Shunning is NOT of God

Very good article, thank you for sharing. It resonated in many ways with my personal experience.

I just finished the special SB article on abuse and a lot of thoughts are swimming in my head. The culture around shunning is not so different from the culture of abuse. I would say they are cut from the same cloth.

This quote explains well how the leadership is ultimately responsible for a culture of shunning and the peer pressure that enforces it:

"Shunning is often implemented by community leaders. They encourage families to also shun their family members, including their children. Failure to do so implies a loss of honour within the community and families who refuse are likely to be banished as a whole because they have lost their honour within the community and the community as a whole feel that they had been dishonoured…

It is well-documented in research from social psychology that people obey orders that are given from someone in authority. If those in authority are encouraging shunning, people will obey this, regardless of the psychological distress and the damage that it may have on the family.

Adding to this, shunning is a powerful tool for social influence, so leaders use it to ensure that people will obey them, in order to maintain their membership within the community. Let’s not forget, humans are social beings and the prospect of facing social humiliation, shame and rejection are not a prospect that we aim for in fact, we would do anything to avoid it. [2]

Religious shunning is most often a used as a tool for manipulation and control. It is unloving, unkind and uncaring. It is self-centered, and willing to sacrifice a neighbor’s well-being for one’s own reputation and/or power."

It doesn't matter what language it is dressed up in, "disfellowship," and "tough love," are just synonyms for the same behavior. And as the article points out, shunning isn't an act of love at all, it is an act of hate.
Recently I have been contemplating all of the ways shunning is an act of murder. Please hear me out. If we follow the logic of the PRC doctrine this makes perfect sense. Breaking any one of the commandments is about much more than committing the literal act. Take the 7th commandment on sexual immorality for example, thoughts of fornication and adultery are equal transgressions in God's eyes to physically committing the act. Some go so far to say that God judges us for our dreams and so we are equally responsible for our subconscious thoughts as if we made the physical choice to have an extra-marital affair. 

Continuing then in that same thread, hateful thoughts toward another are considered murder in God's eyes. Mocking and poking fun in a mean-spirited way are murder. Any thoughts around killing or physically harming another person certainly break the 6th commandment. Hateful speech and slander are akin to murder as well as lying i.e. bearing false witness against a neighbor.

Shunning breaks both the 6th commandment, "You shall not murder," and the 9th, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Again from the article, "Religious shunning is most often a used as a tool for manipulation and control. It is unloving, unkind and uncaring. My thoughts/experiences below in italics are for emphasis, just to be clarify, they are not quotes from the article.

Cutting someone out of your life, with the exception for literal threats to safety, is an act of murder. The collateral damage to children is by far the worst part. Removing the fellowship of family and community from a child's life is equal to murdering that child. Love and belonging are human needs at the very basic level, along with shelter and food. I will say again, depriving children of this is nothing less than an act of murder. Please don't ever try to tell me that you are "pro-life" if you condone the shunning of children. Using power to take away someone's home is an act of murder and I am talking about literal forced homelessness by PRC members. Maybe you are in a situation where you are no longer PR but still fellowship with your family and PR friends to an extent.
Non-PRs in my experience are still regarded and treated as second hand citizens of the world because they are not in the "true church." Many may be scapegoated, either before or after leaving. This again is a murder to one's personhood, because it dehumanizes.
Finally, what about gossip and rumors? Raise your hand if your shunning was accompanied by a literal onslaught of slander and lies that you were powerless to control or refute. Another act of murder, see above. Shunning, and all that accompanies it is an act of murder several times over and in various ways, to adults, families, children.

Does God condone scapegoating and treating other people this way? Are we not all made in His image? 
Any dehumanization of another person is murder, if we fully understand the gospel of the Bible then we should have no trouble understanding in our hearts that this is true.

Who is any one of us to be judge and juror over another person's life? Again, the bible teaches clearly that God is the only judge. We all know this in our heads, but do we know it in our hearts, do we demonstrate this in our words and actions? 

 then you aren't alone.

A kind of shunning should only take place when a person is under Church discipline for a certain sin. But you don't cut contact with the person, you don't treat them as if they don't exist and avoid them, you exhort them with tears as Paul did so that they may repent. Doing private discipline where one completely avoids a person without even being under discipline, because of some difference in doctrine or other, purposely avoiding them, is in fact as has already been said, murder.

Again, exhortations and reprehensions as long as possible ... all tempered with mercy, the most grateful service to God, with which Jesus with his familiarity with sinners procured their salvation and correction.

this literally makes no sense... yes, exhort them and badger them until they repent how I want them to repent. seriously?  This sounds like such a PR bullcrap none answer of a question. You do realize that Jesus spent most of his time with sinners, like prostitutes... not the religious people... maybe the PR's need to start doing that... being like Jesus and spending time with people who are not PR pharisees...  

Shunning has a permanent, profound effect on ones soul and behavior. I know, I've been through it. Shunning comes from judging another for whatever. Shunning and judging are both non-Biblical . People in the PR are especially guilty of this. You know who you are.
God says you are not to judge. He alone is the judge, not a single one of us. PRs learned judging from the top down. All the judging and shunning is pure evil and does irreplaceable damage to another family or person. The horror of it when I hear of whole families being shunned for whatever reason and being shunned for attending another conservative denomination. People, stop doing this abominable sin or you will be judged by God!

🤢 i can't believe I even started to waste my precious time listening to RP nonsense. Its as bad as PR nonsense. They have lost the LOVE God demands of us. Its just legalism in their buildings. The Pharisees would be so proud of them and their law keeping.