p. 71 | Excluded Members

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 13, 1872

Excluded Members.

Rev. Dr. Patton once said in a public discourse, “I heard Elder Alfred Bennett say, alluding to excluded church members, ‘When a sheep is excluded from the fold it will bleat around until it is re-admitted; but when a hog is put out of the pen, it will root around and try to upset it.’”

Unfortunately there are sheep who, by reason of grievous wandering, demand at least temporary exclusion from the fold. Their first impulse, in view of the course taken by their brethren, may wear the resemblance of hoggishness, but their resentment is neither serious nor abiding. They enter upon no crusade against the church, for in their hearts they love God, and they love his people; and they soon settle down into grief, humility, contrition, and then, as the good man pithily expresses it, they are “bleating for re-admission.” By all means let them be re-admitted at once, let them be welcomed back frankly and heartily—as the blessed Master ever welcomed a returning prodigal—as the father welcomed his prodigal son.

* * * *

Many of our churches are at fault in their treatment of excluded members. The points in their indictment are (to carry out Eld. Bennett’s figure) that they regard every excluded member as necessarily a hog rather than a sheep, and rigidly apply to each the scriptural injunction: “Cast not your pearls before swine,” &c. The Father’s method of treating his prodigal son is an excellent pattern for us to follow: “And when he was a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” The father’s method is, as it always is, thoroughly good and wise; and we think that we enter somewhat into the tender, forgiving spirit of the father when we feel—as we do feel—that a single backslider, reclaimed affords greater cause for joy than two new converts; and hardly know how to restrain ourselves for joy when an excluded church member has actually been restored, and sits down with us to commemorate again the dying love of Christ.

Many, we have noticed, justify themselves with reference to the line of conduct which they pursue toward an excluded member by the Pauline injunction, “Let him be to thee as an heathen man and a publican.” That precept seems to them to demand that he be given over to utter damnation. To exclude a man from church fellowship is, in their opinion, to put him in the same category with those who have committed the unpardonable sin. All prayer and effort for him are to cease—generally do cease—from that moment. Now our theory in this matter is: prompt, yet judicious, exclusion, where exclusion is demanded; ready and cordial restoration where restoration is deserved, and, in the interval, unremitting effort and earnest prayer that the wanderer may be reclaimed.

—Sel.