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Does anyone here know of any statistics showing approximate rates of rebaptism among excommunicated LDS? I’ve become embroiled in a discussion about excommunication and taken the unpopular position that we shouldn’t excommunicate people who are penitent when other forms of discipline suffice. One reason I feel strongly about this is because I think there is internal support in the scriptures for such a stance and because I think that people are less likely to leave the church if they feel they have been mercifully dealt with.
So … how many people really come back?
I have no knowledge of reactivation rates among excommunicated members , but Isuspect it is low. I do very much agree with you that excommunication is not a good option except in the rare circumstances mercyngrace wrote:One reason I feel strongly about this is because I think there is internal support in the scriptures for such a stance and because I think that people are less likely to leave the church if they feel they have been mercifully dealt with.
I agree wholeheartedly. I have no statistics on this, unfortunately. Only personal experience. I was involved in one excommunication and the guy was a predator of missionaries; he never came back. Small sample size….it would be interesting to see how the numbers stack up for the penitent. You might try posting something on postmormon.org to see if they have any inkling about it. You might even ask how many of them have made it back into membership again.
I know of two other people who were exed and then got back into full temple blessings.
I might try postmormon, thanks for the suggestion, SD. The irony is that I can post tons of verses right out of the scriptures that show excommunication is to be used in very isolated instances and almost universally only for those who do not repent but the mere fact that the CHI allows for excommunications (however rare this may occur) based on additional criteria combines with the understandably visceral reaction we have to some horrific offenses to produce the idea (and in my experience, practice) that it is appropriate to excommunicate penitent people.
Other than murder or repeated adultery, I can’t find any scriptural support for this practice but since I expressed disdain for the CHI all hell has broken loose
:wtf: 😆 mercyngrace wrote:I might try postmormon, thanks for the suggestion, SD.
Other than murder or repeated adultery, I can’t find any scriptural support for this practice but since I expressed disdain for the CHI all hell has broken loose
You mean on another forum, or in person with others — right? While I think most of us here think the recent changes to the CHI were largely positive, there is a healthy skepticism about the concept of scripting so much of our Church experience. I think we’ve all seen the way some members act when you present an issue and members resist a common-sense solution simply because of a phrase in the general handbook. Or, they quote “that’s not the program of the Church”.
However, to your point — my understanding is that excommunication is only there for the most serious situations now; and the tendency is toward mercy.
Funny, long before I was a member of the Church, I was visiting a friend in a camping trailer. He had a portable TV and I remember a commentary on the Church when they discussed how the Church excommunicates its members. The interviewer talked to a couple GA’s and they gave their reasons for it. My friend, who was a staunch Christian, shook his head in disgust at the “court of love” concept, and about how we take people who are trying to turn their lives around them and brand them further by stripping them of their Church membership and putting them through a really long and agonizingly slow process of rebaptism and resoration of blessings, slowly, all through the various phases of the Aaronic and Melch Priesthood. AT the time, I lacked the maturity to have an opinion, but I see his point now. What sinners need is a hand of fellowship and mercy in support as they try to overcome whatever led them to lose their membership — particularly when they are repentent. That was a key thrust of Christ’s ministry (Let He who is without sin cast the first stone).
I think one attitude conditioner is to look at the softening that is generally occurring, however. We used to call these “church COURTS”, which symbolizes all the heartlessness of a legal court and an emphasis on justice. Then they were renamed “disciplinary councils”, which still sounds a bit stiff (the word “discipline” which seems to imply a weighting toward the Law of Justice rather than a synthesis of the Law of Justice and Mercy), but which is a better term than a “Church COURT”. And, the new directive that disfellowshipment can be used in most circumstances.
So, at least there is movement in the right direction.
In my experience, very few people who seem to be truly penitent are excommunicated – but that’s just my experience and the guidelines in the CHI. I know there are hardline Bishops and Stake Presidents who excommunicate more frequently than others, but I believe the “norm” is toward mercy. There are two exceptions to that general rule:
1)
serial adulterers and those with other repeated sexual issues— When repeated offenses are part of the person’s history, especially when milder consequences have been imposed in the past due to apparent repentance, there comes a point when it becomes necessary to stop believing the person and excommunicate him or her. 2)
first-time sexual abusers of children, regardless of apparent remorse — I agree totally with this exception. We don’t hang a millstone around their necks and drown them, but excommunication is appropriate, imo. Old-Timer wrote:2)
first-time sexual abusers of children, regardless of apparent remorse — I agree totally with this exception. We don’t hang a millstone around their necks and drown them, but excommunication is appropriate, imo. The day we want real cultural change in the church, we will apply church discipline equally to those (to us) who threaten, hit, slap, shake, kick, slam, smother, roar, scream, demean, ridicule, provoke, punish, starve, and otherwise gratify their (our) egos with little children as we do to those who gratify their hormones. All these sins of the fathers are perpetuated to the third and fourth generation.
I agree that the changes are positive and moving toward mercy and the CHI to my knowledge has always made the point of focusing on the direction of the Spirit. I also agree that some circumstances demand excommunication. Much like your friend, SD, I believe that no one needs a physician more than those who are ill. And it’s the rare exception, imo, in which disfellowshipment or formal probation won’t accomplish the same goals.
Of course, all hell didn’t really break loose just a couple of my TBM friends (online forum friends) reacted a if I’d said we should let Jeffrey Dahmer run the Young Men’s program. Which I didn’t. I just pointed out (too abruptly, I admit) that I see some discrepancies between what we practice and the scriptures say. Why this is a shocking claim, I can’t figure. The fact that the policies and procedures have changed over time is evidece that we are progressing toward an as yet elusive ideal. We dismiss some of what Brigham Young taught as his opinion or relevant only to his day, is it so far fetched to think that in the future some will look back on our practices and policies as reflective of a less enlightened age?
Tom, I agree in theory, in a vacuum, but trying to establish an exact line in some of those cases would be a nightmare. It just can’t be a zero tolerance line in some cases (like yelling at your kids – what about post-partum depression or sleep deprivation when dealing with infants; like “hitting” – what about spanking in the most extreme cases and not “in anger”; like “demeaning” – what about comments that are learned and not understood by the person to be as destructive as they are; etc.?) Fundamentally, there is a huge difference in my mind between many forms of yelling, demeaning and spanking (although I approve of none of them in theory) and sexually molesting and/or raping a child. One needs counseling of some sort, at the very least; if repeated, even after counseling, some form of official consequence might be warranted; the other is justifiable grounds for excommunication after the first offense, imo.
I guess this is a threadjack. Maybe I will open a thread on it sometime. Tom Haws wrote:I guess this is a threadjack. Maybe I will open a thread on it sometime.
Threadjack away
And (this should probably be moved to the support thread…) I’m really struggling right now with my role as a parent teaching the gospel to my children. I’ve always taught them to seperate the gospel from some of our outward practices using the model of how ancient Israel lived the Mosaic law as a preparatory step and mostly due to the hardness of their own hearts and inability to receive the higher law. Since I really believe this, I have no trouble teaching them that sometimes we institutionally live below the law to which we aspire.
Where it’s all falling apart is that I don’t want to teach them that they should ignore the church but I can’t teach them to live in the world in which I was raised where my whole life was about the church rather than the church being an aid to help me progress. Even the new handbooks are making it plain that the church is here to help us progress rather than our salvation being just about our relationship to the church but the internal conflict for me is huge – I practically lived in the church building growing up – travelled around giving talks with my dad on his speaking assignments from the time I could read. Always working in some leadership capacity and trying to build up the kingdom – often at the expense of the individual.
I don’t want this life for my children but without it would I be who I am today? Would I have come to understand the things I feel I do?
I found my path but do I dare set my children on the same road?
(How’s that for a complete threadjack of my own thread?)
mercyngrace wrote:Threadjack away
Alright, M&G. I accept the invitation.
We know that our tradition is a religion without a Peace Testimony. In our culture, we swim in the lying language of patriotism and authoritarianism. We routinely hide abject horrors behind sweet euphemisms. So it’s a tall order to ask that we would have any taboos against violence and compulsion. I think that the reason we feel differently about child molestation than child intimidation is a simple matter of taboos. We are a culture with strong sexuality taboos, but weak violence taboos. The reality is that all offenses against little children ripple on and on. They all deserve society’s clearest admonishment and warning.
mercyngrace wrote:is it so far fetched to think that in the future some will look back on our practices and policies as reflective of a less enlightened age?
No. I’m already doing it.
Tom Haws wrote:mercyngrace wrote:Threadjack away
Alright, M&G. I accept the invitation.
We know that our tradition is a religion without a Peace Testimony. In our culture, we swim in the lying language of patriotism and authoritarianism. We routinely hide abject horrors behind sweet euphemisms. So it’s a tall order to ask that we would have any taboos against violence and compulsion. I think that the reason we feel differently about child molestation than child intimidation is a simple matter of taboos. We are a culture with strong sexuality taboos, but weak violence taboos. The reality is that all offenses against little children ripple on and on. They all deserve society’s clearest admonishment and warning.
I couldn’t agree more. One of the core values I believe and try to pass on to my children is that the essence of sin is injuring one another. Whether or not it is codified in commandments is irrelevant.
Shifting back to the OP:
Sunday, I was reading in 3 John and a particular verse reiterated something I’ve been teaching for a while. It says
Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.The difference between those who do good and those who do evil is that the former have experienced God (a change of heart?) and the latter haven’t…. yet. Eventually, if we believe our theology at all, we will all be spotless. The x-factor is just a matter of when we have that experience that changes us. And given how many decades I spent as a Mormon Pharisee before I actually accepted the atonement, I believe that change happens to us rather than us creating it. Because I see things like this, I’m less inclined to cast people off as evil. We still teach right and wrong and call all to repent but most people violate the law in spiritual ignorance. Ignorance meaning they haven’t really experienced God, regardless of what rituals they’ve participated in or what covenants they’ve made.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m not even Mormon anymore and it just hasn’t hit me yet. But this is how I see it.
mercyngrace wrote:The fact that the policies and procedures have changed over time is evidece that we are progressing toward an as yet elusive ideal. We dismiss some of what Brigham Young taught as his opinion or relevant only to his day, is it so far fetched to think that in the future some will look back on our practices and policies as reflective of a less enlightened age?
Yes!!! Already, I look back on the things I believed when I was younger with wonder about how I just accepted them. My Dad once showed EXTREME disgust when he pointed to men on the television who were “kissing each other”. We had anti-gay discussions at the dinner table and I grew up believing very unaccepting things about these people. Which has since changed given further study and discussion with same-sex oriented people on other discussion forums.
At one time, I think it was believed that if you were having homosexual feelings you couldn’t serve in callings — one Stake President released someone citing that was the reason when I was a Stake Exec Secretary. I think it might have been in the manual. But now, as long as those feelings aren’t expressed, then you can have full calling involvement, says the new manual.
So, yes, I think we’ll view many of our practices today as archaic in years hence. The problem is, our claims to One True Church puts us in a box I think. While we have continuing revelation which allows us to press the delete button on anything a prophet said previously, I think radical about-faces will cause doubt in many people.
For example, how would the average person react if a sudden revelation came out allowing women to hold the priesthood? Or some kind of new appendage to the melchizedek priesthood which allows women to give priesthood oriented blessings? Many would love it; a lot of people would think the Church was just pandering to current social trends and lose their testimony. So, change tends to happen very slowly.
[As an aside, history has shown that society holds our past backwardness against us constantly — like Blacks and the priesthood for example — so even about-faces on entrenched issues won’t erase our past or the arguments of our enemies. It’s another disincentive to change).
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