In a number of cases, and for various reasons including not wearing head coverings or submitting to other extra-biblical requests from leaders, a small number of staff wives have been “shunned”— permanently prohibited from having any fellowship with the staff, including office work, attending prayer meetings or inviting staff over to their homes. This is not a result of biblical church discipline or disfellowshipping (where repentance and restoration are always the goal), but an arbitrary decision imposed by the ministry leaders with no known opportunity for restoration. In a typical ministry, the problem at hand would be resolved or else the staff couple would be fired. Yet in these cases only the wife was shunned, while the husband was told to keep working at the ministry.
GFA also strongly discourages, and sometimes expressly prohibits, staff members from fellowshipping or associating with ex-staff. This has even gone to the extent of refusing to allow staff members to minister to ex-staff families who were in dire circumstances such as death or divorce.
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- Shunning of this kind has no scriptural support whatsoever, and is sinful because it tears apart the Body of Christ and goes directly against the command to be in unity and fellowship with one another. It has a devastating effect on the person and their family, making them constantly wonder what they’ve done wrong and if they’ve fallen out of favor with God. It also leaves them completely alone to deal with this challenge as all the staff who were like family to them suddenly are cut off. It also promotes fear among others in the group about whether they’ll be similarly shunned, which can be used to manipulate them.
- The only kind of shunning that is biblically acceptable is a last resort in church discipline situations where someone is in flagrant, unrepentant sin, and only after repeated attempts to approach them about it with no success. Even then, an offer must always be extended to them that if they repent, they will be restored to fellowship. It is extremely questionable whether GFA’s home offices, which are not churches, could even carry out biblical church discipline.
- One must wonder why GFA leaders are so insistent that staff never speak to anyone who has left. Likewise, one must wonder how many ex-staff references leadership can provide that still recommend that others join staff there.
- It should be noted that shunning is a common practice of the Amish, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.