Does Christian Doctrine support Exclusionary practices?

Great Debates
1

Let me start by saying that although I am an ex-Catholic atheist, this is not intended to be a Christian bashing post. If you would like one of those, I’m sure one can be found in the Pit. Let me also say that while there was a precipitating event to this thread, I’m leaving it out so as not to muddle the issue (If it becomes necessary, I can post it later).

I’ve seen several arguments online and in person with the general form:

Given that Organization X is a Christian Organization,
Given that Activity Y is a sin,
Therefore, people that commit activity Y are sinners
Therefore, people that commit activity Y should be excluded from Organization X.

Leaving aside that the premises of the argument may be flawed (ie, whether X is really a Christian organization or whether Y is actually a sin), I’m having a hard time making the jump from line 3 to line 4, mainly based on the following core parts of what I understand to be Christian doctrine.

Love thy neighbor

It seems a very odd type of love that says “stay the hell away from me”. The usual response I see to this is “Love the sinner but hate the sin”, which, in addition to not actually being found in the Bible, doesn’t seem to promote excluding someone from an organization. I might hate smoking but that doesn’t mean I’m going to forbid smokers from coming over to my house, just ask them not to smoke indoors.

We are all sinners

Since it seems part of doctrine that all people are sinners (hence the need for forgiveness), if being a sinner was enough to exclude someone from a Christian organization, there wouldn’t be any Christian organizations.

We are all God’s Children

Jesus himself hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes, so obviously being a social pariah doesn’t mean you should be excluded from a particular organization.

I’ve made these point elsewhere online and the response I usually get is some variation on “You’re wrong!” or “Read your Bible again” :rolleyes:

Now, I’m not talking about things like “Christian Women’s organization excludes men” where the exclusionary reason doesn’t have much, if anything to do with religion. Nor am I talking about things like “Organization X banned Bob because Bob was a total jerk during the meetings”.

Now, I am well aware that there are plenty of Christians out there that hide behind their religion to be bigots or jerks or whatever, whether there is support in the faith for that practice or not. And I’m also well aware that plenty of Christians are Christian in the sense that they go to Church twice a year but have never read a line of the bible. I’m not asking about them. I’m asking about well-versed, intelligent argument against including all (or reasonably close to all) people in a particular organization.

If nothing else, it seems like it would be good proselytizing (assuming your organization is a fun one :smiley: ).

Anyway, for the board Christians (or well-educated non-Christians): Am I seeing a manifestation of faith that I don’t remember from Sunday School, or these bogus argument that hide the real reason of “I just don’t like those people?”

2

I don’t think anyone should be excluded from Communion or a Christian church. I think that excluding anyone is antithetical to Christ’s teachiings.

I feel so strongly that this is true that I left the Roman Catholic church last year (having been a “cradle Catholic” though not always devout or very devout) and joined the Episcopal Church, which welcomes everyone and allows women and gay people to play full, equal roles in the church.

3

If all Christian organizations excluded sinners, by their own standards they would be empty. Most Christian churches and organizations are at least nominally inclusive - for example, to pick a random “sin,” known drinkers would be welcome at that church as long as they don’t mind constant reminders about how drinking is a sin and they’re going to go to hell for it.

I can’t really imaging a Christian group recognizing themselves in your discription though. Most will insist they are inclusive (and some really are).

4

In other words. I don’t think many (any?) Xtian groups would cop to excluding people. They would say “gays are welcome to attend our church; and they can even be leaders in the church if they agree to live by our doctrine, which includes that homosexuality is a grave disorder.”

5

This, as long as they aren’t disruptive anybody should feel welcome to a church, but being a church member entitles certain duties and standards.

6

Thanks for the replies.

I’m a bit surprised by Skammer’s second reponse. Maybe it’s looking at it with a colored lens, but I have a hard time seeing a lot of the Southern Baptists in my area being overly welcoming to open homosexuals - unless it was a “pray the gay away” deal. They definitely would want to exclude gays from their congregation; I’m wondering if they have a doctrinal reason for doing so or if it’s a “we don’t like your kind around here” thing.

What I was actually hoping to ask (I suppose I phrased my question poorly) not was not much “can they come to church” but “can they come to an ostensibly Christian organization that is NOT a church”, like an aid organization, youth development group, etc.

7

I can’t speak for the Southern Baptists, but in general, the Christian church does not exclude what they would term “repentant sinners”. I doubt a lot of “open homosexuals” would agree that engaging in homosexual acts is something of which they have to repent. So, it is sort of self-limiting - people who don’t consider homosexual acts to be sinful aren’t usually interested in joining a church who does.

Depends on the purpose of the organization. Christian aid groups don’t make you fill out a questionnaire before they will help you, at least not typically.

It often goes back to what I said above about repentance. It’s considered part of the deal for those who want to join the Church to repent of your sins (all of them) and try not to repeat them. Yes, we all sin, yes, we all are imperfect - that’s not what I am talking about.

The issue arises when someone does not repent, and does not commit to trying to stop repeating the sin. The process is supposed to be that other members of the church go to the unrepentant sinner and try to talk to him, and show him the error of his ways. That doesn’t always work. Then what do you do? Well, if it is a serious enough sin, then sometimes the only thing the church can do, to impress on the person how serious this is, is to offer them the choice to either repent, or leave the church. It’s about the only thing we can do - we have no civil authority.

Maybe it would be clearer if you considered how another organization should deal with those who want to belong, but are publicly acting contrary to the most important tenets of the organization. Think of an unrepentant child molester who wanted to volunteer at your local school. Schools are supposed to be for the whole community, but sometimes that doesn’t work out.

Regards,
Shodan

8

Provided they abided by the church’s beliefs, few would care. They would have a problem if you, say, wanted to be a minister while having nightly liasons with your “close buddies”, but that would apply similarly to straight ministers. Most would not look especially askance at you if you.

In the Catholic church, priests are not allowed to marry anyway, and are expected to abstain from all sexual activity, so it’s not a question which commonly comes up. A gay priest is not really any different from a straight priests; no one would know or question it unless you made it an issue.

That said, there’s a difference between having certain desires or thoughts (which we all do) and acting upon them. Some of these are sinful; others are not, and some which aren’t sinful are still not permitted to members of some religious orders around the globe, Christian and otherwise, according to their strictures. A certain amount of asceticism is a common aspect of nearly every religion on earth past or present.

9

Sorry, I did misunderstand your question.

I don’t think there is anythiing in the New Testament or the old that would justify excluding anyone from an organization because that person is a sinner, per se. And you are quite right that Christ hung out with sinners and I agree that a Christian (even one who believes that homosexual practices are sinful) would be acting contrary to Christ’s teachings by excluding someone because of homosexuality.

But if the sin in question is, e.g., child sexual abuse and the organization provides after-school programs to kids (and I am not suggesting any relationship between pedophilia and homsexuality) then I am aware of nothing in Christian teachings that would require, or justify, the organization putting the kids at risk by welcoming the person as a volunteer.

I mention that last example because many churches (notably the R.C.s but theyh are not alone) have had a little trouble with allowing folks who clearly should not have been allowed to work with children (not that I think pedophile priests were enabled out of Christian charity).

10

Heh, I would hope they wouldn’t. I was thinking more along the lines of “join the organization to help out those in need” and not "get aid from an organization. Turning away the poor from an “aid the poor” event would be pretty boneheaded no matter what doctrine said.

This is a little closer to what I was asking, and it makes a lot of sense. I guess I’m thinking of something more like the following: say there was a Christian sports league, and each local church has a team. The Baptists have a team, The Methodists have a team, the Catholics have a team, and the Episcopalians have a team. The Episcopalian coach happens to be gay. Obviously, his status has a homosexual has about zero relevance to his status as a coach, and in reality shouldn’t even come up. But, say one of the other teams gets wind of this, and starts a hullabaloo about this gay coach being in the league. Obviously there is disagreement about whether or not homosexuality is a sin between some of these faiths. Would one of the other teams have a doctrinal leg to stand on in demanding that Coach Fabulous’ resign, or would the Episcopalians have supporting verse to say “suck it up and be inclusive, we’re all Christians here”? (Actually, this is very close to the precipitating event that made me think of this)

[QUOTE=huck]

But if the sin in question is, e.g., child sexual abuse and the organization provides after-school programs to kids (and I am not suggesting any relationship between pedophilia and homsexuality) then I am aware of nothing in Christian teachings that would require, or justify, the organization putting the kids at risk by welcoming the person as a volunteer.
[/QUOTE]

Oh absolutely - I’m not suggesting that there is doctrinal support for abandoning the health and safety of their members. Nor am I suggesting that someone that rudely disrupts an event should be allowed to attend.

[QUOTE=huck]

I don’t think there is anythiing in the New Testament or the old that would justify excluding anyone from an organization because that person is a sinner, per se. And you are quite right that Christ hung out with sinners and I agree that a Christian (even one who believes that homosexual practices are sinful) would be acting contrary to Christ’s teachings by excluding someone because of homosexuality.
[/QUOTE]

This was really the heart of what I was getting at. If you don’t mind (and I’m not gathering ammo, I think I have realized that arguing on the internet can be like arguing with a wall), how would you respond to a fellow Christian that disagree with the above?

11

It’s hard for a Christian to argue that “X should be excluded from [insert church-related organisation or activity here] because he is a sinner”. From the Christian perspective we’re all sinners, so the implication of the argument is that we should all be excluded.

A variation on this argument is ““X should be excluded from [insert church-related organisation or activity here] because he is a sinner but rejects our church’s teaching that what he is doing is a sin”. The implication of that argument is that Christian’s can’t enjoy any kind of fellowship with other people (including other Christians) whose take on Christian morality is different from the “authoritative” take. That’s pretty hardcore, but if you want to mine scripture for quotes that will support that view, you can find ‘em. A refusal to accept church teaching on matters of morality (or indeed anything else) can be seen as a challenge to/rejection of the authority of the church, which can be seen as a challenge to/rejection of the body of Christ, which can be said to justify/require your exclusion from the body of Christ.

I don’t think you can say that Christian doctrine requires you to take this view, but I think it’s a possible view, and those who do take that view will tend to see it – or at least to present it - as something that their beliefs require of them.

Funnily enough, this view is most often taken when the immoral behaviour relates in some way to sex. We rarely read reports of people being excluded from church-linked activities because their lives and their beliefs are not consistent with biblical teaching on wealth, or power, or the treatment of the foreigner, the widow and the orphan.

12

In response to your question as to how I would respond to someone who wanted to exclude a person from the organization for being homosexual,I’m not big on throwing scripture around as a rule.

But the important New Testament message is loud and clear I think–love your neighbor as yourself; this is the law and the whole law, and that law is the same as Christ.

There are no asterisks or footnotes allowing exceptions for folks of whose lifestyle one disapproves.

13

If I were going to make a Biblical case for excluding unrepentant sinners from a church or Christian organization, I’d probably base it on [1 Corinthians 5](1 - - Bible Gateway Corinthians+5&version=NIV), along with Matthew 18:15-17. I’m not entirely sure what to make of such passages, but they do seem to clearly indicate, at least, that there is such a thing as a “bannable offense.”

14

That actually happened in Winnipeg a while ago, but it wasn’t directly for doctrinal reasons.

ETA: Unless it’s a hoax, but there seems to have been an actual CBC story on it at the time.

15

Let’s try this: forget about sexual sins entirely for a moment.

Suppose that the pastor of a Catholic Church in Louisiana found out that one of his parishioners was a Wizard or Dragon in the local Ku Klux Klan. I’m betting the OP would have no problem if the pastor told that man “You are not welcome in this church as long as you belong to the Klan.” I’m almost certain thta, in such a case, the OP wouldn’t give us any lectures about how churches should be welcoming and open to all of us sinners.

Which means that the OP (and MOST people) don’t have any consistent argument against being exclusionary- he just objects to PARTICULAR sinners being excluded by specific churches.

The same would PROBABLY be true with CERTAIN sexual sins. If a Southern Baptist left his wife and started shacking up with another woman, would the OP object if his local congregation shunned him? Why not?

16

Wow, thanks for the links. Those are some surprising verses given how often I see “Judge not, lest ye be judged” thrown around. (I admit, I’m somewhat amused by the “treat them like a tax collector” line. Poor IRS agents, not even liked by Jesus).

17

I suppose I was unclear in my OP. I am really not interested in churches themselves (they can of course choose their own membership), but I am really interested more in non-congregation christian organizations, like the sport league I suggested in another post.

As far as KKK membership - yes, I am including that in my question. It doesn’t have to be sexual, although that is the most common thing to bring up. It doesn’t matter if it’s that one of the coaches wants to have a beer after the game and the teetotalers on one side don’t like it. Do they have a leg to stand on doctrine-wise?

I’m a bit miffed that you are taking this as a lecture. I tried hard to note this wasn’t meant to be Christian bashing, but apparently you took it that way anyway. I will try to be more clear in the future. Please don’t make me into the big bad Christian persecutor when I’m just trying to understand an argument I saw.

18

For Catholics, othe only way you could be prevented for entering the temple would be a public excommunication.
All other people would be welcomed or at least not kicked out. The KKK guy would not be kicked out if he behaved.
You could and will be excluded from Communion, though.

19

I’m no scriptural scholar and a poor/reluctant shot at lobbing passages at folks, but I’ll try to respond.

Coriinthians is Paul talking, not Christ of course, and even if one were to assume that the man having sex with his stepmother and homosexuality are both public sins it seems that Paul is talking about “the church” excommunicating someone, not individuals deciding not to allow a perceived sinner to coach a team.

As to the passage from Matthew, how are we to treat pagans and tax collectors? I’d argue that (especially given the place of this passage in between talk of forgiveness) the answer is, as lost sheep, i.e. value them and provide for their wants. So again no support for excluding someone from work they wish to do and are good at.

So I see no exception to the law of treating others with love that would apply to keeping sinners out of an organization because they are sinners.

20

I suspect those who disagreed with the Episcopalians’ stance on Coach Fabulous would withdraw from the league if they couldn’t get him kicked out.

But yes, the two sides could play dueling Scriptures if they wanted to. The anti-gay side would cite all the verses condemning homosexuality, as well as the Matthew verses elsewhere mentioned.

It might be a tactical error for the Episcopalians to start talking about how Jesus hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes, since that would imply that homosexual acts are as bad as prostitution. And for one example of how Jesus treated tax collectors, see Luke 19:1-10. In particular, see this passage -

IOW the invocation by Jesus not to judge, and not to draw back from associating with sinners, is not carte blanche to continue to sin, but as a method (mostly) to evangelize.

Which is not to say the concept has never been abused, or that the Christian church always lives up to its principles. But we do have to strike sort of a balance, between forgiving sin, and condoning it.

Regards,
Shodan