Excommunication

Excommunication is a religious act used to take off or suspend membership in a religious community.

The word literally means out of communion, or no longer in communion. In some churches, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group. Sometimes sanctions follow excommunication; these include banishment, shunning, and shaming, depending on the group's religion or religious community.

Other websites

• De Fide, a non-profit association, uses Canon Law to defend the Roman Catholic Church from Heresy by filing lawsuits in Ecclesiastical Court, seeking the excommunication of impenitent offenders.
• Elizabeth Vargas Reports on Sexual Abuse Inside The Amish Community on ABC's "20/20", Friday, Dec 10, 2004
• Excommunication, the Ban, Church Discipline and Avoidance (from Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online)
• Ritual and the Social Meaning and Meaninglessness of Religion (Social science study of Old Order Mennonite methods of baptism, discipline, etc.)
• Ostracism on Trial: The Limits of Individual Rights (Amish)
• ALL OR NOTHING STATEMENTS (From Those Who Have 'The Truth') (from cult exiter source)
• Catholic Encyclopaedia on excommunication
• The two sides of excommunication
• Episcopal Church of America excommunication
• ECUSA excommunication and Church of England

Sources

• Encyclopedia of American Religions, by J. Gordon Melton ISBN 0-8103-6904-4
• Ludlow, Daniel H. ed, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Macmillan Publishing, 1992.