DiscussMormonism.com

Zadok wrote:

Tchild wrote:If you bed your neighbor's wife, get excommunicated and then go through the process of reinstatement, that ain't what is being discussed.

I fear you missed my point, which is... for the believing member, excommunication is the most traumatic spiritual event which can be inflicted upon another human being.

Sure, there is a way back for the believer, but I fear you fail to recognize the abuse which occurs as the penitent believer tries to walk that path. First there is a MINIMUM of one year from excommunication and potential for re-baptism. During that time the believer is forced to wear the scarlet X on their forehead for all the ward to see and mock. Then, there is a MINIMUM of one additional year before the believer may have his priesthood restored. (Unwritten is a TWO year wait if the alleged infraction was homosexual in nature).

The question is what does the Church gain from excommunication. And I still hold that the answer is that it is a brutal abusive whip, to keep other members in line!

My impression is that excommunication is not spiritually traumatic, but socially traumatic.
It damages the individuals self-esteem and standing within the Ward and family social structure.
Sure some members go through the process of being broken and contrite, but they never lose that anger from being shamed and made to feel guilt within a social circle rather than it being a private matter between them and their loved one. Mormon Excommunication isn't private. It isn't a process for resolving issues between a man and his wife, or between an individual and their God.It becomes a public humiliation the moment the individual is forced into talking about the matter with 15 men who will sit in judgement of them. It becomes public the moment the individual is noticed not taking a small piece of bread or a small cup of water each Sunday, not saying a prayer, struggle;ing with an answer when asked about their calling etc. I mean, what can they say? "Hey, what calling do you do in your ward?" "Hem...I don't have a calling." "Oh, why not?" "Ehm....<insert lie>"

If Mormon excommunication were meant as a process of recovery rather than public coercion and humiliation, it would be a process that nobody but the individual and their loved on would be aware of. That the Church uses a process that ensures lots of people notice the individuals guilt shows it to be a calculated tool of shaming and submission. I fully believe that the process ensures people either do not repent when perhaps they wanted to, but decided they couldn't face the public humiliation of attending a Church that won't let them participate so all their friends and ward acquaintances become aware of the wrongdoing. Or it leaves those that do submit to the ritual punishment and humiliation with a lasting shame and guilt which turns into anger and contempt.

Mormon excommunication achieves the exact opposite of what it claims to want to achieve.

Mayan Elephant wrote:What the hell are you reading? seriously. what in the hell are you reading? because your comments do not seem to connect at all, in the slightest, to the links you posted

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I was referring to the two articles written by two current Church PR employees. You were probably reading your version of Shangri-La. We just have different filters. Mine is basically clear and yours is fire engine red.

and what the hell with the conspiracy theory that packer is leading this hunt from his grumpy crouchy hidden dragon tiger prey mode?

Seems you might have walked in to the tail end of the Green Bay Packers and the Seatle SeaHawks game. That crouchy hidden dragon tiger prey mode was just the line of scrimmage.

i read both those and don't see anything unusual or unsubstantiated. if anything, the suggestion that there was key-swapping and wife-swapping at Mormon stories parties may have been a stretch, but, but, but - - - DEHLIN STARTED THAT DESCRIPTION ABOUT HIS OWN PARTIES.

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I think your iron in the fire may have started to melt if you see nothing wrong with Church employees writing attack articles before an upcoming excommunication trial. Religious people are supposed to refrain from adding salt to a wound or biasing the process.

moksha wrote:
I think your iron in the fire may have started to melt if you see nothing wrong with Church employees writing attack articles before an upcoming excommunication trial. Religious people are supposed to refrain from adding salt to a wound or biasing the process.

there is no trial. there is no entitlement to due process. and there is more of the same, for some reason bryan king and the church and the pr department are satan's minions pulling strings and doing all the crap they can, but cannot have a single voice. i take your word for it that these people are the highest ranking pr employees within the billion dollar franchise that is the Mormon church.

in the meantime, using your analogy, the fake suspect in a fake trial is free to make fake accusations and use the media to pour salt in the eyes of others, and bias the process. that is just silliness.

Bazooka wrote:If Mormon excommunication were meant as a process of recovery rather than public coercion and humiliation, it would be a process that nobody but the individual and their loved on would be aware of. That the Church uses a process that ensures lots of people notice the individuals guilt shows it to be a calculated tool of shaming and submission. I fully believe that the process ensures people either do not repent when perhaps they wanted to, but decided they couldn't face the public humiliation of attending a Church that won't let them participate so all their friends and ward acquaintances become aware of the wrongdoing. Or it leaves those that do submit to the ritual punishment and humiliation with a lasting shame and guilt which turns into anger and contempt.

Mormon excommunication achieves the exact opposite of what it claims to want to achieve.

Exactly my point. It isn't reparative, nor designed to fix. But rather it's designed to insure compliance from the group trying to avoid a similar fate.

Mormons confuse a lot of things. hell, we are conditioned to confuse things and call it the spirit, or an answer to our prayers. confusion and conflation and contradiction are parts of Mormonism for all of us.

excommunication is one of those things. as i mentioned, and others too, excommunication as a Mormon can be traumatic and scary and hellish. especially for believers. but let us not confuse what it really is. it is a tool for a large institution to control a few fringe members in order to control or direct the larger group. it is just a widget. nothing more. the power that lies in that process is a function of the belief of the person being excommunicated and not a function of the belief of the bishop or stake president. in this contemporary case, the excommunication has no power over dehlin because he has emphatically denounced everything it represents spiritually.

excommunication and all the debates all over the place about its efficacy on dehlin or others' dissents misses the entire point of the widget. it is just one thing in place for local people to deal with other humans. it is an organizational management tool. it was a hammer and tool used by the founders and it has been passed down within this corporation. it is no different than the termination process within a bank or insurance company. if the corporation is carrying forward, and the biggest pains in the asses get dismissed along the way, then the process is working.

dehlin gets this, by the way. he gets it loud and clear. what he is trying to do is turn it all around for his own gain. he wants the admiration of being a september six type martyr. he wants to pretend he is experiencing all the violence that margaret toscano described. he needs this, and he needs it BAD. he has been marketing as the insider with orthodox views. now he needs to be the martyr who was right for the right cause, and crucified like christ. but the reality is he is just a pain in the ass who is being addressed by the system dehlin despises but uses.

someone should ask dehlin one question about all this. one. one simple question.

"John, how do you deal with dissenters or opposing opinions within the groups you moderate?"

answer - excommunication.

There seems to be two threads here. One is the question posed in the title of the thread, "How has the Church benefited from using Excommunication?" The other thread seems to be a continuation of arguing/defending the merits of the pending John Dehlin disciplinary meeting scheduled for Sunday next.

I don't care if there is a dual thread, but lets be sure we are aware to which thread we are contributing.

Moksha and Mayan seem to be discussing the merits, or lack there of in the pending meeting involving John Dehlin. Bazooka, I and others are discussing the merits or lack thereof, regarding the church's use of excommunication as a means to control and intimidate regular members who have made an error.

High profile cases involving very public crimes, and John Dehlin's need for constant media attention, are not really what this thread was intended to be about.


Added: I see that Mayan has tried to bring these two threads together somewhat above. We were both writing at the same time, but Mayan can type faster.

thank god we do not have a moderator that decides when a thread has jumped the banks. right, zadok?

Mayan Elephant wrote:thank god we do not have a moderator that decides when a thread has jumped the banks. right, zadok?

If we did, we would have both been banned ages ago. (As we were!).

Mayan Elephant wrote:Excommunication is one of those things. as i mentioned, and others too, excommunication as a Mormon can be traumatic and scary and hellish. especially for believers.

Agreed!!!

Mayan Elephant wrote:but let us not confuse what it really is. it is a tool for a large institution to control a few fringe members in order to control or direct the larger group. it is just a widget. nothing more. the power that lies in that process is a function of the belief of the person being excommunicated and not a function of the belief of the bishop or stake president.

And I argue that as a widget of control it is an old tool, which has long outlived its appropriateness. In my mind, using excommunication to insure compliance among the believers is the same as using the medieval rack to obtain information.