 I'm Marcia Aljusson, Interfaith Interconnect Leadership Coordinator, and welcome to Interfaith Interconnect Religion Chat today. We're very glad to have you all here. Starting out on a sad note, we just learned that there was a shooting in a high school in Florida this afternoon, and several students were killed. So I'd like to begin today with a moment of silence in remembrance of those who have died. How many people are here at Religion Chat for the first time? Great. And people are here at Muslim Community Center for the first time. Well, good. We're very grateful to MCC for hosting today. They're always so warm and welcoming and generous anytime we want to hold one of our events here. And we really appreciate that, thank you. A couple of announcements from restrooms are off to my left, that corner. The banquet hall and the prayer room, is that the right thing to call it? Okay, out that door. What we're going to operate today is that the two speakers will each speak as usual. And then when they're finished, there are refreshments in the banquet hall. You can go get refreshments and come back and break into small groups as we usually do for discussion. Or you could also join the others for prayer. It will start about 10 minutes to 6. You're welcome to do that also. So when we're finished with the speakers, then I'll announce that at that time. Just to give you a feel for what's going on. We hold Religion Chat the second Wednesday of the month. And we welcome your suggestions for topics. For the March Religion Chat, we confirm speakers and we're going to do a new topic. We'll be meeting a little more, but we don't have the location yet. So watch your email box for details. As is our custom, we'll begin today's program with a Russian statement. To enrich, inform, and educate ourselves and others about the great diversity of faiths and cultures in our valley. Today we are holding the last of... March, I'm just wondering for the new people. Could we be sure that we get their emails so that there's a sheet going around to sign up to be sure that they give us their emails and then they'll be able to keep in touch? Thank you, Ellen. I meant to say that. Thanks for reminding me. We have a sign-in list going around. Some people came in that way and signed in. But if you signed in and didn't write your email and you want us to have your email, go ahead and add that. And then people came in the other door, did not sign in probably. So if you could do that as we're going. Today we're holding the last of three religion chat sessions on the topic. What behaviors will get you thrown out of your religion? How has it changed through the years? And we heard from Catholic, Episcopalian, Muslim, and Hindu in the previous two chats. And today we are going to be hearing from Ken Black, who is from Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Livermore Stake, and Chris Andrus of Presbyterian Church in America, Canyon Creek Presbyterians in San Ramon. So each speaker will take up to 20 minutes altogether, which will include time for questions. And then, as I said, we'll break into small discussion groups. If that's informal time, you can go into the banquet hall or into the prayer room instead if you want to do that. So I would first like to welcome and introduce Ken Black. Thank you. So to just briefly answer the question, I don't know. I've never been thrown out of the church. I have a well-known bad habit of going over time when I'm speaking. So maybe between technology and Marsha waving at me, maybe I can stick to this. So to lay the groundwork for this, I think I need to have some framework to work from. This sort of falls under the broad umbrella of what we call referred to as church discipline in our religion. And so to really understand the answer to this question or these questions, I kind of need to paint the picture so you understand the framework that we operate in as we perform church discipline. We as leaders in the church are doing this. So I think to really understand what motivates the way we do things, I probably need to make this one statement that sort of gets to some of the underlying beliefs and doctrines that we have. I think there's two things that really are key to church discipline. This one is more broad-based. The church was established by and is led by the Savior Jesus Christ in that we as mortals are not free to change His commandments or modify His will. So with that in mind, I think the next key element of this is that our primary goal, I guess, as church leadership and church members who are not necessarily in leadership is to help people grow and become more like the Savior, to continually develop and become better people, become more Christ-like in the way that they live their lives and their interactions with other people. So that's really what we try to do as we operate programs and do things within the church. Church discipline is a pretty broad subject and the thought of addressing this in 15 minutes was a little daunting. And so the approach I'm going to try to take is skim over the top, but give you enough of an explanation so you have enough concept to be able to ask questions and maybe between what I say and the questions that I feel we can kind of address your questions and maybe give you a better feel for how this works for us. So one of the things that we try to do, I think really our focus is not to throw people out. Again, think about the purpose of trying to help people become more like the Savior. Driving them out of the church is probably not going to advance that goal. So we try to, if there is a disciplinary problem or if they're doing something that really is not appropriate, we really try to work with them as ecclesiastical leaders and try to help them change and repent and get their lives in order. But anyway, I'll get to what some of those things are. So within this umbrella of church discipline, there's informal and formal discipline. And I'm going to focus mostly on, well, I'll talk about both. But to bring about formal discipline, there's three purposes of that, really. We are going to initiate the process of formal discipline. And this is what we call a disciplinary counsel. So the three purposes, the number one is to help the individual, the transgressor, to get their life in order and strive to follow the Savior better. That's the number one. And most of what we deal with in disciplinary issues has to do with that particular issue. The second and third one, some of them are somewhat corollary, but the second one is to protect the innocent. Okay, now sometimes that's a real issue, sometimes it's not. But if we're dealing with, for instance, a child molester, there's a clear issue there, somebody who's maybe involved in illegal activities and taking advantage of people and things like that, where innocent people are going to be affected, then that would be a key element. And then the third one is to protect the integrity of the church. And there's a couple of different things involved in that. But again, that one is rare. It's usually the first one. So let me talk about the typical process that happens. Most, in most cases, it's initiated when a member of the church approaches their local ecclesiastical leader. And I guess just to give you a framework, some of you may be aware of this, but we're organized geographically. So like I represent today, the Livermore Stake, which is a geographical area that includes congregations in Livermore and also a congregation of young and single adults that cover the tri-value area that are also assigned to us geographically. So in the stake we have what we call Warns, which is the geographic entity that we function in. A ward is led by a bishop. So he's the pastor and leader of the church. And then within the stake we have stake organizations that coordinate multi-ward activities and things like that. And there's the leadership team that is led by a president and two counselors, and he's referred to as the stake president. So he has ecclesiastical leadership over all of Livermore and the bishops that function under him. So typically what would happen is someone would approach their bishop and say, Bishop, I need to talk to you. I've got something that I'm struggling with. And that would begin the process. So they would have their conversation, private conversations obviously. And whatever it is, the bishop would try to work with that individual to help them. And most of it never goes beyond that point. The bishop is able to deal with a lot of disciplinary issues, people that are struggling with whatever it is, you know, maybe infidelity or spousal abuse or, I don't know, that one's probably a little extreme because that can get into the area of illegal activity. It could be struggling with sexual addiction or whatever. So that's where it starts. And the bishop can do what we call informal discipline. He can work with the individual, obviously, counsel them, work with them, whatever the case may be that they need. And nobody else knows about it. And it stays there. And if it's something serious enough that the bishop feels that there needs to be more, that there may be a need to take this to the next level, then there's what's called a disciplinary counsel. And there's two types of those. So the first one is done at the ward level. And that involves the bishop and his two counselors. And it is a counsel, if you will, where the four people would gather together and talk about what the problem is. Now, I've said that generally the bishop and the individual are the only ones who know all the details. This is not a fishing expedition or anything like this. The only thing that's shared is what's key information that needs to be shared. And again, the focus of this is to help the individual overcome their problems, get their lives back in order, and try to become better at following the Savior and His commandments. Any time a bishop feels like there may be a need for a disciplinary counsel, he needs to consult with the stake president. In certain cases, a disciplinary counsel at the ward level is not appropriate. It needs to go to a stake level, a higher level. And that typically involves transgressions that involve either people in higher levels of leadership within the church and typically for the priesthood leaders in the church or priesthood holders in the church who have made the higher level of covenants and then it goes to the stake level. So let's talk about the ward level for a minute here. As I said, it's just the bishop and his two counselors. And this is really, I want to tell you what it's not. This is not, as I mentioned, it's not a fishing expedition. It is not legalistic, it's not adversarial, it's very much a counsel focused on love. I've been a part of these a number of times and I can tell you every single time, it's not only a deeply spiritual experience, it's heartbreaking at times. It can be very heartbreaking as you empathize and feel for what people are struggling with. And some of them are really challenging as you can imagine. But the focus is really on how can we bless the life of this individual? What can we do for them? What is best for them? And to some degree, like the concept of tough love that those of us understand who have had teenagers, we haven't always had to apply that, but we understand the concept, right? Sometimes people need to be jolted a little bit to kind of have to make a decision, which side of the fence am I going to go on? I can't sit on the fence, I've got to go one way or the other. So what are the possible outcomes? So the disciplinary counsel typically is 30 minutes an hour, sometimes they can go much longer, that's probably fairly rare. A couple of factors that can influence that. So there's several outcomes, there's actually four. The first one is no action, no formal action. So it could just be the bishop continues to work with an individual. The second outcome would be informal probation, what it's called, which is just a slight step above that. It might involve some restriction of privileges. For example, the person may be asked not to particularly sacrament or communion for a period of time, or they may be instructed to do something or whatever, to try to help them recognize the severity of what they're doing and demonstrate some sense of remorse and help in the repentance process. The third level then would be what we call disfellowshipment, which is again another step up, a little more formal, a little more restrictive. That generally involves some specified period of time, might be six months or a year, or could be semi-indeterminate. But that usually involves a number of things. They're not allowed to do public prayers in the church. They're not allowed to hold callings or assignments in the church where they might be teaching or speaking in our worship service, things like that. And then the highest level of that getting thrown out of the church is what we refer to as excommunication. And in that case, they actually do lose their membership. Their names are removed from the records of the church. And in that case, it's at least one year. Now, we don't kick them out. That's the last thing we want to do. We want them to continue to come to church. We want them to continue to work with their bishop and their state president to try to get their own tribes in order. And so that's really the focus of that. So after whatever period of time, if there's been formal discipline like that, there is a reconvening at the point where the bishop and or the state president feel that the person is ready. There's a reconvening of this disciplinary counsel. And the person comes back and everything is reviewed again, not their transgression, but what have they done to overcome it and get their lives in order? And if everything's in order, then at that point, their fellowship is restored or if they were excommunicated, they can be rebaptized into the church as if it had never happened. And they go back, their membership record shows their original baptism date and all those sorts of things. So again, it's very focused on the individual and focused on encouraging them to move forward in their lives. So I'm running short on time. Let me just briefly touch on this. And these are fairly short things. So what can get you thrown out? Well, excommunication could result from and there are no hard and fast. But I'll tell you, some of these things, you know, you go into some of these, it's like it's hard to imagine that this will not result in excommunication. But we always try to really follow the spirit, to have the spirit of the Lord guide us in this process because we recognize the significance and the importance of what we're doing here. So a couple of ideas or a couple of things that could result in excommunication. Some of these are mandatory, convenient disciplinary counsel and some are not, but all of these could. So sexual sins such as adultery, fornication or homosexual relations, apostasy which we define as a repeated, clear and open opposition to the church, and again that's repeated, clear and open. This is not people disagreeing. These are the ones you're going to see in the media, right? The big ones that make the news where they're really trying to make it a very public thing. And then criminal activities of most any kind. So, you know, child spousal and sexual abuse, dealing in child pornography, fraud, robbery, murder, rape, all those sorts of things, illegal drug sales. So that gives you some idea of the things that could happen. So how has it changed over the years? My experience with this direct experience goes back about 15, 17, 18 years. I talked to a friend who spans the period before that. So covering the last 50 years, I'm not an expert on this, but over the last 50 years, procedurally and in terms of the things that could get you excommunicated, virtually no change. It's pretty much the same. I think there's a couple of minor things, for instance. Now if a member wants to have their name removed, they no longer want membership in the church. It's a procedural issue, administrative as opposed to a disciplinary council, which is what had to be done many years ago. A few things like that, but pretty much it really hasn't changed in quite a while. So, I'm at 16 minutes. Questions? Yes. Supposing I come to you and say, Bishop, there's something I want to talk to you about. I'm doing just fine in following the savior, but Alan over here is a real scoundrel and I think you need to talk to him. He wouldn't show up. Give me his phone number. So that does happen, and sometimes it's very legitimate. So you talk about maybe child abuse. That might be one where somebody doesn't walk in and say, hey, I'm a child abuser, I need help. So we would take those things very seriously and check it out. You also have to be careful, obviously. But yeah, we would act on that because we are very sensitive. And sometimes it's just personal disputes and personalities, right? But yeah, we would not ignore that. Yes? Yes. So a parishioner is excommunicated from the church. What happens if they were sealed in the temple of marriage? Great question. So that is also nullified. So there's a follow up to that. So that's nullified as well. All blessings of membership and temple sealing is gone. As I mentioned, if they've been excommunicated, and that's only if they've been excommunicated. It doesn't happen otherwise. So after the year, whenever, after that minimum year, they can be rebaptized into the church that restores their membership. Okay, it does not restore temple blessing. There is an additional time period after that that's undefined, but might be another six months, a year, two years. It depends on what happened, the severity of what it was. At that point, they can, again, under the advisement of the bishop and the state president, they can then say, this person really is ready to have all of their blessings restored. And that's the terminology we use, which would include their sealing and the temple marriage and everything. At that point, they have to submit a recommendation to the first presidency in Salt Lake. They will review it. They review the records of the disciplinary council, which are kept. And if they approve it, then they will send someone to do a face-to-face interview with that person. If they approve that, then they, on the spot, will restore all of those blessings. And again, everything is restored as if nothing had ever happened. It's completely erased from back to the way it was originally. So what you're saying is that nobody is lightly kicked out of your church? Lightly kicked out of your church? Lightly kicked out? Oh, lightly. If they happen to do something really serious to be excommunicated? Yes. Yeah. And, you know, we really try, like I said, we really try to work with them. This is Chris Andrews. Yeah, my church is County Creek Presbyterian Church in San Ramon. And Ken actually stole some of my thunder. A lot of the, both in terms of procedurally and even the issues, it's very similar, which is not maybe not that surprising in terms of what would initiate church discipline. And we do, you know, we call it the same thing. We have different levels. Presbyterian Church government works on different levels, works on the local level first informally. And that would be, it could go to a formal, which is rare. One of the things to add to what you were saying, most issues are kind of resolved informally either in the way of people agreeing to adjust their behavior or by going somewhere else, just reality of, you know, the society we live in. There are a lot of other places that people can go if they have to dispute with the church that they're in. Churches are voluntary associations. So, you know, there is, there's nothing that really keeping them, you know, that people are free to kind of come and go. So I think that really ends up being the case in the vast majority of times, although there are on occasions situations where it does go to formal church discipline. And for us yet similar, it would be a matter of, you know, being restricted from really, it would be like the full privilege of membership. Historically in Christianity, it's always been regarded as, the communion has been regarded as kind of the focus of, kind of the height of your membership privileges. And actually excommunication, a lot of people don't realize it, really kind of focuses more on the excommunio as the original term. And it didn't have to do with being really a member in good standing. You know, it really still does. There are certainly situations that arise where a person is, you know, is found to be in a situation. It's not even so much what they're doing. It's the fact that they are unrepentant in activity which is regarded as, is clearly regarded as sinful and a lot of the same things that Ken listed would be there as well. And what I'll add to it is just being a disruptive person, and a person that has unresolved disputes, interpersonal disputes, and showing no unwillingness to reconcile in relationships. Of course that applies to most of all the marriage relationship, but also relationships within the church otherwise. So the issue really is whether or not there's the willingness to be repented. And the understanding of repentance is first to acknowledge that there's sin going on, that there have been guilty of sinful behavior or speech, and then also then the commitment to overcoming that sin, growing out of that sin, confessing it, and asking the Lord's help to overcome it so that it is no longer an issue. And as with the way Ken shared, the goal is always restorative. As far as kicking out, kicking people out of the church, I've never known a case of that. Theoretically if somebody was really wanting to remain a part of the church and was very disruptive, it would go in our case if they went through the formal process, it would go from the church congregation level up to the Presbyterian regional church, and conceivably out to the general assembly, which is the entire denomination. And there's appeals, much like there is in our system, there's different courts of appeal. If they went through all that, they still wanted to stay and were causing trouble. I guess at that point they could be kicked out in terms of being welcome in the congregation to be a part of the congregation. I've never known that to happen because people usually will just at some point well be sorted out though, decide, well, I don't fit in here and go somewhere else. So that's usually the way it goes. And as far as the goal is always, the person will always be welcomed too, even in a case like that, if they're willing to promote the peace of the church. That's one of the membership questions that our members are asked. Do you submit yourselves to the church's government and discipline and promise to study your purity and peace and also do you promise to support the church and to worship the work to the best of your ability? So, church being a voluntary organization, it's a place that you go and when you have shared beliefs and practices with others. We've probably, it's not thought of a lot, but I think it should be recognized that it's just not right for a person to join a group with the goal of causing it to change in order to conform with one's own beliefs and practices. Instead, such a person should find a group that better fits their beliefs and practices that they already have. So I think that understanding would, I think it does come into play. It's pretty rare. I think people are going to come in. They have it on occasion where they come in and they want to change a group. The beauty of America, the variety that we have here, is that there are usually places that fit a person's beliefs and practices quite well. So that's usually what happens with situations like that. Some of this stuff can cover it already. I also wanted to add this too in the whole area. I sort of detected a question behind the question about what gets you kicked out. And that is this idea that a voluntary association does have the right to determine its membership requirements. We all understand that. And they do have the right to say, well, you're not really with us in spirit. So unless you want to kind of get with the program and at least be willing to consider our point of view, then you probably should be somewhere else. I think that really is sensible. Also, we would say it's not right for the government, whether through court rulings or laws, to dictate the beliefs and membership standards of any private association. A lot of people today think that the government does have the right to do this. But I would suggest that it's a very dangerous idea. And if the government does that, it really does deprive people of freedom of association, freedom of speech, even freedom of conscience conceivably. And there are some dangers in that area. These freedoms must be protected, even for people with whom we strongly disagree. And I always give an example. I think maybe the most obvious example would be something like a racist group. And most people, myself included, really detest racism and people who are racist. Nevertheless, freedom means that we must allow people to be racist to some extent. And even to associate with other racists, white supremacist groups and black supremacists that could be religious supremacist groups. And that's part of freedom that such groups will exist. We do, of course, have the right to express strong opposition to their views and the messages. And we may also seek to stop such people when they seek to impose their supremacist views on others. In fact, I would say even stronger. I would say that we must seek to stop people if they seek to impose evil ideas, racist, whether racist or otherwise on society. We actually have the obligation to do that. But short of that, there is that area of freedom of association that is a very important thing to maintain. As for being kicked out, really, ultimately, for our church, it's about relationship with God. And we would say that God will never kick out anyone who truly comes to Him in faith. And even with areas of church discipline, as Ken mentioned, the goal is always restorative in terms of getting the person back into right relationship with our Lord and Savior. And in doing so, that leads to reconciliation, leads to improvement of relationships with one another. So that goal is always to call the person back to the faith that they perfected and to live according to that faith and to continue on the road of walking as a true disciple of Christ, walking in love, walking in fellowship with others. As for how this has changed over the years, I would say, in principle, it hasn't. I think in our church, we really hold to the, I would say, literal understanding. That's a kind of dangerous adjective that we use, but I'd verb it, I guess it is. We would hold to a spiritual literal understanding of the Apostles Creed of, we believe, the biblical, the Bible is, was given by God. He guided the writers, human writers, to write exactly what He wanted. It's not men putting together their thoughts about God. It was from God down to us. So we would hold to pretty much the same principles that came out of our affirmation. But in practice, it's a lot different. In practice, it has softened through over the years. One of the things, in many cases, issues which would have come to the attention of the church in the past, just don't anymore. This is partly because of how society has changed. Most people in the developed world today no longer live in the kind of close-knit communities that most people once lived in, even in the cities in the past. There was more of a sense of people of one church kind of live together more and certainly in the smaller town, so you don't have that anymore. So there's a lot more privacy than there was in the past. So also, I would say that what churches tend to do today is to pursue kind of a don't-ask-don't-tell policy in many areas. Yeah, I think that's a good thing. Part of that is the respect for the privacy. Even in churches, I've been a part of two presbyterian denominations. One was a lot stricter than the other's doctorly. And there was smaller congregations, so you did tend to have more accountability naturally with it. The one I'm in now is a lot bigger church, and there is a lot of stuff that they don't know about. And as long as it doesn't become a divisive issue, it's not an issue. It doesn't cause problems for the church. So that leads to really fewer public church disputes than occurred in the past. And the other aspect of that is that churches just don't have to influence on society that they once did. We live in a much more secular culture today. That can be seen to have a good side and a bad side. But that will have to be a topic press for another meeting. So that's pretty much what I have. I have a question for both of you actually. What is your feeling on gay and lesbian people? Okay. Yeah, it's interesting. I was going to mention that, and I figured I would not mention it specifically because there's a tendency for people to think that conservative churches, churches that hold to traditional Christian teaching would single out homosexuals. In reality, that's not true. I would kind of mention it too, as far as sexual, all forms of sexual sin. The historic understanding of Christianity, we understand the biology of teaching, is really that all sexual relationships outside of a faithful, marital relationship between a husband and a woman, all, no matter what they are, are probably very sinful. And that God gave us sexual desires for the goal of bringing male and female together to be mates also, but also, and I would say that it's also the greatest expression, ideally, of the love of a man and a woman would be their sexual relationship. I think it's interesting Valentine's Day. Maybe you think about this. Of course, this is not a sexual area, and it's true, but in some ways, Valentine's Day, of course, is about love, and Christianity is very much about love, but really love of a husband, a man and a woman, as God designed us to come together as one. And it's interesting to just be, can you send a message, this is a little not quite related, but message of Christianity, can you see the reflect Valentine's Day in that the message of Christianity is this, Almighty God, the Creator, Lord, and Judge of all, wants to be your Valentine, if you are willing to let, that's just a thought I want to leave with you, but one other area is the whole confusion, kind of a sexual desire and love. Up until fairly recently, those were considered two separate things, and there's been a tendency today to, really to expand or distort really the, to make love akin to having a sexual attraction to somebody else, and that is not the way it was historically understood in fact until quite recently. Yet it is helpful to have historical perspective, especially on issues like the LGBTQ issues that are facing us today, and that really up until about 30 years ago, virtually every religion, every historic religion, centuries old, time-tested religion, and really this whole scientific world, and really all of academia, did not hold homosexuality to be as normal as heterosexual relations, and it's interesting, this has been one of those things where there's been a very striking change in a short period of time. Whatever that happens, you have to really, you should really, I think, as well, why is this happening, was everyone else up until recently wrong on this? And we would say that they weren't. And I think that what has happened in the last 30 years has been a really kind of a departure from human relations as God designed them. Okay. Thank you. Joe, just in the interest of time and fairness, since Chris only got one question, does someone else have a question for Chris? I'll be right in front of you afterwards too. And if not... I'm not going to be here afterwards. Okay. Go ahead. I do have a question. Ken was very clear about who you went to speak to. Is it the minister? Is it the head of the... If you are feeling troubled, or do you come to the leadership, or does the leadership say you are a thorn in our side, a pebble in our shoe, and we are coming to you? I would say the latter, almost never happens really. It's possible it could, but it depends on what the issue is really. I think sometimes things come to the attention, something like a criminal activity or something that comes to the attention. If the person is not willing to go and say, listen, I have a problem, because ideally, if a person is caught up in a behavior that is clearly wrong, they will go seek help in the church. Our church, there is a group of elders, it's called the Session of Elders, similar to what Ken was, the council there. They are there in theory, although in reality, what tends to happen is people go to counselors outside the church with Christian counselors or otherwise and usually deal with it that way. If they let the leadership of the church, a lot of people just don't do this really. They kind of work out all their stuff on their own, which can be good in a way, but it also might lead to problems to have a line too. But it would be, we would have to step the way out to be informal, usually one of the elders, one of the pastors, it would be more than an informal level, and if they could work things out, it's fine. If they can't, then they would take it to the whole body of elders, and if that can work out, then they would go to a preparatory level. Kind of reflects, actually Matthew chapter 18 has steps of how to deal with disagreements between brothers and sisters in the church. Okay, we have to stop right now. Sorry. Thank you so much, Chris. I have some time to talk with each other and then also people want to join for prayer they can. So don't move yet, but what I'd like you to talk about when you get into your small group, what I suggest is, what did you learn today that was new to you? What are some differences and similarities between your own faith traditions view of the topic and what you heard today? So those are just suggestions for discussion. And we always encourage people to talk with someone you don't know, you may have met them before, but you've never really talked with them, someone from a different faith than yours. And so now it's prayer time if you want to go there. Can people also go into the banquet hall now or do they need to wait? No, it's open. Okay, great. So this is very informal. It's fine to move your chairs around and move around. Thank you so much for coming everybody.