Doing away with empty threats

Over on the Reformed Catholicism blog there is what could become an execellent debate on church discipline.  Kevin Johnson is taking the position that churches need to come into compliance with the law directly to the heart of the conservative protestant movement.  Of course I'm joining in.  

Enjoy

Debate the Calvinist

For those interested I'll be debating Frank Turk (centuri0n)on the contents of the Defense against Patriarchy. The debate is being hosted on his blog "DebateBlog: Ask the Calvinist". This going to be quite a bit more structured than these debates usually are. I'll be arguing that the bible is unclear on male eldership, and Frank will be arguing that the bible is unambiguous. I have no idea how this debate is going to end up developing. Should be fun, he runs a debate blog so I'll assume he's quite experienced.

His blog doesn't allow for 3rd party comments and I'll use this thread as a place holder for them. Enjoy.

Also to maintain fairness we are doing this debate in pairs of rounds and preforce I have to go 2nd, in the pair. If you see an obvious weakness / flaw in any of Frank's arguments please wait until after my post to state it. I'll be replying blind but I don't want to create the impression of any unfairness. OTOH since I'm going 2nd feel free to critique my stuff the moment its posted. Similarly once we get to the QA please refrain from commenting on questions until after the answer is posted.

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Addendum 7/11/08: I've closed this post to comments. All comments should be posted to the closing thread.

gossip vs. lobbying

Whenever there is a movement to try and make change within churches that structural problems (particularly abusive ones) those people involved are accused of gossip. Since this word is being misused to cover political activity I think its worth giving a real definition:

gossip- Idle talk or rumor, esp. about the personal or private affairs of others. That is talk about others with no intent to take action

What is really going on is not gossip but rather:

lobbying- a group of persons who work or conduct a campaign to influence to alter policy towards the group’s interests.

Lobbying is not idle dissent rather it is a necessary and important part of any process of being governed and participating in that government. Another part of clarity:

undermine- to injure or destroy by insidious activity or imperceptible stages, sometimes tending toward a sudden dramatic effect.

So the good way to determine if you are gossiping or lobbying is this. If your goal is to change policy you are lobbying if it is to change leadership you are undermining them. These two often get confused

The SBC has faced a pretty strong attack by the blogsphere on the their leadership in the Georgia Convention and drafted resolution on blogging which essentially these mixes  two issues in a way that is very common:

BE IT ALSO RESOLVED that we reaffirm the historic method of administering our agencies and institutions through elected boards of trustees, and we call upon bloggers to cease the critical second-guessing of these elected leaders; and

Leaders whose choices and policies can not be "second-guessed" and critiqued are not in any meaningful sense "elected". That's why the constitution grants this as a fundamental right to people, even above and beyond voting. That is many classes of people denied the vote were still permitted to join into organizations to lobby for redress of grievances. The historical method for administration of government in the United States most certainly includes an open discussion of policy and lobbying for changes in said policy. Not merely conducting elections without a press.

What people under 30 think

On many of the boards I'm on there is a constant fear that any sort of critique of the church would lead people away. Barna research did a survey of the attitude of young people 20-30 towards Christianity. Their complaints were not about failure to address problems or honestly confront difficulties rather what they were upset about was essentially the "meanness", in particular:

* antihomosexual 91%
* judgmental 87%
* hypocritical 85%
* old-fashioned 78%
* too political 75%
* out of touch with reality 72%
* insensitive to others 70%
* boring 68%
(from unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters, By David Kinnaman)

This is precisely the issue the emerging church is trying to address. While in a later post I intend make a more serious philosophical defense of postmodern theology, I think critiques of the emerging church on moral grounds that fails to take into account this reality are off base. I think its high time those that attack the emerging church be asked the simple question of what is their counter strategy to address this reality. Or to ask the question I asked in goth music:

Moreover I've even seen gospel outreach towards goths be attacked. For example Karen Ward (abbess of apostle's church in Seattle, leader / one of the founders of the emerging church movement) runs a very successful outreach to goth teens / 20-somethings called the Santorum Mass which is essentially a 16th century high episcopal mass done very traditional, very high church style. The kids love it, and it consistently draws huge crowds of people that would otherwise not go to church. I would consider this to be successful evangelism. Yet this has been specifically cited as an example of the "engage but don't critique flaw" of the emerging church. I suspect most readers would agree with the "successful evangelism" position. And if so then the fact that the goth movement is spontaneously creating fantastical scores for prayers and hymns should be something to be applauded.

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See Also:

• Pew reasons for leaving

Anne Le Fert (Questionable Excommunication part 2)

The excommunication of Anne Le Fert is our first case, for reasons which will not be clear shortly. It is also however the one the reader is least likely to be familiar with. Anne Le Fert was the wife of of John Calvin's brother Antoine Calvin excommunicated and divorced for immodesty. The standard reference for this case is Seeger, Cornelia Seeger's Nullité de mariage, divorce et séparation de corps à Genève au temps de Calvin: fondements doctrinaux, loi et jurisprudence. An excellent treatment in English is available in Robert Kingdon's Adultry and Divorce in Calvin's Geneva. Anne is no particular historical importance in and of herself. But her case and Calvin's poor handling of it resulted in Bernese courts putting and end to the independence of the Calvinist theocracy. The Presbyterian right has dreamed for centuries of returning to a state church similar to the one that existed under Calvin (Christian Reconstructionism is a modern example). The case of Anne Le Fert shows us how the original died.

Anne Le Fert was the daughter of a very succesful French Businessman Nicholas Le Fert who provided his daughter with a dowry of 150 écus plus quite a bit of expensive furniture, a step up for the Calvin family economically. Antoine was focused on leveraging his brother's political power to create wealth and marriage to Anne was likely part of that program. Anne was younger than Idelette de Bure, John Calvin's wife, and Antoine operated his home and business out of the home that had been provided by Geneva for John. The result was that Anne had responsibility for running Antoine's household and some responsibility for his employees, however, she was under the management of Idelette a woman she did not get along with. Idelette became seriously ill around 1547 and continued to deteriorate until her death in 1549. During this period Anne's responsibilities extended to John's household and this would have been more complex given his political position. Further it brought her into much more direct contention with Idelette and indirectly with John.

So by 1548 Anne was angry, John disliked her and Idelette was dying. Anne either decided to start having an affair or heavily flirted with a Jean Chautemps a frequent business partner of Antoine's and someone of Anne's economic class. On September 27, 1548 John Calvin filed a formal charge of adultery against Anne Le Fert. It should be commented here that John given his obvious biases and conflicts of interest rightfully recused himself from the case and passed it over to the Consistory, which was the religious judicial / legislative branch under Calvin in Geneva and allowed them rule in his absence. The Consistory found a great deal of suspicious behavior, including Jean Chautemps having visiting Anne in her bed chamber at 3:00 am. But they were not able to actually prove intercourse, and so Anne and Jean were convicted of immodest behavior, but there was no conviction for adultery. As an aside to those worried the methods in this blog won't work I'd comment that this is an example of Anne successfully utilizing the plead to a lesser charge defense against John Calvin himself.

The net result was that Jean had to spend a short period of time in prison and Anne was required to publicly apologize and beg her husband to take her back on her hands and knees in a legally mandated ceremony. Antoine as part of the ceremony was to formally take her back and Antoine and Anne were reconciled. This meant Anne resumed her place running the Calvin household on October 18, 1548. Jean was furious at the intrusion into his life and became a leader of the Perrinists (literally patriots) who attempted to role back the Calvinist government for its intrusiveness in private affairs.

Over the next eight years Antoine and Anne resumed normal relations and had two children. John grew to dislike Anne's management of his household ever more strongly and wanted her thrown out. Throughout these intervening years John Calvin had played on class resentment and had successfully exiled the Perrinists to territories outside the city. This exile communities are the origin of the title "Children of Geneva" or and the areas where they lived "Little Geneva". I suspect the friction between Anne and John may very well come from the fact that Anne had Perrinist sympathies, even though her father Nicholas Le Fert was a major financier of John Calvin's political victory. As an aside, its worth commenting that the modern Kinists (a white supremest form of Christianity) in adopting the "little Geneva" term are identifying with upper class anti-Presbyterian and often anti-reformation opponents of Calvin's rather than Calvin which I assume is what is intended, a piece of irony I think most of my readers will find amusing.

Having consolidated his power John felt comfortable enough to attack Anne and on January 7th, 1557 another charge of adultery was filled. This time against her and an employee of Antoine's by the name of Pierre Dauget. There was no simple recusal here, John Calvin led the charge. He had compiled seven witnesses that could testify to Anne's affair and further he pushed the case directly to the small council (which investigates criminal matters). The small council looked into the evidence and frankly found it wanting. While the witnesses could testify to Anne being "overly familiar" with Pierre there was no evidence they had ever been alone. Most of the witnesses were former employees of Anne's that held grudges for various reasons. And further consideration of the evidence showed that every single encounter between Anne and Pierre appeared to be for business purposes and there was no evidence that Anne had done anything more than treat Pierre as a trusted servant. That is the investigation found evidence not consistent with adultery but rather consistent with an overly zealous prosecutor attempting to railroad a charge. John Calvin's insistence led the small council deciding to reopen the Jean Chautemps case to establish a pattern of adultery and question Anne on both counts under torture. To do this required the case be treated as capital adultery.

Under torture Anne maintained her innocence in both cases. She however could not adequately explain many of her previous actions with Jean Chautemps and the small council decided to grant a joint judgment of divorce and exile Anne on pain of whipping. Geneva law recognized the legitimacy of remarriage in the case of divorce of adultery outside of Geneva. So Anne's 1573 remarriage to Jean-Louis Ramal (another Children of Geneva) was legal for the Geneva government. Because there was no finding of adultery Jean-Louis was entitled to Anne's dowry which was still under Antoine's control even under Geneva law. But Antoine wanted the money. Since the couple did not live in Geneva the case fell under the court of Bernese. The court held that, consistent with many other cases that in case of divorce for adultery the innocent party gained rights over all joint property, however in a divorce without a finding of guilt the husband maintained the dowry only in trust. There been no finding of guilt associated with the divorce and hence the money was for Jean-Louis.

When Jean-Louis entered Geneva territory to pursue the case he was imprisoned due to his use of a "foreign court". Bernese government became enraged believing, quite rightly, that the core issue was Antoine attempting to violate the law so as keep Anne's dowry. That is that Antoine and John Calvin were acting like common thieves. It was at this point that the Bernese government began acting directly as a supervising state authority. They ordered an Geneva arbitrator appointed to handle the case taking it out of the control of John Calvin. In other words Geneva was no longer acting like an independent country but rather a religious governed enclave within Bernese territory.

John Calvin had invalidly excommunicated his sister in law, mainly because he didn't like her personality and as a result had ended the experiment in independent theocratic government in a failure. An excommunication of a nobody, by historical standards, resulting in a disaster for Presbyterianism from which it never recovered. And that was the reason I choose Anne Le Fert to go first. This sort of effect is not unusual invalid excommunications quite often result in extensive damage to the churches that perform them. The rest of the cases involve people of historical note and importance and it might be tempting for a minister to believe that these sorts of effects can only arise when an important person is excommunicated. Anne Le Fert proves the opposite.

Calvin authored Institutes of the Christian Religion, during the two years after Anne. It was probably then that Calvin realized he was going to be remembered as a great religious thinker but not as the inventor of a new society.

• For more on the political aspects of this case and the Perrinist party William G. Naphy's Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation .

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I'll close with my own personal theory. I believe that Anne and Jean Chautemps had a intimate relationship but never had intercourse. They talked, laughed spent time together kissed, flirted and may have engaged in other sex play but never intercourse. Jean Chautemps was a better choice for a husband for Anne in terms of age, values and economic standing. That is a perfect example of why excessive parental involvement can lead to quite unhappy marriages. Antoine and Anne were quite simply incompatible. Antoine wanted Anne for her money and Anne's father wanted a closer connection to John Calvin.

I further believe that Antoine compounded the situation by living in John Calvin's house. John Calvin had exacting moral standards and needed to fight against any hint of impropriety due to his base of support. Having a woman run his household that fundamentally rejected his views must have been deeply embarrassing and a constant source of friction. Had he chosen to remarry after Idelette's death the tension might have reduced because Anne would no longer have been responsible for the John Calvin household but only the Antoine Calvin household and business. But he did not remarry.

I think it was Anne's open rebelliousness, for example casual familiarity the servants that troubled John Calvin, not adultery. It was the petty embarrassment: day after day, week after week, year after year that drove him. There was no affair nor nothing like an affair between Anne Le Fert and Pierre Dauget, what there was a wholesale rejection of the sort of strict behavioral guidelines that John Calvin would have expected between a woman and her male employee. Further compounding their disagreement on morals, there were political issues. It is my belief that John Calvin after spending years to have the Perrinists exiled the idea of having a Perrinist in all but name not only living but managing his household was intolerable.

This was the point that John Calvin decided to launch his plan. Antoine had primarily married Anne for the dowry and would be unlikely to be able to sustain that kind of loss without damaging the business, nor would he be able (in fact he was not able) to have married a woman with a dowry that large again. So John Calvin didn't want merely a divorce he needed a conviction for adultery. That Anne in the end would be found innocent probably never crossed his mind when he first decided to build a case against her based on the enormous body of evidence which created the appearance of a pattern of impropriety and immorality. There was a second reason for the trumped up charge, not having an adultery trial would have constituted an admission that he essentially desired for his brother a divorce on the grounds of joint consent / irreconcilable differences rather than any sort of violation of behavior. So it was in trying to protect his reputation against hypocrisy that John Calvin crossed the line into outright theft. To have acted this strongly only to have in effect freed Anne and damaged his brother would have made him look like a fool. I believe in the end it was pride not greed that caused John Calvin to end up looking a great deal like a thief trying to dishonestly keep Anne's money.

Sovereign Grace Ministries' use of demotivational methods

This is a follow up conversation about Sovereign Grace Ministries. In our first article on the church we noted how the discipline procedure was designed to create a situation where abuse could occur during the discipline process. But in a cultic sort of church most abuse doesn't occur during the discipline process and abusive discipline process would be ineffective without other tools. So this article looks at the mechanics for the day to day abuses at Sovereign Grace. Sovereign grace itself is a large denomination and making people aware of what is being done to them should be helpful.

As for how this is designed to undermine self-esteem its a well known procedure in what is called de-motivational management. Humans are social and they respond to other people’s assessments of them. By creating a culture where others freely criticize a person and at the same time the recipient is supposed to be responding positively to those critiques virtually any decision they make in life will end up being attacked. That is if I make a choice someone is going to think I made the wrong choice quite frequently tell me so “as they were led by the spirit” and force me to doubt my own decision making ability.

The place you see this used most harshly (i.e. an extreme example) is in prisons with new prisoners. Guards will frequently force prisoners to do things that are ambiguous and then attack them verbally for whatever action they take.

Guard: 257319 Move to the right!

If prisoner moves to his right:
Guard: My right dummy. Pay attention.

If prisoner moves to his left:
Guard: Can’t you tell your left from your right!

If prisoner doesn’t move:
Guard: Are you deaf! (shoves prisoner)

In psychological terms the purpose to this method is to induce a state called "learned helplessness". This is a mild depression caused by creating situations which are negative and cannot be changed via. actions. Demotivation causes the person to believe that they are unable to rectify the negative situation not because it is inherently out of their control but rather because they are incompetent. The specific part of demotivational management is called deconfirmation. A member of Sovereign Grace did an excellent job describing how this process worked:

Sorry to say this Jen, but the men are only “allowed” to be little gods (The marriage support group used the term “King”) in their homes, because the whole SGM church/culture experience is sooo emasculating. In general, I would agree with the previously cited hypotheses of De-Motivational Management and the Need for Affirmation being applied in a systematic manner against the participants. In our little “speck on the mold spore called SGM” (new term) people’s behaviors and contributions were acknowledged in two manners: some were honored on stage with some sort of dialogue and applause, and some were corrected for being prideful in attempting to contribute to the process/effort. The combination was brutal.

I’ll generically describe a repeated situation in our relationship with SGM. Assume for a moment that we really are indwelt with the Holy Spirit and He is omnipotent and fully capable of motivating us to pursue God’s will and expectations for us. ( I personally do believe that the Holy Spirit is active in our lives.) In that capacity, you are motivated to reach out and “care” for a struggling single mom, friend, or couple. It may be that you are pursuing God’s desire for compassion for that situation and that natural sense of peace moves you forward to provide that care or need, but in the eyes of a “competing leader or member”, who risks not receiving recognition for this same act of service, you are now treading on their turf. While the person that you helped is grateful, and the Holy Spirit gives you a sense of peace, your colleague corrects you for your pride and need to intrude in others’ lives. It is a huge emotional conundrum that gradually builds until you find yourself struggling with seemingly obvious decisions on caring and responding to the needs of others.

This situation repeated itself in dialogues with Pastors on caring for non-believers, responding to a phone call in the middle of the night, helping single mothers in difficult times, organizing a service project, and even assembling maps for a field trip. You want to get behind what God is doing to care for the hurting, but the cost of caring for them will often be hostility, correction for your compassion, and increased accountability for your pride and self centered behaviors. I even saw this occur when a general question was asked at a men’s meeting about the definition of the Gospel. A colleague (care group leader) responded by citing a common definition consistent with one of John’s epistles (perhaps even John 3:16) , but the Pastor wanted the definition “the Story of Christ” and he publically rebuked the man for not knowing the definion of the Gospel. The man was right, but now he was publically proclaimed in front of his peers to be the “village idiot”. (No good deed goes unpunished.)

The emotional consequences of these repeated confrontations build until you find yourself unable to make seemingly simple decisions regarding both moral and practical issues without the intrusion of other leaders into your life/family. Is a need to tighten the family budget a natural response to the rising cost of gasoline or a reprimand of your wife’s home economic skills or a condemnation of your capability as A MAN to provide for your family ? All three, if you’re lucky! Plus it comes with the added bonus of more time spent with your friends examining your latte budget and inadequate contributions to the building fund. but I digress…  (link to original post)

Other aspects is depersonalization actions are not taken by individuls but rather by SG or "leadership" or.... Classically this is done in a corporate setting, “You can substitute ‘I think this is a good idea’ with ‘the idea appears to be good’. Instead of ‘Let me welcome you to the company,’ use ‘The company welcomes you’.” however the same thing can be done in a church and is done by Sovereign Grace. This technique is used to create anxiety and increase emotional distance between leadership and membership. ( see article in The Time of London for a longer discussion of demotivation in a corporate setting).

SG Uncensored has moved to SGMsurvivors.com. I'd urge people breaking away to look there for support.

Interview with Xenos on membership and discipline policies

Since I have to be critical of churches all the time I’m delighted to be able to give a positive review of a church’s disciplinary processes. Xenos Christian Fellowship is located in Columbus Ohio near Ohio State. It was founded from an underground Christian newspaper and has exploded today into a congregation of around 5000 with 800 members that have received formal training and around 60 “home churches”. Home church leaders have had over 200 hours of classroom instruction, that is a level of training that would put them on par with most junior ministers in many denominations. This combination of a central organization with full minstrel training for “smaller churches” is the sort of behavior one usually sees in a denomination and not an individual church. So in effect Xenos is structured as a cross between a large church and a mini denomination, which is what originally led me to take an interest.

In addition to mixing the problems of a church and a denomination there are several other things that make Xenos a fascinating case study. The organization is almost entirely lay, and it is a point of pride how little a church of this size and accomplishment burns in terms of budget. Probably because the church is able to run so efficiently, they are able to afford having a young membership (young people can’t tithe very much) of first generation Christians. They mix a successful middle school and high school youth group with a successful college outreach. 75% of the church are people with no previous church background at all (a church of converts) and 15% transfers, and I would assume (though they don’t indicate) that the remaining 10% are children of current members. This is quite different from the 80-95%, transfer / children of current members commonly found in most evangelical churches. Xenos also practices church discipline frequently and effectively. They make it a core part of their leadership instruction (see links are below)

Finally, Xenos does not have a notion of formal membership, in the sense of a membership card or church covenant. Most church groups (as well as the law) differentiate quite heavily between attendance and membership. In fact leaders in the return to church discipline such as Mark Dever argue that a return to “biblical membership” is required for discipline. A great deal of the interview below will concern itself with the mechanics of how discipline is carried out without this clarity of formal membership.
It should be mentioned this membership informality includes no substantial differentiation between the baptized and the unbaptised, nor any sort of adult profession. This is genuinely unique for Xenos. And as my regular readers unique things generally are worrying signs. But again I’m hard pressed to see any intent to create an injustice in this system. It seems to be a reasonable attempt to address the community they are called to serve and I was unable to find any large gapping holes created.
I’m going to contact Mark Dever after this is posted and hopefully we can see a response. It appears we may have a counter case to his hypothesis.


Xenos provides information on their disciple:

• How Does Xenos Handle Church Discipline?
• The New Testament Pattern of Church Discipline
• Practicing Church Discipline in Xenos Fellowship

Leadership and Authority discusses the scope of discipline at Xenos.

So to summarize the many ways Xenos is a truly interesting case study. In terms of discipline being effective they suffer from many of the worst possible problems:
• They don’t have a well defined membership in particular it is not a covenant church
• Their membership is young
• Their membership often did not grow up in conservative Christian homes
• Their membership does not have long term strong ties to Xenos
• They aren’t a member of a denomination
• They have no business ties linking their membership to the church

On the other hand they also have many of the problems of a denomination further compounded by the fact that:
• Home church leaders are inexperienced by pastoral standards and are often disciplining for the first time.
• The relationships with the home church are very close and personal.
• The home churches are informal and thus lack the sorts of institutional supports a denomination can often depend on

To investigate Xenos, I contacted a member of their staff Jessica Lowery to ask questions regarding the details of Xenos’ procedures on discipline. Dennis McCallum lead pastor and one of the founders of Xenos stepped forward and answered the questions. This discussion on discipline will be rather unique in that Pastor McCallum was being asked questions appropriate to a denominational leader (like cross restoration policy) as well general church level policies on discipline. Throughout the interview Pastor McCallum presented well thought out considered and rather humane answers to some of the most difficult question I could throw at him.

The original material is quite disorganized since there was multiple back and forth rounds. I have freely reorganized the order of questions and answers however I have quoted the answers exactly. Further, I have vetted these answers and corresponding questions by Pastor McCallum prior to publishing on the blog, to make sure these accurately reflect his views and even the phraseology he prefers. These statements should be seen as written responses to an “on the record” interview.

Statements of explanation will be in black, McCallum’s answers in blue and questions in green.

Membership:

You possibly killed a bunch of my questions, with the comment about "75% of our membership". It was my understanding that Xenos doesn't actually have a notion of membership; a person who regularly attends a home church is as much a member as they are ever going to be , is this correct? I'm going to assume in the below that this is the case (that is people are not "members"), but if there has been a change (or I am misunderstanding) then adjust responses according . I'll drop my disciplining a non member type questions till the next round however.

Yes. But we still call them members in the sense that they are members of the body of Christ, and have membered themselves with us. It's true that we do not have "membership". but we were interested in our composition after reading a Barna book, so we sent out surveys to home group leaders asking about the people who regularly attend their groups. that's how we got the composition information.

In terms of membership the question was how Xenos would handle borderline cases as it does not have a clear line between a member and a non-member. Below is a discussion of the basic policies. The discussion assumes you have read the links above, or are familiar with discipline. The focus, as mentioned above is on discipline in a non membership context. It consists of a series of closely related cases where I am attempting to draw fine distinctions by changing the parameters slightly. These sorts of questions are very difficult for church leadership since they are designed to lay on grey boundary between black and white. They are specific to the church, what is grey for one is not grey for another. They expose the underlying philosophy quite well and any contradictions in the policy. I think it’s worth commenting that Pastor McCallum and Xenos did an excellent job on these.

I'm not following. Do they at any point ask to be members or declare themselves to be members of Xenos? What can a member do that a non member cannot do? How does one become a member rather than just a regular attender...? Most churches would argue that a non member can't actually be excommunicated. I hope a hypothetical is OK, to sort of separate this out. I'm assuming unrepentant cocaine use is seen as an excommunicatable offensive (if not just change the underlying sin). Here are a bunch of situations all relatively similar. Can these people be excommunicated, excluded, would they be... (just trying to address the jurisdictional issues here so assume calls to repentance are fruitless if given):

First, we don’t use the term excommunication. It’s not biblical, but a Catholic concept having to do with not being allowed to take mass. We refer to removing people from fellowship, which seems to be the focus in the New Testament. But yes. Any professed believer who is attending and won’t leave off coke could be removed.

Alice has attended a small church 5 times and admits she regularly uses cocaine. She refuses to stop. Everyone considers her still visiting.

That would probably also be the case with us.

Beth only attends central meeting but others who attend know she regularly uses cocaine. She refuses to stop.

We usually don’t bother visitors at CT. Home church would be a different matter, but still it would take a longer period and more persuasion before formal discipline would come into play.

Cathy has attended a small church for 2 years, but claims she is not saved. Cathy has had an adult baptism. She regularly uses cocaine and has refused to stop.

This would probably be a case for intense counseling, but could eventually lead to more forceful confrontation.

Doris has attended a small church for 2 years has not had an adult baptism and claims she is not saved. She regularly...

Wouldn’t make any difference

Eleanor claims to be saved, has attended a small church for 2 years and has had an adult baptism but claims her membership is with her hometown church and she is just a affiliate member of your church. She regularly...

Not good enough. She would be given an ultimatum.

Francis claims to be saved, has attended a small church for 2 years and has not had an adult baptism but claims her membership is with her hometown church and she is just a affiliate member of your church. She regularly...

Same.

Evidence and standards for conviction

What is the standard of proof in terms of discipline? That is how much doubt can there be about the actual sin, before a person can be disciplined?

Most discipline cases involve someone who admits the sin. We would not feel comfortable disciplining someone if we doubted his or her guilt at all. Usually there are multiple incidents involved over a period of time. In some cases, someone else has ratted the person out. The fact that the person actually did the sin must be established, and I think it always is. I can’t think of a case where the person didn’t admit to the facts.

Let me clarify this a bit. Generally there are 3 types of disputes regarding guilt. Disputes of fact (which you addressed), disputes of law (is something a sin or not) and disputes of application (does this particular fact qualify under this particular law). Its interesting that you haven't had disputes of fact do you know why?

We have had disputes, but these would need to be resolved before any discipline meeting would occur. If the facts haven’t been established by admission or multiple witnesses, we would not move to formal discipline.

This one comes off sounding more like a criticism then a question. I apologize in advance for being unable to phrase it better. The standard for conviction seems rather low (simple majority, vote at the same meeting as the presentation of charges and evidence, informed that central leadership agrees with the discipline, non neutral venue, right of the leader to exclude members -- vote stacking, minority required to follow the majority, etc...), I think I could probably convict any attendee of Xenos of the Kennedy assassination with that trial procedure. Why has Xenos chosen such a low burden? Is the goal simply to block the most egregious abuses and otherwise give the home church leaders discretion, or is there some other reason?

Again, the question at the meeting is not whether the sin has occurred or whether the person did it. These are already admitted. The question is what is going to be the best response—counseling within the church, or exclusion. Majority is a standard established in 2 Cor. 2 as sufficient for making this decision.

Degree of Punishment:

There are claims that Xenos practices shunning which is unusual among Baptists outside the Mennonite tradition. On the website there does not appear to be clear guidelines for shunning. What is the reason behind this?

We don’t agree that we practice shunning. Shunning is usually interpreted to mean the person is left within the group, but nobody will talk to or fellowship with them. It also implies complete cutting off of communication and interaction. If the person is put out of fellowship, Paul says believers should not “eat with such a one” (1 Cor. 5:11ff) which we take to mean casual fellowship. We would not discourage meeting to talk, as advised in 2 Thess. 3, and remind people to “not treat him as an enemy, but to admonish him as a brother”

What is the extent of the disfellowshipping in practice?

Members are urged to not fellowship in a way that would bring comfort to the one under discipline, causing him/her to feel no reason to return to fellowship. This usually means not going out socially, etc. unless it is to discuss restoration. No rules about not doing business with the person. Also, families are usually considered an exception. We realize they will have social contact in the context of their family activities.

What if a member refuses to cut communication an excommunicated member?

Nothing we can do about that, but disapprove

Given that Ohio has case law is particularly hostile to shunning are there any additional legal protections you need to use when dealing with adults with their entire family and business associates in Xenos?

Breaking off casual fellowship is not an action taken by the church corporation, but by the individuals in a group as they feel led.

Discipline across churches

How much is each home church required to respect the decisions of the others. The website seems a bit back and forth on whether a person that is excluded from one home church are excluded from them all until such time as they are restored by the first. What if one of the home church leaders comes to believe another's discipline is genuinely in error? Can they cross restore even if the disciplining home church objects?

No, they cannot. They have to be resolved with the disciplining church. Only exception would be where discipline happened so long ago the original church is no longer intact.

Does Xenos respect the discipline of other churches? If so what churches qualify? (i.e. only Baptist, any protest, any Trinitarian Christian (Catholic excommunication), any Christian (LDS or JW churches), any discipline (a declaration of Cherum be upheld)).

In principle, yes, but only for evangelical Bible believing churches. Also their cause of discipline would have to be one we recognize as legitimate.

Does Xenos assume appellate jurisdiction (that is if the person argues they are wrongly excommunicated will Xenos investigate?)

Yes.

Will Xenos cross restore on repentance (i.e. allow a person who is genuinely repentant and willing to accept Xenos oversight that is however the excommunicated member of another church whose discipline Xenos respects to join a small group, without their original church restoring them).

We would call on them to seek resolution with the disciplining church. If we felt the church was being unreasonable, we would restore them.

Restoration

Can an excommunicated person be rebaptised at any point? That is if an excommunicated member believes they were not actually a Christian during the time of their excommunication can they request baptism or must they go through restoration? If they must go through restoration, do you recognize apostasy as separate from unrepentant sin or is apostasy just another sin?

They could be rebaptized if their testimony is that they were not a Christian at the time. Apostasy is just another sin.

Given that Xenos has a very young membership this one may not come up. How lasting are the effects of exclusion? For example, assume you discovered that a person who was a good quality member of a small church for 2 years had been disciplined 15 years earlier for a sin at the time (non reoccurring). Some church would excommunicate either on principle or for the deception. In others there would there be a general tendency towards restoration given that the underlying issue being so far in the past and that discipline in this case is likely to be harmful. Assuming you would go along with restoration what about things that might change within a decade. For example someone excluding as an undergraduate for persistent fornication that seeks to return during graduate school, now married to another woman.

We would respect someone's change in lifestyle as fruit in keeping with repentance; and show them grace.

Right to Appeal

One of the things I’m always writing about (example) is the importance of the appeals process for discipline. While its obvious there is quite a bit of oversight, I failed to note during the initial Q&A there was in fact an appeal. The correction is explained below.

There doesn't seem to be a genuine appeals process. Has this actually caused problems where people have continued to argue their innocence and church members (outside their home church) continue to believe it?

This doesn’t come up, because we would probably not exclude anyone who denied they have done wrong, unless there were eye-witnesses. The person does definitely have the right to appeal to the elders if they felt they were being falsely accused. We have never had a case like this. If they feel the discipline is wrong, they can ask for a grievance board to be convened. Current Ministry Teams at bottom. also mentioned in Leadership and Authority in the Church.

Have you had disciplinary schisms and if so what happened and how did you handle them?

If you mean schisms resulting from disagreement over discipline, yes. These have been small, and people usually either leave or get over it. We do not allow them to campaign in the church to overthrow what was decided.

Goth Music

I just discovered another group which has been around for a long time: Within Temptation. Which reminded me of a point I've thought of making on this blog regarding Evanescence. There is a bit of a renaissance going on with regard to Christian music that with the exception of the emerging church is going completely unnoticed by the broader Christian community.

In 1959 African American Chicago musicians like Ray Charles, Little Richard and James Brown combined the gospel music with R&B to create a new form or rock called soul. Musically there was inspiration from gospel, but lyrically soul music was about the same themes as rock is typically about. With goth music there is often a rock sound, while lyrically inspiration seems to come (perhaps subconsciously) from hymns. Arguably a great deal of goth music is a hymn put to rock music. For example Our Solumn Hour by Within Temptation (Santus espritus is latin for holy spirit):

Sanctus espiritus redeem us from our solemn hour
Sanctus espiritus insanity is all around us
Sanctus espiritus! Sanctus espiritus! Sanctus espiritus!

In my darkest hours I could not foresee
that the tide could turn so fast to this degree
Can't believe my eyes
How can you be so blind?
Is the heart of stone, no empathy inside?
Time keeps on slipping away and we haven't learned
So in the end now what have we gained?

Sanctus espiritus, redeem us from our solemn hour
Sanctus espiritus, insanity is all around us
Sanctus espiritus, is this what we deserve,
can we brake free from chains of never-ending agony?

Are they themselve's to blame, the misery, the pain?
Didn't we let go, allowed it, let it grow?
If we can't restrain the beast which dwells inside
it will find it's way somehow, somewhere in time
Will we remember all of the suffering
Cause if we fail it will be in vain

Sanctus espiritus, redeem us from our solemn hour
Sanctus espiritus, insanity is all around us
Sanctus espiritus, is this what we deserve,
can we brake free from chains of never-ending agony?

Sanctus espiritus, Sanctus espiritus

Evanescene's Fallen (which has sold around 20 million copies) is essentially an exploration of salvation (Arminian theology), though the band has played that down the religious language is striking. The top single from the album Bring Me To Life reads like a salvation prayer (well actually its poetically far better than most of them): just to excerpt the song (which has overlapping lyrics) the chorus reads as follows with the male chorus in in parenthesis and the female chorus without parenthesis:

(Wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
before I come undone
(Save me)
save me from the nothing I’ve become

Bring me to life
(I've been living a lie, there's nothing inside)
Bring me to life

Christianity today has covered the issue of Evanescene's lyrics twice (on the band's lyrics, and on the group Skillet). Another example from the album is the song Tourniquet which was originally authored by Soul Embraced (part of the Christian death metal movement):

I tried to kill the pain
but only brought more
so much more
I lay dying
and I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal
I'm dying, praying, bleeding and screaming
am I too lost to be saved
am I too lost?

my God my tourniquet
return to me salvation
my God my tourniquet
return to me salvation

do you remember me
lost for so long
will you be on the other side
or will you forget me
I'm dying, praying, bleeding and screaming
am I too lost to be saved
am I too lost?

my God my tourniquet
return to me salvation
my God my tourniquet
return to me salvation

I want to die!!!

my God my tourniquet
return to me salvation
my God my tourniquet
return to me salvation

my wounds cry for the grave
my soul cries for deliverance
will I be denied Christ tourniquet
my suicide

I'd invite readers to comment. Clearly the goth movement is one of the ones that has come under the greatest deal of attack and music an issue that children are frequently disciplined (at least at home for). Its hard to argue lyrics like the above are not glorifying.

Moreover I've even seen gospel outreach towards goths be attacked. For example Karen Ward (abbess of apostle's church in Seattle, leader / one of the founders of the emerging church movement) runs a very successful outreach to goth teens / 20-somethings called the Santorum Mass which is essentially a 16th century high episcopal mass done very traditional, very high church style (podcast link). The kids love it, and it consistently draws huge crowds of people that would otherwise not go to church. I would consider this to be successful evangelism. Yet this has been specifically cited as an example of the "engage but don't critique flaw" of the emerging church. I suspect most readers would agree with the "successful evangelism" position. And if so then the fact that the goth movement is spontaneously creating fantastical scores for prayers and hymns should be something to be applauded.

Greenspun's 10 Laws

Well.... my latest posts have been angry and serious. Maybe time for a change of pace. One of my little pet peeves is that Greenspun only had a 10th law and never did the other 9. So time to create a fake set of the 10 laws. I not even sure who among my readers is going to get the joke but its not a rant so enjoy:

Oh and please feel free to add any good ones to help co-create this.

Law 10 (Greenspun's 10th law): Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.

Law 9 (Norvig's variant): Any sufficiently complicated Common Lisp program contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of Prolog.

Law 8 (Haskell version): Any sufficiently advanced type system includes an incomplete and twisted subset of Scheme

Law 7 (Strong's version of the 10th): Any sufficiently complex data will be organized to contain a functional programming language

Law 6 (Ozen's refutation): Anyone who teaches and practices in a field still in its infancy has an informally specified, ad-hoc and bug-ridden collection of rules that often amuse but rarely enlighten.

Law 5 (Bone's Law): To fully understand any programming language, you must first implement a Lisp in it

Law 4 (Python Law): Most successful programming languages were invented by a brilliant programmer, Lisp is built into of the structure of the Universe.

Law 3 (Clarke's 3rd law): Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Law 2 (Law of variables): On a long enough time scale, all variables are temporary

Law 1 (Zawinski's Expansion Law): Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

Stepping off the bus

I waited a day to post this to check my feelings and they haven't changed. The discussion on Domestic Discipline went very badly. My original interest in anti-Patriarchy was accidental this blog picked up traffic when I explored the Jen Epstein (original and follow-up) case and I went where the need was. While I am still willing to help people who are fighting church discipline in Patriarchal churches, and I don't retract one word of Defense against Patriarchy I'm today publicly breaking with the anti-patriarchy crowd.

An argument has come forth again and again that Patriarchal churches encourage domestic violence. Christian Domestic Discipline was often used as an example of this encouragement.
This has now come to be a deliberate lie spread with malice and forethought. That is a strong charge that demands clarity and I will move to that directly below.

First off it is a lie. It is clear that Patriarchal churches are no more tolerant of DDers than they are of any other sexual minority, they show the same hostility and persecution. It is clear that every time I've asked people about this topic in their own churches whether the activity was either encouraged or even meaningfully addressed the answer is no. It is clear that patriarchal churches deal with domestic violence badly but they do consider it a sin. It is clear that every single example examined of people participating in CDD/DD do so in a fully consensual way completely in line with their cousins in the wider BDSM community. Quite simple Patriarchal churches do not encourage CDD/DD and CDD/DD is not domestic violence.

Second it is deliberate. On numerous occasions I've attempted when this issue has come up to raise the issue that CDD/DD is not domestic violence. Every time that has occurred there has been censorship. I raised the issue on this blog and faced controversy about even allowing for links. Yet the claim continues. When confronted with counter evidence most of the people spreading this lie simply refuse to discuss it.

Those that did discuss it that had pushed this agenda have in general done so with a level of maturity I would understandable but disappointing in a middle school child but intolerable in a high school age child. Without exception taking part in these discussions are parents and the vast vast majority are over 40.

Still, I struggled with my conscience here. Was I really asking too much in asking Fundamentalists to discuss this topic like adults. Was I simply imposing my own values and demanding they conform to them? The claim was being made over and over again that to discuss such a thing is inappropriately and immoral, and I was wrong to be doing so. I've thought about this and I have come to the conclusion I was not asking to much. I remembered an incident from a decade ago which was similar:

When I taught bio statistics there was a section in the book with a large number of problems which about plant reproduction, that assumed a detailed understanding. Almost without exception the students had forgotten how plants have sex. So in teaching the material I always had to do a refresher on plant reproduction and I always used as my basis human reproduction since it was one piece of related materials that I was sure the students were at least somewhat familiar with. The lecture was explicit and graphic much more so then I have been asking for the last six months.

For example to explain the various purposes of certain chemical reactions I used the analogy of male ejaculate and its effects on the vagina. I walked through in detail the production of male ejaculate and the corresponding chemicals. I did so with a diagram of the male and female reproductive system on a projected slides. At one point there was a question a type of plant where the pollon could fall down the wrong tube and I made an analogy to anal sex.

There were muslim woman with head coverings, fundamentalists, evangelicals, jehovah's witnesses, Sikh's who were in that lecture. They took notes, asked questions and did a nice job on a problem set that took them about 4 hours. That is, quite simply secular and religious student alike were able to engage with and absorb material about sex in an age appropriate manner. They had no problems there were no complaints, and the students certainly had no problems complaining about many other issues. I had a greater number of students turn in that assignment then most and the grades were higher, secular and religious students alike.

So no I don't think I'm asking too much. I have no choice but to conclude that there is simply a reluctance to honestly admit that what was claimed is occuring is not in fact occuring. The why brings us to the next point.

It is malicious. Patriarchal leaders have continuously rebuffed the assertion that their teachings lead to an uptick in domestic violence. CDD/DD seems to be an effective propaganda tool in convincing people that patriarchy can lead to domestic violence. That is this assertion is designed to humiliate patriarchal leaders. The fact that it further victimizes a sexual minority is seen as being of no consequence.

And finally forethought. This topic has come up before on multiple occasions in multiple forums. Many of the people spreading this lie have been challenged on it before. To spread a lie because one refuses to hear the truth constitutes forethought.

I've tolerated homophobia because I understand that from their perspective it is not a lie. But this issue has been bothering me for six months. I've tried my best to assume good faith.

If the anti-Patriarchy bus has gotten to the point that it is willing to defame Patriarchy with deliberate lies, its time for me to step off. In no way should this be seen as an endorsement of patriarchy. Their one case of this does not begin to rise to the level of the dozens or hundreds on the other side. But for me at least I can't see enough of a difference between the two shades of gray.