That seems a bit odd to me. I know what you mean about there being a crazy person in every ward (the guy that constantly talked about Jesus only being the God of this Earth comes to mind), but right or wrong, it sounds to me like there’s a lot more to this story than we’re getting.

Is there more to the story? What exactly does she do to that got her banninated. It takes a lot to get thrown out of LDS wards. The only person I have every seen this happen to was a child molester

All–I am sure there are more details that people could share about the “wrongs” Donna has done. The bottom line is that she is not dangerous and is mostly not disruptive during the meetings. When she has not been quiet, she has been asked to leave, and that has mostly happened (I am told that there was one time the police were called when she would not leave).

To me, it seems that some members of the ward have been preferenced to the point that their strong, unabated annoynace with this lady has trumped her ability to come to Church. I don’t get it. They are members, while she is not. They hold callings and she does not. They are generally liked, and she is not. But they are not more valuable people than Donna (although she can be irksome); it could easily be argued that being at Church is much more important to Donna than it is to many (maybe all) the other members of the ward. If she is not dangerous to us, how can we ban her?

Well, take it on, ESO. Fight the good fight. Object. Because if it’s about popularity, I’d be all over that. I think there are women who are glad when I don’t come to RS. And….while I’m not homeless, I am kind of mentally ill and a recovering alcoholic. And I say outrageous things like “Jesus gave his life for you; you can’t be good enough to get into heaven without that. Relax.”

Maybe for some of those she doesn’t like it was getting to be a burden to anticipate going to services what she was going to make them put up with this time.

D&C 46:5 sheds some light: And again I say unto you, ye shall not cast any out of your sacrament meetings who are earnestly seeking the kingdom—I speak this concerning those who are not of the church.

So there is a caveat or qualification: If a person is disruptuve to the point where they are working contrary to the idea of “earnestly seeking the kingdom”, they are subject to being banned.

I think banning her from one ward, and allowing her to attend other wards, is a tender-hearted half-step, in hopes that the message “you need to behave better when you’re here” will get through to her. It’s giving her another chance. Like annegb said, it’s her wake-up call, or slap upside the head, or a loud “knock it off” to get her attention.

It sounds to me like the woman has burnt all her bridges in your ward, and your bishop doesn’t see any remedy for her while she’s in your ward. But perhaps your bishop and the other bishop think she is at least worthy of another chance, or do-over, in the other ward.

My ward tolerates me pretty well as an ex-member. (Nobody asks to see a temple-recommend when you show up to help them move). I give rides sometimes to missionaries, investigators, new converts. I can sit in on missionary discussions with people who I already am friends with, but I can’t sit in as a “chaperone” for the missionaries with a female investigator, because an actual member has to do that.

Sometimes I participate a little too much in classroom discussion, but I try to limit it to those times when no other class members are responding to the instructor’s questions. However, being an Asperger’s person, I’m also a little bit “Mr. Inappropriate” and say odd things that I don’t realize are odd or out of place until I get uncomfortable/annoyed looks from other people.

I’ve visited a ward that had a member with Tourette Syndrome. The members knew the person’s situation and were used to it, and no one blinked an eye when he had a minor vocal outburst during sacrament. Since I jerked my head in the direction of the noise, someone kindly explained his situation to me after the meeting.

I am familiar with someone who was banned from a ward, a somewhat unbalanced person who occasionally had outbursts in class or in sacrament meeting. She was in another ward, but I knew her because she attended some Single Adult activities. After an outburst in Sacrament meeting (not the first one), her bishop told her not to come to Sunday meetings until she had an interview with him. Based on what I saw (and heard from others) her outbursts were not the short one-word or phrase that are typical of someone with Tourette’s, they were more like rants.

Knowing that bishop, I’m pretty sure his intent was not to permanently ban her, but to help her get the help or treatment or medication she needed so she wouldn’t disrupt the meetings.

Some things which are obvious handicaps can be tolerated by a congregation, and such behavior can be explained to your children as to why it’s tolerated. But other things such as rants or confrontations are a lot more difficult to ignore, and would give bad examples to your kids, regardless of how it’s explained.

I just had my first experience with such banishment in our current ward. There is a man in our ward with severe mental illness. When he is taking his medication it is manageable. Yes, he has been known to bear his testimony about the purple light(?!?) and such, but he has responded reasonably well to the Bishop’s guidance when he has gotten out of hand.

At least, that is how it used to be. In recent years he has refused to take his medications and continue with treatment. My heart goes out to him, because I can’t imagine how hard things are for him, but he is unstable and potentially dangerous in this state. There were various meetings with him and attempts at fair and reasonable boundaries so he could still attend. He gets easily but deeply disturbed when small children make any noise (tough in a family ward, you know?). After the last major incident where he was threatening in such as a way that that the police were called (again), he was told he could no longer attend until a time when he will seek treatment. He is too volatile and though I wish he could be with us, I am afraid for my children when he is around. The police informed our Bishopric that they had put up with too much for too long and that he should have been banned earlier. I think he was banned at the time with the Bishopric felt like the tough decision was in harmony with the spirit.

Your Donna does not necessarily sound this extreme, and although I *think* in principle everyone should always be welcomed, maybe there is more to the story regarding why she was asked not to come. I would hope that such banishment is not made so much for the benefit of the personal comfort of ward members, so much as for their safety if it is compromised. However, if multiple attempts have been made to encourage her to respect civil boundaries and she is unwilling to change, maybe there is a place for asking her to attend with another congregation.

I feel for the Bishop responsible for such a weighty decision! That is tough stuff right there.

ESO, I know you said she was harmless, but I wonder if maybe something Donna said did seem threatening to someone in the ward. I also got along reasonably well with our ward’s Donna, and I was sent along with the RS pres. every time she went to do a food order for the bishop’s storehouse. Our Donna was a large woman who could become very emotional and intimidating, so I was sent as the body guard. Eventually, I filled the food order myself (I was EQ pres) and brought my counselor with me. I never had any trouble because I’d cut her off before she could get her manipulative, emotional mojo on. Her landlady was terrified of her and evicted her, and when I helped her find a new place, the new landlady became afraid of her too. As intimidating as she could be, she never threatened to hurt anyone, as far as I know. But if she had threatened a church member, I don’t see how a bishop could not ban her. Of course, if your Donna did threaten someone, it wouldn’t make sense to ban her from the ward and not the building.

Fortunately, our Donna’s well-behaved (for the most part) at church, and even though her testimonies are kind of bizarre, she really seems to have strong feelings for the church, and especially the Book of Mormon.

I’m reminded of “Negative Nelly” types in the church’s singles programs. If it takes a group just to raise up one individual, that’s okay. But if one individual is dragging down the whole group, that’s a completely different story.

I have a tendency to attract toxic individuals. I used to think I had some kind of Christian duty to be supportive to those who are “poor in spirit.” And indeed there is such a duty incumbent upon those who are seeking to follow Christ.

But, in some situations, the person in question really isn’t being supported at all, they are dragging you down with them, and you’re just enabling their toxic behavior.

It’s like being a lifeguard in water. If the drowning victim fights you and is pulling you under, you’ll both drown. In that case, the lifeguard has to let the person go, otherwise they’ll both end up drowning.

Another analogy I’ve heard is that if you have a bad back yourself, you’re in no condition to lift up someone else. You can’t help them, and you’ll only make your own condition worse.

A few relevant incidents:

On my mission a member arrived at Church and during sacrament meeting got up and walked out. He went outside and proceeded to smash the windows of the chapel with a crowbar. During the meeting. He was banned.

In an east coast ward a member used the n-word during a testimony. He was banned. The next bishop let him come back. He was blessing the sacrament, messed up, and loudly exclaimed the s-word. Lovely.

I was once attacked while teaching an EQ meeting for stating that I had taught people on my mission that had read the Book of Mormon, prayed about it, and claimed to get no answer. Several members of the quorum pulled this brother off me. He was not banned, but was promoted to the HPG, or at least asked to attend it.

“…was promoted to the HPG, or at least asked to attend it.”

Awesome solution. Truly you had an inspired bishop.

If the Stake President isn’t happy, things will probably wind their way around much more cleanly than your input could make them happen, to the extent that they happen.

First Presidency Statement on Disabilities.

I can imagine there might be instances where it might be appropriate to ban someone from a Church meeting, but I would hope that any effort to do so would be coupled with compensating efforts to support that individual in the gospel in other ways.

Actually, this reminds me of the Donna in my ward. Week after week she would verbally attack other members of the ward. Frequently the RS teacher would get it during class. It was very distressing. After a couple months of this, she was asked not to come back until she could control her behavior. She still has HTs and VTs, but there has to be a point where you have to limit the harm to everyone else.

I went on a mormon mission once to Australia, there was a guy that was kind of banned from church because of an incident where he was riding a tricycle around wearing a devil suit in the church parking lot chasing kids with a hammer. I guess that’s the extreme…

I would like to attend Relief Society with Annegb. I also would like to be in Eso’s class. You have a gift! I appreciated Bookslinger’s insight. Well, I’ve been surprised how welcoming people are to me and how the Bishopric have gone out of the way to try to make me feel welcome at Church. Sadly, I have ocd so I seldom attend although I did make it twice last year after not making it for at least five years. It’s a good thing I’m active in the ‘nacle.(I know that’s not a substitute for doing what I should but it’s still a good thing).

Mom247: (#32) Since ESO is not a member of the bishopric, she likely doesn’t know the confidential goings-on behind the scenes that led up to and preceded the action by her bishop.

Since ESO did _not_ say that those things (that you hoped had happened first) did _not_ happen, us readers should assume that her bishop was duely diligent and compassionate and _did_ explore all other solutions before requesting “Donna” not to attend their ward.

Since _we_ (the readers) aren’t aware of the same things that ESO is _not_ aware of, there is no reason for us to assume her bishop was not sufficiently diligent, patient, compassionate, etc.

My view is: The most we can do in these comments is vebalize what we _hope_ the bishop did, and speculate what “should” have been done. Many commenters have offered possibilities of what may have transpired, and principles that could be used to handle those events.

You’ve also added some good possibilities of what could have happened behind the scenes, and possible responses by the leadership.

But, no one here in the comment section, based soley on the facts and viewpoints given in the original post, has justification to accuse or judge the bishop in this case.

Thank-you, JacksonP, for that clarification. Some 50 years ago, when my father was Branch President (later Bishop), a non-member father of a part member family attended Fast & Testimony meeting. This man stood to speak. In our small building, we stood in place at our seat to bear testimony. Being to young to remember or understnd waht he was saying so loudly, I do remember the impoprtant part. My father stood at the pulpit, and commanded him, in the name of Jesus Christ, to leave the building. He had to be escorted out of the building.

A very few years later he died, and his family was able to attend church. I wonder, now, how the children around my age are doing.

Anyways, the commandmednt is to love one another – it doesn’t say we have to like one another, two related, but very different, emotions.