Shunning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"There are times the human heart needs more

than

the old ways can give it."

~The Baby Catcher~

Anabaptism

Shunning occurs in Old Order Amish and some Mennonite churches. Shunning can be particularly painful for the shunned individuals in these denominations, which are generally very close-knit, as the shunned person may have no significant social contact with anyone other than those in their denomination.


Upon taking instruction classes, each applicant must make a confession to uphold shunning of all excommunicated adult members, and also submit to being shunned if they are excommunicated. The stated intention is not to punish, but to be used in love to win the member back by showing them their error.

***

SHUNNING

Shunning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Shunning can be the act of social rejection, or mental rejection. Social rejection is when a person or group deliberately avoids association with, and habitually keeps away from an individual or group. This can be a formal decision by a group, or a less formal group action which will spread to all members of the group as a form of solidarity. It is a sanction against association, often associated with religious groups and other tightly knit organizations and communities. Targets of shunning can include persons who have been labeled as, apostates, whistleblowers, dissidents, strikebreakers, or anyone the group perceives as a threat or source of conflict. Social rejection has been established to cause psychological damage and has been categorized as torture. Mental rejection is a more individual action, where a person subconsciously or willfully ignores an idea, or a set of information related to particular viewpoint. Some groups are made up of people who shun the same ideas.

Shunning can be broken down into behaviours and practices that seek to accomplish either or both of two primary goals.

1. To modify the behaviour of a member. This approach seeks to influence, encourage, or coerce normative behaviours from members, and may seek to dissuade, provide disincentives for, or to compel avoidance of certain behaviours. Shunning may include disassociating from a member by other members of the community who are in good standing. It may include more antagonistic psychological behaviours (described below). This approach may be seen as either corrective or punitive (or both) by the group membership or leadership, and may also be intended as a deterrent.
   
2. To remove or limit the influence of a member (or former member) over other members in a community. This approach may seek to isolate, to discredit, or otherwise dis-empower such a member, often in the context of actions or positions advocated by that member. For groups with defined membership criteria, especially based on key behaviours or ideological precepts, this approach may be seen as limiting damage to the community or its leadership. This is often paired with some form of excommunication.

Some less often practiced variants may seek to:

• Remove a specific member from general external influence to provide an ideological or psychological buffer against external views or behaviour. The amount can vary from severing ties to opponents of the group up to and including severing all non-group-affiliated intercourse.

Shunning is usually approved of (if sometimes with regret) by the group engaging in the shunning, and usually highly disapproved of by the target of the shunning, resulting in a polarization of views. Those subject to the practice respond differently, usually depending both on the circumstances of the event, and the nature of the practices being applied. Extreme forms of shunning have damaged some individuals' psychological and relational health. Responses to the practice have developed, mostly around anti-shunning advocacy; such advocates highlight the detrimental effects of many of such behaviors, and seek to limit the practice through pressure or law. Such groups often operate supportive organizations or institutions to help victims of shunning to recover from damaging effects, and sometimes to attack the organizations practicing shunning, as a part of their advocacy.

In many civil societies, kinds of shunning are practiced de-facto or de-jure, to coerce or avert behaviours or associations deemed unhealthy. This can include:

• restraining orders or peace bonds (to avoid abusive relationships)
  
• court injunctions to disassociate (to avoid criminal association or temptation)
  
• medical or psychological instructing to avoid associating (to avoid hazardous relations, i.e. alcoholics being instructed to avoid friendship with non-recovering alcoholics, or asthmatics being medically instructed to keep to smoke-free environs)
  
• using background checks to avoid hiring people who have criminal records (to avoid association with felons, even when the crimes have nothing to do with the job description)

Stealth shunning

Stealth shunning is a practice where a person or an action is silently banned. When a person is silently banned, the group they have been banned from doesn't interact with them. This can be done by secretly announcing the policy to all except the banned individual, or it can happen informally when all people in a group or email list each conclude that they do not want to interact with the person. When an action is silently banned, requests for that action are either ignored or turned down with faked explanations.

Civil rights implications

Some aspects of shunning may also be seen as being at odds with civil rights or human rights, especially those behaviours that coerce and attack. When a group seeks to have an effect through such practices outside its own membership, for instance when a group seeks to cause financial harm through isolation and disassociation, they can come at odds with their surrounding civil society, if such a society enshrines rights such as freedom of association, conscience, or belief. Many civil societies do not extend such protections to the internal operations of communities or organizations so long as an ex-member has the same rights, prerogatives, and power as any other member of the civil society.

***

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Bittersweet Revenge

The statement about "there being times the human heart needing more than the old ways can give it" may very well be the reason explaining  the mob's attraction to Jesus' unsanctioned sermons.

May very well also explain the mob's abandonment of Jesus during his trail before Pontius Pilate.

If the miracles Jesus performed in front of his own people weren't convincing enough to spare his life; 
why should we be convinced by them today.

Leaving us only with the message of his sermons.

You cannot repeat what HE said THEN...
this day and age...
and have it MEAN the same thing today. 
Just cannot DO that.

Not ALL of US anyway.

***

On September 25th, will have to appear before Judge Nora Polk regarding restraining orders place against me by my two of my neighbors, Charles Bliss and Bobby Rasulnia, who live right next door to me.

My question before her is going to have to be:

"How does one be a good little progressive

without

 being confrontational?"

Find it funny how even Liberal say "confrontational"

the way "

Conservatives" say:

"PROGRESSIVES!"

&

"YOU'RE A LIBERAL!"

"Confront." 

"Confrontational." 

"Confront."

 "Confrontational."

That's not a dirty word either.

&

I take pride in that.

As all politics is local, 
from my perspective it begins with my home 
and 
spirals outwards from there.

As I lived in my house first, 
it's not my fault 
our story 
(mine, Charlie's, and Bobby's) 
is 
such a huge part of my of my story.

I have every right to tell my story/sing my song 
to 
any and all willing to listen or read.

Although atheist...

can't help feel it ordained God feeding me two useless faggots to make an example of...

helping prove my lack of tribal loyalties.

Either we are all God's children 
or 
we never were.