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Old-Timer wrote:
I don’t disagree with your main point, wayfarer, about punishing someone for natural tendencies – and I think this decision is especially egregious (
and against the actual Church guidelines) IF it is focused on tendencies only and not actions(and this isn’t the place to ask about that issue, so let’s not go there), but I have a hard time calling disfellowshipment “shunning” – even as I do believe it is a form of “shaming”. They aren’t the same thing; the consequences aren’t supposed to include any shunning (they aren’t even supposed to be known by others); the vast majority of cases of which I’m aware involved no shunning whatsoever from the general membership – whether or not they knew about the decision.
shunning isexactlywhat the word “disfellowshipping” means. to fellowship is to provide friendship and support, particularly as a member of a religious society. to disfellowship means, literally, to defriend someone, to banish or shun them as a member, to remove support as a friend. Chuang-Tzu said, “Words are not just air. the words we use have a meaning, otherwise they might as well be the chirping of birds.” while you and I may think that disfellowshippng doesn’t mean what the word actually means, it sends a very clear and distinct message: you are not our friend, because you have sinned.
So a fine, thoughtful, caring individual goes on a mission, and discovering through experience a critical aspect of his identity, decides to do the right thing, the honorable and authentic thing, and goes home. struggling with faith and identity, needing love and friendship as part of healing, what does the church do? it formally withdraws the love and friendship — the fellowship — the “sinner” needs the most.
you say no-one knows? every time he sits in sacrament, the deacon and people around him know. every time he is asked to say a prayer, someone knows. its shunning and shaming, visibly, formally, and unalterably.
curiously, the OED cites first use in 1831, and the examples come from mormon and JW history. we are right up there with the JWs in perfecting the term for shunning and shaming of sinners.
Here is what I believe:
Quote:There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin-sick soul.
Some times I feel discouraged,
And think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again.
If you can’t preach like Peter,
If you can’t pray like Paul,
Just tell the love of Jesus,
And say He died for all.
There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin-sick soul.
I agree with everything you just wrote, wayfarer, so perhaps my concern is that the word “disfellowshipment” is the wrong word for what that action does and means currently – and that there is a very important difference between “shunning” and “shaming” (even as I don’t like shunning or shaming in most cases). I see disfellowshipment as currently constituted as shaming and excommunication as (generally) a non-extreme form of shunning (and by “non-extreme” I only mean that it isn’t meant to shun completely in our current time). That has changed since the early days of Mormonism, and I think it’s important to understand and acknowledge that it has changed. In many cases now, neither excommunication nor disfellowshipment are what they used to be – and that is understandable given the difference between an emerging church and a more established one. I hope that trend away from what they used to be continues. I think there is a proper, limited place for excommunication and disfellowshipment in our current church, but I also think they are used WAY too often for WAY too many situations – and I agree totally that candlelight’s case is not a proper place for either, again, if it was the result of tendencies alone. That actually is contrary to the current stance of the LDS Church itself; it is disfellowshipment totally misapplied, imo.
Old-Timer wrote:I agree with everything you just wrote, wayfarer, so perhaps my concern is that the word “disfellowshipment” is the wrong word for what that action does and means currently – and that there is a very important difference between “shunning” and “shaming” (even as I don’t like shunning or shaming in most cases). I see disfellowshipment as currently constituted as shaming and excommunication as (generally) a non-extreme form of shunning (and by “non-extreme” I only mean that it isn’t meant to shun completely in our current time). That has changed since the early days of Mormonism, and I think it’s important to understand and acknowledge that it has changed. In many cases now, neither excommunication nor disfellowshipment are what they used to be – and that is understandable given the difference between an emerging church and a more established one. I hope that trend away from what they used to be continues.
I think there is a proper, limited place for excommunication and disfellowshipment in our current church, but I also think they are used WAY too often for WAY too many situations – and I agree totally that candlelight’s case is not a proper place for either, again, if it was the result of tendencies alone. That actually is contrary to the current stance of the LDS Church itself; it is disfellowshipment totally misapplied, imo.
there is no such word as “disfellowshipment”, so indeed it is the wrong word.dictionary.reference.com wrote:disfellowshipment – no dictionary results
oed.com wrote:No dictionary entries found for ‘disfellowshipment’.
instead, we use the term “disfellowshipping” as the noun/gerund, in the same usage as how you are using the non-word “disfellowshipment”. as a verb, use “disfellowship.” This is much more than just a “nit” on this word: because it is a gerund, it means something different. A gerund (nouns made from verbs by using the -ing form) retains the sense of verb-action even as a noun. Thus, “disfellowshipping” as a gerund means that it is an active process applied to the person. note that it the same way you used “shaming” and “shunning” as gerunds: it is not a status (as would be implied with the -ment suffix)–it is an active process to keep the sinner aware of his sin.this would be how the language is “parsed”.
:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: Well played, as they say.Quote:it is an active process to keep the sinner aware of his sin.
I agree, which is why I equate disfellowshipping with shaming and don’t like it in most cases, especially if there has been no sin committed.
What are the specific things that disfellowshipping means? I assume it means you can’t get a temple recommend, but other than that I’m not sure what they allow you to do and what they don’t. Cylon wrote:What are the specific things that disfellowshipping means? I assume it means you can’t get a temple recommend, but other than that I’m not sure what they allow you to do and what they don’t.
no sacrament, no public praying, no participating in meetings other than attending. you are censured in all ways except the requirement to pay tithing, which they willingly require, and obeying all the rules in order to get out of the penalty box. There is [up to] a year period, but can be shorter, and requires [the formality of] a court to convene to see if you’ve been shamed/humbled enough to warrant readmission back into full fellowship. Key to being reinstated is expressing genuine remorse for the bad things you’ve done. [with my corrections in brackets]once the disfellowshipping is over, then your record retains a history of the disfellowshipping. This [may] affect your ability to be trusted in any senior position in the church — not that this would be a problem for most of us…
I love you, wayfarer, but your answer is more extreme than often is the case. (Bet you saw that coming from me. 😆 ) I understand your reaction, as much as is possible without knowing the actual specifics of your experiences, since I’ve known abuses in the past, but much of it depends on the personality of the Bishop and/or Stake President and the specifics of the reason for the action.Generally speaking, the nearly universal restrictions are those things that would place the person in a position to act on behalf of the Church, so to speak. Thus, no talks in Sacrament Meeting, no prayers representing the group, etc. – and no partaking of the sacrament often is included. I understand the first restriction in many cases; I don’t like the second one in most cases; I really dislike the third one in the vast majority of cases. If someone still is considered a baptized member, I believe they should be allowed to partake in the ordinance that signifies commitment to their baptism – especially if others who are not following a different rule / law / command in an obvious way but are not disfellowshipped for it (like not following the Word of Wisdom) are allowed to partake of the sacrament.
The length of the disfellowshipping varies – but it generally will last from three months to a year. The ending of the time almost always is a formality, since the Bishop almost always knows what the result will be before the end is near (which is another reason I don’t like long periods for disfellowhipping in nearly all cases). The result can be a continuation of the situation, excommunication, probation or return to “full fellowship”. The longer the term of disfellowshipping, the less likely the result will be probation or continuation; that usually happens with shorter terms (3-6 months). The longer terms almost always end in excommunication or return to “full fellowship”.
Quote:Key to being reinstated is expressing genuine remorse for all the bad things you’ve done. ever.
My own experiences with these things is that being reinstated depends on expressing sincere repentance for whatever caused the situation in the first place – not every bad thing you’ve ever done. I’ve not been involved in a single instance where the questioning went beyond the thing that happened or directly caused it to happen – but I am sure there are situations where Bishops and/or Stake Presidents dredged up other stuff, as well. That ought not be – by official policy and imo.
The global church is moving away from disfellowshipping and excommunicating at the rate and for the reasons these things used to occur – and it is radically different now than it was in the early years of the church’s formation. I believe we still have a long way to go in that direction, especially since local leaders bring their own personalities and views to the situations, but it’s very different now than it was even in my own adolescence.
yes, perhaps it was a bit negative. i don’t have a testimony of church discipline, as you can probably tell, but i will correct my inaccuracies. i can recognize that some degree of CD is necessary for those who work in opposition or defiance, or who, through abuse of position should be visibly removed. but for a the ‘one’ of the 99 who is struggling with sin, there is a far superior answer: unconditional, abiding love. Thanks, Wayfarer and Ray, for both of your replies. I’ve never known of anyone who was disfellowshipped in any of my wards (I’m sure it could have happened, I just wasn’t aware of it). Sounds like at its harshest, it can be pretty severe, but that makes sense that there is a lot of variation depending on local leadership. Quote:for a the ‘one’ of the 99 who is struggling with sin, there is a far superior answer: unconditional, abiding love.
Amen – and amen.
This has been a very interesting discussion for me. Over the many years in the church my husband and I have had excommunicated and disfellowshipped friends and family members. They all worked hard to clean up their lives and get re-instated in the church. We would invite them over for dinner and holidays and sit next to them at church. That meant the world to them and helped them come back into full fellowship. Without that support, I do not think the would have made it. I have one friend, inparticular, who has been disfellowshipped for over 20 years now. He has a same-sex attraction and was a sex addict. He had come along ways and only struggles with gay porn on occassion now. The reason he never got re-instated was because he ‘fell’ regularly with men. He has a very strong testimony of the church but gets frustrated that he cannot bear that testimony in F&T meetings. He is allowed to sing in the church choir though. I admire that he has always been so honest about where he is at as many would just have lied to come back into full fellowship and look good in his ward.
On the other hand, my good friend Mitch Mayne, who serves as an openly gay celibate man in his San Francisco ward bishopric, told me this about how things are done in his ward in regards to those who live together without marriage or are in gay relationships:
I had written to him about it and said:
“One of the comments made to your post was about whether the church still says that people who have sex without marriage or living together should be excommunicated. That can upset the apple cart but like you said, you have to explain church policy and try to get them to not take it personally. Just to enjoy the good they can find in your ward. I just think it won’t be easy and admire you all for trying.” He wrote back with:
“You realize, of course, that excommunication for homosexual activity is NOT church policy. That has become something that we just do culturally. Which is why we’re getting away with doing what we’re doing here. We’re not flouting policy at all. We’re just not being the morality gestapo and doing a witch hunt for LGBTers. Sadly, that *is* what happens in many other wards.”
Mitch recently spoke at the Washington DC circling the wagons conference and his talk is on Mormon stories:
http://mitchmayne.blogspot.com/2012/04/circling-wagons-my-remarks.html In the last part of his talk he says:
“I believe that one of the things that makes us unique is the philosophy of my leadership—a philosophy of viewing themselves as humble servants of our membership and our Savior, not of one as the police or the governors. If one among us has a problem they think we can help with, we encourage them to approach us, and we will do all we can to help. But we will not seek out individuals, investigate them, and create problems where, in fact, none may exist at all.
When it comes to LGBT members, this creates a safe space for all to walk in our doors, just as they are, without fear of persecution or retribution. It enables them to genuinely feel that they have a home here, and allows them to grow and develop as equal children of our Father. Resultingly, we now have about 15 new MoHos who have returned to church. Each of them is in a different place in their personal lives, and each one is welcome as a valuable member of our ward family.
This isn’t a doctrinal shift, brothers and sisters—it’s a cultural shift, and a philosophy change. Policy as we understand it today hasn’t changed. But we believe that even if an individual has sinned, we do them a disservice by stripping them of their membership, of the guidance of the spirit, of their ability to take the sacrament, and their ability to fully fellowship with their peers. All of these things we believe, encourage people to do good and to live righteous and honorable lives—so removing these things from them if they have sinned doesn’t help bring them closer to the Savior—and it may, in fact, drive them from the one who loves them the most. “
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