We’re considering Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible
There are a handful of references in the New Testament regarding church discipline. One form of discipline we refer to as “disfellowshipping.” “Shunning” is an older term.
For example, we read —
(2Th 3:6, 14-15 ESV) 6 Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. …
14 If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. 15 Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
“Be ashamed” is a Western concept. Paul really said “be shamed,” which is how the phrase is translated in the NASB. In an honor culture — or any collectivist culture — being expelled from the group would be a very powerful form of discipline. It would bring loss of face and shame. The sin of the brother would be exposed to public view. He would be dishonored.
But in the West, we’d just change congregations. Not always. Sometimes the bonds of love in a church are strong enough that being disfellowshipped could be a powerful deterrent. But in many churches, this form of discipline would be pointless because we are far more concerned with our own judgment regarding our sinfulness than the judgment of the community. We might be embarrassed, but it’s just too easy to withdraw as a member and join another congregation — which Americans can do utterly without shame or dishonor.
Paul warned the Corinthians,
(1Co 5:9-11 NIV) 9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
What’s the punishment for idolatry? For swindling others? “Do not even eat with such people.” Really? Why does that matter? Because in an honor culture, a refusal to eat together would bring shame and dishonor. It would be a very powerful disincentive.
(Paul often speaks in guilt-culture language as well. His churches were often mixtures of Greek guilt-culture members and Jewish honor-culture members.)
And Jesus taught,
(Mat 18:15-17 NIV) 15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
Again, the fear of the sinner who needs to repent is that his sin will be exposed and he’ll lose face. Honor was so important that the first visit to the sinner is in private — one on one. Why? To give him a chance to preserve honor. If the sin is dealt with privately, there’s no danger of being shamed within the church.
The question of reputation is important in the Western church, too, but not nearly the same. Notice how we so often deal with sin by asking our members to “come forward.” In a shame culture, this would be quite impossible. No one would go forward to confess sin openly. That would bring dishonor and shame.
But in the West, where the question is guilt, and guilt is forgiven by grace and the church is called to forgive just as God forgives, a public confession is often considered positive and helpful. It brings forgiveness and innocence before God.
Of course, we all know stories where a sin was publicly confessed inappropriately, because it brought embarrassment to others involved. Public confession is not always best, even in a guilt culture.
But public confession is often a powerful example of repentance before God and trust in the congregation to forgive — and I’ve seen some incredible examples of churches that rushed to the front to forgive a member of a truly terrible sin.
And so, we begin to see why the discipline taught in the New Testament often fails in modern America. Our culture is just so very different. Nonetheless, even in a guilt-culture church, if we truly loved one another and considered our church as family — for real, not as a marketing slogan — then the possibility of being disfellowshipped should be terrifying — because it would mean separation from friends, brothers and sisters with whom we’re closer than even our biological families.
So would the execution of these discipline passages be obsolete for the West or just circumstantial?
Anon,
Not obsolete. Rather, leaders must help their churches become places where people so love each other than the discipline matters.
The doctrine of congregational autonomy has killed the idea of church discipline deader than last week’s codfish. Said autonomy is actively antithetical to the community culture which allows such discipline to take place. The two concepts are mutually-exclusive. The really sad thing is that the one place where conservative CoC’s are likely to break with autonomy and call out to each other for cooperation is when a brother resists their discipline. In this case, a congregation will broadcast “the letter” in an effort to increase the effective range of their own shunning. Great. We reach out to one another for the purpose of DISfellowshipping…
Charles, disfellowshiping? What ever became of our most used expression, withdrawing?
Speaking of honor, look at ours. How about churches with less than 20-30 members and most of them old, having a full time preacher making $50,000 a year with a paid for house and expenses furnished? One ever few miles in each direction. Honor says they should join together and fill up one place to conserve and show, albeit falsely, some growth, but, that would only require one or maybe two preachers and all the others would be without an income. Think of what could be done with the income from the selling of all those preachers houses and stopping those salaries.
No wonder each is preaching all the others are wrong so members won’t leave and they can keep their jobs. Talk about milking a cow dry, that is common around here but no one has the b—- to stop it.
Honor is sorely missing.
The question is what will happen in a few years when those old folks attending the one closest to their homes die off.
What was the honorable thing that happened or is happening in other parts of the country? Any model to go by honorably?
Charles wrote,
Very nicely said.
Jay,
I hope that you are not advocating that one congregation solicits the cooperation of another congregation to further the impact upon someone that was dis-fellowshiped, based solely on the actions performed at the administering congregation. I have seen this in action, and it allows one congregation to unjustly dis-fellowship an individual or multiple individuals, and involve other congregations into their unjust actions.
Thus there remains no method for an individual that was unjustly dis-fellowshiped by a congregation to justify their actions, by a review at other congregations.
If an individual so treated cannot find a congregation that will accept the responsibility to review the case and allow themselves to be the next target of the original congregation and its cohorts, then the individual is truly alienated from the Church known as the CoC by the publicized document. Most men would never stand up to leaders of a congregation for fear of these actions regardless how much a congregation had drifted into error. A dying congregation will do this action in a heartbeat to anyone that attempts to change their attitude or actions, calling it as an action of being faithful to their beliefs. We all know that in CoC the Elders or leaders of a congregation are (by being autonomous) totally exempt from answering to any other Elders or congregations anywhere in the world or even all of the Elders in the world. Unjust leaders or Elders then become a self made god, and can involve the unsuspecting greater body into their error.
Larry wrote,
I did not address that topic. And it’s a difficult one.
I’ve never much cared for the practice of writing letters to other congregations asking that they respect their decision to disfellowship a member. I mean, if a church is filled with the love of Jesus, then being disfellowshipped by the original church should be enough to provoke repentance. That’s how it’s supposed to work. It’s not about legal discipline. Rather, it’s rather like an intervention by loving family members. The pain should be the pain of being excluded by those we love the most, not being barred from a denomination.
Obviously, a sister congregation should not lightly accept the membership of someone who was disfellowshipped by a sister congregation. If that member is being disciplined for, say, adultery, why would another church want to enable further adultery? Certainly the actions of a sister congregation should not be ignored. That would be the height of irresponsibility.
But very often, the disfellowshipping is based on a doctrinal understanding on which the churches differ. For example, church A may consider a remarriage after divorce sinful, whereas church B does not. In that case, each church must act consistently with its beliefs.
Jay,
I should have clarified some about the issue. It was involving the preacher opposing any attempt towards the appointing of Elders. Anyone can guess why he would do that. Does it sound to anyone else like a scriptural thing to do? I agree with you that another congregation where the individual attempted to attend or that the member solicited advice from, should at least conduct an investigation into the facts, for the purpose of giving advice to the member. Could it ever be considered to be the right thing to do, to make amends with a congregation that accepted the preacher’s actions of not even allowing the congregation to consider appointing Elders? After an attempt to discuss appointing Elders, five Sunday morning sermons were devoted to the subject. The context of the sermons was obviously, why you should not want elders. They were taped and offered to the congregation I believe that I was the only taker. In an attempt to rebut some of the material, I created text from the tapes, I found out that text created from sermons usually is not very easily understood like the speech. Some that attempted to read it really did not believe that the preacher said that. Therefore, I assembled the sermon text on dvd with the recorded sermon delivery that is synchronized to change pages as the sermon is delivered. Jay, I’ll send you a copy, you may find some material in it that will be useful in addressing issues.
Larry,
I’m glad to receive anything that might be of help to me. Thanks.