Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Excommunicate With Care
I hope this isn’t a sign with any personal significance, but I opened the Psalter Hymnal Handbook yesterday right to its commentary on the PH’s form for excommunication. A sentence printed in bold caught my eye:
The forms, as found in the first seven printings of Psalter Hymnal, should not be used.
This is because Synod 1991 revised the forms for excommunication, ruling that the cause for exclusion should not be publicly specified. The revised forms are provided in Acts of Synod 1991
The Handbook adds that the current church order “leaves open the question of whether worship is the appropriate place for such a sad and wrenching action” (as opposed to a congregational meeting).
But the Handbook comments, ” Sad as any actual exclusion from membership is, it is appropriate that the council announce such an act in the public gathering for worship. In this way the sorrow and grief resulting from this action can be brought to the Lord in the setting of communal prayer and the proclamation of the gospel ... appropriate placement in the liturgy would be in the context of the congregational prayer or the confession of sin.”
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