User:Mennonot/sandbox

Section of Shunning that was removed in 2015 due to lack of sources. See removal edit here:

Anabaptism
Shunning occurs in Old Order Amish and some Mennonite churches.

Shunning is only practiced against persons who joined the church through adult baptism. Family members who never joined the church are not shunned. Upon taking instruction classes, each applicant must make a confession to uphold shunning of all excommunicated adult members, and also submit to being shunned if they are excommunicated. The stated intention is not to punish, but to be used in love to win the member back by showing them their error. (Ref Johns Hopkins Press, below). When a member is excommunicated, shunning continues until the individual's death unless he repents. Repentance is always possible, even after very severe sins or crimes, even murder.

Shunning can be particularly painful for the shunned individuals in these denominations, which are generally very close-knit, as the shunned person in extreme cases may have no significant social contact with anyone other than those in their denomination.

The Amish call shunning Meidung, the German word for avoidance. Shunning was a key issue of disagreement in the Amish-Mennonite split. Former Amish Ruth Irene Garrett provides an account of Amish shunning in her community from perspective of shunned individuals in Crossing Over: One Woman's Escape from Amish Life. Amish shunning is also the subject of popular fiction novels. Different Amish communities vary in the severity and strictness of shunning employed.

The Mennonite ban does not usually involve shunning, but excommunicated members are banned from participation in communion. A few Mennonite groups do practice shunning, or have in the past. Mainstream and progressive Mennonites either do not shun, or employ less extreme forms of shunning. Some very conservative Mennonite churches use shunning to exclude excommunicated members like the Amish.

Historically, the acceptance of this practice as a form of communal discipline dates to a meeting of Anabaptist leaders in February 1527, just two years after they broke away from Huldrych Zwingli in Zurich. Article 2 of their Schleitheim Confession says:


 * The ban shall be employed with all those who have given themselves over to the Lord, to walk after [Him] in His commandments; those who have been baptized into the one body of Christ, and let themselves be called brothers or sisters, and still somehow slip and fall into error and sin, being inadvertently overtaken. The same [shall] be warned twice privately and the third time be publicly admonished before the entire congregation according to the command of Christ (Matthew 18). But this shall be done according to the ordering of the Spirit of God before the breaking of bread. so that we may all in one spirit and in one love break and eat from one bread and drink from one cup.