In or Out?
- bordenmscott
- May 19, 2022
- 7 min read
This Sunday I attempted to thread the needle of reflecting on the child dedication of my son while preaching on a passage about incest and excommunication. You watch it here or listen to it here if you want to decide if I pulled that off!
This week I’m still dragging from the cold that just won’t quit, so my Overflow will mostly expand on a few things from 1st Corinthians 5 and it’s connection to the practice of church discipline.
The brief summary of this chapter for anyone who might find it helpful: 1st Corinthians 5 includes direction on how to deal with a member of the church in Corinth who married (or was living with) his mother-in-law. This should have been scandalous to the Corinthians, but apparently they were pleased with themselves for how accepting they were. Paul tells them to publicly rebuke the man and remove him from the church so long as he is unrepentant.
Paul also clarifies that, in a previous letter, he had told them not to associate with someone who is “sexually immoral, greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler”, by which he had meant “among the church community.” But his readers thought this meant to avoid people outside the church who lived… like people outside the church. Paul tells them that they got it backwards. It was fine to associate with people outside the church who didn’t live according to the values of the early Church community. It was not OK to associate with someone who was part of the church but who was unapologetically living as though they weren’t.
When it comes to the concept of church discipline, which draws heavily on 1st Corinthians 5, I find I bounce back and forth between appreciating the need for this practice and being distrustful of it at the same time.
In one respect, church discipline (including removing someone from leadership, from membership, or even from being allowed to attend church events) is unavoidable in certain extreme situations. Someone who poses a genuine physical threat to others in the community, for example, has to be expelled altogether for everyone’s safety. And someone who has committed a grievous sin (a crime like rape, for example), cannot be allowed to have some status or role with a church that could imply they have the confidence or endorsement of the church.
This does not mean that members of a church couldn’t minister to someone like this, but they would need to use a carefully considered approach. The necessity of discipline or expulsion in cases like these is easy to understand. Every community has some essential standards for behavior, lines that cannot be crossed if someone wants to remain as part of that community. (The Conservative Party of Canada, for example, is working right now on removing one of their members for sending a pro-Hitler/pro-Nazi email...)
But I also know that the mis-use of church discipline happens. Some denominations have entire ecclesial court systems designed to settle disputes and conduct discipline. This has the benefit of using an established structure instead of individual churches making it us as they go along. But whether you have an elaborate system or not, church discipline can be used to protect the powerful and punish dissent. I learned a lot, much of it very sad, in reading about the abusive response a Christian author named Aimee Bird suffered for the sin of (checks notes...) writing a book critical of how women are sometimes treated and understood in parts of the Church.
She was harassed and slandered by a number of pastors in her own Presbyterian denomination, and the process of trying to hold some of them to account largely turned into more attacks on her. She wrote her reasons for leaving that denomination here.
I’m confident this is not what Paul intended when giving his advice and instructions to churches. But what is a faithful approach to this practice today? Broadly, there are three main things I see that matter to Paul in 1st Corinthians 5 that should be honoured however churches approach this subject.
1) Paul was definitely concerned for the public witness of church. He didn’t want Jesus’ reputation sullied by gross unrepentant sin among Christians. This needed to be addressed for the sake of the Church’s reputation. There are certain public sins that should result in church discipline for the sake of a church’s witness.
2) Paul cared about the sanctification of the church. Churches are people who are “set apart” from the world, seeking to be God’s holy people (see 1st Corinthians 1:1-5). Nobody within the church should be actively pulling people away from that goal – that would make them the kind of “yeast” Paul writes about - the small corrupting influence that ruins the whole batch. Church discipline can be required so that negative examples don’t become the accepted norm.
3) Paul desired restoration. The goal of expelling the “immoral brother” of 1st Corinthians 5 was to provoke repentance so that he could rejoin the church community, not to merely punish Him for falling short of their moral standards. Ignoring significant issues isn’t good for the person who has wandered far from the right path.
The question of how and when to properly employ church discipline is complicated. I don’t think Paul is mandating it for every situation of unrepentant sin, and I don’t think that full expulsion from the community is the only approach. Even if a church wants to practice church disciple the best response to each unique situation is something that requires a great deal of discernment. And I don’t think many churches do want to practice church discipline. For many that’s probably wise, because they do not have the combination of culture, understanding, and process required to have it accomplish those three main things of interest to Paul.
Whether we are talking about a specific process of church discipline or simply the shared desire to be a people “set apart’ who sometimes hold each other to account more informally, there is one other thing that is worth noting. We shouldn’t get hung up on sex.
1st Corinthians 5 is specifically about a sexual immorality issue, and sexual sin certainly hasn’t stopped being a problem over the past 2000 years. But Paul mentions a lot of other categories of sin that are just as deserving of someone being expelled from a church community: greed, idolatry, slander, drunkenness, or swindling. Do we think of these as serious today? I know of pastors removed from their positions for sexual misconduct, church leaders who’ve stepped down due to adultery, and even limits placed on volunteer service due to fears over “immodesty” (a term Christians mostly misunderstand, but that’s another article).
What about greed? Churches have issues with embezzlement fairly often (as do other small community-based organizations), and that’s a crime that is treated seriously when it is discovered. But I’ve never heard of church discipline for a member or household who lives a luxury lifestyle and shows little concern for the poor, or of a Christian business-owner being confronted for paying his employees poorly while enjoying large profits.
Or how about a Christian running a business or offering some service who is cheating people or doing shoddy work (AKA, a swindler)? They may even be using their association with the church to appear more reliable or trustworthy, implicating their church in this mistreatment of their customers. That shouldn't be ignored!
A slanderer is someone who says false things about others. This could be someone stirring up dissent in a church by making false accusations or spreading malicious rumours. But there are more subtle forms of this as well, like a gossip who repeats stories that may or may not be true. That's not the important part, it's the enjoyment of drama that matters to them.
Do you think of any of these things as being on par with sexual immorality, like having an affair? Do they seem like things a church ought to address with any of its members to the point of expelling them? It seems to me that Paul thinks so here.
(Idolatry and “drunkenness” are a bit more complicated and this is already pretty long, so I’m just going to acknowledge having skipped them!)
My point, both now and on Sunday, is not that I’m looking to create a more judgmental community itching to discipline its members for a wider variety of things. It’s worth teaching (or reminding) Christians that this kind of thing can be necessary so they don’t react with total shock at the idea of removing a church member over a serious issue. But the broader point is to encourage people to wrestle with what it means to be a community that really is “set apart”, and seeks to be God’s holy people.
A Church isn’t just a group of people who’ve chosen a particular place to worship on a Sunday morning. Belonging to a church community means you owe each other certain things at all times. As Romans 12:5 reminds us, “so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” All Christians represent Jesus to the world as individuals, but they also represent Jesus through the community they form together.
That means judging ourselves, first and foremost. Invite the Holy Spirit’s help in self-examination, asking yourself if you are living a life consistent with your faith. Are you upholding the integrity of Jesus’ Church by the way you participate in your church?
I was going to end there, but that's the wrong note to finish on. "Take a close look at yourself so you don't mess things up" is something we might need to hear from time to time (the Corinthians certainly needed it) but it leaves out the positive vision we are working toward and the blessings that come from that. If I pull up Romans 12 again it shows the Church at its best: Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
This is a vision of community worth aspiring toward. People devoted to each other, who share love, and rush to honour each other above themselves. A community that helps keep you fired up about things that matter, that helps you feel spiritual in-tune with God as you serve God in a meaningful way. A spiritual family that builds your hope, helps you endure the hardships, and where people pray for each other, share with each other if there is a need, and show each other hospitality. That's worth building, and worth protecting. It's a gift Jesus wants to give us - let's be faithful in receiving it!
Devotional
If you would like a devotional opportunity for today I invite you to walk through a daily devotional from Sacred Space, here: https://www.sacredspace.ie/daily-prayer/2022-05-19
And here is a song the might bless you today:
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