Thoughts on excommunication#

Thoughts shared 23 June 2014 with a friend who, after someone or other had discussed their excommunication in the news, had questions about why it existed. Links etc. are updated.

NOTE: since February, 2020, what was formerly called excommunication is now called “withdrawal of membership,” and the chapter titled “Church Discipline” in the Church Handbook is now called “Repentance and Church Membership Councils.”

A few informational points for what they’re worth:

  1. The info in the church handbook is very nearly mirrored by the content of Elder Ballard’s talk in 9/1990.

  2. Bishops are not authorized to hold disciplinary councils without discussing the issue first with the stake president.

  3. There are always at least 4 brothers in the disciplinary council (the bishop’s counselors and ward clerk), and although they are still just people, having 4 humans counsel together helps reduce the chance that one human gets it wrong.

  4. At the end of a disciplinary council the member is to be told that the decision can be appealed to the First Presidency. (If the member doesn’t come to the meeting, that is to be written in the letter informing them of the decision.)

  5. Disciplinary councils for both men and women are almost always held by the bishop (now). The exception at the ward and stake level is that If the member holds the Melchizedek priesthood and excommunication is a likely outcome, then the stake president usually initiates the proceedings at the stake level.

  6. About the question of how can we hold someone responsible for something they didn’t know was wrong – nah. These folks are not getting into trouble by accident. People don’t get excommunicated for having questions. In these high-profile cases their leaders had discussed the issue with them previously in private (or had tried to), and the whole point was that they did not agree with the counsel to stop turning it into a PR event.

… And one conclusion: I think these comments show why all of us members, whether in leadership callings or not, need to learn more about both why and how church discipline is supposed to be administered. For instance, I think you have important questions and I think there are good answers.

I think there is something important to be said about [my friend’s] question above, about how excommunication can be loving, but I’m not sure that I can say it well.

First of all, I think we do better if we start from the position that the Lord inspired this approach, and we should try to understand why. John W. Welch wrote, “How can one logically pursue something that one assumes does not exist? … [The] discoveries that have given me the greatest satisfaction have begun by assuming the correctness of a text, the truthfulness of a proposition, or the wisdom of an instruction given by one in authority” [BYU Studies 50(3):63-81, at p. 69]. Here is one of my own attempts to understand your question from that starting point.

As led by your question, I am focusing on those who truly want to repent and on those situations in which the primary goal of church discipline is saving the soul of the sinner. Those situations are the majority of Church disciplinary actions. I think the moral foundation is perhaps clearer when a significant goal of Church discipline is protecting the flock from a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but that’s another story.

First, recall that excommunication is intended to be temporary. In fact, this life is temporary. But the stakes we are playing for are no less than eternal life. Probably we always risk error when we try to imagine God’s thoughts about His children, but we do have experience teaching children here. Children need constant love, but they do not always need what they want. Sometimes little children need a rule to be enforced to learn that rules often have real consequences. Sometimes we forbear giving them a reward, not to be mean but to teach them that something more important in their life, later, will have natural and real consequences. So if we are risking our eternal salvation, and we don’t seem to get the message from advice, gentle suasion, or loving but clear correction, and if the goal is for us to get it right before we die, then it seems only kind for our Father in Heaven to teach us by a serious but temporary loss of privileges.

So, “second” and “third” should come next, in well-organized paragraphs, but it’s late and I’m tired and besides this is more than most people want to read anyway. So here are a few other scattered thoughts.

Elder Ballard wrote, “[The] objective is not retribution; rather, it is to help the member make the changes necessary to stand clean before God once more.” If the real goal of repentance is true reformation of character, sometimes it takes time to make a change. Sometimes it also takes something uncomfortable to make us see the importance of the issue. Sometimes disfellowshipment or excommunication seems the first thing to provide both the time and prodding needed for the person to make the needed real changes.

Remember also that often there are others involved. Consider the case of a child abuser. No matter how sincerely he regrets his actions, no matter how much he wants to change, or even if he has so far been successful at changing, think for a moment what kind of message it would send to the abused child to allow the person uninterrupted full participation in the church, temple attendance, or to be called to speak for God as a teacher or in some other church calling.

God warned us that one of the “vain and foolish doctrines” that would deceive us in our times would be the idea that “there is no harm in [sin]; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God” (2 Ne 28:8-9). So wouldn’t it make sense for Him to try very hard to teach us that this was false? I think He did. Consider this. Since the temple blesses people, why can’t everyone go to the temple whenever s/he wants to? We need baptism for remission of sins, so why are there restrictions on who can be baptized? Really these are the same question as why it could be loving to excommunicate someone. I don’t know the whole answer, but I think part of it fits into my first point above–the whole earthly experience seems organized to teach us by literally reifying doctrinal concepts into ordinances and quotidian physical experiences. If you don’t hold to minimum standards, then the standards are meaningless. Yes, the temple is only a pale and imperfect shadow of heaven–“Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Heb. 9:24)–but surely the temple is trying to teach us (among other things) that heaven is beautiful and clean and perfect. More to the point, I would argue that the Lord is also trying to teach us that there are minimum standards to entering heaven. If those standards are not enforced, no one will believe that God will really require us to have had a real change of heart, a meaningful rebirth. In short, we are all sinners, but God seems to keep making the point that there are minimum standards required for some blessings: none of us can call himself “good”, but we have to be “good enough” for some things: “if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matt. 19:17). Excommunication, like needing a recommend to be baptized or to enter the temple, teaches that message better than a host of sermons could.

And here is a thought from a friend, though I’m not sure yet whether I agree: Covenants matter, and if we are not ready to quit doing something wrong, it may be better for us at the last judgment if we did not add more examples of “doing bad thing X while under covenants not to” to our list of sins. So it may be merciful not to have us under those covenants until we are ready to stop doing X.

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