Why New Calvinist Church Discipline is Against American Laws
There is something that everybody is missing in regard to so-called “Redemptive Church Discipline.” The New Calvinist movement is a return to authentic Calvinism. I read the Calvin Institutes almost daily, and I can tell you that the New Calvinists are making every effort to conform to every detail thereof. It is almost as if the Calvin Institutes are a higher authority than the Bible.
But there is a problem. Whether the Calvin Institutes or the Westminster Confession, those documents were prepared for a church/state venue. American laws are based on the separation of church and state. During the time that European government was in bed with the Reformation, the church could compel individuals to do certain things under threat of government force.
While seeking to have that same authority in the lives of American parishioners without government force, they are improvising through other means resulting in the violation of American civil liberties. When it gets right down to it, according to American law, you can’t restrict a person from the commission of a legal act by threatening to defame them publically. Church covenants with articles stating that parishioners cannot leave a church without the permission of the elders may be a violation of the law in and of itself. It’s a threat regarding loss of reputation if you exercise your legal right to leave a church. New Calvinist elders routinely tell parishioners that they cannot leave a church for doctrinal reasons. That’s against the law.
Furthermore, the so-called “Matthew 18 process” almost always ends up in excommunication if someone vacates their membership in-between one of the steps. I understand that they may be avoiding the issue in that way, but you absolutely can’t humiliate them publically for refusing to stay in the process. Leaving a church is not illegal; therefore, you can’t disparage them publically. Threatening to publically humiliate a person if they vacate membership (or any other legal act) is considered to be coercion under the kidnapping statute in most states.
I am presently doing research in preparation for a home church model. I am amazed to see how the New Testament model has a peaceful solution for almost every scenario. But in regard to this subject, the crux is fellowship versus authority. If a person leaves a church in the midst of a church discipline issue (for lack of a better term), they have merely vacated fellowship with the assembly on their own. That’s the only end result anyway if you’re in America, no? Trying to have authority over that person without government backing is where things get iffy.
Moreover, in many situations, the elders of a church really have no legal authority to ban a person from church property unless they are causing a disturbance. This has led to many ugly confrontations and legal challenges. A private home is different. If a home fellowship doesn’t want a person there for whatever reason, the homeowner can have the person removed by the local police if necessary. This is just one of many examples where home fellowships don’t find themselves in legal dilemmas.
The primary reason is that home fellowships are based on, well, fellowship and not authority. Breaking fellowship versus having some sort of authority over the person are two very different things, and the former circumvents a lot of unnecessary drama.
paul
Addendum:
“Telling it to the church” would only involve telling it to the home fellowship of maybe 20 people. Somebody showing up at another home in that network is probably going to incite a phone call to the original fellowship anyway. Secondly, it cannot be restated enough that if a “member” leaves in the middle of the Matthew 18 process, the same result of no fellowship is accomplished anyway. The institutional church creates a bunch of unnecessary drama because of its penchant for authority.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Reblogged this on Clearcreek Chapel Watch.
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“It’s a threat regarding loss of reputation if you exercise your legal right to leave a church. New Calvinist elders routinely tell parishioners that they cannot leave a church for doctrinal reasons. That’s against the law.”
Paul, If they signed anything while a member there, they might have no legal leg to stand on. They VOLUNTARILY submitted to the rules of the organization. There is a legal way to leave that could make them culpable of interfering with your civil rights but it has to be done right. The “membership covenants” (among other names) that people sign have been vetted by lawyers. (We even know Ken Sande of peacemakers has said this!)
It is extremely hard to sue a church for many reasons but one is they are not under the same laws as other organization’s and people join voluntarily. . As I have seen in the past (have family who is legal counsel to mega churches and they are sued constantly but rarely get to court) but the better way is to SUE an individual in the church who is harassing you or defaming you. But even that is hard to prove because they are very good at what they do and you rarely have the documented means to prove anything.
These people know what they are doing and people who have not been properly informed think they are signing something in a loving community at first because they are the masters of love bombing. They have no idea what they are getting into. The key is don’t sign anything and if signing is a test of membership, don’t join. And NEVER meet with any leaders of the church without someone with you. Just remember, they are almost always star chambers and they are prepared.
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Lydia,
A church covenant shows intent on the part of the church in writing. They get away with it because it has never been legally challenged. Bottom line: you can’t control the legal activity of any person by threatening to disparage their reputation. It is a clear violation of federal civil rights and coercion (a form of kidnapping) in most states. I am not speaking completely out of school here–this ministry is presently consulting with an attorney on this, and the first test will be accruing in the future. People are remaining “faithful” members in many of these churches in order to maintain their reputations. That’s illegal.
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And here I was a little bit bitter that I was raised in the CoC where they teach you that you go to hell if you miss one church service. But man, things could have been much worse. At least when I decided to leave I could do so without having to worry about lawyering up. Their take on membership is that God adds everyone to the church at baptism, and there are no documents of any sort on membership, and if you just show up claiming to have been baptized in another CoC, they let you become a member on the spot. And when you leave, they may send some guys to talk to you and try and convince you to come back, maybe send a visiting preacher when he comes around, but they’ll give up if you just make it clear it ain’t happening. I can’t imagine what kind of mess I’d have been in if I was raised in a Calvinist church with a “memership covenant” and stalker-elders who refuse to give up. Man oh man! Makes me glad I was raised in one particular brand of heresy over another. The other great thing was, they could only ruin my reputation with the people in “the brotherhood” and since the extremely separationist churches of Christ are divided into so many different brotherhoods, and since they have no dealings with other denominations, and since we had to drive across town to even attend this one, and there are only 2 other very small ones in town of this type, they couldn’t ruin my reputation with anyone but themselves, and it was instantly ruined with them anyway when I left because, well, I left. I’m starting to really like the hand of cards I was dealt.
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“Furthermore, the so-called ‘Matthew 18 process’ almost always ends up in excommunication if someone vacates their membership in-between one of the steps.”
But if they’ve already left, what good is excommunication? Do these guys fancy themselves as the Roman Catholic church or something?
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Paul,
If you remember the “kerfluffle” from early last year with Mars Hill Church in Seattle (an extreme Calvinist church) that started with a young man being excommunicated, and telling his story to Matthew Paul Turner, I was that young man.
I’ve wondered often if there were any kind of legal recourse against them, or if the rules changed due to the press the blog post received.
Any thoughts or advice?
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Andrew,
Keep in touch and I will let you know as we are working with an attorney on this issue. I am also going to try to meet with some district attorneys about this issue as well. In my study on NT church models, I am amazed at how the leadership/fellowship model avoids all legal questions while the authority model requires a legal contract to “prevent” lawsuits. But legally, they can’t. A contract to allow defamation as a control mechanism is not a valid contract. And no, if anything, a blog post series would help a civil case immensely.
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Andrew,
Keep in touch and I will let you know as we are working with an attorney on this issue. I am also going to try to meet with some district attorneys about this issue as well. In my study on NT church models, I am amazed at how the leadership/fellowship model avoids all legal questions while the authority model requires a legal contract to “prevent” lawsuits. But legally, they can’t. A contract to allow defamation as a control mechanism is not a valid contract. And no, if anything, a blog post series would help a civil case immensely.
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Paul,
Thank you for this post. If you remember the “kerfluffle” involving Church Discipline and Mars Hill Church in Seattle (an extreme Calvinist church) early last year where a young man was excommunicated after refusing to follow an abusive Plan of Discipline, and talked to Matthew Paul Turner about it, I was that young man.
I’ve often wondered if there was an legal recourse against them, or if the rules changed due to the press that story received.
Thoughts or ideas?
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“The last thing we did, to make sure we had informed consent, was send out a letter to everyone who did not sign the covenant. It said, even though we have not received a written covenant from you, we will interpret your continued attendance at our church, beyond a specified date, as your affirmation and consent to these policies.” (http://pastortimgraceslo.blogspot.com/2010/02/ken-sande-on-covenant-membership.html)
The more I read on these kinds of practices, the more I understand why millennials want nothing to do with churches. As if just breathing doesn’t generate enough legal problems by itself, now we have to have churches trying to bind their creeds and confessions on us by sneaky lawyer tactics? Lord help us!
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Paul I will be cheering on ANY challenge to these membership covenants. I pray the courts see right through them as SCAMS. I am also praying that congress takes away churches special non public reporting tax exempt status at some point. Let us see pastoring and big buildings become not so advantageous. Let us pay our way and be transparent as other corporate non profit entities have to do.
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Oh, they see through it. Getting them motivated is the issue. We are trying to hammer out a procedure for filing criminal charges against elders in such cases. In some states it qualifies as blackmail, and in others, as I have said, coercion under state kidnapping laws. On a Federal level, it is a violation of civil liberties. This should be no surprise as this construct comes from church/state polity. This is why churches need attorneys that parishioners are paying for.
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Andrew, I remember reading that blog post about you. Clear something up for me….didn’t they make your discipline very public within their large online community? I got the sense you were VERY slandered/defamed even after confessing.
Me thinks you might want to talk to the ACLU. Just to get a feel for it.
What was done to you by Mars Hill is insidious. You did the right thing going public even though I know it had to be hard. I would not give up on a legal challenge. They drug your name through the mud to shore themselves up.
You know, you can show a pattern of behavior with how they treated the Petrys and all those docs they have. Better get to screen shotting them before they disappear. I get the feeling the Petrys would never legal challenge Mars Hill. Or even go along with such a thing. It is sad as we all tend to enable evil thinking it is piousness.
As I heard one pastor tell someone who had been horribly spiritually abused by another STAFFER at the church: Why not be wronged?
Can you imagine? Ignoring evil and saying it is pious to be treated so horribly by another professing believer? They enable evil and have no regard for the souls of those doing the evil.
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Lydia/Andrew,
We have been the ACLU route. They are interested, but it is a matter of priority for them. They acknowledged that we are on the right side of the issue, but their resources are targeted.
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They are freakin’ bullies. About 3 wks after we voluntarily left Beaverton Grace Bible Church – there were absolutely no discipline issues going on as far as my family was concerned – – our pastor and 2 elders came to our house with a recording device recording our conversation, wanting to know who reported him to DHS. I told him I know who reported to DHS, but was not at liberty to tell him. On his way out, he said we were being “excommunicated.” I laughed and said “who cares?” – as we were already gone. I later found out that meant that he told the church we were in church discipline (without following the printed by-laws on church discipline) and they shunned us.
These tyrannical leaders change their own bylaws as they go (somehow their congregants give the a free pass because they are blind under the influence of Jim Jones-flavored Kool-Aid).
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JA,
Actually, I need to start explaining this better. The problem here is the Puritan/Calvinistic view that Matthew 18 is an IN-HOUSE COUNSELING PROCESS. That’s ok in Medieval Europe, but not in 20th century America. Here is why: Say John Doe gets caught up in a sin. He was having sex with the pastor’s daughter. Some leaders confront him about it. He tells them to hang it on their beak. They excommunicate him and announce it to the congregation. Ok, no problem. Say they confront him, and he repents, and asks everybody for forgiveness and the issue is dropped save the reality that he will probably not be allowed to see the daughter again. Ok, no problem. But let’s say after he repents, the elders say, “This isn’t over yet, you need to enter into counseling to deal with this “longstanding heart problem” and fruits meet for repentance must be observed and confirmed by the elders.” John says, “No, I have decided to leave for another church.” Then they say, “If you do, we will excommunicate you.” Now we have a serious problem. THAT IS ILLEGAL.
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