Church Discipline

[Mrs.Nisly]

Mrs.Nisly said,

I think there would be merit in a good discussion on a dedicated thread about church discipline and explicitly avoidance either the communion table and the social table. Many of us attend churches that practice open communion, so the doctrine of banning from the communion table is very weakened and church discipline is virtually pointless.

So we know some of the historical Anabaptist views on church discipline, what are scriptural grounds for discipline, what are the methods, and are these ideas still relevant for today?

Is there merit in rigorous social shunning like many Old Orders practice it?...is it scriptural?

I know very well there is a lot of negative baggage associated with it. It has been in my awareness all my life since my parents experienced quite strict shunning when they left the OOA.

Is the idea rehabilitate-able to someone like me?

[cmbl]

Besides the options of (1) open communion and (2) strict shunning, there is the option of (3) closed communion without strict shunning.

[Neto]

Do those who apply the strict approach (like the OOA) have a clear idea of why they do it, and if so, what is it? (Such as, is it "Because the Scripture tells us to do it." "If we don't everyone will just do as they please." or something more global thinking, like "The purity of the Church must be guarded.")

[Mrs.Nisly]

Those are good questions,Neto. I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer them.

In the past 25 years I have been aware of only one Excommunication in the church I was a part of, and that was probably 20 years ago. It was of an unmarried young woman who had fallen away and was living with a man. She eventually repented and became a true believer in another church. Incidentally, she also ended up marrying a man whose wife was unfaithful and left him. They have a family and are both living for the Lord.

As far as I know though, she never made restitution to the first church, although everyone knew and were very happy she had turned her life around.

Church discipline seems like it should be a practice the Christian church should maintain, but there is a lot of negative baggage that goes with it.

[Neto]

Those are good questions,Neto. I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer them.

In the past 25 years I have been aware of only one Excommunication in the church I was a part of, and that was probably 20 years ago. It was of an unmarried young woman who had fallen away and was living with a man. She eventually repented and became a true believer in another church. Incidentally, she also ended up marrying a man whose wife was unfaithful and left him. They have a family and are both living for the Lord.

As far as I know though, she never made restitution to the first church, although everyone knew and were very happy she had turned her life around.

Church discipline seems like it should be a practice the Christian church should maintain, but there is a lot of negative baggage that goes with it.

I teenage girl (probably 5 or so years younger than I - I knew her sister well) in the congregation I grew up in (MB - Mennonite Brethren) was asked to make confession for a moral failure, and although she did it, she later left the church. I was away from there myself after that, so I don't know what happened to her.
Because of the controversy I got involved in in the other thread of yours, I was doing some reading about some early differences between the Dutch Mennonites & the Swiss Brethren, and read something I don't think I've ever heard before. The remark was made that the Dutch were so strict about church discipline because of a preoccupation with purity of the brotherhood, and that the Swiss were more forgiving, or left more leeway. I have always assumed that there was no difference in the conviction that the church must be a pure church. This in contrast to some of the reformers, who admitted that their members were not living righteous lives, or not all even believers. They explained this in terms of the OT situation, where there was the people of Israel, and then there was, within that people, the Remnant, the spiritual Israel. This has caused a lot of thought, because if they were the ones with the right attitude, then the anabaptists needlessly separated themselves from the state churches, and brought all of that persecution upon themselves. I fear that in these days we are now a lot closer to those state churches in our willingness to leave discipline aside, and tolerate sin in our midst, and even in ourselves. Do we have a vision for the holiness of the people of God, and do we realize its importance?

[Mrs.Nisly]

Interesting points, Neto.

In the circles I've moved for the past 25 years The empirical concept of a pure church has been largely abandoned, I believe.

We mostly celebrate our honesty and authenticity, or our collective brokenness. We are all on a lifelong journey of sanctification and we don't judge where someone else is on their journey lest we fail to remove the proverbial log out of our own eye first. We support the work of counselors to get people straightened out by sorting through their pain. People don't choose to sin anymore, they simply have chosen wrong responses to their pain triggers.
The work of sanctification is mostly a personal Spirit work rather than the Holy Spirit working through the voice of the church.

[Josh]

A question is what a "pure church" is. Obviously there are going to be tiers of church standards; some things will be worthy of excommunication and others will not.

As far as anyone who thinks social avoidance is something none of us would do, all of us would socially avoid someone who was a known unrepentant child abuser who was getting away with it. So it just shows that we take some sins seriously (like that one), but others we think are not quite so bad and thus we won't shun for those things.

[Valerie]

Interesting. My first introduction to Anabaptists was Amish friends. Learning the most from a very 'evangelical' Amish brother- who had a big influence on my Christianity.

This brother was cast out or 'excommunicated' from the community he lived in because he was too evangelical and his thinking/Christianity was not in really in line, with Old Order Amish he went to Church with- of course from their point of view, he was influenced by the wrong Christians. So he was given a choice to get "Amish counseling" or leave the community. He could not really go along with Old Order understanding, felt he lied every time he claimed to go along with the brotherhood (something required of them)

Many Old Order Amish I know of, were 'disciplined' for not agreeing with the brotherhood and were excommunicated, but this was because of their "Baptismal Vows".

This same brother was allowed to visit his family but of course they ate at separate tables. The other brothers had left Old Order and become either Mennonite, or Beachy- they were also not allowed to eat at the same table when they visited home.

There are Old Order ministers who believe the Baptismal Vows- were to remain faithful to "The Church" (at large) and not necessarily to their particular Amish Church. Some will be excommunicated if they leave the OOA Church for another Anabaptist Church- so not all OOA ministers/bishops- believe the same about Baptismal vows.

I think some are afraid of how God is seeing their 'excommunicating' and church discipline, when they leave for other churches.

[Once Again]

Here are all the Bible verses I could find about church discipline.

Matthew 18:17- If he refuses to hear him, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.

I Corinthians 5:11- I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, nor a drunkard, or an extortioner-not even to eat with such a person.

I Corinthians 5:6- Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

2 Thessalonians 3:14- If anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed.

I Timothy 5:20- Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all, that the rest may also fear.

2 John 10:11- If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.

I Corinthians 5:1-5- It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among the pagans: A man has his father's wife. And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgement on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in the spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.

2 Corinthians 2:5-8- If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you, to some extent- not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. Now instead, you ought to forgive him and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.


From these verses, I get the idea that the main reason for church discipline is to "keep the leaven" from corrupting the whole church, and that shunning/ disfellowshipping / excommunication is the only Biblical method. But the last two verses I listed show that discipline is also for the sinner, in the hope that he/she will repent.

[lesterb]

My gut reactions are similar to Mrs Nisly's, because I have seen too much abuse of church discipline. For instance, a bishop friend of mine said that one way to know a person's heart is to deal with them on something, then watch for their response. The response tells you where their heart is, then you can decide whether to excommunicate or not.

Somehow that doesn't seem quite fair to me.

On the other hand, I just can't see through this idea that people don't really sin, they only react to their past. For instance, I read recently that all addictions are the results of wounds in an addict's past. That person related an incident in his childhood with a parent that he didn't get over until he was an adult, and that this was the root cause of the problems he had with addiction. This sounds too much like a cop-out to me. All sinners have become victims, and the fault lies with the authorities who try to help them find victory.

I think we need to return to a biblical perspective on these things. Not to the extremes where excommunication becomes the easy way out for the church, but to the place where gross sin is dealt with in the church. For instance Paul lists some of these sins in 1 Cor, and I think that excommunication is in order for these. The Bible also mentions the sin of heresy.

I feel that shunning becomes vindictive pretty quickly. I have seen churches who claim not to shun who actually find ways to be nasty to people they don't agree with. That very quickly turns people away. Church discipline should always be redemptive. The word punish is found in the KJV 32 times, and 31 of these are in the OT.

Discipline should echo God's view of a situation. Paul said "put away from among yourselves that wicked person." But when the Corinthians acted on this, Paul also counselled them to not be so harsh with the sinner that he would be overcome with much sorrow. Don't worry so much about punishing the sinner. Instead do what is necessary to rehabilitate him.