Church Discipline in a Consumer Culture: A Call for Compelling Community

The American culture of individualistic consumerism is problematic for the church in many ways, but its impact on biblical church discipline is especially startling. I have witnessed this myself. The church my wife belonged to in college (where we were married and continue to fellowship frequently) has been ostracized by other evangelical churches in the area as a direct result of its commitment to biblical church discipline. In this paper I will demonstrate the importance of church discipline and how consumerism and the resulting commodification of both parishioners and religion itself have undermined the biblical model. I will then make the case for reclaiming biblical church discipline by pursuing a Trinitarian model of compelling community based on our unity in Christ. Corrective church discipline is commanded by scripture and is critical to the health and witness of the church. Scripture tells us to exercise discipline for the benefit of the church and the sanctification of individual believers. The goal is to compel our sinful sibling to repent so that “the sinful nature may be destroyed ” and the individual’s “spirit saved”. Also we must practice church discipline to maintain purity in the church because “a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough ” (1 Corinthians 5)