8/11/07

Expelling from the Church : Yea or Nay?

Is it okay (and if so, when), to expel someone from the Church?

2 comments:

  1. Well, tresspass warrants are important when a parishioner becomes violent. But even then membership should not be revoked.

    The Methodist Discipline essentially does not permit church discipline of the laity. Which is a real pity, because we cannot hold people accountable for grievious, unrepentent sins or for repeatedly disrupting congregational life.

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  2. We have homeless and mentally ill brothers and sisters who frequent our church and we have had to have a restraining order issued in at least one case.

    And there was much sadness over that case because he did suffer from mental illness and it wasn't so much a matter of casting him "out" as it was just a safety matter for other church members.

    The anabaptist tradition has codified the practice of shunning (as the Amish and Mennonites call it) but I don't know of any cases personally where that has happened.

    Holding folk accountable is not something that most churches do or (if they do it) do well, it seems to me.

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