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Shunning in spotlight
03/21/02
WENDY Y. LAWTON
Keith Casarona doesn't pretend to know the mind of Robert Bryant. Why anyone wipes out his family with a shotgun on a Saturday night, then points the 12-gauge under his own chin is beyond the comprehension of this soft-spoken Tigard real estate agent.
Yet Casarona knows -- in intimate and anguishing detail -- the pain Bryant felt in his final years. Both men split with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Bryant was expelled three years ago in California. Casarona chose to leave a Beaverton congregation last fall.
The decision gave Casarona peace and fresh possibilities. But the break was devastating. Casarona said he lost his wife of 27 years and friendships that stretched back three decades. About a fourth of his real estate clients vanished.
"Witnesses are good people, and I bless their path," the 52-year-old said. "But when you leave them, you go into a Never Never land."
The killings in McMinnville last month -- the worst mass murder in recent Oregon history -- cast a spotlight on Jehovah's Witnesses and their practice of "disfellowship." In a Christian sect that proudly protects members from the corrupting influence of outsiders, expulsion is the harshest form of discipline.
There is no official motive for the slayings. Police think Bryant was under emotional strain when he shot his wife, four children and himself. That stress, investigators said, included fallout from his shunning.
Now anti-Witness Web sites are abuzz with accusations. "Who in their right mind would ever want to stay in this horrible, horrible, hateful religion?" one posting reads. Witnesses, too, are talking. But they're saying the church is the scapegoat for an unfathomable act.
Leonard Golaboff, a 46-year-old elder in Oregon City, notes that there is no proof that Bryant's ouster from a congregation outside of Sacramento was directly responsible for the murders and suicide. Like all expelled members, Golaboff said, Bryant could have changed his ways and come back.
"This is all just a tragedy, a travesty, a shock," Golaboff said. "What was going on in this man's mind? I am sure there is a lot that we don't know."
What worries Golaboff and other Witnesses is a link between the trigger of Bryant's shotgun and a 132-year-old faith that deplores violence and cherishes family.
Jehovah's Witnesses are a made-in-America church that boasts 6 million international members. They believe in Armaggedon: The world will end, the wicked will die, and God will create a paradise on Earth for the righteous. The name refers to members' watchful return of Jehovah, or God.
The Bible is their bedrock. Witnesses live their lives in strict accordance to its teachings and follow a rigid moral code. Stealing, drinking, smoking, premarital sex -- all are forbidden.
According to another Bible interpretation, members also must keep separate from a world invisibly controlled by Satan.
They're not supposed to vote, join the military or celebrate holidays aside from the commemoration of Christ's death each spring. Close ties with nonmembers, or the "worldly," are discouraged. The reason is reflected in a standard Witness saying: "Bad associations spoil useful habits."
Protecting the congregation's purity is the point of disfellowship. Members are kicked out before they can harm, or continue to harm, others with conduct or beliefs that contradict the Bible.
Sherwood elder Tom Davis said there is a second purpose: Putting a member back on the proper moral path. Davis said disfellowship -- or even the threat of it -- often forces people to make positive changes in their lives.
"This helps someone realize that they've made a mistake and need to change their ways," Davis said. "And we're not talking about little stuff. This discipline comes from violating the stated laws of God."
According to elders, experts and church materials, here is how disfellowship works: To get kicked out, baptized members must display a pattern of "serious un-Christian conduct," such as molestation, adultery, drinking or lying. Promoting teachings that conflict with the Bible also qualifies.
It isn't clear what Robert Bryant's offense was. Neighbors and friends in California said he began to question Bible teachings and found the Shingle Springs, Calif., congregation too controlling. An elder has declined to discuss specifics, saying Bryant had "turned away" from the faith.
Elders said they try to avoid shunning through Bible counseling. And, if repenting members convince leaders they've changed, they can stay. If they don't, elders call a private, judicial-style meeting and expel them.
The shunned still can attend religious services, officials said, and conduct business with members. But Witnesses are instructed not to socialize with someone who is disfellowshipped.
John Crossley, a professor and director of the school of religion at the University of Southern California, said a similar tradition of excommunication is shared by Catholics, Mormons and the Amish. But the practice is fading.
"It is almost impossible to hold up moral doctrine and force people to conform to it anymore," Crossley said. "It is especially difficult to continue a practice that is as severe as disfellowship."
Witnesses point to lives transformed by shunning. People kick drugs, stop gambling, mend marriages. But critics attack the practice as cruel and destructive.
While families aren't required to split up due to disfellowship, critics and even a few church members said that is often the practical result. Computer sites devoted to attacking Jehovah's Witnesses are loaded with stories of divorce and custody battles and estranged siblings -- as well as depression, drug abuse, bankruptcy and suicide.
Daniel Duron used to be among the angry.
After he left the church in 1984 over a disagreement over blood transfusions, the Hillsboro roofer's world turned upside down. Elders came to his door and told him his two boys were "fatherless." His wife and friends and extended family became strangers. Duron was so shaken he planned to kill himself. The gun store, however, was closed.
Soon Duron started fighting. He divorced and won joint custody of his sons. He picketed a local Kingdom Hall. He joined a support group for ex-Witnesses, where he met his second wife. Looking back, the former elder said the biggest impact of his shunning was the sudden loss of certainty.
"Everything you believed in is gone with this tight-knit church family," Duron said. "The way you look at science, spirituality, the after-life -- it's all different. Eventually, that can be very positive. But it's also scary. I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone."
You can reach Wendy Lawton at 503-294-5019 or by e-mail at [email protected].
