Is anyone familiar with the practice of shunning?

This is not about fighting laws that take away our constitutional rights. You are confusing apples with oranges. This is about voting to make something legal, which at the present is NOT legal and violating your covenant with your church.

And btw, I do not support someone's right to take the Lord's name in vain anymore than I support someone's right to have an abortion.

 

A couple of things wrong with your argument:

You're saying that, if you to institute a law that grants new rights to engage in immoral behavior, then it's wrong, but if you fight to uphold a law that preserves a right to engage in immoral behavoir, then it's okay. By that argument, voting to enact Amendment I would be wrong, since it allows a person to use the name of the Lord in vain.

Second, since the Amendment XVIII (Prohobition of alcohol) was repealed, the constitutional right of a person to sell and consume alcohol is guaranteed in similar manner as free speech is.

 

Christians should abstain from supporting immoral behavior regardless of the legality of it.

 

Thank you. That is exactly what I mean. And you shouldn't be against immoral behavior while sitting in the pew, but promote the behavior when you're not at church. That is being a hypocrite and one of the reasons the world scoffs at the church.

 

In Washington State, citizens similarly threatened with retaliation for signing a petition to reconsider state domestic partnerships had their privacy protected last week by a federal judge's ruling:

New York Times Sept. 12, 2009

"In his decision, Judge Settle said that the signing of a petition was essentially an act of anonymous — and protected — political speech, and that the identity of who signed a petition “is irrelevant to the voter.”
...
The case is the latest filed by a conservative lawyer, James Bopp Jr., seeking to stop the publicizing of the names of those who oppose same-sex marriage and other gay rights initiatives.
...
Mr. Bopp said his intention was...to protect petition signers from an effort by “the gay rights lobby” to “harass and intimidate supporters of traditional marriage.”"

 

I live very close in McCracken county. If I had a pastor that pulled that, I would do everything in my power to see he was removed from office the next week. It has nothing to do with drinking or not drinking, or for that matter, the church covenant. In fact, our church has a similar covenant on alcohol. That is not the point. The point is this pastor took it upon himself to go outside the authority of the church to investigate member's rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. He also failed to follow the model of Matthew 18. This is not a drinking issue. I do not believe we have one member active in our church who drinks. The behavior of that pastor would not be tolerated in our church.

This is more akin to the incident a several years ago when the idiot pastor in Kansas found out several members incomes, printed them in the church bulletin, then their giving for the year, and another column had the percentage of giving.

I agree with your last paragraph. All these myths about Baptists get started by clowns like this in a leadership position. And we wonder why the pews are empty?

Also, just because someone signed a petition to bring the issue to a vote, does not mean that they drink. My experience with politics being mixed with church on issues like this is that the more a church or churches rant and rave when something like this comes up, the more it draws voters out from the opposite side, and makes certain defeat at the polls.

 

What next? The pastor accompanies the members into the voting booth to monitor their secret ballot?

 

And if they have a male teenager, they've probably heard of mooning as well...

 

Since the person(s) in the OP can't be shown to have supported immoral behavior, it's a nonsequitor.

But you've already indicated that you're a hypocrite on the topic: You oppose taking of the name of the Lord in vain, yet you support the right of a person to do so in the privacy of his/her own home.

 

Not true..................

 

Would you oppose a law that would make it illegal for a person to use the name of the Lord in vain in the privacy of theri own home?

 

I think that is a subject you should take to another thread. The subject of this thread is about church policy, not government policy.

I am not going to get into a debate about the constitution.

 

No, it's not. You're making a claim of hypocrisy. You're saying that if the church finds an action inappropriate, then it's hypocritical for a member of the church to support that action.

You're claiming that, if a church says consumption of alcohol is wrong, then its members are not allowed to support a law that allows the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages, even if that member never sells or consumes alcohol.

Yet, if a church says taking the name of the Lord in vain is wrong, you can't say whether you would support a law that bans a person from taking the Lord's name in vain in the privacy of his own home.

 

If you sign a covenant and are in agreement with the church that the taking of the Lord's name in vain is a sin, then you are a hypocrite if you go out and support the taking of the Lord's name in vain.

I am done with this debate with you.

 

Yet you refuse to answer a simple yes or no question: Would you oppose a law that would make it illegal for a person to use the name of the Lord in vain in the privacy of their own home? Yes or no?

That's because you know you can't answer the question without debunking your onw position.

No one disagrees here that the church of the OP was wrong in its application of discipline. Everyone seems to be in agreement on that point.

It seems the point at hand is whether the person's actions in the OP violated a church covenant. It did not.

 

It depends. Did I make a covenant that I would do one or the other?

 

Now you're sidestepping. But, just for kicks, let's ee what kind of answer we get.

Let's say you signed a covenant where you promise not to take the name of the Lord's name in vain. Then, a law gets passed saying "it is illegal for a person to take the name of the Lord in vain in the privacy of his own home". Would you oppose that law?

 

This is ridiculous. This scenario is nothing like that of the OP.

I really don't see the connection between opposing a law and promoting sin. Maybe I'm just dense. I'm obviously alone in my thinking on this because no one else has agreed with me.
I'm not trying to be stubborn. I concede defeat if that makes you feel better. I don't seem to be able to make my argument. But I believe if someone says this or that is sin while sitting in church, they should carry that outside the church doors. I cannot sit in church and say abortion is sin and then join in pro choice rallies. That to me is hypocrisy, but maybe I just don't understand what hypocrisy is.