Religions that practice shunning

[Andy823]

I know some religions practice some form or another of shunning those who leave. I am only familiar with the Jehovahs witnesses because I was one of them for around 6 years until I left back around 1997.

Shunning, the JW way, is the most cruel thing I have ever seen, and I have see a lot of things. When someone commits a sin, the elders of a congregation and disfellowship a person, and when they do all of the congregation, and any JW no matter where they are from, cut the person off and treat them as if they are dead to them. Family members can only talk with those disfellowship ones for emergency family matters, or business issues that may affect a family with a business. Parents will shun their children, children will shun parents, brothers and sister will shun each other, grandparents will shun grandchildren, and grandchildren will shun gran parents. Families are destroyed because of their shunning practice. All of your so called "friends" will no longer talk to you, or even give you the time of day. You don't know what it is like unless you have been the one being shunned. The JW organization will deny they break up families by shunning them, but they do.

I am curious about any other groups that shun those who leave, and if their shunning is the same as JW's, who claim it is Jehovah's will that those who no longer want to be one of them, or those who have sinned according to the elders. I would warn anyone who might be thinking about joining this religious group, to do a lot of research about them before making a decision. It is a very high control religion that makes a lot of claims that are false, and who use fear to control their members. Not only the fear of shunning but the fear that a person will never make it into their "new system" if they leave the group. They teach that only JW's will survive Armageddon when it comes. If you leave you will not be saved.

[Freddie]

1. Tom Cruise has not seen his 10-year-old daughter in 3 years

According to tabloids, and I find this quite believable. Scientology practices shunning. Anyone who left or has doubts about the cult is a "suppressive person" and to be avoided at all cost. Even your own young child. Cruise is a loathsome human being.

[Andy823]

2. It's disgusting

I don't understand how anyone could cut off their families, let along their children, simply because the don't want to be part of a religious group.

JW's have a "no blood" policy that requires anyone who is a JW not to take a transfusion, no matter what, and you have to refuse transfusions for your children as well.

My daughter needed surgery after she was born. The odds of having to have a transfusion were very low, but I was told by an elder that I had to make sure and tell the Dr. "no blood" for her. In most cases the courts will come in and take charge so that a child "will" get the need medical care, but this started me thinking how crazy this doctrine was. If an adult wants to die instead of getting the care they need, well that's their choice, but a child shouldn't have to die over such insane teachings, nor should they be shunned by other family members if their parents leave a religion.

[souledout2JC]

7. I am one of the "shunned" but it isn't a church it is my family.

The pain will kill you if you let it and it is so serious it should be a crime. Prison would be kinder to inure. It has changed me as a human being and I will never be the same again.

[classof56]

3. I understand there are Amish believers who practice shunning.

Quite a few books have been written about it, mostly Christian fiction, I think. Raised Baptist, I was once a member of a church which was affiliated with the Conservative Baptist Association. In the area I lived, several Baptist churches split with CBA and required their members to have nothing to do with anyone, family members included, who remained in association churches. The ones who split were what my Calvinist grandpa liked to call "ten-in-a-bed-Baptists"--so narrow they could fit ten in a bed. Grandpa's little joke, I guess. It was a sad and confusing situation as I saw it, and eventually led to my own "disassociation" from Christianity altogether. I now call myself a lapsed Baptist, (getting close to atheism) which in many ways has been quite spiritually liberating, but never in all my Baptist years would I have engaged in "shunning" other Christians whose beliefs I did not entirely embrace. Had some family members who could have shunned me but didn't. I've appreciated that. They used to talk about reunions in heaven, which doctrine I no longer accept, but who knows? That just might happen, though I'm guessing there will be no shunning involved amongst the departed saints.

Thanks for the thought-provoking post. And blessings!

[Andy823]

4. Thank you for your reply

I have heard about the Amish also, but to sure how far they go with their shunning. I can see removing someone from the church if they are really doing something awful, and they refuse to stop. I think the Bible even talks about that, but when someone is cut off, with no association with friends and family, and when being totally isolated from your immediate family, I think it goes way to far. JW's take to the highest levels and many JW's have committed suicide, or tried to over the isolation.

JW's used agains such things a shunning. They said it was NOT the Christian thing to do. They actually said that working with people who had problems was the best way to bring them back into the group. Over the years the leadership changed and they become more controlling. Some prominent leaders of their governing body actually started to question things that were changing, they call the changes "new light?. When one governing body member pointed out that their founder, Charles Russell, said that God's word does not change, and mere mortal men should never try and change his words, he was labeled a trouble maker. He finally left the organization because he felt the organization was fading away from what the Bible actually taught, and that some in charge were making up their own "unique" set of rules and abusing their power. Other leaders were afraid he would start talking to members of the group about his views, so they came up with the current policy of shunning. They basically use the threat of shunning as another controlling method to keep people in line. Many have been removed from the congregation simply because they disagree with some teaching. It's rally pathetic.

[BlueWarrior]

6. This is what happens when religions put more stock in their own self-created doctrine

Rather than Holy Scripture