Episode 29 - Cutting Off the Contaminated: The Brutal Cost of Shunning

Shunning can feel like a death without a funeral, especially when the people you called family decide you are suddenly invisible. I name how churches and high control religions weaponize belonging, why exclusion cuts so deep, and what it looks like to move toward people the way Jesus did.

• a real-world picture of shunning through Fred’s story of questioning, withdrawal, and rejection 
• a clear definition of shunning in religious communities and why it becomes spiritual abuse 
• the three forms I focus on: intentional shunning, informal social shunning, and self-shunning 
• why exclusion can register like physical pain, drawing on research and trauma language survivors use 
• how formal policies in groups like Scientology, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Amish communities intensify fear and control 
• the mental health fallout: grief, shame, anxiety, PTSD-like symptoms, identity loss, and spiritual betrayal 
• the theological trap of treating church departure as leaving God, plus dechurching data that challenges it 
• the link between shunning and spiritual elitism, especially “one true remnant” thinking 
• a direct challenge to choose proximity over purity and refuse to shun another person 

If you know someone who might need to hear this conversation, feel free to share it with someone else.

"Be Human,  Be Kind,  Be Both."

Transcript

SOUL BRUISES - EPISODE 29
Cutting Off the ‘Contaminated: The Brutal Cost of Shunning

Hello my friends and fellow soul defenders. My name is Christie and this is Soul Bruises, a podcast devoted to talking honestly about spiritual abuse, high controlled religions and systems that wound people in the name of faith

I don’t know if this is your first time listening to Soul Bruises or if you’ve been here before but one thing you need to know is that this space exists to name, confront, and talk honestly about spiritual abuse. I won’t be skirting around the issue, minimizing it or pretending it’s just “another church's problem”. Spiritual abuse is real and is causing havoc on people's hearts, minds and spiritual journeys.

This podcast is my very intentional effort to uproot it through awareness and education. To get a better sense of the heart of this podcast, search for “Soul Bruises” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or anywhere you get your podcasts. These topics can be heavy & triggering. So please take care of your mental health even if it means choosing whether or not listening to this episode is right for you.

Before I begin, I want to welcome listeners from Vancouver, Washington, Ashburn, Virginia, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and several from the province of Ontario.  Thank you for tuning in and joining me on this journey.

You’re walking through the store when you pass someone you used to see every week at church.  They look straight through you, like you were never there. Then the anonymous letter shows up:  You’re missed. Come back. The pastor texts. A few close friends check in and ask to hang out. From the rest of the church? Complete silence.

You had offered to sit down with the elders and explain why you left.  It was voluntary.  You just wanted to be heard.  They never took the meeting.  A handful of texts.  A couple of calls. But from the people you spent decades serving alongside, worshiping with, raising children next to, and calling family no one asks the simplest question: Why did you leave?

All those years of shared life, shared work, shared faith… and then, nothing.

Today’s topic addresses one of the most painful and destructive processes of spiritual abuse.  

The act of shunning.  

In the context of the religious community, shunning means “a formal or informal rule where members of a group stop all social, personal, and physical interaction with a person who breaks community laws, questions teachings, or leaves the faith. Groups use it as a tool to keep order and push the person to change.” There are many types of shunning but I will mostly cover 3 in particular: Intentional/Disciplinarily driven, Informal/Socially driven & The act of self-shunning.

When an entire community (especially one that has been a person’s primary identity, support system, and social world) suddenly turns away, the effect can feel like social death. 

Fred had been deeply committed to his church for over twenty years. He grew up in it, raised his children in it, taught Bible studies and classes, and served on multiple committees, holding numerous offices within the church. He genuinely loved the community and believed with all his heart that this was God’s true remnant church.

Yet, over time, he began noticing patterns that troubled him.  Especially in the realm of leadership and how they handled concerns and challenges.   He brought those concerns first to the pastor and then to the elders.  He wasn’t trying to cause division.  He simply wanted transparency, accountability and communication.

The response to this challenge was quick and painful. Within weeks, he was labeled as “divisive”, “disruptive” and “under the influence of the enemy.” Close friends he had known for a long time suddenly became distant and uncommunicative. Some people would purposely avoid speaking to him in the church, during potluck or in the lobby. 

When he eventually made the heartbreaking decision to walk away from his beloved congregation, the shunning was profound. People he had considered his spiritual family, no longer acknowledged his existence, not even for a simple hello. One longtime friend told him, “We love you, but we can’t have a relationship with someone who has rejected the truth.”

Fred described the pain as a kind of living grief. Like a death without a funeral type of feeling.  He stated that “It felt like I had died, but I am still here, watching everyone move on without me.” 

Fred’s story is not unlike many others who once believed they belonged to a safe and loving community.  A place where they called each other “my church family”.  Yet now they are facing one of the most brutal forms of spiritual abuse, shunning. A deliberate act of avoiding, ignoring or rejecting someone as a matter of habit or policy. 

Fred’s story is nuanced enough that the 3 types of shunning I mentioned earlier.  He was a critical thinker who asked lots of questions, wrestling honestly with what he believed.  He didn’t just accept things at face-value and turned them over and over in his thoughts. Fred likely knew others who probably saw him as “skeptical Fred” with all the questions, yet he also knew in his heart this is how he needed to practice his faith most authentically.  

Along came a long-held belief of his particular denomination that he had questions about.  His desire to discuss it was fierce, intense and deeply personal.  His spirit was not divisive but one of intentional honesty to explore the Bible for the rich wisdom it had to teach him and guide him through this topic.  Many of his fellow church members grew annoyed at his approach.  They feared he was not “just believing it” and was seeking alternative ways of looking at it that seemed to them to be heretical.  

They didn’t openly say that to Fred but slowly stopped interacting with him, discussing with him, and some completely withdrew from him.  Fred could feel it all.  

Behind the scenes the mumbling started to percolate that Fred was “going astray” and because of his charisma and articulating skills was “causing others to look at this other way also”.  Fred was asked not to speak about his alternative ways of viewing things, to mute his ponderings and study.  

Fred was in a true pickle.  Mute himself.  Just comply with the other’s interpretation. Play nice….OR…..speaking openly about his views in a kind and considerate manner.  Being honest and transparent about how he was viewing things and openly willing to discuss things in a productive manner.  

While all this was happening his internal emotions were crumbling.  While he was not divisive, the fact that he thought differently was causing others to treat him differently as if he was some sort of rebellious troublemaker.  Nothing could have been farther from the truth.  He began the process of self shunning, where a person starts withdrawing from the church community before the group fully withdraws from them. He noticed conversations were getting shorter and shorter.  People who used to talk with him openly and freely now seemed guarded and hesitant. He started to feel like his very presence was causing others to be uncomfortable.  Things started  feeling awkward. He stopped going to events, quit initiating contact with others, and left the church out the back door.  His options became, wait to be “kicked out” (disciplinary shunning), endure the immense pain of social withdrawal (social shunning), or choose to leave it and walk out the door (self shunning).  What he didn’t realize is that that didn’t end the pain.  

So how does all of this relate to spiritual abuse?

We are social creatures.  Wired for connection and belonging. Author and Sociologist Brene Brown, whose profound work on belonging, wrote this:(Quote) “Exclusion is a form of violence.  When we weaponize belonging, we do violence to the human spirit.”(End quote)    

Shunning weaponizes the deepest human needs against a person.  The human need of belonging. When a person is a part of a church community or organization they have a continued connection with their spiritual “brothers and sisters”. So leaving that and being shunned feels like spiritual and relational abandonment.  

According to social psychologist, Dr. Kipling Williams, the social pain of exclusion activates the same neural pathways as physical pain. In fact the pain from social exclusion cuts deeper and lasts longer than a physical injury.  It's like a social death penalty.

Author Dr. Marlene Winell calls shunning “a psychological murder”.  She describes it as the ultimate rejection and an attack on the very core of a person’s identity and worth” That language is intense.  But for those that have lived it, it feels spot on. 

Former Jehovah’s Witness counselor and author, Bonny Zieman wrote that, (quote) “Shunning is not love.  It is not discipline. It is emotional and spiritual terrorism designed to keep members in fear and in line.” (end quote). 

Psychological murder. Spiritual terrorism. The weaponization of belonging. A social death penalty.

Do I have your attention now?

Humans are wired for connection. We need community. We need family.  We need a sense of “this is where I belong”. Shunning takes that deep need and turns it into a weapon. It says, “If you question, if you doubt, or if you leave, we will cut you off, psychologically and relationally. You will lose your people, your identity, and in some cases, even the suggestion of your salvation.

Intentional shunning for many denominations is the act of “taking care of business matters”.  Someone has violated the rules, is antagonistic, is openly “sinning”, sexually immoral, doubting or questioning.  Not all denominations have the same policies, but at the heart of the act is to reprimand the decision of the member. 

Some have more rigid and strict policies while others have an organized system to deal with these matters and they follow them with as much grace as possible.  There is always a spectrum even within each denomination.  Despite that, the active & organized rejection that is backed by the group’s authority or culture can lead to immense emotional pain. 

I’m going to list a few denominations & organizations for example.
In Scientology, this rejection is called “disconnection”.  If you are disconnected you are labeled a SP or Suppressive Person.  What makes Scientology’s disconnection hurt so badly is that the cut-off is total. Once the line is drawn, it’s absolute and total. Parents are cut off from their adult children, children are cut off from parents, spouses or long-term partners ending relationships, and lifelong friends disappearing overnight. Many stayed in the organization longer when they had doubts because they knew what their defection meant to their family & social circle.  They experience profound loneliness, difficulty in trusting new people and a period of disorientation while they rebuild their identity outside of the group. 

Jehovah Witnesses remove individuals from their congregation through a formal process done by the elders.  They present it as a loving act to protect the rest of the congregation, uphold Biblical teachings and give the person a strong reason to choose repentance and return back to the group.  But for those who have lived through it, the experience feels immensely different because what follows is the sudden loss of almost their entire social world: their friends, community, and, in many cases, close family relationships. That deep rupture is why so many former members describe it as one of the most powerful forms of social control in religious life.

The community and the leaders of that community actively teach, pressure or require members to cut off or severely limit contact with the person that left or has been expelled from the group. It is deliberate and often framed as obedience to God & the protection of the group. 

The Amish simply call it “shunning".  They consider it a form of tough love meant to bring the person to repentance and restoration, a way to protect purity and unity within the church community and a reminder of the seriousness of their baptismal vow. If the person publicly confesses they are accepted back by the church.

It is often described by those who leave or are shunned, that the experience was deeply painful!  The loss of contact with family, the community, and the only world they have ever known. For those parents and siblings who still remain Amish, they frequently feel torn. They love the person but they also believe they must uphold the church’s discipline or risk being shunned themselves.  

Their shunning is a community-enforced system of social and spiritual avoidance that is designed to maintain the Amish way of life and encourage those who have left to come back.  While at the same time, there is a significant cost to those who remain outside of the community.

These are just three examples of groups in which members are expected or required, to withdraw from someone who has been shunned or put out.

Those who leave, or who are forced to leave, are often treated as spiritually dangerous. They may be labeled unclean, rebellious, a troublemaker, or even “dead” to the community.The result is the painful loss of family relationships, friendships, social support, and the identity they once had within the group.

This practice is designed to create fear.  A fear that discourages others from leaving or even questioning. A fear that if they don’t obey perfectly they may get “kicked out”.  A fear that if they disagree they will be asked to leave. I believe THIS is why some describe shunning as a form of “psychological murder.”

Before I continue I just want to be completely clear about something. I fully support a church taking  disciplinary action when someone is genuinely harming people. I personally believe excommunicating someone should be the absolute last resort.  However, I am not in the position to examine every individual situation and decide whether excommunication is the right response. Those decisions need to be made carefully, with deep respect for the people involved and for the health of the community. 

I am however speaking to the psychological feelings and emotional impact of the shunning process itself, whether it happens as a result of formal discipline or if someone left on their own. 

So as you listen, I hope you can hear the psychological impacts of shunning regardless if an individual left because of discipline or because they felt they didn’t have the ability to practice their spirituality in authenticity and freedom. I hope you hear the human pain beneath the rules, the poor decisions, or to use religious language, beneath the “sins” of your fellow brother and sister.

Shunning itself is often wrapped in the spiritual language of “we’re protecting our church” But at its core, it is rejection disguised as righteousness. It uses God and community as tools of control. And what makes it exceptionally cruel is the impossible choice it creates. Stay in the group and you risk losing yourself, your authenticity, your mental health, and your honest questions. Leave the group and you lose your entire support system. Either way, the SYSTEM maintains power. 

Shunning doesn’t just remove a person from the community. It removes the community from the person, potentially at the very time they need love and support the most. The psychological impacts of this are profound.  

They involve a deep grief of losing friendships, losing your identity as a leader in that community, immense shame, certainly trust issues with people and sometimes with God. This is why so many survivors describe shunning as one of the deepest “soul bruises.” 

It doesn’t just hurt your feelings, it attacks your sense of self and belonging and often your understanding of God’s love. It creates a cognitive dissonance that “the people who claim to love them are causing them pain. Many question their own sanity: If everyone else thinks I’m wrong, maybe I am.” For many, they experience long term religious trauma.

One part of that trauma starts with grief and loss.  

The exclusion can feel like a death, except the people who “died” are still alive and they could choose to reconnect if they just complied. You are mourning someone who is still here, but chooses to back away for known or unknown reasons other than that they have left the building.   Your sadness, and likely theirs, is mixed with false hope that things could be different.

As I mentioned earlier through Dr. Kipling Williams’s work that the social act of exclusion activates the same neural pathways as physical pain. Perhaps this is why people describe that rejection with physical language like, “It felt like I got punched in the gut,” “My heart has broken,” or “It was a gut-wrenching feeling.”  Some people have even said that physical pain actually hurts less than being ostracized has felt.

Because the brain treats being rejected by your community as a genuine survival threat, many survivors of shunning develop symptoms similar to PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that are reflected in their hypervigilance on one end of the spectrum, and emotional numbness on the other, and a deep struggle to trust people again, even in faith settings.

In high-control groups, a person’s sense of self is often connected with the group.  Someone might say, “I’m a Jehovah Witness”, yet when they leave the organization because it has become too toxic or heavily controlled, they are shunned.  Their identity as a Jehovah Witness has shaped their entire life. They don’t know who they are outside of that system.  Even just with the traditions and the language alone.
 
When shunning happens, messages like, “you are bad, dangerous, trouble, or not worthy” start to get internalized. This can lead to shame, depression, anxiety, and in severe cases, mental anguish.  Over time they can also damage a person’s relationship with God.  When those  who claim to represent God, reject you so completely, you start to wonder: “If God’s people treat me this way, maybe God feels the same.” This spiritual betrayal is often one of the hardest wounds to heal. 

There is another layer of shunning, that doesn’t get talked about enough: self-shunning. This happens when a person begins to isolate or reject themselves in the same ways that the group would have, even when no one is actively enforcing it.  

It can look like pulling away from former friends first, declining the support of others, or living as if you don’t have the right to connect. Sometimes the external shunning never fully happens, yet the internal version keeps the isolation going. The person becomes both the one being rejected and the one doing the rejecting. Self-shunning is still part of the wound. It is the place where the community’s rejection continues to live on inside the person who left. Naming it is often the first step toward loosening its hold.

Shunning is uniquely cruel. It weaponizes love and belonging, making it one of the most effective and damaging forms of spiritual abuse. This is exactly the opposite of how Jesus moved toward people

When a spiritual community chooses purity over people, it has stopped following the God who eats with sinners and welcomes the outcast.  Jesus over and over crossed the line that religious communities carefully created and guarded.  He shared meals with tax collectors, touched those unclean, defended the woman caught in adultery, and made the space for those the religious system had already written off. He didn’t deny their brokenness,  He fed their greatest need. 

If we are truly concerned about sin and spiritual health in our churches, we need to move toward people who are struggling, not away from them. Cutting people off may protect the group’s image of purity, but it is the opposite of how Jesus chose to work.  And for those listening that are Jesus followers, I hope this distinction resonates with you. 

When an organization elevates their doctrinal, behavioral or relational purity above the actual human beings in front of them, their priority has greatly shifted.  Those people become risks to manage rather than image bearers of love.  Because of that, the community is no longer practicing the way of the One who embraced the very people others avoided.

The tragedy isn’t just that individuals are wounded. It is that these church communities have stepped away from the Jesus they claim to follow. Jesus prioritized proximity over purity, inclusion over exclusion, and relationship over reputation. 

In a future episode Soul Bruises will be addressing the behavior of spiritual elitism so I want to preemptively make the connection of shunning and spiritual elitism here.  Shunning isn’t unique to  one group, but the intensity often matches how strongly a group believes they alone have the truth.When an organization takes the position of being right or being an elite remnant people they can more easily justify their acts of shunning.  They can feel that members who are not as faithfully compliant, are contaminating the group. The more we are “the one true way” the more dangerous those who leave, become.

One of the more harmful assumptions is the belief that if someone leaves a church, they’ve automatically left God or the belief system of that church. That simply isn’t true. Authors Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and sociologist Ryan Burge explain in their book “The Great Dechurching” that about 40 million U.S. adults have dechurched in the last 25 years. Dechurched meaning those individuals that were attending a church at least once a month no longer attend at all or maybe once a year. 

A clear majority still hold their core Christian beliefs and their belief in God even though they no longer participate or attend in their church. In fact the biggest reason people stop attending church is that they moved. (approx 30 million of those 40 million).  Sadly 10 million have left due to painful reasons (church harm, relational conflict, political tensions, scandals, feeling unloved and that they don’t belong)

Many people who step away from a particular denomination or congregation are not running from God—they are trying to draw closer to Him. They may have found their local church toxic, legalistic, or heavily shaped by Christian nationalism. Some are seeking a healthier expression of faith, healing from spiritual abuse, or simply following where they believe the Holy Spirit is leading them. Leaving a church does not equal leaving Christ

Why does all of that matter? 

 Because shunning is often justified by the belief that “If you leave us, you have left God, the truth and the remnant.”  That belief turns a relational or organizational departure into a spiritual verdict. Once someone is viewed as having rejected God, cutting them off feels protective rather than cruel. It becomes a way to “guard the flock” and preserve purity.  

I challenge that assumption on 2 levels.  That when a group elevates their doctrinal, their behavioral or their relational purity above actual people, they stop resembling Jesus.  He moved toward the struggling, the impure and the outcast.  Shunning does the opposite. Also that the data and lived reality of many people who leave a particular church frequently do NOT leave God.  Many walk away still trying to follow Jesus. Many left because the environment was toxic, legalistic, nationalistic or spiritually abusive and there was no acknowledgement or movement to change those dynamics.  Treating every departure as a spiritual defection is a serious misjudgment and shows that the group's higher value was protecting its own sense of being “right” was more important than loving people.  

This is where shunning and spiritual elitism are directly linked.  The more strongly a group believes it alone holds the truth, the easier it becomes to view the leavers or shakers as contaminants that must be cut off.  That language is harsh, but it accurately describes the level of dehumanization that takes place.  

Jesus spent much of His ministry with people the religious leaders had written off. He never shunned the doubter, the questioner, or the broken. Maybe we shouldn’t either.

Shunning is one of the deepest soul bruises a person can carry. It turns belonging into a weapon. It treats people as contaminants instead of image-bearers of God. It confuses leaving a particular group with leaving God. And in the process, it often wounds the very ones Jesus would have moved toward.

The pattern is clear: when a community elevates purity over people, protects its image over relationship, and treats departure as spiritual defection, it steps away from the Jesus it claims to follow. Jesus chose proximity over purity, welcome over exclusion, and relationship over reputation. He ate with the ones others avoided. He stayed near the doubters, the questioners, and the broken.  Are not Christians today called to do the same?

If you have experienced this, if others have looked past you in the store who previously were your brothers and sisters in Christ.  If you’ve felt cut off, or have been made to feel spiritually dead while you were still seeking God.  I want you to hear this clearly: the rejection you experienced is not the voice of Jesus. The system may have closed its doors. They may have rejected you.  But He has not.

And if you are still inside a community that practices this kind of exclusion, I invite you to sit with a simple question: What would it look like to move toward people the way Jesus did, instead of away from them?  Shunning protects the group's sense of being right, Jesus protected people.  I hope we can consider choosing that option.

Some say that silence is golden, but sometimes unspoken words speak the loudest.  And what they often say, with their silence, is painful and isolating. If as a church we truly want to be a “hospital for sinners” then it might benefit us to not wound the patients in our churches, those we have discharged out of our care and those that have left. 

The silence of shunning is NOT neutral, it is an intentional communication.  The refusal to speak, to greet, to engage, or even to acknowledge the presence of someone shunned intentionally or socially becomes the loudest possible statement of rejection, spiritual judgment, and social death. Silence carries the full weight of communal disapproval without the risk of dialogue, explanation, or humanizing contact.  The absence itself becomes the message that “You are outside.  You no longer belong and that we have nothing left to say to you.  It’s immensely cowardice and the easy way out of dealing with discomfort. The single most powerful change we can do is to individually refuse to shun another human soul. “The opposite of love is not hatred. Sometimes it is the quiet decision to act as if someone is already gone.

We CAN do better than this. We MUST do better than this.

If this episode on Shunning resonated with you today I hope that you found a nugget of wisdom you can take away from it. If you know someone who might need to hear this conversation, feel free to share the episode with them. 

This is Christie and you’ve been listening to the Soul Bruises podcast.

Until next time, 

Be Human, Be Kind, Be Both