@@ -35,9 +35,9 @@ So we have historic precedent firmly on our side when we say that not only are we entitled to evaluate anybodies fitness to be a member, but also to protect our society by disowning and shunning members if this is deemed necessary.
!! Disownment
-In testifying against an unrighteous action or even in disowning a "sinful" member, the CoV is not "excommunicating" in the sense that most churches do. Because other churches also at times revoke the membership of individuals on account of their disapproved behavior it is natural to think of Disownment as another word for excommunication; however, the two concepts are not identical, and the CoV repudiates the term excommunication. The precise difference may be difficult to pin down, but we think it
basically consists in this: that excommunication is aimed at the offender, whereas Disownment is aimed at the world. This needs some clarifying.
+In testifying against an unrighteous action or even in disowning a "sinful" member, the CoV is not "excommunicating" in the sense that most churches do. Because other churches also at times revoke the membership of individuals on account of their disapproved behavior it is natural to think of Disownment as another word for excommunication; however, the two concepts are not identical, and the CoV repudiates the term excommunication. The precise difference basically consists in this: that excommunication is aimed at the offender, whereas Disownment is aimed at the world. This needs some clarifying.
When, e.g. the Roman Catholic Church denies a person the right to communicate (a technical term for receiving the eucharistic sacrament), they are denying him or her something which they believe to be an important, or even an indispensable, channel of the "grace of God". If the excommunicated person believes in the doctrines of the church then he believes the salvation of his soul to be in serious jeopardy not merely because of the sin he was excommunicated for but because he cannot get the sacrament. Historically excommunication has also involved other penalties, including exclusion from worship services, social shunning by other church members, and loss of civil rights in church-dominated nations.
Other churches that practice excommunication have often differed from the Roman Catholic view of "sacraments", but they have not discarded the underlying idea of excommunication as something done to an offender, of such nature as to motivate compliance based on fear of the church; in other words, it is a punishment. It can be a very severe punishment, putting a person into a far worse position than he or she would have been in had s/he never joined the church. Some Anabaptist groups have carried this so far that a husband and wife may not eat or sleep together if one of them has been excommunicated; and in communal churches excommunication can mean loss of one's home, possessions, and means of livelihood.
