Are churches responsible for abusive ex-members?

[Blondie54]

No. Churches should not be responsible because people will stray from the church. Now my Catholic Church is responsible for the abuse by priests in my opinion.

[Josh]

No. Churches should not be responsible because people will stray from the church. Now my Catholic Church is responsible for the abuse by priests in my opinion.

Yes, because the priests are leadership and are presented as representatives of the church.

[HeIsRisen]

...It seems that in Amish and plain Mennonite circles, there is an expectation that churches are responsible for 100% of the conduct of their members. For example, if someone abuses their children, it is somehow considered the church's fault. This burden is not, generally speaking, applied to other denominations. If someone attends (for example) a non-denominational church and it comes to light years later they neglected or abused their children, it is not automatically the fault of whomever was in leadership of that church at the time.

Is this a fair responsibility?

Just an observation on maybe the difference in environment between Plain and general non-denominational churches: it is a lot harder to be in secret unrepentant sin in a Plain church (or even my congregation) without someone noticing because congregregants tend to be more involved in each other's lives. There is also an expectation of calling out of sin in the lives of others (hopefully with love, of course) than in your run of the mill non-denominational church, where having close family-like relationships is not expected, and exhorting members to live a life of victory over sin is many times met with defensiveness and offense. Your mileage may vary though-I think any congregation that isn't sprit led tends to allow people to live different lives in church than outside, Plain or not.

That all being said, we do have a fair amount of responsibility to each other and to the body to live in close communion with our local church- and if sin becomes an issue to lovingly take care of it, even if that means delivering one unto Satan, to encourage repentance. But what they do after membership is removed, we aren't responsible for, as we aren't supposed to be even eating with them anyway.

Do we treat other denominations this way?

It depends on the congregation- if they are Spirit led, then we should. If they are not led by the spirit, then can we expect them to rightly see sin and loathe it to begin with?

And how exactly should the church exert its authority over such a member if they express a desire to be separated from the church?

If they desire to be separated from the church, then I don't think we have authority over them, as we are instructed to shun them - and that means they are delivered to Satan, who is their authority.

[Sliceitup]

I guess I'm too old to understand. If one is an ex-member, then what possibly does a church have to do with how they live their lives ?

That’s what I’m asking.

Certain organisations such as the MAP List are making a great deal of hay about ex-members who later were accused of all kinds of abuse, and complaining that church leaders didn’t somehow do something about it.

Which specific cases are you referring to with regards to the MAP list? I can’t recall seeing any with this type of situation.

[Josh]

Which specific cases are you referring to with regards to the MAP list? I can’t recall seeing any with this type of situation.

There's a number of hit jobs on MAP's latest updates that concern members or ex-members, not leadership.

Pretty much ruins the credibility of MAP as an organisation. I certainly won't ever try to work with them or help them again.

[Sliceitup]

Which specific cases are you referring to with regards to the MAP list? I can’t recall seeing any with this type of situation.

There's a number of hit jobs on MAP's latest updates that concern members or ex-members, not leadership.

Pretty much ruins the credibility of MAP as an organisation. I certainly won't ever try to work with them or help them again.

I read one of their latest posts, and I think it was about members, not leaders. I think it’s legitimate to speak about those issues when the church was told, and then didn’t report it to the proper authorities. Since you didn’t give specifics it’s a bit hard to understand your complaint.

[Josh]

Which specific cases are you referring to with regards to the MAP list? I can’t recall seeing any with this type of situation.

There's a number of hit jobs on MAP's latest updates that concern members or ex-members, not leadership.

Pretty much ruins the credibility of MAP as an organisation. I certainly won't ever try to work with them or help them again.

I read one of their latest posts, and I think it was about members, not leaders. I think it’s legitimate to speak about those issues when the church was told, and then didn’t report it to the proper authorities. Since you didn’t give specifics it’s a bit hard to understand your complaint.

Or in this case, ex-members, and no, church authorities shouldn’t do anything with ex-members. Are you saying they should?

To give you an idea of what church leaders deal with, one ex-member claims a Mennonite church should “do something” because she believes another ex-member in the church uses “mind control”, sorcery, and is in cahoots with local government and police. Once talking about sexual abuse became fashionable, as it is now, she levelled accusations of that (going back 20 years). What on earth do you expect church leaders to do?

[Szdfan]

If the abuse happened while the ex-member was a member, then it’s fair game, even if the accusations go back twenty years.

Josh, your accusations against MAP are rather vague.

[Ken]

To give you an idea of what church leaders deal with, one ex-member claims a Mennonite church should “do something” because she believes another ex-member in the church uses “mind control”, sorcery, and is in cahoots with local government and police. Once talking about sexual abuse became fashionable, as it is now, she levelled accusations of that (going back 20 years). What on earth do you expect church leaders to do?

"What on earth do you expect church leaders to do?"

Report the accusations if they think they are remotely credible. That is mainly what their obligations are.

[Szdfan]

I wonder if Josh is mad about this August article from MAP about abuse cases in the Holderman Church.

https://www.themaplist.org/the-map-list ... ennonites/

From MAP’s account, all four cases mentioned either involved leaders who failed to report abuse they were aware of or abuse that happened in the church. The documentation provided by MAP includes news articles about lawsuits against the Holdermans for failing to report as well as the church’s current policy.