The worst thing about religious shunning is it is believed to be God's will and it hurts people. The religious people who will shun family members believe that doing so is loving them. But to say to a person "I will have nothing more to do with you" is not love, it is hate. Hate is a passionate dislike for someone. It is true the hater does not hate the person but hates what the person has become. Sometimes what the person has become is a better, truer person to his or her self, but it does not matter to the religious community that is doing the shunning. I believe it is usually the case that most people in the religious community doing the shunning have no knowledge of why they are shunning the shunned, they are doing it because they are being told to do it.
Shunning is for keeping the congregation clean. But shunning only happens to people if their bad behavior becomes known. So in every community that practices shunning there are those present who actually do make the collective unclean but they either do not become known as sinners, are considered too valuable to be removed, or show themselves sad enough to be forgiven.
What kind of person can make the community unclean but are not removed? The worst kind are child molesters. Very fine apostles who put their faith in Jehovah do not also put their faith in children. Children can lie and are witless, don't you know? So an admittance of child molestation many times goes ignored to a greater or lesser extent.
The other kinds of sins that cannot be proved by evidence is loving money, coveting, lying, and many other religious traditions, and people with those bad habits are present along with all the people who work hard to keep the congregation clean. Sometimes sinners like those are even in teaching positions and other positions of authority.
If someone is very careful to keep their sin a secret, they may stay. It is the people who are not careful keeping their sin a secret that get removed. Is this Biblical Wisdom? James 5:16 (NWT) Therefore openly confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may get healed. A righteous man's supplication, when it is at work, has much force.
There are many stories (true or not, I do not know - I trust they are true) where a person's conscience bothers him or her to the point of confession, and still the person gets disfellowshipped. That kind of disfelloshipping is not so much to keep the congregation clean but is for teaching a harsh lesson. That is my opinion. If I am right, then there is more than one kind of disfellowshipping leading to shunning. If there is more than one kind, one of them cannot be correct, and cannot be from God because The Bible makes no distinctions about shunning. It is man making the distinction.
Shunning is for keeping the congregation clean. But shunning only happens to people if their bad behavior becomes known. So in every community that practices shunning there are those present who actually do make the collective unclean but they either do not become known as sinners, are considered too valuable to be removed, or show themselves sad enough to be forgiven.
What kind of person can make the community unclean but are not removed? The worst kind are child molesters. Very fine apostles who put their faith in Jehovah do not also put their faith in children. Children can lie and are witless, don't you know? So an admittance of child molestation many times goes ignored to a greater or lesser extent.
The other kinds of sins that cannot be proved by evidence is loving money, coveting, lying, and many other religious traditions, and people with those bad habits are present along with all the people who work hard to keep the congregation clean. Sometimes sinners like those are even in teaching positions and other positions of authority.
If someone is very careful to keep their sin a secret, they may stay. It is the people who are not careful keeping their sin a secret that get removed. Is this Biblical Wisdom? James 5:16 (NWT) Therefore openly confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may get healed. A righteous man's supplication, when it is at work, has much force.
There are many stories (true or not, I do not know - I trust they are true) where a person's conscience bothers him or her to the point of confession, and still the person gets disfellowshipped. That kind of disfelloshipping is not so much to keep the congregation clean but is for teaching a harsh lesson. That is my opinion. If I am right, then there is more than one kind of disfellowshipping leading to shunning. If there is more than one kind, one of them cannot be correct, and cannot be from God because The Bible makes no distinctions about shunning. It is man making the distinction.
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