The guys over at Team Pyro responds to a recent current event of a lady in sin who has gone public to the media to fight back against a church who’s exercising church discipline.
The pastors happened to be graduates of The Master’s Seminary.
Some good points made about her irrationality of going to the Media about the church ‘making her sins public’:
- Ms. Hancock is so worried about how hearing of her sin in church will affect her (adult) children… that she goes to the media with it? So, instead of a small local congregation knowing about her sin, now (potentially) the whole world knows about her sin. That makes sense? Neither reporter thought to ask her about that?
- In fact, we’re to believe that Ms. Hancock thinks it would have less of a negative impact on her children to have the whole world know (A) of her sin, and (B) of her unwillingness to take responsibility for it. That made sense to the reporters? No question-marks? None?
For more read here: http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2008/12/breaking-news-church-dares-to-practice.html
The Domain for Truth 
Slimjim: thanks for posting this. I was excited to read it over at Pyro myself, and I’ve been following the story; it reminded me of a similar story that made the national news, maybe twenty or more years ago. As I recall, a church in the Midwest (either Assemblies of God or Church of Christ, as I recall) had become aware that a member of their, a young female nurse, was living openly with a man without the benefit of marriage. The church, properly, went through the steps of progressive discipline in Matthew 18, without succeeding in having the young lady repent, and they notified her of their intent to proceed to the final step of discipline – removal from the church and publication of the reasons among the members – should she fail to repent. No matter, she thought; she decided to simply terminate her membership and start attending another church in the area within the denomination.
Unfortunately (for her), the church proceeded with the discipline, and notified both the members and the local denominational leadership, which made it impossible for her to simply attend another like-minded church. If I recall correctly, she sued over the issue, and I don’t recall the ultimate outcome.
Happily, we’re a very new and very small church (you commented at our site yesterday, for which I gladly thank you!), so I haven’t had to go down this road, but I’ve known numerous instances where discipline was either done wrongly or not done at all, and been part of two different churches where discipline was mishandled, with what I can only call disastrous results – in fact, one of those churches no longer exists, and the discipline issue was a significant cause of that lampstand being taken away. Discipline done right may well be the most unpleasant and painful job for a pastor to do, and I say that from the point of view of one who’s already done a funeral for an unbeliever.
At the Alhambra Bible Fellowship, we’ve taken steps to attempt to address this, and I can recommend this for any church:
(1) Membership is by covenant – mutually entered into by the new member and the church. Dissolution of that relationship is also by mutual agreement, and members understand that quitting the church to avoid discipline is not an option. The church retains the right to reject a request for voluntary withdrawal of membership, and to continue with the course of discipline, including public notification of the reasons for a person being excluded from the church.
(2) Before being accepted for membership, one of the things a potential member is schooled in is how church discipline works, and why, so he knows in advance. I’d go so far as to discuss this very example.
It may seem harsh to the world, but I’d rather someone count the costs beforehand than pay them after.
Keith —
The case you are talking about is Guinn v. Church of Christ Collinsville. She won.
As for your specific policy… it is illegal. Religious freedom is under American law a civil right not a contractual one a person cannot sign away their right to quit a church anymore than they can sign away their protection from sexual harassment when they take a job. If you choose to leave and notify you properly the covenant has no legal weight. These things are a lot like bluffs in poker, they often get people to fold but if you get raised muck fast.
CD-Host: I appreciate the reply, and thank you for the cite on Guinn. That being said, I’d wonder by what manner one might reconcile the finding in the case with the provisions of Matthew 18, and I would submit that the Bible, and not civil law, dictates how Christ’s church needs to conduct itself. Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to civil government rather than to God when the two oppose each other, you judge.
I’d agree that you’re right: if a person quits a church to avoid being brought to discipline, then the covenant of membership has no legal weight. I don’t believe, though, that our primary concern here is to kowtow to what has legal weight; we are to do what is in obedience to Scripture. That’s our job as church leadership. The notion of simply letting go of it and not moving forward under those circumstances pretty much nullifies both Matt. 18:17 and 2 Cor. 5.
The unnamed man in 2 Cor. 5 did not have the option to simply surrender his membership in one church and start attending the church down the street with full privileges, because churches communicated with each other. If he was removed from one church in Corinth, he would not be admitted to any other church in Corinth, until he repented of his sin. Unfortunately, we’re fractured today, and a person excluded from the Main Street Nazarene Church can go down the street to Second Methodist Church and apply for membership unhindered. Coupled with that, there are plenty of churches within shouting distance of my front door that are totally accepting of open, habitual sin – be it fornication, homosexuality, or whatever; there’s no difficulty in a person obtaining “the comfort of religion and community” without ever having to deal with their own sin.
Clearly, this isn’t the fault of the world or civil government; this is the fault of the church not being the church. Based on that, in tandem with what you’ve written, it’s clear that churches must act timely on issues of discipline and not dawdle, hoping they’ll go away. Once a sin issue escalates to it being brought before the church elders, those elders must promptly go to the offending brother, determine the facts, and call upon the brother to either repent of the sin or face exclusion from the church – and saying “I quit” would be taken as that member’s acceptance of the discipline of expulsion – literally, for the matter to be told to the church, and for the church to treat him as a Gentile and a tax collector.
I’d also say this means that, except in the instance of new believers, a church needs to explore past church membership with any prospective member, and seek references from the prior church (the “church letter”). If a person left a church under discipline (or to avoid discipline), membership should not be extended unless and until that sin has been repented of and the practice ended. Conversely, if another church were to contact us for a reference under similar circumstances, we would communicate the terms and reasons for the discipline of a member.
There are more details I would share, but I’d risk highjacking SlimJim’s post to do it. To make a long story short (yeah, I know – too late…), I side with Jacksonville’s Grace Community Church, and I stand by our practice for discipling, while hoping in love that any brother we have to deal with in these terms would choose to repent and be restored to fellowship before we ever had to go this far.
Just as an update,
I don’t really think that this lady Rebecca Hancock has a case. I just talked last week to someone whose father has provided legal insight to the situation, and the fact that she went out to air out her sin really is not going for her.
Keith —
Sorry for the long delay. I never got the follow up emails and hit this by accident. I wrote a follow up blog post on this topic with the basics expanded.
The law does allow for an excommunication right after quitting, or for a church to record this as an out of process erasure “left under discipline”… So those things are legal. What is illegal is to continue to try and minister to her or to drag the process out.
As for requiring letters it is a great idea. The problem, as you mention is the vast majority of Christian churches don’t respect the validity of the vast majority of Christian churches. Essentially given any random church 80% of the churches are unlikely to uphold the discipline, and about 30% that don’t view that church as a real church at all.
For example you sound like a conservative protestant. If you had a member that was excommunicated for poor attendance and they went to an affirming church, even though those churches can be quite strict on membership I doubt you would want to work with them, because you wouldn’t want to legitimize them. In the same way I doubt you would be willing to uphold the discipline of a Jehovah’s Witness (Kingdom Hall) for a sin of say violating a shunning of a person who converted to Protestantism.
So in practice I’m not sure much can be done. What I think is practical though is to compromise. Have the member actually draft a letter termination which can be publicly read. I wrote a post explaining to members how to do this. A slightly modified version could be used that way the member feels the action is justified and at the same time the congregation is aware of their status. If Ms. Hancock were to have quit with a clear statement, “I no longer believe there is a sin of fornication” then everyone is satisfied.