I see on here a split of opinion with Christians on Austin Metcalf's dad, here and elsewhere.

I think both are incorrect in their own way.

One side says you don't forgive the unrepentant. Wrong, extremely wrong. Were the ones stoning Stephen to death repentant when he cried out for God to forgive them? No. The Bible puts no qualifications on who to forgive, only that you do.

The other side says he's being a Christian by forgiving the killer, and didn't do anything wrong and what I'd say is it's not wrong to forgive the killer, but I'd say that going on national TV and trying to make sure everyone complies with the cultures values on race has little or nothing to do with forgiveness, and so this side misses the mark.

You see, here's the biggest problem with what Austin Metcalf's dad did.

The black ghetto community needs to repent. They are like, in a way, a seperate nation like Ninevah who is told by all parties, including the church that they're not destined to hell.

Calling to repentance is an act of mercy in the Bible. Jonah didn't want to tell the Ninevites to repent because he didn't want them to experience God's mercy. When John the baptist comes on the scene preaching a message of repentance, it's repeated over and over that God's mercy has come. You want to love black people? Call the violence glorifying culture to repentance and warn them that huge swaths of their culture is akin to something like the Ninevites.

Essentially the dad is saying without realizing it "make sure you don't have any conversations that could be difficult for the inner city to hear, lest they realize their sins and turn and be saved".

Many black people will be going to hell unfortunately because even the church tickles their ear and never calls out their behavior even though the church is more than happy to call out their mostly white congregants behavior (which the church should).

Anyone who objectively looks at the black community can see that they fit the definition of a fool found in proverbs and yet no one wants to touch that subject, including Christians.

So, the dad should forgive the killer, even if it takes time to do, and it's odd that he would be so lacking in paternal instinct that he'd unemotionally virtue signal, which seems less like Biblical forgiveness and more like this modern day utter capitulation and celebration of black culture, and the next thing the father could do, which would be the loving thing and also an extremely dangerous and scary thing, which would be to absolutely address the racial issue. Look, it's not about race. Jesus said go preach to all the nations. By all accounts, the black culture is a foreign nation. They share no values, and their values that are taught from birth are completely leading people to hell. They qualify as a nation that needs repentance.

And as we see in the Bible, in order for people to accept Jesus, they first need to be told what they're violating, where they're astray, and what the consequences of sin are.

I don't see the church doing this with the black community. The exact opposite.

So the "don't forgive the unrepentant" Christians are wrong, as are the Christians who are failing to realize that the black, inner city, thug culture needs to face some extremely harsh facts for their eternal good.