To Jeffro.
I see what you mean , that the denying of fellowship is what does harm, looking at it as we do now. But back in those days when I sat on those committees, the common thinking was that the person was condemned to an eternal death at Armageddon with no hope of salvation unless he got himself reinstated. That was also part of the thought of the original post.
At that time I reasoned out that God , on the judgement day,would whatsoever he wanted with that individual no matter what we decided.... and that thought comforted me.
I agree now looking back, the harm we did to families was bad ... just wrong . Sadly I was just a pawn in the game.