w88 4/15 p. 26 Discipline That Can Yield Peaceable Fruit
The
CourtDecision16
You may want to know the outcome of the court case involving a woman who was upset because former acquaintances would not converse with her after she chose to reject the faith, disassociating herself from the congregation.
17
Before the case went to trial, a federal district court summarily granted judgment against her. That judgment was based on the concept that courts do not get involved in church disciplinary matters. She then appealed. The unanimous judgment of the federal court of appeals was based on broader grounds of First Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution) rights: "Because the practice of shunning is a part of the faith of the Jehovah’s Witness, we find that the ‘free exercise’ provision of the United States Constitution . . . precludes [her] from prevailing. The defendants have a constitutionally protected privilege to engage in the practice of shunning. Accordingly, we affirm" the earlier judgment of the district court.
18
The court opinion continued: "Shunning is a practice engaged in by Jehovah’s Witnesses pursuant to their interpretation of canonical text, and we are not free to reinterpret that text . . . The defendants are entitled to the free exercise of their religious beliefs . . . Courts generally do not scrutinize closely the relationship among members (or former members) of a church. Churches are afforded great latitude when they impose discipline on members or former members. We agree with [former U.S. Supreme Court] Justice Jackson’s view that ‘[r]eligious activities which concern only members of the faith are and ought to be free—as nearly absolutely free as anything can be.’ . . . The members of the Church [she] decided to abandon have concluded that they no longer want to associate with her. We hold that they are free to make that choice."
19
The court of appeals acknowledged that even if the woman felt distress because former acquaintances chose not to converse with her, "permitting her to recover for intangible or emotional injuries would unconstitutionally restrict the Jehovah’s Witnesses free exercise of religion . . . The constitutional guarantee of the free exercise of religion requires that society tolerate the type of harms suffered by [her] as a price well worth paying to safeguard the right of religious difference that all citizens enjoy." This decision has, in a sense, received even more weight since it was handed down. How so? The woman later petitioned the highest court in the land to hear the case and possibly overturn the decision against her. But in November 1987, the United States Supreme Court refused to do so.
20
Hence, this important case determined that a disfellowshipped or disassociated person cannot recover damages from Jehovah’s Witnesses in a court of law for being shunned. Since the congregation was responding to the perfect directions that all of us can read in God’s Word and applying it, the person is feeling a loss brought on by his or her own actions.
Footnote:
John here used khai´ro, which was a greeting like "good day" or "hello." (Acts 15:23; Matthew 28:9) He did not use a·spa´zo·mai (as in verse 13), which means "to enfold in the arms, thus to greet, to welcome" and may have implied a very warm greeting, even with an embrace. (Luke 10:4; 11:43; Acts 20:1, 37; 1 Thessalonians 5:26) So the direction at 2 John 11 could well mean not to say even "hello" to such ones.—See TheWatchtower of July 15, 1985, page 31.
For a discussion of a relative’s being disfellowshipped, see TheWatchtower of September 15, 1981, pages 26-31.
819 F.2d 875 (9th Cir. 1987).
Though various individuals have brought suit, no court has rendered a judgment against Jehovah’s Witnesses over their Bible-based practice of shunning.
Box in magazine: Excommunication—What
Effect?English historian Edward Gibbon wrote about the propriety and effect of disfellowshipping nearer the time of the apostles:
"It is the undoubted right of every society to exclude from its communion and benefits such among its members as reject or violate those regulations which have been established by general consent. . . . The consequences of excommunication were of a temporal [earthly] as well as a spiritual nature. The Christian against whom it was pronounced was deprived of any part in the oblations of the faithful. The ties both of religious and of private friendship were dissolved.
g87 10/22 p. 27 The United States Constitution and Jehovah's Witnesses
On June 10, 1987, the courts once again ruled in favor of religious freedom for Jehovah’s Witnesses on constitutional grounds. As reported in TheNewYorkTimes, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that freedom to act in harmony with their religious beliefs "must be tolerated by society, under the Constitution, ‘as a price well worth paying to safeguard the right of religious difference that all citizens enjoy.’" The case involved the Witnesses’ right to obey the Bible’s command ‘never to receive into your homes or say a greeting’ to those who do "not remain in the teaching of the Christ."—2 John 9-11.
