In Defense of Shunning

[Space Merchant]

20 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

When I was growing up .... it was not like that in the TRUTH.

It is my understanding that Disfellowshipping was instituted for the first time in 1945 (?) ... and weaponized after 1975.

Expelling was brought into the Church long time ago First Century. They call it Disfellowshiping, others, Takfir, others a non herem censure, but to it's core and or anyone who practices it, it is Excommunication.

[Jack Ryan]

1 hour ago, Space Merchant said:

The thing here is Expelling/Shunning is Biblical. Although this is solidified fact that no one can prove wrong, there is only 1 method of expelling that is true to the church among 3-4 others, that never originated with the Church. Only a few Christians are doing it right while others, are doing it wrong, especially the Catholics.

 

The irony of it all the Expelling/Shunning command is traced back to what Jesus entrusted the church.

One assassin to another during a heinous slaying: "No! You're doing it wrong!"

"Hold my non-alcoholic, religious approved beer."

[Srecko Sostar]

23 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Sometimes it is not enough to say that you want to diet. You must also padlock the fridge.

Perhaps this can be one way of solution to overweight.

But consider another advice.

If you have not power to eat less and visiting your fridge less frequently, you can try with more activity, running, walking, exercise according to your age and health etc. 

Also to eat different food, not just food you eat everyday, until now, maybe can bring to better health and body shape.  

Or to change way and time, how and when you eat.

:)))) just opinion.

  

[Srecko Sostar]

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I will ask you the same question that I asked the big boy: “Without such congregational tools of discipline, which do come across as harsh in today’s world,  is it possible for a group to keep its core moral values over time? Do you know of any examples?”

Please do not respond with what “should be.” Respond with what is. Do you know of any examples?

The best example History gives us (but this is not Final Solution of course//Endlösung der Judenfrage//) of how to make people behave in Discipline was visible (perfect tense) in people stoning for braking The Law, or killing in some other way. As some text say "If you can't  or don't want living by The Law ... then Die by The Law. 

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, Jack Ryan said:

One assassin to another during a heinous slaying: "No! You're doing it wrong!"

Fortunately, no one is slaying anyone with the disfellowshipping arrangement. It has the added benefit of being reversible.

Same question to you: “Without such congregational tools of discipline, which do come across as harsh in today’s world,  is it possible for a group to keep its core moral values over time? Do you know of any examples?”

Because, if not, what we have here is but a veiled attempt of the atheists to stamp out Christianity, under the guise of the protectors of humanity. Christians must follow the direction of the Christ. History demonstrates that they cannot under conditions the anti-cultists would impose upon them.

[TrueTomHarley]

47 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

But consider another advice.

It's great advice. I like it, so far as it goes.

You will consistently be against any restriction on tobacco, alcohol, drug, medicines, safety requirements such as wearing hard hats or buckling seatbelts. Are you?

[Jack Ryan]

17 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Fortunately, no one is slaying anyone with the disfellowshipping arrangement. It has the added benefit of being reversible. 

Says one of the assassins....

17 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Because, if not, what we have here is but a veiled attempt of the atheists to stamp out Christianity, under the guise of the protectors of humanity. Christians must follow the direction of the Christ. History demonstrates that they cannot under conditions the anti-cultists would impose upon them. 

Yeah... such a terrible thing.

All those bloody wars caused by those atheists over the last few thousand years.... we have to avoid those.

The religious zealots must have the answers

[Srecko Sostar]

27 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

It's great advice. I like it, so far as it goes.

You will consistently be against any restriction on tobacco, alcohol, drug, medicines, safety requirements such as wearing hard hats or buckling seatbelts. Are you?

Food is, i think, most dangerous (in countries where food is available for people who have money to buy it). And also stuffs you mentioned too.    

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Doctor said I have the dreaded "Forkinmouth Disease" ... being overweight is NOT MY FAULT !

It's those nasty forks !

..... and, be it material food, or spiritual food .... you have to consider the credibility and reputation of the person providing it., if you are going to eat without examining it closely.

I have absolute faith in a gallon of Butter Pecan Ice Cream.

...advice from Caleb, Sophia, and other Loony Tunes ... not so much.

As Elmer Fudd used to say " .... be vewwy, vewwy careful ... hehehehehe."

[JOHN BUTLER]

On 11/28/2018 at 6:44 PM, TrueTomHarley said:

As the ultimate trump card of congregation discipline, to be applied when lesser measures have failed, is disfellowshipping cruel? It certainly could be, and increasingly is, argued that way. Undeniably it triggers pain to those who refuse to yield to it, “kicking against the goads,” as was said to Paul.  That said, suffice it to say that no group has been able maintain consistent moral principles through decades of time without it. I vividly recall circuit ministers of my faith saying: “Fifty years ago, the difference between Jehovah’s Witnesses and people in general was doctrinal. Conduct on moral matters, sexual or otherwise, was largely the same.” Today the chasm is huge. Can internal discipline not be a factor?

The book 'Secular Faith - How Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics' attempts to reassure its secular audience through examining the changing moral stands of churches on five key issues. The book points out that today's church members have more in common with atheists than they do with members of their own denominations from decades past. Essentially, the reassurance to those who would mold societal views is: 'Don't worry about it. They will come around. They always do. It may take a bit longer, but it is inevitable.' Jehovah's Witnesses have thwarted this model by not coming around. Can internal discipline not be a factor?

In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, members voluntarily sign on to a program that reinforces goals they have chosen. Sometimes it is not enough to say that you want to diet. You must also padlock the fridge. It is not an infringement of freedom to those who have willingly signed aboard. They are always free to attempt their diet some place where they do not padlock the fridge. Experience shows, however, that not padlocking the fridge results in hefty people, for not everyone has extraordinary willpower.

If people want to padlock the fridge but they can’t do it because anti-cultists forbid that course, and they get hefty, as in the United States, for example, where the level of obesity is staggering, how is that not a violation of their individual rights? It is all a difference of view over the basic nature of people and what makes them tick. It is the individualists of today who would hold that you can’t even padlock your own fridge. No. Full freedom of choice must always be in front of each one of us, they say, notwithstanding that history demonstrates we easily toss with the waves in the absence of a firm anchor.

Disfellowshipping is unpleasant and some are so shocked to find themselves put out from their community of choice that they determine once and for all to mend whatever caused them to be ousted so as to regain entrance. But they do not all do that, and with the passing of time, these latter ones accumulate. Some continue on in life with a “been there, done that” mentality. But others expend considerable energy in settling the score with the organization that ousted them. One businessman in Canada even sued at being disfellowshipped—his customer base consisted mostly of Jehovah's Witnesses and most of them took their business elsewhere. A lower court agreed with him that those running his religion had “told” parishioners not to associate with the ex-member. But the Supreme Court decided that—did they really want to rule on biblical interpretation or on who had to hang out with whom?

The most disingenuous of disfellowshipped ones later frame their ousting as though it were over mere matters of disagreement. It was not their conduct that caused the trouble, they maintain, but it was simply disagreement over something, for example, the contention that leaving a spouse for another should trigger congregation sanctions. This was true of a prosecution witness at the Russian Supreme Court trial which resulted in banning the Jehovah's Witness faith. Responding to a request from the judge to cite instances of "control," [she] “reported that an example was her expulsion from the congregations after she ‘began her close, but not officially registered, relations with a man.’”

Other times it truly is over matters of disagreement with regard to interpretation or policy, and opposers try to frame things as did the Buffalo Springfield—that with Jehovah's Witnesses, it is "step out of line, the men come and take you away." Some of them present themselves almost as though freedom fighters. They came across something, perhaps, that they thought would entitle them to drive the bus. They left when they discovered that they would not be allowed grab the wheel. In some cases, they were caught red-handed trying to hotwire the bus. The “bus,” of course, is the Witness organization itself. In the end it is a too high opinion of oneself and one’s importance that sinks one. The worship and deeds of Jehovah’s Witnesses are magnified by their organized quality, and they either appeal to the heart or they don’t. If they don’t, then one magnifies disproportionately matters of individual rights.

The spirit of the times today far elevates rights over responsibilities. With Jehovah’s Witnesses, as with many religious people, it is the opposite. The responsibilities Christians feel is toward their spiritual kin. “Slave” for one another, the verse says, and many translations soften "slave" to "serve," but the root word at Galatians 5:13 is undeniably "slave.” Even before that, however, there is a responsibility toward God. The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses dares not meddle with the disfellowshipping policy overmuch because they know it serves to keep the congregation "clean" so as to present to God what he insists upon: "a [clean] people for his name." (Acts 15:14)

A book by evangelical author Ronald J. Sider, ‘The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience,’ highlights on the cover the question: ‘Why are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?’ The author cites verse after verse of how Christian standards are “higher” than those of the greater world, and then example after example of how they are not with those claiming Christianity today. He concludes that it is largely a matter of church discipline. “Church discipline used to be a significant, accepted part of most evangelical traditions, whether Reformed, Methodist, Baptist, or Anabaptist,” he writes. “In the second half of the twentieth century, however, it has largely disappeared.” He goes on to quote Haddon Robinson on the current church climate, a climate he calls consumerism:

“Too often now when people join a church, they do so as consumers. If they like the product, they stay. If they do not, they leave. They can no more imagine a church disciplining them than they could a store that sells goods disciplining them. It is not the place of the seller to discipline the consumer. In our churches, we have a consumer mentality.”

Christians have a mandate to follow the Christ as best they can in speech and conduct. Consumerism makes that mandate effectively impossible. Yet it is the only model that today’s anti-cultists will permit. Anything veering toward discipline they paint as an intolerable affront to human rights. We must not be naïve. Theirs is no more than an attempt to stamp out biblical Christianity, veiled as though they are the very protectors of humanity.

The notion of protecting one’s values, through disciplinary action if need be, extends beyond Christianity. Was Tevye a cult member, he of the film ‘Fiddler on a Roof?’ If so, no one has breathed a word of it until very recently. The third daughter of his Russian Jewish family was shunned for marrying outside of the faith. It is an action that would not trigger shunning in the Jehovah’s Witness community, though it would gain no praises. After all, if God is truly one’s best friend, ought one really make one’s second-best friend a person who is indifferent, perhaps even opposed, to the first? Only the atheistic anti-cultists will be obtuse to the logic of this, and that only because they would consider any god-concept an unsuitable friend.

Citing Tevye to a certain ex-Witness nearly blew up in my face. At the movie’s end, he mutters to himself as his daughter and new husband depart for another continent “and let God be with you,” as though he should have been expected to shout: “May you rot in hell.” I was told that the movie teaches forgiveness, acceptance, and unconditional love rather than a stubborn cleaving to tradition and the past.” Could he really have once been one of Jehovah’s Witnesses? The entire premise of the faith, and that of many Christian denominations, is that, assuming the “traditions” are biblical and not man-made, the old ideas are solid and the new ideas are tenuous, sometimes with deleterious after-effects. In fact, forgiveness, acceptance, and love are not mutually exclusive. One can forgive without accepting disapproved conduct. One can love without accepting such. “Tough love” was the phase of yesterday. Today it is “unconditional love.” Tomorrow who knows what it will be, for the scene of this world is changing?

It is not uncommon for children of Jehovah's Witnesses to be baptized at ages as young as ten. Witness detractors argue that this is far too early to make such a consequential decision. Many offer themselves as a case in point. Some of them were Witnesses and were baptized at an early age. They later changed their mind. Some of these eventually found themselves disfellowshipped and will push to their dying day that they escaped from a cult whose members were ordered to reject their own children. Some have gone on television with that charge where they persuade viewer without too much effort that only the most “brainwashed” of people would disown their own children and that whoever did the “brainwashing” must be punished.

It is an example of "truth" that is not "the whole truth and nothing but the truth." They are not children. In Witness literature the distinction is consistently made between those who are actual children and those who are young adults capable of following through on choices they have made through word or conduct. When disfellowshipping happens in the case of minors, it may result in a somewhat strained family life in which all components except the spiritual continue as before, usually with the added condition that the disfellowshipped one should still sit in on the family Bible study. When disfellowshipping happens in the case of the latter, such ones may be told that it is time to leave the nest. They are not outright abandoned, though there is variability in people and one should never say that it has not occurred. One father I know secured a job with his large employer for his departing son and let him know that he would be there if truly needed. Another, in a family business arrangement, divvied up resources so that his young adult son could have a decent start outside the congregation. This was misrepresented as though he had thrown him out with nothing but the clothes on his back, and the father for a time became a community pariah, but eventually matters came out that he had actually been quite generous, whereby much of the reputational damage was restored.

Some disfellowshipped teens have run away from home, in a biblical twist of a drama as old as time. Such a dramatized case was presented in a short video at Regional Conventions of Jehovah's Witnesses during 2017. A young woman had been disfellowshipped over sexual immorality, after having sailed past all lesser forms of discipline unmoved. When she later called the home she had left—for she did run away in this case, against her folks’ wishes—her mom did not answer the phone, an action that the young woman later describes as crucial to her turnaround and reinstatement; if mom had extended just a little bit of fellowship, she recalls that it would have been enough for her to continue in her "headstrong" course.

This will go down hard with non-Witnesses today. "You would make all this fuss over sex?" they will say, aghast. "Get them vaccinated for HPV and accept that they will do what they do." Yet, it is a matter of adhering to the standards of the oldest book of time. Family feuds are the stuff of legend, often started over matters far more petty, such as taking sides in the disputes of another family member. It is common today that old ones are dropped off in nursing homes, never to be visited again, for reasons no more substantial than that they became inconvenient. One would never say that it is routine for divisions in family to occur, but they are by no means unheard of.

The Witness organization has said that it does not instruct parents not to associate with their disfellowshipped children. But they have produced the video cited above of specific circumstances in which a parent ignores a phone call from one of them. What to make of this? Detractors will say that they are lying through their teeth with the first statement. I think not. I think they should be taken at their word—parents will reach their own decisions the on degree of contact they choose to maintain, since they can best assess extenuating circumstances. It becomes their decision—whether they find some or none at all. Specifically, what the Witness publications do is point out that there is no reason per se that normal counsel to avoid contact with those disfellowshipped is negated simply because there are family connections. That is not the same as “telling” families to break contact. It may seem like splitting hairs, but the difference is important.

That statement finds further support in the many Witnesses who have departed and subsequently report that, though they were never disfellowshipped, they still find themselves estranged from the family mix. Effectively, they are shunned without any announcement at all, evidence that a "cult" is not telling parents what to do, but it is their appreciation for Bible counsel that triggers that course. The specific mechanics of avoiding associations with those who have spun 180-degrees on prior spiritual convictions may be arguable, but the general principle is not. When no verbal direction is given, Witnesses defer to the general principle, so it becomes plain that it was the general principle all along, rather than the commands of eight tyrannical men at headquarters. “What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?” says Paul, referring to two polar-opposite worlds and those who would choose between them.

It is the "choice" that defines. Some family members fail to follow through on their decided course as Jehovah's Witnesses, but they do not turn against it. Family relations may cool, but do not typically discontinue. It is only by making a choice that relations tank. Is it so hard to understand, given that spiritual things are important to Jehovah's Witnesses? It is well-understood in matters of nations, where visiting an unfriendly country brings no sanction but turning traitorous against one's own does. In politics it is understood, too. When comedian Kathy Griffin holds aloft the mock severed head of the American president, does anyone think that her Republican dad (if he is) says: "That's my lass! She speaks her mind. It won't affect Thanksgiving dinner, though?” Of course it will.

The word ‘disfellowship’ has not been heard in congregation announcements for perhaps a dozen years now—not that it has been purged from Witness vocabulary, but it is not explicitly stated. From time to time, an announcement is made that such and such "is no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses." It is never made of one who has merely fallen inactive, but only of those who have departed from the faith through deed or word. Though, to my knowledge, no announcement has ever been made that such is the equivalent of disfellowshipping, people mostly treat it that way. Some of whom that announcement is made are shocked into regret and turning around. Others say "You got that right" as they turn the page and go on to another chapter of life. If it is said of someone who rejects the tenets of a religion that they are therefore no longer a part of it, what are they going to say—that they are? Few would challenge the statement.

Few who would argue that youngsters have not the same maturity at age ten that they will have at twice that age. Ought they not be allowed to commit to the course they have come to believe is right, on the basis that they may later change their minds? It is not a good solution for Witnesses, though it be a great one for the anti-cultists, as it permits the latter more time to sway them. Children always will do better when permitted to identify with their choices. John Holt, an education pioneer, maintained that a prime cause of juvenile delinquency is that children are shut out of the adult world—an unanticipated effect of child labor laws enacted to protect them. For children, the solution will not be to forbid them to act upon what they have come to believe. The solution will be to cut them slack when they, through inexperience, stumble along the way. Most likely, that is being done today, for Jehovah's Witnesses, like everyone else, dearly love their children and want them to succeed.

As it turns out, I know a youngster who was disfellowshipped for a period of several months and was subsequently reinstated. He was a minor and he lived at the family home throughout the time. Months before he was disfellowshipped he had been reproved. Since I had a rapport with him, I afterwards approached to say that, while it was none of my business and I was not curious, still, if he ever wanted to discuss things, I would be available. Maybe, I allowed, he had come across some anti-Witness literature and had been intrigued. Maybe he had wanted to go to college and his parents had poured cold water on the idea. “Look, if you’ve gone gay on us—it doesn’t matter,” I said. “The point is that I have been around forever, I have seen everything, and I am not wound up too tight.” He was silent for a moment and then started telling me about this girl in another congregation. “Oh, girls are nothing but trouble!” I told him in an anticlimactic spirit. His woes were boiler-plate. Maybe he will marry the girl someday.

I had known him most of his life. As a young boy, he surfaces in my first book ‘Tom Irregardless and Me’ as Willie, the lad who protested my introducing him at each door, so I responded that he could introduce me instead. That is how it had gone all morning, save for one or two awkward situations that I had handled. The householder would look at me in expectation and I would say “Sorry, I’m too bashful. It’s his turn.” As long as he had been comfortable, it had remained his turn. Hard on the householders? Probably not. Probably it was better for them to focus on the lad—I can become wearing over time.

He also surfaces as Dietrich in the second book, ‘No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash,’ the first one to say kind things about ‘Tom Irregardless and Me’ after reading but a single chapter. I only know two Dietrichs and the younger is named after the older, a trustworthy man whom I almost gave a heart attack when I showed up to give the first talk at the District Convention, relieving him as chairman, with only seconds to spare—there he was with songbook in hand looking anxiously through the audience. I had been in the Chairman’s Office awaiting my escort, assuming that the current year’s procedure would be the same as the prior one’s. It wasn’t. Today it would be. Everyone ‘did what was right in his own eyes’ back them. Even in small matters, there is a value in organization.

I followed the course with Willie and Dietrich that all Witnesses know and respect—I didn’t speak to him at all during his disfellowshipped time, save for only an instance or two that I could not resist. On a frigid day he dropped family members off at the door, parked, and strode toward the Kingdom Hall without a coat. Breaking all decorum, I said: “Look, I know there’s no contact and all, but did they even have to take your coat?” He liked that one. In time he was reinstated, and I later told him that there was a silver lining to be found in his experience—he would forever be an example of how discipline produces its intended effect in the Christian community.

Always there will those of the opposite persuasion: persons disfellowshipped who aren’t too happy about it. Find a few of them, work up the narrative to make it as heart wrenching as possible, and it is hard to see how it cannot be a media grand slam every time. Hide the purpose of it and present it as petty vengeance—it is a view that will sell today. Paint those doing it as deprived of humanity—it flies. Paint as dictatorial the organization holding the course—that interpretation positively soars with some. This is the age of the individual, not the group that they have individually chosen. The view that carries the day with regard to any organization is—it may as well be the year text—"power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” If there are people in charge, they must be corrupt. To an irreligious crowd, whatever the offenses for which ones were disfellowshipped is all but judgmental religious nonsense anyway. We should have moved on from it long ago. The emotional component is strong and such narratives carry the day.

To the congregation in Corinth, the apostle Paul writes: "For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I personally promised you in marriage to one husband that I might present you as a chaste virgin to the Christ." Plainly, this concern is of no consequence to departing ones who have embraced atheism. Almost necessarily they must focus on individual rights, since what triggers a sense of responsibility among their former spiritual kin has become a non-factor to them. No, it will not be easy selling the idea of shunning to these ones.

(Original post presented here: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2018/11/in-defence-of-shunning.html )

Poor old Tom. Writing soooo much, trying to convince himself it is right  

Braindead Tom, that cannot think for himself. He cannot reason on matters, so pretends that anyone disagreeing must be wrong. 

Blind Tom, that doesn't want to see truth.  Deaf Tom, that doesn't want to hear truth. 

The Pharisees also pretended that they were 'doing things God's way'. But Tom cannot reason on that.  

Dear Tom i have personal experience of being THREATENED with being disfellowshipped.  Threatened because I went to the Elders about one of the Elders behavior. I had proof that would not be listened to. An Elder that apart from the thing i reported him for, was also on a dubious dating website, using the name Yogie Bishop and giving a false address. I know because for some strange reason he invited me to join that website, and i confirmed his email address with him to be sure it was him. His excuse was that his computer was hacked and it sent out invitations to all his contacts, but he never (to me) denied being on that website. 

So it is one case that I know of where the elders gang up on a congregant and threaten him/me. Because the other Elders would not even listen to me on the issue.

Next. Poor Tom says about keeping the Organisation clean.  It is NOT CLEAN, it is disgusting.  CHILD ABUSE WITHIN THE JW ORG, EARTHWIDE.

The Elders remove anyone that can prove how disgusting the JW org is. If a congregant mentions the Child Abuse / Pedophilia problem and gives proof of names of pedophiles, names of victims, then the congregant will be disfellowshipped for CAUSING A DIVISION WITHIN THE CONGREGATION. That way the Elders can pretend that the person was a 'sinner' and needed to be removed. 

Anyone wanting to remain in the JW Org knows they have to keep their mouth shut. I had many a private conversation with brothers that were dissatisfied with the way Elders dealt with matters, but those brothers were not prepared to put their 'membership' on the line by making a report / complaint. 

Tom you seem to be a hopeless case. You don't want to know truth. You seem quite happy to live a pretend lifestyle, probably with a cosy position within that Org. So be it, but it isn't right for you to pretend that everyone that leaves that Org, or is disfellowshipped from that Org, is a sinner.  Because that makes you a liar before God and Christ. 

There are so many other points. Children getting baptised only because their parents want them to. OR tell them to. Yes it even gets competitive in congregations. So and so got baptised, you should get baptised. How old was JESUS ? 30 years old, when he got baptised. Not 10.  And yes, 10 year olds are not emotionally mature enough to know their own minds well enough, to know if they will feel different next year. Proof of that is clear when so many youngsters get Disfellowshipped.

One more point. How desperate is the Org getting if it lets 3 year olds have a report sheet to report each month ?  

Every person that reports Field Ministry each month is counted as a JW in the big total it would seem.  That's how i've read it. When the Org was asked how they know how many 'members' the JW org has, it replied by counting the report sheets per month.  So it would seem that the JW Org is losing adults in great quantity, but gaining numbers by counting very young children in it's  total figures. 

Now if a 2 parent family has five children and all of them put in a monthly report. That would be 7 reports per month. But 3 of those children could be under ten years old. Wow, a great way to pretend that the Org still maintains it's numbers.  

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. You are so right Tom. And the GB of that Org have proved it more than once. 

But from your point of view Tom, everyone that is disfellowshipped in a 'sinner', sinning against God. So, your excuses turn against you. Because you too are generalising..........

Dream on Tom. Keep pretending that you are right. Keep telling yourself that God is with the JW Org.  Probably the Pharisees did the same thing, until destruction came upon Jerusalem.....          

 

 

 

[Space Merchant]

3 hours ago, Jack Ryan said:

One assassin to another during a heinous slaying: "No! You're doing it wrong!"

"Hold my non-alcoholic, religious approved beer."

Surely a response would be a better one. Last I recall Jesus was no assassin according to Matthew 16. Therefore the overall seriousness of what Jesus entrusted should be taken into consideration, that is - unless you adhere to a watered down form if Christianity as the majority of the US and the EU adhere to. Because last I checked, Jesus isn't the ice man, the muffin man or the so called jolly Christ as some paint him to be, on the other side of the spectrum, regarding a man killed recently, people seem to paint Jesus to a sole race, proclaiming he has no care for those of another race. He is the Christ, the one of whom God enacts his purpose, will, justice and order through; for he is God's only begotten-son.

 

That being said, surely you can make a better response, to this I wait.

[Space Merchant]

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Fortunately, no one is slaying anyone with the disfellowshipping arrangement. It has the added benefit of being reversible.

Same question to you: “Without such congregational tools of discipline, which do come across as harsh in today’s world,  is it possible for a group to keep its core moral values over time? Do you know of any examples?”

Because, if not, what we have here is but a veiled attempt of the atheists to stamp out Christianity, under the guise of the protectors of humanity. Christians must follow the direction of the Christ. History demonstrates that they cannot under conditions the anti-cultists would impose upon them.

I assume Ryan to be an atheist hence his other responses, one instance mocking anything connected to God and or others.

Excommunication is, as you said, a tool of the church, it is molded well into church disciplinary practices and they're obvious even in Bible practice. Excommunication and or anything of that ground can cause one to lose church ties. Now speaking of JWs, as I have stated before, most ExJWs do not talk about, even going as far as to attack other ExJWs who call them out regarding Excommunication practices, even in churches today, some in Christendom are called out for watering down Excommunication and or abandonment of the practice, forgetting what Jesus entrusted. Christians are lucky, to some degree, because an ill practice that is far worse than excommunication is the Herem (censure), and last I checked, no one in Christendom practices such.=, only in Judaism by some it is practices and church, family, community ties are ALL cut totally, you do not even get to have the rabbis to come help you either.

Now Atheists pose a hypocrisy because they themselves practice ostracism to some degree, perhaps far grander than what excommunication has in store, in some cases, a social outcast, usually depends on the person and or group of persons of the same playing field.