See this link for a Church Manual amendment from the most recent General Conference session in 2005. I posted a brief comment about it below the post.
Okay, so I looked back at the 1995 church manual as well as the 2005 version. The amendment actually only altered a few words and added one bullet point between the two versions. So my initial impression was off the mark; I originally thought that everything in the above blog post was new to the 2005 version.
However, as I posted in the other blog's comments section, why aren't most of the sins that the Old Testament prophets and Jesus spoke against included in the enumerated list of reasons for discipline? As long as different sins are being listed, why not list the ones that God seems to be concerned most about? Is it because those sins frequently don't directly affect the external reputation of the chruch? Is it because sins of neglect (of love, mercy, compassion, hospitality, humility, respect, forgiveness, etc.) are so much more difficult to observe than sins of commission? Is it because to start disciplining for sins of neglect means everyone would be disciplined?
Hey... Isn't that what discipleship is about? Why does the church manual have a whole section dealing with the reactionary type of discipline (basically punishment) but little in the way of how to develop the desirable Christian qualities? If we spent more time, effort, energy, money, and other resources in working to develop the positive qualities, I have a sneaky suspicion that the whole current section in the church manual on church discipline could shrink to almost nothing.
Most of the earlier comments that I made still stand. From experience I know that policies like these are far too often used to destroy people, even if the actual text pays lip service to safeguarding the spiritual and relational interests of people. Policies are used as excuses, as legal backstops for people to do mean and horrible things to another person. So I also stand by my statement that I think policies are written by the Devil. If not written by him, I think at the least he's quite pleased when increasing numbers of them become part of God's church. In my opinion, organizations ought to seek to reduce the number and specificity of policies rather than increase them.
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Earlier comment:
No matter how the wording in it tries to spin it, it strikes me of "legalese." The whole amendement appears to be the organization attempting to protect itself from lawsuits and of having to pay out on lawsuits when church members are disciplined and dismissed on the grounds listed in the policy. It sounds like the stuff people have to agree to and sign when accepting employment.
What really bothers me is that some of the wording in the policy is so open-ended that basically anyone can be disciplined for just about any reason. And because this is part of the official Church Manual, the disciplined have little or no recourse. Thus the organization is very well protected and insulated -- just like secular businesses and governments.
I've wavered in my thoughts on whether or not church is a business. I've come to the conclusion that the church is not a business and should not be run as one. As soon as the church, any church, is run primarily using business models based on business concerns, all decisions basically come down to, "Will we make or lose money?" This is the absolutely wrong question when running a church. In other words, concerns about increasing tithes, concerns about paying out over lost lawsuits, should be the least of the concerns. Rather, "Is the church, at all levels, treating every person with love, mercy, compassion, and respect?" should be the primary modus operandi of any church that claims to follow Christ. Sadly, I have rarely seen this to be the case in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Policy statements like the one linked from this post grieve me and really make me question why I continue to be a part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. To me, it seems like something that was written by the Devil. I wonder, how is this different from the intertestamental Jews who kept creating more and more regulations (policies) about what it meant to belong to Judaism?
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