As a Witness, I remember that disfellowshipping, reproofing, disassociating, etc, were a huge issue in the congregation and took a lot of the elder bodies time and energy. There was all the backroom meetings, the interviewing of witnesses to the crime, the late night discussions, the researching and so on. I asked an elder one time, "Did the early Christians spend as much time as Witness do today, on all this disciplinary action?" The elder mentioned a couple of scriptures and so on, but in essence, he had to side step the answer, because the answer is "NO." I have read the Bible many times, like many of you did too, I just remember a whole lot about these disciplinary actions being such a key theme.
Public outcry, and protest, often lead to successful changes to a religion or organization. Even to make that religion more pure, if that is your goal. People who are closed minded to this, to the point that they expel all levels of this outcry or protest, are bound to fall in on themselves. How can you be there to tell an organization of a mistake, if the simple act gets you expelled. In any sense, I sit back sometimes in amazement, at how the disfellowshipping theme was in the top three of all topics I remember being preached at the Kingdom Hall and that just seemed wrong and out of character from the religion you read about in the New Testament.
Did anyone else think this topic was raised to way to important of a level?