Church Discipline

[Bootstrap]

Splitting a question of church discipline and alleged "spiritual abuse" from another thread.

It sounds like he did more than just "speak out about" it... Why is he taking a dispute between himself and his church to a national media outlet?

He's a public figure with a public brand (a coffee shop and roastery). I don't see anywhere the Bible says that we have to be silent when spiritual abuser occurs.

Excommunication should not be happening because someone expresses a political view that someone in church leadership disagrees with. If it does, that's spiritual abuse... and I think it's always the right thing to speak up and expose spiritual abuse when it happens.

Do you believe that there is a role for church discipline?

This isn’t just about a “political opinion.” He filmed a group of Indian people celebrating, put it online, and said they don’t belong here. He said that their visas should be revoked so they lose their jobs and have to leave. That’s not just policy talk, it’s targeting real people and stirring up hostility toward them.

I get why the church couldn’t treat that as harmless. When someone uses a public platform to say our neighbors don’t belong here, it reflects on the church too.

In Acts 15, some Jewish believers struggled with the idea of welcoming Greeks. They aren't like us! Can you imagine telling the first Christians that the entire New Testament would be written in Greek?

You seem to be saying it’s wrong for a church to take a stand on this. But in a world full of outrage, hatred, and toxic victimhood, if the church doesn’t take a stand against that kind of message, what should it take a stand on?

[JohnH]

I think it’s completely fine to hold a policy position that H1-B visas should be terminated. It’s a “nonimmigrant visa”; that is, a person acquiring it must demonstrate they intend to return to their home county. Its stated purpose is to fill a job when an American cannot be found to fill a job at a high wage.

H1-B visas have been documented as very prone to abuse and also the majority of them go to nationals of the Republic of India. We have high unemployment in many of these sectors; we do not need to be importing people when Americans already here can’t find jobs.

So, yes, it’s entirely fine to say you think people on temporary, nonimmigrant visas should go home and make room for Americans looking for jobs. Of course, it’s also fine to hold a different opinion about this and respect each other’s opinions.

Expressing this opinion isn’t biblical grounds for excommunication.

[Bootstrap]

I think it’s completely fine to hold a policy position that H1-B visas should be terminated.

I agree that Christians can hold different policy positions. But posting a video targeting specific people who are legally present on Twitter, saying they are not welcome is not simply “holding an opinion.” That targets people for abuse, and can result in real harm.

The New Testament holds us accountable for every word we speak (Matt 12:36). Political speech doesn’t get a free pass. Churches are right to take seriously whether a member’s speech reflects Christ’s call to love our neighbors.

I don’t think The Blaze is the right place to settle questions of church discipline. In Acts 15, disputes like this were taken to church authority, and that seems like a better way forward.

[JohnH]

I think it’s completely fine to hold a policy position that H1-B visas should be terminated.

I agree that Christians can hold different policy positions. But posting a video targeting specific people who are legally present on Twitter, saying they are not welcome is not simply “holding an opinion.” That targets people for abuse, and can result in real harm.

No it doesn’t. It’s perfectly fine to have an opinion that we need to hand out fewer employment based nonimmigrant visas.

The New Testament holds us accountable for every word we speak (Matt 12:36). Political speech doesn’t get a free pass. Churches are right to take seriously whether a member’s speech reflects Christ’s call to love our neighbors.

I can love my neighbor while simultaneously believing we shouldn’t replace Americans wholesale with another nationality for middle class jobs in IT, call centers, running motels and gas stations, accounting, and a myriad of other professions. In fact, I think part of loving our neighbor is to care about the working class and be very skeptical of big business and ultra wealthy (like Elon Musk) who seem very eager to import lots of workers on restrictive visas.

Of course you may feel differently. That’s okay too. We can both have opinions about this and refrain from excommunicating each other for it. Right?

I don’t think The Blaze is the right place to settle questions of church discipline. In Acts 15, disputes like this were taken to church authority, and that seems like a better way forward.

The Blaze simply reported on it. He talked about it in Twitter, which is as close to an agora or public square as we get these days.

No one should ever submit to spiritual abuse.

[Bootstrap]

You’ve spoken publicly on this forum before how you rejected church discipline and an excommunication from a group that tried to do that to you.

Why is it wrong when someone else does it?

In those posts, you may have noticed that:

1. I did not identify the church in my forum posts.
2. I did not make a video of the people and post it on Twitter, then go to the toxic soup media to target the church.

This involved sexual abuse of a woman who went to the leader for counseling, and she had evidence on tape. The leader claimed to have a license to practice clinical psychology, but he hadn't even graduated, even though he claimed he had a doctorate, and he couldn't drive because his license had been revoked for what looked like drunk driving. We took this evidence to the elders, they refused to hear it, and they started a phone chain to have us formally shunned.

In this case, there really wasn't a higher authority to appeal to in our church hierarchy. We did not take it to the papers or the media. We probably should have brought it to attention to the board that licenses psychologists, but we didn't.

So I think it's significantly different. Do you think I did something wrong here? If so, what would have been a better response?

[JohnH]

You’ve spoken publicly on this forum before how you rejected church discipline and an excommunication from a group that tried to do that to you.

Why is it wrong when someone else does it?

In those posts, you may have noticed that:

1. I did not identify the church in my forum posts.

I don't think most people would have a problem with it if you did.

2. I did not make a video of the people and post it on Twitter, then go to the toxic soup media to target the church.

I don't think Twitter existed back then.

This involved sexual abuse of a woman who went to the leader for counseling, and she had evidence on tape. The leader claimed to have a license to practice clinical psychology, but he hadn't even graduated, even though he claimed he had a doctorate, and he couldn't drive because his license had been revoked for what looked like drunk driving. We took this evidence to the elders, they refused to hear it, and they started a phone chain to have us formally shunned.

In this case, there really wasn't a higher authority to appeal to in our church hierarchy. We did not take it to the papers or the media. We probably should have brought it to attention to the board that licenses psychologists, but we didn't.

So I think it's significantly different. Do you think I did something wrong here? If so, what would have been a better response?

I don't think you did anything wrong. I do think, however, you should grant the same freedom to other people. I think sunlight is the best disinfectant.

[Neto]

I only know what was in the article, but I would say that his decision to include a photo of his neighbors was a poor choice, and he should make a formal apology about that. However, the congregation appears to have focused on what they considered a wrong or unchristian opinion, and I think they were in the wrong on that count. But this is what you get when you mix politics into the church. As far as his 'push-back' about the US being taken over by foreigners who do not want to become Americans, I realize that my own people raised some of the same feelings when they came to the US. Every group that comes in large numbers will create these resentments. I am still not defending his political opinion, but I think that the church leaders should not have stuck their oar in, unless he was someone like the pastor, or someone who was very prominent in the congregational leadership, and then only to the extent of the personal nature of his complaint, created by his inclusion of the photo of his neighbors.

[JohnH]

I only know what was in the article, but I would say that his decision to include a photo of his neighbors was a poor choice, and he should make a formal apology about that.

If your neighbors hold a street festival with hundreds of people attending it in a public place on a public road, I'm not sure what, exactly, is wrong with publicly sharing a photo or video of that.*

*Well, excepting that in my own personal case, I wouldn't be taking any photos or videos for other reasons. But I assume his Baptist church doesn't have a stance that taking photos or videos in public is a sin.

[Neto]

I only know what was in the article, but I would say that his decision to include a photo of his neighbors was a poor choice, and he should make a formal apology about that.

If your neighbors hold a street festival with hundreds of people attending it in a public place on a public road, I'm not sure what, exactly, is wrong with publicly sharing a photo or video of that.*

*Well, excepting that in my own personal case, I wouldn't be taking any photos or videos for other reasons. But I assume his Baptist church doesn't have a stance that taking photos or videos in public is a sin.

I was thinking of the combination of the photo of people who presumably did not consent to their photos being 'published' along with the negative comment. His political opinion is his business, but personalizing it with the photo of his neighbors was at least in poor taste, and possibly illegal as well. (Unless he blurred out their faces, as is commonly seen. But I don't know the laws about this sort of thing - it was just my opinion, perhaps not a knowledgeable one.)

[JohnH]

I was thinking of the combination of the photo of people who presumably did not consent to their photos being 'published' along with the negative comment.

When people are in public at a public festival on a public street, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. People are allowed to take pictures, particularly of public festivals.

His political opinion is his business, but personalizing it with the photo of his neighbors was at least in poor taste, and possibly illegal as well.

How on earth is this illegal?