Shunning is powerful. Some people have studied it as a human phenomenon, and very often, they've done it in places just like the one I work in: high schools.
Groups have lives of their own. They literally function like organisms. One of the things groups can unthinkingly do is activate their own equivalent of "antibodies" or a "rejection" response, just like the one that can happen when someone gets an organ transplant. Sometimes groups reject something bad, but groups can also reject innocuous, or even valuable things as well. So, in a high school, a group of girls may reject a member who buys the wrong kinds of clothes, or says "hi" to the wrong person.
A book I'm reading indicates that groups of females are far more likely to shun someone than groups of males. Shunning appears to be one of those sophisticated female social dynamic things, primarily. Teenage males are more likely to swear at someone, shove him into something and have basically forgotten all about it soon afterward. The research indicated that even before they've reached teenage-hood, school girls are unthinkingly shunning other girls who've offended the group, with the ostracizing typically lasting a couple of weeks or even months, at an age when a couple of months truly seems to last an age. Boys, by contrast, tend to resolve disagreement, not always in better ways, but certainly much more quickly.
The woman who did this research (Deborah Tannen) was quite confident about all of this. I know it meshes with what I see at school and in churches. And in my experience, churches are deeply feminized, whether women are allowed to be clergy or not. A lot of singing and talking about feelings. A whole lot of concern about pasta salad, or jello with bits of fruit floating in it, and weddings and babies.
The woman who did this research (Deborah Tannen) was quite confident about all of this. I know it meshes with what I see at school and in churches. And in my experience, churches are deeply feminized, whether women are allowed to be clergy or not. A lot of singing and talking about feelings. A whole lot of concern about pasta salad, or jello with bits of fruit floating in it, and weddings and babies.
School officials never seem to shut up about "peer pressure" and "bullying," but groups enforcing their will upon their members seems to be a very natural thing. It doesn't really seem to ever die, despite having a whole lot of assemblies and posters decrying it. We're supposed to accept everyone, but we won't. We divide by all the usual lines. Style, income bracket, intelligence, attractiveness and all that. We are unrepentant "respecters of persons."
Circles
Like a lot of people, I didn't comfortably fit into a group at school, nor at church, and so was shut out of them. I was supposed to fit in at church and didn't, and I was definitely raised to NOT fit in at school, and that worked. My church youth group, particularly when at school, had this things of standing in closed rings, backs turned on everyone. I found that if I'd been missing youth group, or was for some unexplained reason particularly out of favour, or if the people in a ring were getting particularly smug or zealous, that I'd walk up to the shoulder-to-shoulder barrier rings, and try to stand with the kids from my church while waiting for the bus, and though I could call "over" their backs into the circle, they could and often would, simply ignore me and keep those backs turned. Sometimes, without facing me, a comment about "haven't seen YOU at Young People's for a couple of weeks..." could be grunted over a shoulder.
One time I said "Are you seriously going to punish me for not attending young people's by turning all your backs on me and not letting me in?"
They gave no response and started carefully talking about something else, leaving me "out" there.
Like a lot of people, I didn't comfortably fit into a group at school, nor at church, and so was shut out of them. I was supposed to fit in at church and didn't, and I was definitely raised to NOT fit in at school, and that worked. My church youth group, particularly when at school, had this things of standing in closed rings, backs turned on everyone. I found that if I'd been missing youth group, or was for some unexplained reason particularly out of favour, or if the people in a ring were getting particularly smug or zealous, that I'd walk up to the shoulder-to-shoulder barrier rings, and try to stand with the kids from my church while waiting for the bus, and though I could call "over" their backs into the circle, they could and often would, simply ignore me and keep those backs turned. Sometimes, without facing me, a comment about "haven't seen YOU at Young People's for a couple of weeks..." could be grunted over a shoulder.
One time I said "Are you seriously going to punish me for not attending young people's by turning all your backs on me and not letting me in?"
They gave no response and started carefully talking about something else, leaving me "out" there.
For this reason, I often ended up standing with my school friends. My school friends didn't do the tight circles. They stood side by side, or leaned on things, or formed loose shapes with holes. You could always just walk up and step into a conversation.
At youth group, I would follow my school habit of leaning on a wall or standing with my back to something, and I'd watch the circles/rings form. People would come up to a tight little circle (I'm imagining teenagers standing around in the room behind the main church room at the Rideau Ferry Meeting Hall here) and seek entrance to it. Often the circle would open up. If the person was in favour, there might even be some nervously apologetic joking about having shut that person out for a moment, by virtue of not seeing him or her at first.
One time when I was about twenty, my friend Michael Vedder, who seemed very much at the time like something out of a Dr. Seuss book (still does), was visiting, and we were standing watching the circles at the church in Ottawa/Nepean. Right before the Division happened there. Suddenly he marched over (literally), shoved his way roughly into the middle of a circle, and now that it was a circle formed around him, marched around and around in it. They all laughed, a bit nervously. It really seemed to confuse them. Usually Michael wasn't around. He lived far away. So mostly I just watched the circles like some people watch hockey. Like some people study tribes of apes.
Sometimes things in a circle would go slightly sour, socially speaking. Someone would clearly not enjoy something that had gone on socially or which had been said, and would break from the circle and wander across the room, temporarily unattached. Often they'd come stand with me and talk for a while, looking away from me while sizing up which circle to join next.
I had a lot of good conversations with people who probably found there were laxer rules as to what was okay to say when it was just me there to talk to. But they'd always eventually tire of the one-on-one and seek entry to a circle. More diluted interaction than one-on-one. More status. And I mostly remained outside the circles, watching them. All a circle had to do to get me to leave was for everyone to all stop talking at once and stare at me together. Or someone could laugh condescendingly when I'd said something, drawl "ANYway..." and pretend that I'd not just said the thing I'd just said that they just didn't like.
I sometimes had a friend or two stand with me, but we didn't form circles. I made sure of that. I thought they were dumb.
I had a lot of good conversations with people who probably found there were laxer rules as to what was okay to say when it was just me there to talk to. But they'd always eventually tire of the one-on-one and seek entry to a circle. More diluted interaction than one-on-one. More status. And I mostly remained outside the circles, watching them. All a circle had to do to get me to leave was for everyone to all stop talking at once and stare at me together. Or someone could laugh condescendingly when I'd said something, drawl "ANYway..." and pretend that I'd not just said the thing I'd just said that they just didn't like.
I sometimes had a friend or two stand with me, but we didn't form circles. I made sure of that. I thought they were dumb.
Getting Vetted
Nothing much has changed, really. I find that Christians mainly still operate socially in tight circles, and I have a lot of trouble getting them to reliably be willing to chat outside those. I prefer to talk one-on-one, or in small groups, and I find most people "hide" in those bigger groups, or something like that. (I dunno. I'm still just seeing a lot of backs.)
And whenever someone invites me to a church thing, I'm pretty impossible. I did it again today. Ravishing, charitable young woman invited me to a church thing (admittedly, she tried to conceal the nature of the event so I'd maybe go) and I was a jerk. I did what I always do: I check and see if that person has spent any one-on-one time with me, or can be convinced to do that, before making myself a congregant. And if that person won't go out for a beer or a sandwich, I won't go to his or her church.
Now, I realize that for many, you invite someone into your church activity, to "dilute" the intensity of the interaction, to hedge your bets, and if they wind up gaining group acceptance, and the consensus is that they're okay, then you might go for coffee or a beer or a sandwich. After you've put them through those hoops. I don't do well with group acceptance auditions. I make a bad first impression. Famously.
And whenever someone invites me to a church thing, I'm pretty impossible. I did it again today. Ravishing, charitable young woman invited me to a church thing (admittedly, she tried to conceal the nature of the event so I'd maybe go) and I was a jerk. I did what I always do: I check and see if that person has spent any one-on-one time with me, or can be convinced to do that, before making myself a congregant. And if that person won't go out for a beer or a sandwich, I won't go to his or her church.
Now, I realize that for many, you invite someone into your church activity, to "dilute" the intensity of the interaction, to hedge your bets, and if they wind up gaining group acceptance, and the consensus is that they're okay, then you might go for coffee or a beer or a sandwich. After you've put them through those hoops. I don't do well with group acceptance auditions. I make a bad first impression. Famously.
But I'm quite stubbornly insisting on doing things the opposite way. It's not generally working out very well. People in groups do what they do.
Editing People Out of Your History
I often chat online with people about them being excluded or shunned from various church groups. In the Plymouth Brethren, a couple of verses in the New Testament are being taken and used as pretty much the only tactic for dealing with any problem at all: these verses are about not keeping company with, or eating with certain extreme types of unrepentant habitual sinners. But some Brethren groups seem to have built an entire culture of this one idea. It's eventually all about who gets to take communion, and who loses that right and gets shunned.
It's about having members live under the threat of people pretending they never existed, editing them from history like Big Brother, punishing people by it, and leaving them perpetually in a state of shunning if you don't want to deal with them again.
When I went to the Montreal Conference last fall, a number of people I went to both church and high school with refused to look at me and turned away as much as possible when they walked by. They did not hiss or cross themselves, for which I was grateful. I was much more grateful for all the people who treated me just as if I were a real live human being with feelings and everything. And there were a whole bunch of those. I didn't go to high school with any of them.
I often chat online with people about them being excluded or shunned from various church groups. In the Plymouth Brethren, a couple of verses in the New Testament are being taken and used as pretty much the only tactic for dealing with any problem at all: these verses are about not keeping company with, or eating with certain extreme types of unrepentant habitual sinners. But some Brethren groups seem to have built an entire culture of this one idea. It's eventually all about who gets to take communion, and who loses that right and gets shunned.
It's about having members live under the threat of people pretending they never existed, editing them from history like Big Brother, punishing people by it, and leaving them perpetually in a state of shunning if you don't want to deal with them again.
When I went to the Montreal Conference last fall, a number of people I went to both church and high school with refused to look at me and turned away as much as possible when they walked by. They did not hiss or cross themselves, for which I was grateful. I was much more grateful for all the people who treated me just as if I were a real live human being with feelings and everything. And there were a whole bunch of those. I didn't go to high school with any of them.
Now, the New Testament is pretty clear that central to Christianity are love, liberty and unity. Obviously, you can't really do those and shun to perpetuity at the same time. I mean, my church peeps always say they're shunning us because they love us, but I don't really believe that anymore. They always claimed we were free also, but I found that our living under that threat of being kicked out and shunned quite neatly negated anything Christ had done to set me free. Made the freeing work of Christ to none effect, as the apostle would say. And Plymouth Brethren groups abound all over the world, many of which display no connection/unity with any other Plymouth Brethren groups at all, even if they meet in the same town. They don't even drop over and ask how things are going. Like, ever.
Shunning, High School Girl Style
I was taking a chilly walk under the stars last night and some thoughts I'd been kicking back and forth with Keith in a private message exchange started to gel: shunning is a very powerful thing for a community to do, there is no doubt. It messes people up to have their own birth culture act like they were never born, and if so, certainly not into it. But I decided that shunning takes the cooperation of absolutely everyone or else it just won't work. If even one person doesn't get with the program, it soon falls apart. Everyone needs to "submit" to it. (Plymouth Brethren groups insist on that.)
I was taking a chilly walk under the stars last night and some thoughts I'd been kicking back and forth with Keith in a private message exchange started to gel: shunning is a very powerful thing for a community to do, there is no doubt. It messes people up to have their own birth culture act like they were never born, and if so, certainly not into it. But I decided that shunning takes the cooperation of absolutely everyone or else it just won't work. If even one person doesn't get with the program, it soon falls apart. Everyone needs to "submit" to it. (Plymouth Brethren groups insist on that.)
To make this point, I'm going to use the high school example. I spend several forty minute periods each month standing and watching a few hundred teenagers eat. My main job is to make sure they don't start food fights.
Let us imagine that Jessica has committed that cardinal of teenage girl group sins, and has shared a secret told her in confidence by the girls in the group, with her sister Lyssandra, who is outside the group, because she is older and dresses wrong. It is lunchtime and Jessica walks into the cafeteria.
Jessica goes to sit down next to Natalie, and Destiny intercepts by sliding across and taking Jessica's accustomed place. Neither Natalie nor Destiny acknowledge Jessica is there by any eye contact, but their shoulders are set very tightly in a clear posture of elaborate "What? We're not doing anything." Jessica stands, horrified for a moment, then tries shamefacedly to take Destiny's usual spot but Destiny gives her the evil eye, so Jessica goes and sits by herself. Jessica sits by herself at lunchtime each day for a week or two, and is eventually allowed to sit with the group again once a few weeks have passed. It is hoped that she has learned her lesson.
Imagine if it had gone like this: Jessica goes to sit down next to Natalie, and Destiny intercepts by
sliding across and taking Jessica's accustomed place. Jessica stands,
horrified for a moment, then tries to take Destiny's usual spot and
Destiny gives her the evil eye, but beside Destiny, Sarah moves slightly to one side, indicating Jessica can sit next to her. Jessica sits next to Sarah, and now the group has to allow Jessica to be part of it, unless it is willing to shun Sarah too. They may decide to actually do this, depending on how much social clout Sarah possesses.
Ironically, in groups of this kind, the "queen" at the top gets there, not by complying, but by the opposite. She forces an unwritten set of laws, which are ever-changing, upon the other girls, but makes certain she demonstrates that she gets to break them a little bit herself. Because she's the queen.
Ironically, in groups of this kind, the "queen" at the top gets there, not by complying, but by the opposite. She forces an unwritten set of laws, which are ever-changing, upon the other girls, but makes certain she demonstrates that she gets to break them a little bit herself. Because she's the queen.
Imagine, conversely if it had gone like this: Jessica goes to sit down next to Natalie, and Destiny intercepts by
sliding across and taking Jessica's accustomed place. Jessica puts what is being done into words, and says "Okay, so you're seriously going to be little bitches about this?" and can likely force her way into the group, just by showing contempt for their contempt, unless they are willing to turn a bit of musical chairs into a full on verbal argument. If Jessica simply refuses to be so easily dominated, they may give up on trying to dominate her. She may actually gain status and respect through this.
Girls operate very much upon each other "taking a hint." And if the target of their social punishment is clueless and oblivious, or doesn't care and ignores it, hints don't work. So that bluff can be called. (Ladies: saying guys are "horrible at taking hints" and then communicating with us solely through the language of hints is actually pretty hard to respect.)
A Division, Told In Terms of High School Girls 'Having Drama'
Here is the Plymouth Brethren version of the cafeteria drama: Jessica goes to sit down next to Natalie, and Destiny intercepts by sliding across and taking Jessica's accustomed place. Jessica's sister has said she heard Jessica say that she just didn't think Justin Bieber was actually that cute. Jessica claims Lyssandra is lying. Something must be done. Obviously they cannot eat with her. Forgiveness or tolerance are not options at this point. So her seat is taken, before she can do any more damage.
Jessica stands, horrified for a moment, then tries to take Destiny's usual spot and Destiny gives her the evil eye, but beside Destiny, Sarah moves slightly to one side, indicating Jessica can sit next to her. Jessica sits next to Sarah, and now the group has to allow Jessica to be part of it, unless it is willing to shun Sarah too.
It most certainly is willing. The situation is dire and their only choice is to do what they do next: Natalie and Destiny meet after school, allowing Nykayla and Lafondra to attend too, once they have indicated they are all of like mind. (Raven isn't informed of the meeting, because you never can tell with Raven.) A note on a Justin Bieber Post-it is drafted, informing Sarah and Jessica that they may no longer sit on the west side of the cafeteria, as sadly, it has come to "everyone's" attention that Jessica and Sarah are clearly weak little sluts.
Outraged, Jessica and Sarah meet after school, and on One Direction notepaper draft a response saying that Natalie, Destiny, Nykayla and Lafondra may no longer sit at the tables on the east side of the cafeteria, as they are clearly all fat, stupid bitches.
The next day, there is a small note attached to every table in the cafeteria. It announces that everyone in the cafeteria who does not text Natalie or Destiny with a clear statement supporting the necessity of the action taken against Jessica and Sarah by 4pm will not be welcome to eat in the cafeteria for the rest of high school.
Oddly, obscured underneath the dire note is another (scribbled on) note that was posted there not thirty minutes prior to the "west side" one. It announces that if anyone in the cafeteria allows Natalie, Destiny, Nykayla or Lafondra, or for that matter, their boyfriends and siblings, to sit at their table, that that person will not be welcome to eat in the cafeteria for the rest of high school.
This is going to be awkward. Jessica and Destiny are both on Students Council, which is doing a Tolerance Fundraiser next week.
Girls operate very much upon each other "taking a hint." And if the target of their social punishment is clueless and oblivious, or doesn't care and ignores it, hints don't work. So that bluff can be called. (Ladies: saying guys are "horrible at taking hints" and then communicating with us solely through the language of hints is actually pretty hard to respect.)
A Division, Told In Terms of High School Girls 'Having Drama'
Here is the Plymouth Brethren version of the cafeteria drama: Jessica goes to sit down next to Natalie, and Destiny intercepts by sliding across and taking Jessica's accustomed place. Jessica's sister has said she heard Jessica say that she just didn't think Justin Bieber was actually that cute. Jessica claims Lyssandra is lying. Something must be done. Obviously they cannot eat with her. Forgiveness or tolerance are not options at this point. So her seat is taken, before she can do any more damage.
Jessica stands, horrified for a moment, then tries to take Destiny's usual spot and Destiny gives her the evil eye, but beside Destiny, Sarah moves slightly to one side, indicating Jessica can sit next to her. Jessica sits next to Sarah, and now the group has to allow Jessica to be part of it, unless it is willing to shun Sarah too.
It most certainly is willing. The situation is dire and their only choice is to do what they do next: Natalie and Destiny meet after school, allowing Nykayla and Lafondra to attend too, once they have indicated they are all of like mind. (Raven isn't informed of the meeting, because you never can tell with Raven.) A note on a Justin Bieber Post-it is drafted, informing Sarah and Jessica that they may no longer sit on the west side of the cafeteria, as sadly, it has come to "everyone's" attention that Jessica and Sarah are clearly weak little sluts.
Outraged, Jessica and Sarah meet after school, and on One Direction notepaper draft a response saying that Natalie, Destiny, Nykayla and Lafondra may no longer sit at the tables on the east side of the cafeteria, as they are clearly all fat, stupid bitches.
The next day, there is a small note attached to every table in the cafeteria. It announces that everyone in the cafeteria who does not text Natalie or Destiny with a clear statement supporting the necessity of the action taken against Jessica and Sarah by 4pm will not be welcome to eat in the cafeteria for the rest of high school.
Oddly, obscured underneath the dire note is another (scribbled on) note that was posted there not thirty minutes prior to the "west side" one. It announces that if anyone in the cafeteria allows Natalie, Destiny, Nykayla or Lafondra, or for that matter, their boyfriends and siblings, to sit at their table, that that person will not be welcome to eat in the cafeteria for the rest of high school.
This is going to be awkward. Jessica and Destiny are both on Students Council, which is doing a Tolerance Fundraiser next week.
(note: this portrayal is unrealistic in high school terms, as it involves girls writing on paper, the profanity has been toned down significantly, and it does not end in a restraining order or anyone going to an alternative high school)
Shunning: A Game Everyone Must Play Or It Dies
Basically, what I decided is that when it is "time" for someone to be shunned by the group, every single person must play along, or it doesn't work. Including the victim. The victim's role (to slink away in shame) is perhaps the most vital and the most arbitrary. I am often deemed offensive due to not playing that role, which has been assigned to me for life. My job is to slink away. Sometimes I don't want to.
One encouraging thing I'm hearing about Brethren groups, and their mania for shunning, is that when they get too many new members who weren't raised among Brethren people, weren't taught from their mother's knee the special, loving, holy, Christian nature of shunning those folks unworthy of grace, that the shunning sometimes just stops working.
If there are enough people in a group who just don't "get" the whole shunning thing, at first they screw up, because they don't know how to do it right, and then they may eventually balk at it entirely. It may not seem to them to be quite what they're coming out to church to do. (Of course, I have often seen the opposite, where a newbie realizes that, for full group acceptance, shunning is vital, so vigorously shuns people so as to gain solid group acceptance, which a newbie so keenly desires).
If there are enough people in a group who just don't "get" the whole shunning thing, at first they screw up, because they don't know how to do it right, and then they may eventually balk at it entirely. It may not seem to them to be quite what they're coming out to church to do. (Of course, I have often seen the opposite, where a newbie realizes that, for full group acceptance, shunning is vital, so vigorously shuns people so as to gain solid group acceptance, which a newbie so keenly desires).
I grew up hearing how we had to seriously shun people who were idolaters, extortioners, alcoholics, or adulterers or adulteresses and things like that. (Because we love them, and we need to keep the Lord clean from them. Well, His Table, if not His Day, His Name and His Person.) There's a list in the bible. We had a couple of adulterers. They didn't get shunned, oddly. Once they and a whole bunch of other people left and formed another Brethren church, then we shunned them.
But then many of us started to really question the piety and the "need" to permanently shun people who suddenly start attending another church group, or who said they disagreed with what a church elder had said or done, or, eventually, the global shunning of entire personality types (questioners, rationalists, discussers of things, people who take notes during brother's meetings and bring them out to future brother's meetings, malcontents, really anyone who wasn't sheep-like enough) no questions asked.
Because I know of any number of old people sitting in the back of Brethren Meeting Halls for the last several decades of their lives with no one being really terribly sure anymore why they needed to be shunned and excluded from taking communion. I'd ask my folks. They wouldn't be sure anymore. In several cases, it was clearly being hinted that these old folks were perpetually "out" because they'd had personality problems. Or so someone said. And they never got back in.
And now they're dead. I'm picturing a couple of faces right now.
But then many of us started to really question the piety and the "need" to permanently shun people who suddenly start attending another church group, or who said they disagreed with what a church elder had said or done, or, eventually, the global shunning of entire personality types (questioners, rationalists, discussers of things, people who take notes during brother's meetings and bring them out to future brother's meetings, malcontents, really anyone who wasn't sheep-like enough) no questions asked.
Because I know of any number of old people sitting in the back of Brethren Meeting Halls for the last several decades of their lives with no one being really terribly sure anymore why they needed to be shunned and excluded from taking communion. I'd ask my folks. They wouldn't be sure anymore. In several cases, it was clearly being hinted that these old folks were perpetually "out" because they'd had personality problems. Or so someone said. And they never got back in.
And now they're dead. I'm picturing a couple of faces right now.
Final Thoughts
Increasingly, people like my parents are getting shunned for the rest of their lives, wholly over a refusal to shun certain others. My dad is shunned right now for refusing to agree to shun a guy who complained about all the shunning. Their church has, it seems to me, become all about shunning and about little else. About who's in, who's out, and who's "about to be out, if things keep on the way they're going."
If those Christian obligations/joys (love, liberty, unity) are brought up, as they clearly just aren't about toeing the line to avoid being shunned, or shunning people for picking the wrong people to shun, they no longer seem relevant to what those Christians have gathered to do anymore. I mean, without threat of shunning, how can you keep young people believing in God and agreeing that it is morally defiling to listen to Taylor Swift or spiritually dangerous to play Go Fish or Old Maid?
If those Christian obligations/joys (love, liberty, unity) are brought up, as they clearly just aren't about toeing the line to avoid being shunned, or shunning people for picking the wrong people to shun, they no longer seem relevant to what those Christians have gathered to do anymore. I mean, without threat of shunning, how can you keep young people believing in God and agreeing that it is morally defiling to listen to Taylor Swift or spiritually dangerous to play Go Fish or Old Maid?
Some would respond to this line of inquiry by asking me how I "get around" the bible verses about not eating with someone who is an adulterer, and I don't feel I need to try to do that. I don't like to eat with adulterers, so I avoid doing that already, myself. Because ew. I just think something's gone very wrong as to what's being emphasized. It's very possible to do a right thing and miss lots of other right things. It's very possible to do a right thing so hard that you break stuff. You can do a right thing wrongly.
1 Corinthians chides some Christians for not shunning a mofo that went to church in Corinth. 2 Corinthians then chides the same people for not going to him and working with him to "restore" him to fellowship. I could give you quite a list (out of my head) of people that groups of Brethren had to remember to shun, but I cannot name hardly a single person who was ever "restored." The shunning's the thing, it seems.
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