I’m a semi-regular reader of Feeriker’s blog. His family and work situation is interesting, and he often asks for prayer. I also sometimes read his comments at other places (when I happen to notice his name pop up in my RSS feed). Well, Feeriker tends to write mostly well-measured responses, although I disagree with much of it at times. Here is an example of one of his comments that is well-measured, but incorrect.

Simply put, this opinion of what is permissible is contradicted by the words of Jesus himself. And, frankly, I find it difficult to believe that Feeriker does not know this.

Feeriker is correct that Christians are forbidden from suing fellow believers in court. But, that’s because they must follow a different process in dealing with disputes. In Matthew 18:15-35, Jesus was very explicit in how one should deal with the wayward actions of a fellow member of the congregation. Indeed, Jesus makes very clear at what stage in the process that we are permitted to consider that they are no longer a brother or sister in Christ. That conclusion may not be drawn until the proper time and under the proper authority. This is Feeriker’s error: too soon and under the wrong authority.

The first step is always to approach the person privately and attempt to resolve the conflict directly.

This step cannot be skipped! If you jump straight to the later steps—you have disobeyed Jesus himself. You may not simply reject a fellow member of the congregation on the basis of their actions alone. You may not condemn him for his sin, nor accuse him of being Satan’s ally, nor accuse him of worshiping women (ahem…).

The second step takes place after the first step fails. It only takes place if the first step has been attempted and failed. You must find at least two or three witnesses who can attest to the sin—establishing the charge—and then privately confront the fellow believer.

Regardless of their response, you still may not reject them as a fellow member of the congregation based on their actions, nor condemn them for their sin. Rather, you must proceed to the next step.

The third step is for you and your witnesses to bring your case to the whole congregation. This is semi-public in that it is directed at a public body in a private way (whenever possible). It is a kind of trial, and most churches do not air them publicly and only allow members of the church to participate, even if the accusations and documentation is made public to all participants (and possibly non-participants).

In any case, the congregation will formally—as one body—confront the sinner with their sin and call them to repentance and a resolution of the conflict.

If the person refuses repentance—and only then—is that person no longer considered to be a brother or sister in Christ. Notably, this removal from the brotherhood isn’t directly based on your response to the original sin. Rather, it is based on the authority and action of the congregation. They are no longer a brother or sister because they were excommunicated by the authority of the church for their sin, not (merely) because they sinned. This is why Feeriker’s stance is non-biblical, for his stated reason for rejecting a brother as a brother is not the reason scripture mandates: it’s not based on a decision of the church after the process of church discipline was completed.

It is after excommunication—and only then—where the prohibition on suing no longer applies. Having been ejected from the congregation by the congregation, they are no longer your brother or sister, and therefore are not subject to the prohibitions on lawsuits against fellow believers.

Or to put this similarly, the first “lawsuit” is completely within the congregation. The sole judgment of that process is to determine whether or not the person is to be a repentant Christian or an unrepentant unbeliever. Only if the first process rules that the person is an unrepentant unbeliever—and thus not a Christian—may it be permissible to consider proceeding to a second lawsuit: suing them in secular court.

But, Jesus followed his teaching on this topic by insisting that Christians should more-or-less offer unlimited forgiveness. Jesus did not qualify the scope of that forgiveness, using the language of hyperbole:

Despite a brother or sister sinning against you time and time again, your forgiveness is offered again and again. Thus is forgiveness always an option. One may choose to forgive the sin debt that is owed them and skip the entire process of church discipline or a secular lawsuit.

Then Jesus tells a Parable. In the Parable, the king’s slave does not have the money to pay off a debt, and begs for more time to pay. Rather than grant this, the king forgives the debt:

But the servant was not deserving of forgiveness:

When the king found out about this injustice, he was enraged:

Now consider if a brother sins against you, and you forgive him without going through church discipline process to reject him as your brother. Would you presume that the purpose of this parable is that if he sins against you again, he is no longer worthy of forgiveness? Or if he refuses to repent the second time, is the purpose of this parable to give you justification for holding him to account this time around?

We find the answer in the words of Jesus:

Did you catch that? Your failure to forgive your brother for their sin against you is held against you, not because they did or did not sincerely repent, but because you also were forgiven a great debt and failed to extend that to your brother.

In the parable, the forgiveness was unmerited. Though the first slave offered to pay the debt eventually, the master had canceled the debt instead. The slave had done nothing to warrant forgiveness.

What makes you deserving of forgiveness for your own debts is not even your repentance, but the mercy and gratitude you show God by also forgiving your brother.

Like the Good Samaritan, the essence of these parables is not what others are doing in relation to you, but what you are doing in relation to others. You must be another’s neighbor by showing mercy to them, whether or not they show mercy to you. The mercy you show is not conditional on anything they say or do. Similarly, you must show forgiveness to others, whether or not they deserve it. The forgiveness you show is not conditional on anything they say or do. The mercy and forgiveness you show is based on the mercy and forgiveness that you have received from God, completely without merit.

So think long and hard before you send your brother through the process of church discipline to have him removed as your brother. It is the option of last resort, and it permissible—if there is zero willingness for them to reconcile, sincere or otherwise—but never required. You have a choice. Consider, instead, unmerited forgiveness, just as your Heavenly Father has granted unmerited forgiveness to you. Discern what is most appropriate.

In any case, this…

…is wrong. Unless your brother has explicitly declared that they are no longer your brother or you have tried and failed the complete process of church discipline with them (and chosen not to forgive them), then there is no legitimate argument that they are not your brother anymore. That is not your choice to make if you intend to remain a member of the congregation. Only your brother or the congregation can make that choice.

In short, your brother is your brother until one of two things happens: he declares himself to no longer be a follower of Christ (and thus subject to the congregation) or he is excommunicated by the congregation. Neither of those things involve you personally making conclusions about his status based on his sinful behavior. Furthermore, the prohibition on lawsuits against your brothers and sisters remains.

There are other issues to consider that do not apply to meatspace conflicts between a man and his ex. Consider “Correcting Sin in the Church.”

Here the first step could not be fully accomplished due to anonymity. The man who sinned did so publicly and kept himself from the possibility of private correction by his own choice. Thus the first step involved public, rather than private, confrontation.

This having failed, the second step commenced. Multiple witnesses (at least five, including myself) bore witness against him. Every requirement was fulfilled except the privacy requirement (which was implicitly waived due to the man’s explicit adherence to strict anonymity).

This having failed, the next step was for the congregation to weigh in. But the “Christian” forum in which this took place refused to fulfill its obligations by hearing the case. Moreover, in refusing to condemn the sin while keeping the original article up uncorrected in an act of unrepentance, it became an accomplice to the sin and placed itself outside the realm of church discipline.

What is one to do when all attempts at church discipline have failed and the “congregation” refuses to perform its duty?

This is, in my opinion, where Feeriker’s suggestion has validity:

The blog where this took place purported to be a part of the body of Christ, yet knowingly abetted acts of sin and refused to obey Jesus’ commands regarding church discipline. As demonstrated by their actions—the failure to act as the body of Christ must—the blog (and, by extension, its owner) are demonstrated to have rejected membership in the body of Christ. If the assembly of believers refuses to assemble as is its duty, it cannot rightly be called an assembly. Thus, there existed no congregation for which to engage in the process of church discipline. Along with the man who committed the sin, none can rightly be considered to be members of the body of Christ any longer.

All that could have been done to enact church discipline was done. The final act is de-facto excommunication. No other outcome is possible or permissible.

In the conflict resolution proceed, there is always an obligation to a private—if possible—confrontation, followed by a private—if possible—confrontation with two or three witnesses. But it is not always possible to identify a sinner with a specific congregation. In such cases, there can be no obligation to bring the case to a congregation that does not exist. Instead, the witnesses themselves must serve in the role of the congregation. This is one reason why it was good that five witnesses attested to the man’s sin, rather than merely two or three.

Of note, excommunication is not mutually exclusive with forgiveness, as excommunication is not a punishment for sin. A lawsuit would be an attempt to collect on a sin debt and would directly contradict the forgiveness of the sin debt. It’s not possible to forgive a debt at the same time you are trying to collect on it. But excommunication is not a judgment for sin, rather, it is a removal of sin from the congregation. The penalty for sin remains in God’s hands.

Let’s now consider a case where Feeriker’s suggestion…

…was implemented as-is.

A while back I claimed that Sharkly’s argument was a case of circular reasoning. I’ve since (re)demonstrated on multiple occasions that I was correct. I brought Sharkly’s claim before witnesses, both publicly on my blog and offline, and received no condemnation. The feedback I’ve received only confirmed my original assessment.

By contrast, Sharkly followed Feeriker’s procedure and jumped straight to judgment. He accused me of sin, slandered me with accusations of idolatry and being a servant of Satan, and denied me brotherhood, declaring me to be an enemy of the Word of God, all based (allegedly) on my actions. All based on his own authority.

Sharkly did not contact me privately to confront me about the issue. I have received a number of private emails from Sharkly, but did not receive one where he confronted me on this issue. If he had, I may have gathered two or three witnesses and confronted him on his error.

Sharkly never brought any witnesses against me, not even one, let alone the two or three required by Christ and the Law.

Subsequently, after I confronted him about not following the procedure that Jesus demanded he follow, Sharkly demanded that I face judgment before my church—that’s the third step of the processes—specifically asking for the contact information for the elders. He thus declared his active intent to publicly make accusation against me before the church without first establishing the case with the testimony of two or three witnesses (and, as he admitted to me, he had no intention of submitting to their authority)

The bible has established standards for the bringing of charges, as summarized here:

To admit a charge against someone before the congregation without first establishing it on the basis of the testimony of sufficient witnesses is injustice. It is truly wicked.

The fruit of Feeriker’s suggestion is injustice.

It must be injustice. Any time you go to judgment without first establishing it on the testimony of witnesses and then prevailing on your charge in the assembly of the congregation, you have engaged in injustice. It doesn’t matter how righteous you think your claims are. To wit:

It is massively ironic that a de-facto excommunicated man—who refused to accept church discipline and speaks whatever he wants with impunity—is complaining about the refusal of the church to correct, discipline, or excommunicate on the same forum that refused to correct, discipline, or excommunicate him, but instead has repeatedly indulged his poor conduct and character.

Gee. I wonder why men don’t like church.

I guarantee you that Deti does not recognize the authority of the apostate churches to refuse to correct, discipline, and excommunicate women for those things. But I’m quite sure he’s fine with the refusal of the church to discipline him, as he’s never made any objection to the failure of the church to call him to task under church discipline, nor has he chosen to submit or repent.

This is a double standard.

I also guarantee you that Deti believes that his judgment of those women is 100% correct and 0% slander. Furthermore, he believes that his individual judgment supersedes the opinion of the apostate churches that have opted not to make the same claims. In other words, he considers his own authority to be superior to that of the congregation, because his individual authority reflects the commands of Christ, and the congregation’s does not. Yet, in the case of church discipline, he has not submitted to the will of the witnesses who actually obediently reflected the command of Christ by bringing the accusation of sin against him.

This is a double standard.

And, by biblical standards, it is also injustice:

Deti sees the double standards in the apostate church, but he does not see those same double standards in himself.

In case you think the implementation of church discipline and excommunication wasn’t valid and that the removal from the body of Christ was an abrogation of justice, consider this statement made only yesterday:

Does this sound familiar?

Like Deti, the Pharisees of the school of Hillel believed that a man could divorce his wife for any reason. All that was required was for a wife’s husband to be displeased with her in some way. But here is what Jesus—who disagreed—taught, in his own words:

“What God has joined together, no man is to separate.” Deti opposes the very words of Christ. As it appears so also do some familiar names:

If Surfdumb or Feeriker ever comment here again, we should try to remember to ask them about their apparent support of Deti’s apostasy… and his blasphemy: