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Monday, 05/20/02
Disfellowshipping described as 'worse than death'
By BRIAN LEWIS
Staff Writer
Running afoul of Jehovah's Witnesses teachings cost Kelsey Graham his friends, his faith and his peace of mind.
''I've lost relatives to death, death I can handle,'' said Graham, a Nashville man disfellowshipped from the Jehovah's Witnesses.
''This is something that's worse than death.''
Graham, 47, was disfellowshipped, or excommunicated, 20 years ago for reasons he says remain unclear. The businessman thinks it is because he questioned church doctrine and procedures.
For Jehovah's Witnesses, a close-knit, proselytizing Christian organization known for door-to-door evangelism, disfellowshipping means being cut off from virtually the only people they know and starting over in a new and unfamiliar world. (Biblical basis for disfellowshipping)
''I thought everybody that wasn't a Jehovah's Witness was just in debauchery,'' Graham said, whose previous impression was that ''it's just one big orgy and one big back-stabbing world.''
Disfellowshipping, a form of discipline by Witnesses, has been in the news recently because a Tullahoma woman faces the possibility of excommunication on charges of ''disrupting the unity of the congregation and undermining the confidence of the brothers in Jehovah's arrangement.''
Barbara Anderson told reporters from the television news show Dateline that Jehovah's Witnesses have covered up sexual abuse.
Anderson had a hearing May 10 but has not been notified of any disciplinary action. A New Jersey man and wife interviewed by the show have already been disfellowshipped, and a Kentucky man is awaiting a judicial hearing.
One reason that disfellowshipping is such a harsh punishment is that Jehovah's Witnesses are very much a closed society. Members are discouraged from developing relationships outside the organization, former Witnesses said. When people are excommunicated, they lose almost all of their friends.
In rare cases, people choose to leave by writing a letter of disassociation. The results are the same as disfellowshipping: The person is no longer a Witness and loses all privileges of membership.
After he was disfellowshipped, Graham said his parents and siblings continued to treat him like a relative but didn't discuss religion, he said. He no longer had any friends. If he wanted to phone somebody and say, ''I've got a headache, I don't feel well,'' Graham said he couldn't do it.
The loss begins immediately once the elders announce a disfellowshipment at the church, he said.
''The people that greeted you before the meeting, if you decided to go, are not going to even make eye contact with you afterwards,'' Graham said.
''At the time that you most need spiritual uplifting is when this happens and you have no place to turn.''
A person can be disfellowshipped for being unrepentant about serious sins such as adultery, theft, drug abuse or an attempt to create dissension in the congregation, said David Semonian, a spokesman in the denomination's Brooklyn, N.Y., headquarters.
While outsiders may view the punishment as harsh, Semonian said, members have a different perspective.
''It's direction from God's word,'' he said. ''It actually is very loving. What the shunning does, it protects the congregation from unwholesome influences of those who blatantly disregard Bible influences.''
Semonian said that it also serves to make those who have been excommunicated aware of how they've messed up.
''This person blatantly wanted to do what's wrong. By shunning him, it impresses upon him to come back in a right relationship with God.''
Sometimes, however, that thinking backfires.
Tiffany DiDomenico of Smyrna left the Witnesses because she felt the elders' expectations of her were unreasonable. People are expected not to sin, but that's not possible, she said, and if they fail, there's a public disciplinary process.
''It's humiliating,'' she said.
''It's very humiliating. My relationship with God should be between me and God, not me and the congregation.''
She also developed serious doubts about church teachings that church elders never answered to her satisfaction. Although she neither wrote a letter of disassociation nor was disfellowshipped, the result was the same, she said. Friends and family shunned her.
One day she saw friends in Wal-Mart. But after making eye contact with her, she said, they looked away and acted as if she wasn't there. At that point, she said, she knew she'd been right to leave the faith.
''It made me very angry, and it hurt me. But more than anything, it reaffirmed my decision that leaving was the best thing I could have done for myself,'' she said. ''I had always been told that my true friends were the Witnesses, that they were my true family. Now my supposed true family was turning their backs on me.''
In addition, her father and her stepmother stopped talking with her. Calls to her father's residence were not returned.
Ironically, DiDomenico had previously somewhat shunned her mother after she left the Witnesses and told DiDomenico negative information about the religion.
DiDomenico said she is now a born-again Christian.
Graham, the Nashville man who was disfellowshipped, said he hasn't returned to organized religion.
He said his thoughts at the time of his disfellowshipment were: ''I'm spiritually dead, I'm a doomed man, I have nothing to live for.''
When he was first disfellowshipped, he felt certain he would perish at the battle of Armageddon, he said, which he thought would be relatively soon. Now, he has studied many religions but doesn't feel the desire to join.
''I believe in God.'' he said.
''But I think … the most important aspect of that faith is not doctrine but is love.''
Brian Lewis covers faith, values and religion. Contact him at 259-8077 or [email protected].
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