get us anywhere.

I think Warren’s point is that Shore’s STYLE is not always helpful.

I wonder if the Exodus conference attendees knew they were going to be attending a wake for a dead ministry. It seems Chambers has been pondering this decision for a while, so it would be heartless for him to not warn the few remaining loyal Exodus supporters that this conference would dire.

Ann,
I , too, hope people will continue to live the life they value.
My feelings and thoughts about Exodus closing have moved around a lot. I guess, right now I have some very mixed feelings.

John – Thanks for providing the link. Probably, shoot first and ask questions later was a poor way to describe what I had in mind, so for that I am sorry.
Yes, let readers, if they care to, decide.

A or B only has to do with the choice of celibacy. What does that have to do with the “varying degrees of homosexuality”? What does that even mean?

Ann, it strikes me as odd to discount GCN as a an alternative based on the fact that it’s Christian, considering Exodus was also unapologetically Christian. I can’t imagine why anyone who was not bothered by Exodus’s religious affiliation would suddenly be bothered by the fact that GCN has the same affiliation.

Ann,
They can got to the Gay Christian Network.

They wouldn’t, would they? They would not see the so-called ‘reparative therapy’ activities of Exodus as ‘harmful’, but as something that had to be done in the pursuance of an ideology (“straight is good, gay is bad”) that Alan Chambers now understands (correctly in the view of many of us here) to be divorced from reality.

Box Turtle Bulletin has coverage onsite at the Exodus conference and he said the mood was fairly somber there after the announcement–the winds taken out of the sail and people seem to be grieving. So yes, it definitely seems people are grieving. What is odd is that Chambers said in an interview recently when asked how people responded to the announcement that he didn’t think it was unexpected to people. That seems like a really out of touch response. I have been keep tabs on Exodus for years and was fully aware of some of the changes going on in the past year and even I was surprised to hear of the shut down.