End shunning or lose tax free status

by kneehighmiah 62 Replies latest jw friends

Giordano

THE 2ND AMENDMENT IS A TWO BLADED SWORD JUST AS CIVIL RIGHTS IS REDEFINING GAY MARRIAGE RIGHTS.... i THINK THE FOLLOWING POINTS TO A MEMBER BEING ABLE TO LEAVE A CHURCH WITHOUT THAT CHURCH MANDATING SHUNNING. THE JW'S MANDATE SHUNNING BY COERCION.

http://church-discipline.blogspot.com/search/label/JW they CAN BE CHALLENGED ON THIS ISSUE: The discussion on the blocs regard Rebbecca
Hancock has been about the right of the member to leave a church. But I
think a more general discussion is called for. Why is a bad idea to continue
church discipline on non members?

First off it is violation of domestic
law. Religion in American is a consensual affair at all times not permanent
contract. A person's relationship with a religion ends the moment they say it
ends. It is a violation of first amendment rights to assert religious authority
over someone without their consent. Marian
Guinn vs Church of Christ Collinsville is an important case where the courts
were definitive, " No real freedom to choose
religion would exist in this land if under the shield of the First Amendment
religious institutions could impose their will on the unwilling and claim
immunity from secular judicature for their torturous acts." A similar case
involving a Mormon wasNorman
Hancock, with the same result the Hancock was awarded damages as the court
saw continuing a disciplinary process on a non member to be a violation of their
civil rights.

Permanent church covenants or statements that discipline
will continue after a person tries to leave in no way alter any of the above.
They are useful for establishing informed consent to starting a disciplinary
process, and continuing it while someone remains a member. But, the law and the
courts don't consider religious practice and affiliation to be a contract but
rather a civil right. You can't sign away your right to quit a church any more
than you can sign away your right to sue for sexual harassment in the workplace.
Wollersheim
v. Church of Scientology which was twice appealed all the way to the US
Supreme Court was unequivocal in its finding that permanent consent cannot be
granted. Consent to being disciplined, is like consent to being subjected to any
other religious practice and can be revoked at will. For an older case, O'Moore
v. Driscoll established that lack of consent to a ritual instantly removes
privilege. In Scolinki the courts found that church discipline arises from
common interest. A person voluntarily leaving the religious community has
severed their common interest, which is why I frequently say that churches can
excommunicate immediately or record what they want when a person leaves but not
engage in an ongoing process.

Second it is a violation of international
human rights law: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion; this right includes freedom to
change his religion or belief , and freedom, either alone or in community
with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in
teaching, practice, worship and observance. (Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, Article 18).

The Organization of American States is even more explicit:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience and of religion. This right includes freedom to maintain or to change one's religion or beliefs, and freedom to profess or disseminate one's religion or beliefs, either individually or together with others, in public or in private. 2. No one shall be subject to restrictions that might impair his freedom to maintain or to change his religion or beliefs. (American Convention on Human Rights, Article 12)

Third it is a violation of religious tradition:

Every man has a right to withdraw from the Church whenever he pleases , in the sense explained in our former article -- a right in the sense that no human authority has the right to detain him. As before God, he has no more right to apostatize than to commit any other sin. He is bound to believe and keep the commandments. But men have no commission to force him to do either. If he wants to go, they must let him go. "They went out from us," says the Apostle -- not that they were expelled, but they went out of their own accord, freely, voluntarily -- "because they were not of us." They found themselves in the wrong place, and they left it. (The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, Vol.4: Ecclesiastical, p. 370.)

To pick a Baptist quote:

Baptists have one consistent record concerning liberty throughout all their long and eventful history. They have never been a party to oppression of conscience. They have forever been the unwavering champions of liberty, both religious and civil. Their contention now, is, and has been, and, please God, must ever be, that it is the natural and fundamental and indefeasible right of every human being to worship God or not, according to the dictates of his conscience , and, as long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others, he is to be held accountable alone to God for all religious beliefs and practices. Our contention is not for mere toleration, but for absolute liberty. There is a wide difference between toleration and liberty. Toleration implies that somebody falsely claims the right to tolerate. Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right. Toleration is a matter of expediency, while liberty is a matter of principle. Toleration is a gift from God. It is the consistent and insistent contention of our Baptist people, always and everywhere, that religion must be forever voluntary and uncoerced, and that it is not the prerogative of any power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, to compel men to conform to any religious creed or form of worship , or to pay taxes for the support of a religious organization to which they do not believe. God wants free worshipers and no other kind. (By George Truett, Southern Baptist Convention, May 16 1920 ).

Among Presbyterians the notion of "erasure without consent of the session" or renouncement of jurisdiction is a well established right. For example the largest Presbyterian denomination, the PC(USA) is unequivocal that, "Members, church officers, elders and ministers have the right to renounce jurisdiction at any time. " To pick from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum the Orthodox Presbyterian Church considers leaving without permission of the session to be an erasure but not an excommunication, a termination of membership (Book of Discipline II.B.3.d.1,3,5).
To appreciate the breadth and unanimity of this I'll note that Jehovah's witnesses have a similar notion with different terminology. A member who is excommunicated is called, "disfellowshiped" while one who leaves on their own is "disassociated". There is a clear understanding that the Watchtower bible and tract society cannot claim disciplinary authority over a person who no longer considers themselves a member of the society (see wikipedia for more details).
And again to indicate the breadth, a person who declares themselves to no longer be a member of the church of the latter day saints is a "disaffiliate", and not subject to a disciplinary council (which can pronounce excommunication), "Nor are [Disciplinary Councils] held for members who demand that their names be removed from Church records or who have joined another church; that is now an administrative action." (from A Chance to Start Over: Church Disciplinary Councils and the Restoration of Blessings)
Teary Oberon

"they CAN BE CHALLENGED ON THIS ISSUE"

No, they really can't, at least not without very special circumstances. Your blog link is not very reliable and has a obvious bias, but several unbiased sources give a more complete story of that same Oklahoma case:

http://www.pewforum.org/2011/03/31/churches-in-court4/

after the elders threatened to tell the congregation about her relationship, she notified the elders of her withdrawal from the church. Claiming that only they could end Guinn’s membership in the church, the elders proceeded to advise congregants that they were prohibited from contacting Guinn unless it was for the purpose of encouraging her repentance. The elders also sent announcements of her sexual activities to nearby Church of Christ congregations. Guinn filed a suit against the church in which she alleged that the church’s publication of this information caused her emotional stress and invaded her privacy.

It was not the action of excommunication or shunning that gave Guinn grounds for civil action, it was the fact that the Church spread possibly defamatory information about her. The shunning had little or nothing to do with any of it. This is clarified further:

"After Hadnot’s husband opened and read the letter [informing him of his wife's excommunication], Hadnot sued the church, alleging that the disclosure of this information to her husband, as well as to her fellow congregants during the disciplinary hearing, had caused her emotional distress.

Applying the standard enunciated in its Guinn decision, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the church’s disclosure of Hadnot’s affair was constitutionally protected because, unlike in the Guinn case (which involved the church releasing potentially damaging information after Marion Guinn had left the congregation), this disclosure was part of the church’s process of excommunicating Hadnot.

The rest of the Pew article goes into much more detail and is IMO a very worthwhile read for anyone interested in these things.

"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

I agree with this statement; however, the key word throughout all of it is "freedom," and the sole meaning of freedom in this context is the absence of physical coersion, especially from Governments. I do not think it applies to Jehovah's Witnesses and their practice of disfellowshipping, because they do not employ violence or coersion in the process, and therefore no rights are or can be violated.

What is in fact happening, is that the Witnesses are merely exercising their own rights to freely associate or not associate with whomever they choose. Nobody has a positive right to association, i.e., nobody can force anyone else to associate with them. That in of itself would be akin to slavery.

But those are just my couple of cents. Take them as you will.
Finkelstein

End shunning or lose tax free status

Interesting concept and probably in a court of law might even hold up, standing on hatred and Prejudice

on people's individual rights and freedoms.

This can encompass various things such as an individual's sexual identity as well religious choice for all individuals.

Religions have been given rights and freedoms to their intervening social conduct for a long time, but in these modern times

they are showing a direct rooted cause for detrimental hatred and Prejudice within the general population.
Vidiot

Teary Oberon - "What is in fact happening, is that the Witnesses are merely exercising their own rights to freely associate or not associate with whomever they choose."

Technically (and in the eyes of the Law, technicality is everything), yes.

What people here are getting at, though, is that the WTS' ideological mandate to shun former members is - for many, many rank-and-filers - a form of coercion, because they are under threat of ostracization themselves if they don't comply.

There are strong indications that if the restriction against association of forrmer members were lifted, most JWs would prefer to remain in contact with relatives or acquaintences regardless of their membership status.

Never gonna happen, though; if the WTS were to ever stop shunning, there's be a mass exodus, because conscious-classers would no longer have anything holding them in.
Teary Oberon

"What people here are getting at, though, is that the WTS' ideological mandate to shun former members is...a form of coercion"

Precision of language is always important.

Trying to define the limits and degree of "coersion" in the presense of threats of physical violence is fairly simple. And we can rightly call that kind of coersion bad precisely because it includes threats of violence.

Trying to define the term in the absense of threats of physical violence is still possible but very difficult and complex and at risk to subjectivity, because you are removing a key characteristic of the term. The absense of violence also throws the moral status of the action into serious question. That is why I normally do not like speaking of "coersion" separate from violence -- it gets too confusing for both sides.

Hayek writes a good deal on the subject in Chapter 9 of his Constitution of Liberty, if you really want to learn more though.
Old Goat

I was a witness (thechically still am) for decades - A Company Servant, Congregation Servant, Elder, etc. I would like to think I used good sense during that era. I never felt compelled to shun anyone. But then I never sat on a "committee" that was unjust or cruel. If I didn't talk to you, it was because you were a royal creep. You slept with your daughter; you stole money from your employer; you fornicated with an clueless young girl. Trying to force someone to talk to us who detests what we did or us personally is as insane as anything the WT has ever done or said. Those who advocate a legal approach have no appreciation for American or human rights. period. And they have no sense of personal responsibility.

You want a Witness to talk to you, change your life. If you left on principal (something rare on this board), then live with your decision. But for God's sake, and your own, find some maturity. Stop whining and moaning.
Londo111

Wow. That’s as callous as a person can get.
Giordano

Teary, good post. What I cited was that there were cases, for certain reasons, that the court did not find for the religion. That if freedom of religion steps over legal boundaries, the courts can step in and not allow a practice to continue even though it may be supported in scripture and/or be the Dogma of that religion.

There's a lot of stuff that religions once practiced that was protected under the law. Like stoning children and adults, burning witch's, slaughtering babies and women because god told them to.

For hundreds of years Church's in the south supported slavery. Now they can't........ even if they wanted to. The Mormon's did not get away with polygamy even though it was permitted in their religion.

Religious sensibilities are now taking a backseat when it comes to influencing legal judgments.

The JW's coerce families to shun a family member who has been DF or DA it doesn't matter which........... the coercion is that the family member in turn will be DF if they don't shun them. JW's believe that DFing is a death sentence to be handed out at Armageddon. So that's a very heavy hammer held over the heads of those family members/close friends.

Considering other religious freedoms that JW's can't get away with like preventing a life saving blood transfusion for a minor, in prior years vaccines and transplants...... allowing pedophiles to go unreported. I don't see any reason that the courts will not consider certain other religious freedoms that use coercion. Lawsuits directly against Elders would stop shunning in a second. A direct hit by the courts on the WTBTS and they will roll over and give it up.

My personnel opinion is that it's just a matter of time.

Remember the Shakers? Gone now.......... the reason was two fold they didn't permit sex between their members even if they were married before they joined up. The Shakers kept their growth steady because they could adopt children from orphanage's. Then laws were passed that prevented religions from adopting. It was pretty much that one thing that ended them
kneehighmiah

Yes my topic for discussion was purely hypothetical. I was wondering if the watchtower prefers money over mind control.

As far as shunning goes, it is open to debate. Many things were at one time allowed in the Untied Statea including slavery and polygamy. the government cannot force a JW to talk to you. However, the question is does continued shunning of an ex member/ disciplining a member for leaving violate that members civil rights namely freedom of religion. i believe it does. I also think the WT knows it does as well. That's why if you wish to leave, but threaten to sue if they make you face a committee or read your name off, they are instructed to leave you alone. I also believe they ask you at judicial committee hearings if you accept their authority. Do not go to a judicial committee

of course if your family doesn't want to not associate with you that's their own choice. But an organization is on shaky ground by attempting to hinder the civil rights of ex members. You cannot punish people who are no longer members of your group. Remember though, getting D'fed does not terminate membership. You are still a member if you get disfellowshipped. But if you make a conscientious decision to leave, they cannot disfellowship you unless you agree to it.
Vidiot

kneehighmiah - "I was wondering if the watchtower prefers money over mind control."

I'm sure both taste very sweet to them...

End shunning or lose tax free status

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