Which religious organizations use excommunication (or its equivalent) today?
It seems that more people are expelled from Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - or that it is easier to be expelled from them - than, say, today’s Roman Catholic Church. Is there even such an act by Orthodox and Oriental Christian Churches?
Some Orthodox Jews pratice “karet” whereby someone who has seriously violated Jewish laws - such as converting to another religion - is cut off from the Jewish community.
Anyway, what other religious organizations practice excommunication today?
The Amish “shun” members who act outside of the community’s standards. That punishment can last for a brief amount of time (as short as a week, from what I’ve read) or can become permanent, especially for those who leave the community in a fashion which reflects poorly upon it.
While every religious organization has some mechanism to revoke the membership – and consequently, the welcome – of those who are no longer in communion, if you will, with the group’s standards, such actions have the most effect the more closed the community, such as those named. Any group which is more “of the world” can, and surely does excommunicate but typically with far less ability to thereby cut off the excommunicatee from their physical community as well as their family, friends, employers and everything else familiar and important to them. Therefore, it’s not nearly as useful a tool for, say, the Presbyterians or the Baptists.
Kares (or karet) is a strictly Heavenly punishment for certain sins. It is a punishment handed out by God and there is nothing done about it by anyone in the Jewish community.
On the other hand, Jewish courts can exercise the power to place a person in nidui, which is a form of excommunication, whereby no one in the Jewish community can have dealings with the person, approach within four cubits of him, count him toward a minyan, etc. However, since there is no central Jewish court system, this policy is unenforceable, and therefore rarely, if ever used.
When I was in the C’tian & Missionary Alliance, the elder board had to disfellowship a lady for, essentially, trying to take over the church- she was constantly speaking against the pastor & elders, trying unsuccessfully to form
cliques & power bases, even doing petty stuff like resetting the church thermostats to her liking. Apparently, after several attempts to reel her in, they finally had to tell her to leave the church. When they announced this to the church, they made it clear it was not a condemnation of her, she was not considered non-Christian or unsaved, but the church just could no longer tolerate her attempts to disrupt it.
My present denomination, the Assemblies of God, practices disfellowshipping & excommunication. The most public bootings were of Jim Bakker & Jimmy Swaggart.
My congregation has never openly disfelled or excommed anyone in the 20 years I’ve been a member. I am sure the pastors & elders have occasionally quietly suggested to some people that they go elsewhere.
The Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law provides for excommunication as a penalty imposed juridically after a finding of certain grave offenses. In addition, some offenses incur a latae sententiae penalty – that is, the penalty exists from the moment of theoffense; it need not be found by a tribunal or published. Those offenses are: violence against the Pontiff; sacrilege on the order of deliberately defiling a consecrated host; actually procuring an abortion; a priest absolving a person with whom he has sinned against the sixth commandment; consecrating a bishop without authorization; violating the seal of confession; and apostasy, heresy or schism.
There are limits: no one under 17 is liable, no one who is genuinely ignorant of violating the law incurs the penalty, no one acting under physical force or compulsion of grave fear, and no one lacking the use of reason is liable.
The churches of Christ have a practice they call “withdrawing fellowship,” which is basically shunning. Happened to me as a matter of fact. I developed an atheistic worldview after taking some theology and anthropology courses in college. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite about it, so I stopped attending church.
The folks in my congregation back home were deeply upset about this. I got invited to a couple of dinners by different church members, at which they tried to convince me of the error of my ways (all done in a friendly, loving way, for the record). My relatives in the church would send me “creation science” videotapes, designed to combat the evils of evolutionary theory. Finally, one of the elders of my home congregation got the idea to “withdraw fellowship” from me (to try to shake me up, I guess). Word was sent out (via letter) to all of the churches in my home county.
It didn’t have much effect, since I didn’t live there any more. And all of the church members I would run into on my visits home would to pull me aside and more or less apologize, saying they didn’t think it was the right thing to do, but that this one elder had pushed the idea.
But yeah, to answer the OP, that type of thing is still done by some churches.
I should add that it’s exceedingly rare for churches of Christ. My own case is the only one I ever heard about in all my years of association with that denomination. (I still have relatives who are church of Christ preachers.)
In fact, the Roman Catholic archbishop of St. Louis is currently involved in a nasty battle with one of the parishes (a story too long and complicated to bother with here) and has threatened to “interdict” the parish board. As I understand it, this is a step just short of excommunication, basically telling them that they aren’t welcome to receive the sacraments of the church until they mend their ways.
When I was a trustee at a United Church of Christ congregation, we went through a massive purging of inactive members. This was in no way an “excommunication” – they were certainly welcome to come back any time they wanted. We simply cleaned up the mailing list, as it were.
Wasn’t Garner Ted Armstrong excommunicated from the Worldwide Church of God for “misconduct” (in their church’s opinion?) It sure seems like he dropped out of sight all of a sudden.
Do small denominations like (Agape Force) or (The Way, International) clamp down on their members who violate their rules? Are their members subject to getting the boot for one or two mistakes or errors of judgement?
How about Jim Jones and his People’s Temple? Was his flock given the ultimate excommunication?
Garner Ted was excommunicated in the mid-70s for “unclear” reasons- I think the WCG’s official statement was that it was for rebellion against Dad Herbert W.'s authority, GTA’s take was that he wouldn’t kiss Dad’s butt enough, but actually there were some significant charges of adultery involved. GTA then went on to create the Church of God International which retained most of the WCG doctrines, tho were more easy-going in allowing make-up, birthday celebrations, voting & medical care. A few years ago, CGI then excommunicated GTA for adultery. He then went on to create the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association, which continues in spite of his death from pneumonia in Sept of 2003 (I found out about his death in mid-04).
As a growing teen C’tian in an evangelical & charismatic circles, I read & listened to GTA & HWA with a cautious interest. They put out a lot of interesting information, but with some significant departures from C’tian orthodox doctrine. Interestingly, WCG is now a quite moderate Evangelical church which has shed most of the Armstrongist distinctives. Other groups have picked up on that.
I don’t know how Agape Force (is that the Alamo group) & The Way Int’l deals with membership infraction- I imagine rather severely.
Jim Jones & the People’s Temple were technically part of the Disciples of Christ (Christian) Church, which AFAIK exercised little oversight while they were in Indianapolis, less while in San Frisco & none when they moved to Guyana.
Interestingly enough, while some books on Jonestown mention Jim trying to make friends in the John Birch Society, none mention how the JBS weekly newsmagazine Review of the News exposed The People’s Temple & Jim Jones’s Communist connections several years before the Massacre.
this guy also threatened excommunication for all roman catholics working for planned parenthood and other “pro-death” organizations and called for a vatican excommunication for john kerry during the last election.
There is no formal process of excommunication in the Orthodox church – rather, it is exactly what the name implies, being out of communion, and forbidden to approach the chalice. It is very frequently given as a penance for more serious sins – anything from a few weeks of no communion for something like masturbation, to several years or decades for something like adultery, abortion, or murder. For the most heinous sins, such as those of a mass murderer or serial killer, one might be required to abstain for communion for the rest of one’s life, only being allowed to commune when one is on one’s deathbed – and if one should subsequently recover, the penance would be started anew, with no more communion until one is once again about to die.
I learned that the Bohras (Daudi Musta’li Ismailis) used to have a process of excommunication. But after dissidents made a big deal about it, the dawat - the official religious structure of the community - stopped using excommunication and began using a process called baraat in which a person clearly in breach of their oath of allegiance (mithaq or misaq) is officially barred from religious functions, and anyone openly associating with them could be liable to be placed under baraat as well. Although not really excommunication, it is de facto excommunication, and evidently a very useful process: many would-be dissidents keep quiet in order to take advantage of important religious occasions (weddings, funerals, etc.) and a number of dissidents tend to become reconciled with the dawat so that they and their families will have fewer problems when it comes to the time of their funeral. Funerary rites, burial in Bohra cemetaries, attendance or hosting a marriage, or any other such official religious function require the approval and endorsement of the dawat; Bohras are issued cards that indicate the inidividual Bohra’s adherace to the Dai al-Mutlaq’s* standards (green for orthoprax, yellow for medium observance, red for bare minimum adherance). Without a card, one cannot be admitted to most official religious functions or permitted to participate/host one. People under baraat obviously are not issued a card.
*The Dai al-Mutlaq is the head dai and currently the supreme, absolute leader of Daudi Musta’li Ismailis during the occultation of their Imam. He is considered to be infallible; the Dai al-Mutlaq has immense involvement in and influence on the lives of Daudi Musta’li Ismailis - almost totalitarian. But most of the people welcome this and rejoice in this. The current Dai al-Mutlaq is Muhammad Burhanuddin, called “Sayyidna” or more commonly “Aqa Mowla” by his followers.
For more information, see Jonah Blank’s Mullahs on the Mainframe. Excellent book.