On Excommunication

For those who attend church, are there any circumstances in which you would excommunicate a person who attends your church?

Would you ask someone to leave for any of these reasons, for example:

1. Expousal of heresy.
2. Dishonesty, for example, conviction of embezzlement.
3. Bad influence on your children, for example, out-of-wedlock pregnancy or a child molestation conviction.
4. Bad example, as in a church member convicted of a felony.

There was a time when I thought that disenfranchisement was on its face a contradiction to Christian teachings, a glaring example of intolerance and hypocrisy. There are a lot of sick souls who go to church, and what better place for them to be than to be in this spiritual hospital. But I've since come to realize that this position is naive. To use the medical example again, there are people who are spiritual Typhoid Mary's, who by their mere existence in church pose a mortal threat to others in the congregation. They may even have the self-awareness that what they did is wrong, they may be consumed with remorse, and they may be under the grip of something that they cannot change or don't understand. Nevertheless, they may need to move on.

For me, a first principle of ethics is: how could it impact my children? In the case of pediophilia, out-of-wedlock birthing and spousal cheating, what you could have is a disconnect of messages that could negatively influence others, especially children. Thus, if such people still hold a position of leadership or admiration in the church, the message that an impressionable 14 year hears from the person or leaders in the church is:

don't do this don't do don't do this

But what they see, sense, and construe especially by the way other people treat the person in question is:

DO THIS!!! DO THIS!!! DO THIS!!!

The latter has much more of a force in influencing behavior than the former. We certainly have a moral obligation to protect our kids, and there may be times when the only way to do this is to purge from the church those who could harm our kids by their example that comes from their presence.

Much depends on the personality and charisma of the person in question. And this is certainly an example where rules are less important than discernment.