I almost just want to just have a moment of silence over the accuracy of this thread and the sadness, destruction and damage that is involved in disfellowshipping.
The statements about persons NOT BEING DISFELLOWSHIPPED if they are repentant are NOTHING but LIES!!!!!!!!!!! It infuriates me when I see it or hear it!!! Why not just be honest?! Why not just say "Listen, this is about cold, hard, discipline and there IS a SET PERIOD of time BASED on your sins....is this biblical? Not at all, but it makes us feel better....why? Because we aren't comfortable with the blood of Jesus being able to wash away sins...in our narrow minds, you MUST be punished appropriately and that has nothing to do with repentance, or the blood of Christ."
I'll never forget what they told me: "we know you are repentant, but you can't be fully repentant unless you have been disfellowshipped, so that is our decision."
Granted, I made some bad decisions, but my wife admitted deliberately driving me away so she could be scripturally free. What about CAUSING DIVISIONS? what about CONTENTIOUSNESS???????? Couldn't a person at least be REPROVED for those things? Nope, the only things that are enforced are apostasy, smoking, sex and other easily enforcible rules...has nothing to do with helping keep the congregation clean. If it did, then there would not be hardly any divorces because they would actually HELP people instead of CONDEMN them.
Another thing I thought of just today....IF disfellowshipping is only a last resort so to speak, wouldn't you expect to see a LOT more public reproofs than disfellowshippings??????? Shouldn't PR be relatively common and then disfellowshippings be relatively rare? You would think that would be a big indicator.
I think the BIGGEST REASON BEHIND DISFELLOWSHIPPING serves a more sinister purpose....the sole intent to scare people into behaving, and to make everyone feel that they are better than the people that are expelled.
