More churches should Excommunicate pro-abortion politicians
Excommunicating Pelosi - who regularly invokes her "Catholic" faith to justify her own policies - should be the first step.
Imagine a wicked politician supported abolishing the age of consent, legalizing child rape slavery. Would his church be justified in publicly rebuking him for this action, up to and including excommunication? What about a politician who was openly advocating we continue the Nazi "final solution" campaign that led to the murder of over six million Jews?
"Tax the church" started trending on Twitter when the Roman Catholic Church finally disciplined Nancy Pelosi for her support of butchering unborn babies. This should have happened decades ago, and President Joe Biden should also have been excommunicated. But at least the Catholic Church has some understanding of how the church should deal with public wickedness. Protestants almost never display this kind of moral courage - and I say this as a Protestant.
But abortion is not like those other things, some may object. Even if we accept that false premise, the examples mentioned in my opening paragraph ought to make us realize that there is a line beyond which churches should discipline members of their congregations who serve in government as elected leaders. The point is not whether we agree that there is a line or that churches should seek to influence, instruct and admonish political leaders who are members of those churches. We all agree that is appropriate. The question is where we draw that line.
The slaughter of the unborn is the perfect place to draw that line.
This is not a violation of "separation of church and state." (That does not exist in the Constitution.) Churches have the same First Amendment right to petition government for redress of grievances that everyone else, does, and they are within their proper authority to discipline church members for rebellion against church doctrine. Taxing the church in retaliation for excommunicating Pelosi (or anyone else) would be an unconstitutional retaliation against someone for exercising First Amendment freedoms.
Excommunicating Pelosi - who regularly invokes her "Catholic" faith to justify her own policies - should be the first step. Protestant churches should follow the Catholics' example here and do the same with pro-abortion politicians in their own churches. The church has been too weak for too long, and it is time for church leaders to actually lead their flocks.
As a former Catholic, I agree that more churches - especially Protestant denominations - should discipline their members for “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin" - the language of Catholic Canon 915 under which Pelosi was denied Holy Communion by Archbishop Cardileone of San Francisco.
However, the archbishop did NOT excommunicate Pelosi. He merely denied her communion until such time as she repents of her grave sin, the sin of promoting abortion. "Excommunication is a penalty that involves more than just being denied Communion. Its effects are spelled out in canon 1331." https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/whos-worthy-to-receive-communion
Canon 915 thus envisions a group of people who are not excommunicated but who are to be denied Communion because they are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.”
Excommunication under Catholic law (Canon 1331) prevents the subject from receiving or participating in ANY sacrament or liturgical worship service. In effect, it bans the person from the Catholic church until repentance of sin is completed.
I suspect that the Roman Catholic Church is very formal in its ecclesiastical laws and procedures because it is one of the oldest and is the largest Christian denomination on the planet. However, Protestant denominations could take a lesson from the good aspects of this formality by drawing Scriptural lines proscribing Biblically-accepted behavior for their leaders and members. Unfortunately the worldly nature of man encourages us to either excuse grave sin or to cover it up. It seems that all Christian denominations have been guilty of worldly behavior in response to sin in an effort to preserve their institutions rather than the true church of Jesus Christ.
Still, we must remember that "all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God." Romans 3:23.
As my daily devotional put it yesterday: "Our task is not to become [Christian] pundits, condemning one or justifying the other, but to walk humbly before God lest we ourselves become like the evil we condemn." https://www.northlandcathedral.org/resources/nc-daily-devotional/ii-kings-8-12/