K
Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names
Guest
Banned From Church
Reviving an ancient practice, churches are exposing sinners and
shunning those who won't repent.
By ALEXANDRA ALTER
January 18, 2008; Page W1
On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the
pews at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason
Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher
answered, the preacher said a former congregant was in the sanctuary.
"And we need to, um, have her out A.S.A.P."
Half an hour later, 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey, a church member for
nearly 50 years who had taught Sunday school and regularly donated 10%
of her pension, was led out by a state trooper and a county sheriff's
officer. One held her purse and Bible. The other put her in handcuffs.
(Listen to the 911 call)
The charge was trespassing, but Mrs. Caskey's real offense, in her
pastor's view, was spiritual. Several months earlier, when she had
questioned his authority, he'd charged her with spreading "a spirit of
cancer and discord" and expelled her from the congregation. "I've been
shunned," she says.
Her story reflects a growing movement among some conservative
Protestant pastors to bring back church discipline, an ancient
practice in which suspected sinners are privately confronted and then
publicly castigated and excommunicated if they refuse to repent. While
many Christians find such practices outdated, pastors in large and
small churches across the country are expelling members for offenses
ranging from adultery and theft to gossiping, skipping service and
criticizing church leaders.
The revival is part of a broader movement to restore churches to their
traditional role as moral enforcers, Christian leaders say. Some say
that contemporary churches have grown soft on sinners, citing the rise
of suburban megachurches where pastors preach self-affirming messages
rather than focusing on sin and redemption. Others point to a passage
in the gospel of Matthew that says unrepentant sinners must be
shunned.
Causing Disharmony
Watermark Community Church, a nondenominational church in Dallas that
draws 4,000 people to services, requires members to sign a form
stating they will submit to the "care and correction" of church
elders. Last week, the pastor of a 6,000-member megachurch in
Nashville, Tenn., threatened to expel 74 members for gossiping and
causing disharmony unless they repented. The congregants had sued the
pastor for access to the church's financial records.
First Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals, Ala., a 1,000-member
congregation, expels five to seven members a year for "blatant,
undeniable patterns of willful sin," which have included adultery,
drunkenness and refusal to honor church elders. About 400 people have
left the church over the years for what they view as an overly harsh
persecution of sinners, Pastor Jeff Noblit says.
The process can be messy, says Al Jackson, pastor of Lakeview Baptist
Church in Auburn, Ala., which began disciplining members in the 1990s.
Once, when the congregation voted out an adulterer who refused to
repent, an older woman was confused and thought the church had voted
to send the man to hell.
Karolyn Caskey was expelled from Allen Baptist Church after clashing
with the pastor.
Amy Hitt, 43, a mortgage officer in Amissville, Va., was voted out of
her Baptist congregation in 2004 for gossiping about her pastor's
plans to buy a bigger house. Her ouster was especially hard on her
twin sons, now 12 years old, who had made friends in the church, she
says. "Some people have looked past it, but then there are others who
haven't," says Ms. Hitt, who believes the episode cost her a seat on
the school board last year; she lost by 42 votes.
Scholars estimate that 10% to 15% of Protestant evangelical churches
practice church discipline -- about 14,000 to 21,000 U.S.
congregations in total. Increasingly, clashes within churches are
spilling into communities, splitting congregations and occasionally
landing church leaders in court after congregants, who believed they
were confessing in private, were publicly shamed.
In the past decade, more than two dozen lawsuits related to church
discipline have been filed as congregants sue pastors for defamation,
negligent counseling and emotional injury, according to the Religion
Case Reporter, a legal-research database. Peggy Penley, a Fort Worth,
Texas, woman whose pastor revealed her extramarital affair to the
congregation after she confessed it in confidence, waged a six-year
battle against the pastor, charging him with negligence. Last summer,
the Texas Supreme Court dismissed her suit, ruling that the pastor was
exercising his religious beliefs by publicizing the affair.
Allen Baptist Church
Courts have often refused to hear such cases on the grounds that
churches are protected by the constitutional right to free religious
exercise, but some have sided with alleged sinners. In 2003, a woman
and her husband won a defamation suit against the Iowa Methodist
conference and its superintendent after he publicly accused her of
"spreading the spirit of Satan" because she gossiped about her pastor.
A district court rejected the case, but the Iowa Supreme Court upheld
the woman's appeal on the grounds that the letter labeling her a
sinner was circulated beyond the church.
Advocates of shunning say it rarely leads to the public disclosure of
a member's sin. "We're not the FBI; we're not sniffing around people's
homes trying to find out some secret sin," says Don Singleton, pastor
of Ridgeview Baptist Church in Talladega, Ala., who says the 50-member
church has disciplined six members in his 2
Reviving an ancient practice, churches are exposing sinners and
shunning those who won't repent.
By ALEXANDRA ALTER
January 18, 2008; Page W1
On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the
pews at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason
Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher
answered, the preacher said a former congregant was in the sanctuary.
"And we need to, um, have her out A.S.A.P."
Half an hour later, 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey, a church member for
nearly 50 years who had taught Sunday school and regularly donated 10%
of her pension, was led out by a state trooper and a county sheriff's
officer. One held her purse and Bible. The other put her in handcuffs.
(Listen to the 911 call)
The charge was trespassing, but Mrs. Caskey's real offense, in her
pastor's view, was spiritual. Several months earlier, when she had
questioned his authority, he'd charged her with spreading "a spirit of
cancer and discord" and expelled her from the congregation. "I've been
shunned," she says.
Her story reflects a growing movement among some conservative
Protestant pastors to bring back church discipline, an ancient
practice in which suspected sinners are privately confronted and then
publicly castigated and excommunicated if they refuse to repent. While
many Christians find such practices outdated, pastors in large and
small churches across the country are expelling members for offenses
ranging from adultery and theft to gossiping, skipping service and
criticizing church leaders.
The revival is part of a broader movement to restore churches to their
traditional role as moral enforcers, Christian leaders say. Some say
that contemporary churches have grown soft on sinners, citing the rise
of suburban megachurches where pastors preach self-affirming messages
rather than focusing on sin and redemption. Others point to a passage
in the gospel of Matthew that says unrepentant sinners must be
shunned.
Causing Disharmony
Watermark Community Church, a nondenominational church in Dallas that
draws 4,000 people to services, requires members to sign a form
stating they will submit to the "care and correction" of church
elders. Last week, the pastor of a 6,000-member megachurch in
Nashville, Tenn., threatened to expel 74 members for gossiping and
causing disharmony unless they repented. The congregants had sued the
pastor for access to the church's financial records.
First Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals, Ala., a 1,000-member
congregation, expels five to seven members a year for "blatant,
undeniable patterns of willful sin," which have included adultery,
drunkenness and refusal to honor church elders. About 400 people have
left the church over the years for what they view as an overly harsh
persecution of sinners, Pastor Jeff Noblit says.
The process can be messy, says Al Jackson, pastor of Lakeview Baptist
Church in Auburn, Ala., which began disciplining members in the 1990s.
Once, when the congregation voted out an adulterer who refused to
repent, an older woman was confused and thought the church had voted
to send the man to hell.
Karolyn Caskey was expelled from Allen Baptist Church after clashing
with the pastor.
Amy Hitt, 43, a mortgage officer in Amissville, Va., was voted out of
her Baptist congregation in 2004 for gossiping about her pastor's
plans to buy a bigger house. Her ouster was especially hard on her
twin sons, now 12 years old, who had made friends in the church, she
says. "Some people have looked past it, but then there are others who
haven't," says Ms. Hitt, who believes the episode cost her a seat on
the school board last year; she lost by 42 votes.
Scholars estimate that 10% to 15% of Protestant evangelical churches
practice church discipline -- about 14,000 to 21,000 U.S.
congregations in total. Increasingly, clashes within churches are
spilling into communities, splitting congregations and occasionally
landing church leaders in court after congregants, who believed they
were confessing in private, were publicly shamed.
In the past decade, more than two dozen lawsuits related to church
discipline have been filed as congregants sue pastors for defamation,
negligent counseling and emotional injury, according to the Religion
Case Reporter, a legal-research database. Peggy Penley, a Fort Worth,
Texas, woman whose pastor revealed her extramarital affair to the
congregation after she confessed it in confidence, waged a six-year
battle against the pastor, charging him with negligence. Last summer,
the Texas Supreme Court dismissed her suit, ruling that the pastor was
exercising his religious beliefs by publicizing the affair.
Allen Baptist Church
Courts have often refused to hear such cases on the grounds that
churches are protected by the constitutional right to free religious
exercise, but some have sided with alleged sinners. In 2003, a woman
and her husband won a defamation suit against the Iowa Methodist
conference and its superintendent after he publicly accused her of
"spreading the spirit of Satan" because she gossiped about her pastor.
A district court rejected the case, but the Iowa Supreme Court upheld
the woman's appeal on the grounds that the letter labeling her a
sinner was circulated beyond the church.
Advocates of shunning say it rarely leads to the public disclosure of
a member's sin. "We're not the FBI; we're not sniffing around people's
homes trying to find out some secret sin," says Don Singleton, pastor
of Ridgeview Baptist Church in Talladega, Ala., who says the 50-member
church has disciplined six members in his 2