"PASTORAL THEOLOGY & PRACTICE" PROF. HAROLD SENKBEIL & DR. RICHARD WARNECK CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY: CAPTION FIRST, INC. P.O. BOX 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 1-800-825-7234 * * * * * This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings * * * * * >> ERIC: I know you have already spoken a number of times about excommunication, but would you be willing to briefly review this subject? >> DR. WARNECK: Excommunication. Red flag. Word that's terribly charged with much feeling and emotion and, unfortunately, negative emotion. Sad thing when a matter comes to this point because it's the church's affirmation of a negative result that we never intended to happen, that a Christian who has sinned in a public way has not, for all of the care that the church has attempted to give, has not repented and perhaps is more entrenched and more belligerent than ever. That's a sad time. And, yet, the church has to reckon with that and to say, as Jesus indicates in Matthew 18 that such an individual is really not part of the community of faith. So the church, then, acts publicly in saying that and declaring that the individual is no longer a part of the Christian community. The act of excommunication. What leads up to that is that whole process of care. And we just walked through those steps again from the time that the fall of a Christian becomes known, an individual Christian may reach out to rescue an erring Christian. If that's of no�avail, other Christians come to the fore�and other individuals reach out to the individual; and if that is of no avail, then the church does. And then if that is of no avail, the church has no alternative except to declare the individual under the major ban is what we're speaking of here. The minor ban in our pastoral theology terminology is that term, minor ban, is the action of the pastor, maybe in an instance like we're speaking of during the course of that would have to say to an individual, "if you're not repentant and you're going to continue sinning deliberately, it's not well for you to attend the Lord's Supper. You may be taking of the good blessing of the Lord and His forgiveness through His body and blood, and you would risk simply profaning that which the Lord wants to give and wants to do for you. And it would not be good for you for the pastor to permit you to continue to do that under these circumstances. So maybe it would be well to stay away from the Lord's Supper for now." That's supposed to have a Sol you Terry effect on this erring Christian, and the pastor exercises that minor ban. But now we're speaking about something different here. The matter has gone kind of to the close. And the congregation exercises the major ban, which is what we're speaking about, excommunication. We should discuss briefly how the church goes about this. Well, most of the time the church comes together and there is a resolution put before the assembly. And by unanimous vote, the congregation declares this individual excommunicated. If there are persons in the Assembly�-- and many times there is in these situations who object to the whole procedure and they're going to raise a lot of static and they're going to obstruct the church from taking action which probably it should take�-- then those individuals should be held accountable either to go, once again, to the erring party and you see how you can help this individual confront his or her sin so that the church and the pastor can speak the absolution or restore the individual. But they don't want to do that, let us say. They simply want to obstruct the proceedings. Well, our former practice would say then those individuals should be admonished for that. So, when you have a real belligerent situation and the church must necessarily act, then nothing should obstruct that. And the church takes its vote. And the action is done. And, really, I don't know if it's feasible today in modern times, but in former times, this action was reported in the worship services the following Sunday with a prayer for the person excommunicated just extending the church's care just one more step. But then questions arose about how does the church respond to a person who's been excommunicated? Oh, boy, is this ever a sensitive subject area, Eric. I could tell you some communities of the old German Lutherans years ago. Let's say a certain county where there are numerous Lutheran congregations. In fact, 70 percent of the community are Lutheran people. If a person was excommunicated from one of those congregations, for all practical purposes, socially he or she was ostracized. Terrible thing. So a pastor has to counsel Christians in the congregation, "look, the church took the action in the instance of an erring individual, excommunicated him or her, but we should not withhold from that person common courtesy. Christian love still is the supreme virtue, as St. Paul indicated in I Corinthians 13, the supremacy of Christian love. So excommunication doesn't give any of us the right to pile on with unloving and unkind gestures and isolation and the like, no. Let us show Christian courtesy and kindness to such an individual. That may be blessed somehow." May a person excommunicated attend the worship services? Pastors take different positions on this. Some pastors believe following the instance in I Corinthians 5 where the Apostle Paul first asked the Corinthian congregation to deal fiercely with the man who was found to be in an incestuous relationship with his stepmother: Put the guy out! You notice later in second Corinthians, you have a different tact on that where Paul is urging the congregation to restore that fallen individual, presumably there was some repentance that occurred in there. So our position is and my view is: It's only the view of one, but we should permit the individual to attend worship services and hear the Word of God. I don't believe the Holy Spirit's going to work in that life, if that life is so predisposed to come back to church, let them be there. Let him hear the Word of God, let him sing the hymns and let him join in the prayers, fine. That could be something very positive. Coming to the Lord's table? That would be a different matter. It would seem there the minor ban ought to be still in place until the individual comes and is actually repented of their sins and can avail themselves of that precious gift of the Lord's body and blood there for the remission of those sins. Okay. These are a couple of side notes on this issue. Now, there's one more thing to say here, particularly in our contemporary times. What we've been speaking about here may be viewed as very impractical and very unlikely to happen. That's possible. We're living in a culture of fierce individualism. And perhaps it is true. When a person is admonished, they will sooner thumb their noses at the church and say, "well, if that's the way you feel about things, I'm picking up my marbles and I'm leaving. That's it. That's the end. Bye. Don't contact me any farther." So they bolt, so to speak. All right. That can occur. Then the church will have to figure out ways, maybe over time, things settle down, the dust settles a little bit, to initiate communication with an erring person like that. Maybe they will be effective, maybe they won't. But what I really want to address here is where a person stays in the situation but is very resistant to the care that the church is offering. Here is how this goes. Christian in the congregation is being admonished. A Christian in the congregation is being admonished by fellow Christians and the response is "hey, this is none of your business! What I do in my life is my business and that's no concern of yours. And that's the way it's going to be. So I'm going to stay in this church. I'm a member of the church. But I'm going to do just what I want to do. After all, what I do, what I say is only between me and God. Certainly not between me and you, people in the church. It's between me and God alone." Well, how do we respond to that kind of very volatile attitude. Well, I think there is a response and it's this. Here's an individual overtaken in public sin and the church responds and says "well, my friend, it's very true that you, as you say, as all of us have to say, we are responsible. It is between us and God, indeed. But, friend, I want you to know that the same Lord to whom we are all responsible has given the authority to his church to declare sins forgiven. And if you are saying to us that you'll confess your sins whenever you wish to God, well then why not confess them also to the Christian church? Whom the Lord has given not only the right and privilege but also the authority to declare that in his name that sins be forgiven and forgotten? Why don't you accord the church that opportunity so that the church can be at peace over this matter and you can be at peace over the matter?" So, Eric, what I'm trying to say is the caring congregation should not just be rebuffed so easily. The church in its ministry is in its rights to care for an individual. And perhaps in some way this can be communicated to the erring Christian, and all of them can be at peace eventually as members of the same Lord Jesus Christ. * * * * * This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings * * * * *