Pilgrim; I like the emphasis on motive. The next actions must be pure, and not prideful. Paul speaks to that also, that "delivering one to Satan" is about church discipline in lovingly desiring true repentance from somebody we still see as Christian, not just self-justifying punishment of another, the way the stoners took up stones against the prostitute. And not just punitive, as if shaming him as a form of simple punishment. Not sure, though, whether a correct motive speaks enough information to the correct "mode" of discipline....pure motive is not a license to be free in our conduct.

Robin: Good idea...that the notion be put out there as anonymous without the name. Rather reminds me of the time the Pastor was preaching without mentioning my name but kept looking at me....made me wonder "what? what'd I do?".

Certainly once the heretic goes public himself, the question ends. But so long as its still confidential, the question remains.

But I agree even more when you said that the approach should first be in private. In fact, I think it never needs to go to disobeying laws of confidentiality.

It is just regular old "church discipline" in my view. Imagine an elder board printing everybody's shortcoming issues from the last week in this week's bulletin, shaming them as a form of punishing them as a form of correcting them.

Shaming is ancient pagan practice of dealing with a heretic. The Greek dramas of "tragedy and comedy" were not about murders and joke-telling, they were about people losing their standing in society, good fortune to bad, the story of the mighty who had fallen. Comedy was the opposite. Whereas repentance and forgiveness restores the fallen, shaming is purely punitive. That is why it is taken as tragedy...it can not be undone without the efforts of the sinner. Once you are shamed, your pride must EARNED again. A sinner lead to repentance is forgiven and they are restored by those who forgave. A sinner lead into shame is purely outcast and is only restored by his own blood sweat and tears in regaining his pride. One is corrective, the other is punitive. One is freely given by others, the other charges a further price to the one already downcast.

Christian restoration was antithetical to the ancient Greeks. We sought to restore for free, they sought to shame with a price. Likewise, their heroes were the proud and mighty who earned it, ours were humble and lowly who deserved more.

For these reasons I think that releasing confidential information on a server to the public is wrong. The biblical NT model of confronting one on one privately is first upheld even inonline instances of heresy. And the whole point of it being just one on one is to avoid the risk of simply shaming them...it gives them a chance to avoid greater measures that may yet come to a more public issue. The individual should be invited discreetly aside, and confronted by his brother in a spirit of loving correction, and humility for we all make mistakes in matters of doctrine from time to time. If he persists, then the NT says two should go. And it is simply elevated.

Plopping the matter in front of everyone is not given permission anywhere until the congregation is required to deal with the situation. Even then, I do not find warrant to break the laws of the land... I do not believe it is necessary in order to conduct proper discipline in the Church, including in the body catholic.

This is what makes Luthers action of pounding his issues publicly into the door at Wittenberg so fascinating. It was exactly in the public domain he wanted his issues challenged! That is where he invited his opponents to meet him and there he would have opportunity to better disclose publicly their errors.

In the first one on one confrontation, I suggest a very simple question to the heretic be put, that if he will not recant and see the right way, then let him post his views publicly so they can be discussed there....bring him out into the open. What if he doesn't? Start a new thread opposing such views in public without naming him, see if that draws him out. At least if it draws out somebody else you will have opportunity to address him AS IF in public and make your Christian attempt to restore him. Meantime, take your second person and pay him another private "three strikes, buddy" visit. In the end if he won't accept, the moderator simply removes him on the condition that if he recants, he's forgiven and back in.

My two cents anyway.

-Barry