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{What is church discipline?}

Here is an article about the subject of church discipline.
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Why We Need Church Discipline

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.

Some argue that it doesn’t pay to exercise church discipline these days. Why? People outside the Church get too upset.

Consider the case of Catholic Archbishop George Pell of Sydney, Australia. Pell denies Holy Communion to Catholic homosexuals who don’t accept church teachings on homosexuality. A biblical approach to sexuality is "essential for human well-being [and] for the continuity of the human race," he notes.

Now, Pell has sponsored AIDS hospices and shown compassion to those infected with this deadly disease. Nevertheless, homosexual activists are outraged over his views and loudly protested his appointment as Archbishop in 2001.

Then there’s Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani of Lima, Peru. Eighteen months ago, Cipriani announced that politicians who oppose church teachings on abortion would be denied communion. Who became outraged over this? Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

And when the Southern Baptist Convention took steps to cut ties with churches that allow homosexuals to serve as pastors, critics couldn’t wait to wrap the "narrow-minded bigot" label around them.

But aren’t these churches simply upholding their standards? As Chuck Colson and Ellen Vaughn point out in their new book, Being the Body, churches have never portrayed themselves as democracies. "The church is hierarchical and authoritarian and ultimately answerable only to God," they write.

So why should anyone join a church and then expect to be permitted to flout its authority? After all, for failing to attend enough meetings, you can be thrown out of the Rotary Club. Violate the dress code, and you’ll be tossed out of many country clubs. And if you don’t perform community service, you can be kicked out of the Junior League. Yet the minute churches impose discipline on their members, they’re charged with everything up to and including fascism.

Shouldn’t the Church have at least the same right to set its own standards as a country club? If people don’t like them, they’re free to leave—assuming they’re members in the first place.

Whether church members like it or not, the Church must discipline its members. As Colson and Vaughn warn, "When we fail to discipline, the church does not become more ‘relevant’ to the world around us. It simply loses its moral authority."

Discipline should be applied not only to enforce right doctrine, but also to uphold right behavior. Sermons on holy living are meaningless unless the Church is willing to back them up with action—even if doing so is unpleasant, which it often is. As theologian Greg Bahnsen put it: "Discipline guards the purity of the Church, preserves the Church by removing evil, and provides severe but loving correction for one who is in danger of falling into perdition."

Without effective discipline, there can be no accountability and, thus, no spiritual growth.

We’ve heard a lot lately about politicians being told by their churches to toe the line, theologically speaking—or face the consequences. When we read stories like these, we need to remember why church discipline is vitally important. It’s a mark, not of intolerance and repression, as critics claim, but of faithful obedience to God and loving pastoral care for Christians.