Example 1. Ray Franz was disfellowshipped for being seen eating a meal whilst sat at a table with a disfellowshipped person.
Example 2. I was recently told by my customer's JW secretary that she was sorry but she could not make me a cup of tea because it was against her witness principles to drink / eat with a DF'd person.
Yet, I think I understand now what the scripture at 1 Corinthians 5. 11 - 12 really was getting at. A couple of nights ago, we had some friends around for a meal. We enjoyed a Moroccan Tagine and a good time was had by all. To enjoy the tagine at it's best, we cooked it in the proper dish complete with funnel lid. We then placed it in the middle of the dining table, folded up our pitta bread and dunked it in the middle of the communal repast, stickying our fingers in the process. No knives and forks when you eat Moroccan style! No real need for plates either.
My pal Pete and I began to remark how you wouldn't want to partake of a finger dish with someone you disliked or distrusted, it being such an intimate activity. At this point, I suddenly saw just what Paul was getting at when he said that we shouldn't eat with "such a person". Putting your fingers alongside someone elses in a communal feeding bowl would have been common practise in Pauls time and would have also expressed trust in one's fellow feeders. Obvious good common sense not to eat out of the same bowl as an outsider.
Leaving aside the fact that, back then, shunning was for the likes of someone who wouldn't stop bonking his Dad's missus, the fact remains that even if someone is that bad, the WT has over-reached itself in insisting that one can not eat alongside such a person. It's communal feeding out of the same bowl that indicates tacit approval for a wrongdoer, not eating a separate meal.
Englishman.