It's one thing to evaluate someone's actions and offer advice, it's entirely something different to enforce some action based off of your evalution.
I think you are reading the concept into the text that you want it to say. Jesus isn't talking in that text about enforcing anything upon anyone. He's talking about someone trying to help a brother overcome a small sin while he himself is guilty of much greater sin. There is nothing in that text or the context that speaks to the idea of actions being enforced by some organized religious authority. (Sorry about the italics in this paragraph, can't seem to shut them off)
I really don't want to get into a semantics debate.
I don't see how you can avoid it if you want to discuss this topic. In we can't agree on what "judging" means, how can we reach any resolution on whether Jesus was taking a stand against organized religion when He used the term?
Interesting excerpt. Jesus ate with tax collectors and he made sure the Gentiles had provision for salvation before he left as well. So what does that even mean?
It means that those who were removed from the church because of some moral issue were to be treated like anyone else that was not a member of the church. They weren't to be harrassed, they weren't to be utterly shunned, they weren't to be mistreated. They were just to be considered as not Christian and in need of repentance, like any other sinner. They could be treated with kindness, they could be eaten with, they could visit you in your home, and presumably, they could also be encouraged to abandon their sinful ways and return to God, with great rejoicing if and when they returned to Him.
I think he is advocating close fellowship. If a good friend of yours was doing something potentially harmful to himself would you not try to help him? And if he didn't want help would you not try to enlist others to try to help him?
Calling that organized religion is follly. That is just friendship, imo.
The problem with that position is that, when all the verses are considered, Jesus has outlined a specific, progressive procedure that culminates in the matter to be taken before the church, and which might result in the sinner being removed from the special sort of fellowship that was to exist among believers. A reasonable reading of the text implies more than mere interpersonal friendship. Clearly there is some sort of organized activity there, and Jesus attributes that activirty to "the church." To miss the existence of an organized church in that text is to impose an unreasonable presupposition upon it, in my opinion.
I think Jesus was utilizing the church for a good cause, not advocating it as necessary.
Well, according to what He said, He was the founder of the church: Matt. 16:23 "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Now, while there is some controversy between Protestants and Catholics as to the antecedent of the word "rock" in that verse, it's still crystal clear from either position that Jesus is the one building the church. It's His church, not one that He borrowed from someone else to utilize as He saw fit.
Care to define what "treating them like any other non-member" means if it doesn't mean shunning?
It means just what it says. Treating them exactly as you would treat any other person who is not a member of the church. Not avoiding them, not refusing to greet them, not leaving the room if they enter, but not extending the hand of spiritual fellowship to them either. My mail carrier is not a member of my church, but I say hello to her when I see her. I have a very friendly relationship with my doctor, though he is of a different faith than I am. I have no idea what the religious faith(s) of the workers at the local drugstore are, but I try to be pleasant with them when I go there. I have had dinner many times with co-workers without necessarily knowing what their beliefs are, or even if I knew that I disagreed with their beliefs. I don't shun my mailperson, doctor, druggist or co-workers, but I don't treat them as my brothers/sisters in Christ, either. That is how a person who is removed from the church is to be treated. Like anyone else in the world.
No, the problem is Organized Religion because absolute power corrupts absolutely. And Organized Religion always finds a way to dull out absolute power to someone.
You're certainly entitled to your beliefs in this area, and I'm not even saying that there isn't a grain of truth in what you are saying - at least in some instances. Where I think you are going wrong is in trying to insert these concepts into the mouth of Jesus.