Surprisingly, shunning resonates as a hot button topic. Who knew? Maybe you’re thinking, You should have asked me, Cathy, everybody has felt shunned sometime! Honestly, I didn’t know. Probably because, ahem, my problem is talking too much.
Often, conversations with amazing guests on Fireside Talk Radio inspire us for topics, including one about shunning recently. During a private break, I asked one wise guest if her church shunned her after her divorce.
Comforting or Shunning in the Church?
Certainly, shunning is a legitimate concern. In fact, through my favorite post-abortive ministry, CARE, we’ve discovered many post-abortive women believe their church will reject them because of abortion. Whether divorce, abortion, or some other crisis, people may fear they will not receive comfort or help from church folks.
However, when I asked her privately during a break, Jeanette Hanscome shared how her church came alongside her, no questions asked. When we came back on air, Jeanette talked extensively about what churches can do to help those in crisis. Great stuff! (To hear Jeanette’s advice on how and why to provide help without judging, find her podcasts here. Find her website here.)
What is Shunning?
To define shunning, imagine a group of people who reject someone in order to force compliance with the mandated group think. For instance, you experienced divorce or abortion or vote a certain way, so you can no longer be a part of our group.
Shunning communicates clearly that you’ve been ostracized and punished for your transgression, even if the “sin” is something as simple as a different opinion. You may show up for family meals or church services, but shunners won’t talk to you or include you. Their rejection is communicated in the way they ignore you.
In other words, shunning is a way of shutting the door on healthy conversation and withdrawing companionship in order to control another person.
Forms of Healthy Distance in Relationships
In contrast, healthy boundaries allow people to come and go freely in relationships that are mature, respectful, and open. This includes opportunities to maintain ongoing conversations, even when people disagree.
Another form of healthy boundaries is strategic withdrawal. Strategic withdrawal may be necessary when relationships get too emotionally charged. We see an interesting example of healthy strategic withdrawal in the way Jesus continued to reengage with the spiritual leaders, even after He called them out on their hypocrisy.
Because of His commitment to those leaders’ best interests, He continued to engage in tender, private conversation with leaders who asked good questions. A great example is the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3).
Please notice the following difference between shunning and healthy boundaries. On the one hand, shunning attempts to force people into compliance. On the other hand, healthy boundaries foster wholesome relationships in an ongoing, committed way.
More on Shunning
If you’ve suffered from shunning, you’re going to love what I discovered when I searched for information on this seemingly hush-hush problem. (Here’s the link for the quotes below.)
“Shunning is often used as a pejorative term to describe any organizationally mandated disassociation, and has acquired a connotation of abuse and relational aggression. This is due to the sometimes extreme damage caused by its disruption to normal relationships between individuals, such as friendships and family relations.”
“Shunning contains aspects of what is known as relational aggression in psychological literature. When used by church members and member-spouse parents against excommunicant parents it contains elements of what psychologists call parental alienation. Extreme shunning may cause traumas to the shunned (and to their dependents) similar to what is studied in the psychology of torture.”
“Torture itself is the use of physical or psychological pain to control the victim or fulfill some needs of the perpetrator.”
Big words packed with meaning. Yep, those are some pretty heady quotes, provided by smart folks who included references to studies via wikipedia. What does all this mean for you and me, though? To understand, I chased around a few terms.
Relational Aggression
First, I learned that relational aggression is behavior typically associated with adolescence. In other words, immature or wounded adults. Maybe this is why, from an early age, we teach our youngsters to Use your words! Certainly, before we reach adulthood, we need better communication tools than shunning.
Relationship Alienation
Next, I found a definition of parental alienation so I could understand what the article was trying to tell us. Thus, I learned parental alienation refers to talking ugly about an ex-spouse in an attempt to cause an estrangement between your child and the other parent. If you’ve ever experienced shunning in a group, you probably noticed shunning is often accompanied with intense gossip and false narratives, with the motive to alienate relationships.
Psychological Torture
Finally, I chased down the definition of psychological torture, so we could see that in extreme cases, shunning is used by unhealthy entities to subdue and enslave others. Think modern theocracies like Iran and Afghanistan. Serious stuff, when carried to the extreme.
Hopefully, any experience we have with shunning falls into the manipulative-but-easily-corrected category, rather than the long-term-destructive category. (For more on how to handle injustice gracefully, please look for Janet McHenry’s interview.)
Say What?
For everyday folks like us, if you’ve suffered shunning in your family, church or community, it’s not good. But, it may be more common than we want to believe. Can we change cold manipulation into warm conversations? Yes, we can.
When it comes to group dynamics, how do we create a change? How can we be part of the solution instead of perpetuating the problem? Those are excellent questions with real answers. Hence, I will share more on this topic next week. I can hardly wait!
Lately, we’ve interviewed some amazing folks who offered insight on related topics. For example, click on any of our Fireside Talk Radio podcasts by Jeanette Hanscome, Janet McHenry,Cynthia Tobias,SharRon Jamison,Carol Clark, or Grace English for more insight about letting go of condemnation and offering compassion instead. Plus, we loved what Chris Legg said in a recent sermon about race and the border crisis.
Up Next
Next week, I’ll include some ways to address the problem if you feel you are being manipulated through shunning. Please, if you have ideas about shunning, send them to me quickly! I can’t wait to read what you offer! Next week’s blog—Shunning: Why Do Humans Shun and How Do We Stop It?
May I pray for you?
Dear Father in heaven, We desire tender companionship and healthy relationships. Yet, we experience rejection. In this we are not alone since Your own beloved Son experienced rejection. Have mercy on us, loving Father! Teach us to love and forgive relentlessly. Allow us the energy and compassion to love as we wish to be loved. Give us wisdom to break the cycle of shunning when it happens. May we have words and wisdom for the healthy conversations You want us to enjoy. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
We love to hear from you!
When have you experienced shunning? What has spoken healing to a shunning situation in your experience? What have you learned about rejection?
Cathy Krafve, Columnist, Speaker, Blogger, Podcaster, and Christian Writer, invites your stories, ideas, and questions at CathyKrafve.com. Truth with a Texas Twang.
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