I cant help but think the answer to stop this hurt then, is a monastic faith…
People hurt people, therefore avoid them.
What do we do with those who have been ’so called’ mistreated by the church, but from anothers point of view, have been ‘rebuked’ as the Bible says brothers and sisters should, but have taken the rebuke badly?

Monastic living??? the whole shaved head thing just doesn’t do it for me:P
i think there is a difference between people who have been hurt because of peoples sinfulness and those who have been rebuked.
i am all for rebuking done in love if needed. Unfortunatly i think some of our churches attitudes are very judgmental and unfortunatly i think sometimes we rebuke people even before they are part of the community of faith or even before thy express a commitment to faith.
As for those who take rebuke badly… well they are a different situation all together, once there is repentance of the heart they should understand the rebuke was out of love, but while they have not repented there will be this attitude of the church has treaded me badly.
I think what we need to do as communities of faith is remember that we are to operate out of love, not reaction or anger.
Good book that deals with some of thise is “No perfect people Allowed” by John Burke.
Thoughts Steve??

“But its not possible for an institution, whether its a church a school or buisness or even the government to hurt somebody.”
Wrong. Uh-uh. Sorry, I disagree.
What about people who have been falsely convicted of crimes, or who’ve been framed by the police?
What about those who have been fobbed off by bureaucrats or corporations?
Or if you’d invested your life savings into a company like HIH or Enron, and it went belly-up?
And, for example, if you had been abused in that school at Molong, is that just the fault of the individual teachers? What about the underlying culture of the institution which condones or actually encourages such behaviour among its staff?
Surely, if you’re describing a good institution, you’d say that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts – that there is something greater than the total of the individuals present, you’d say that there was some extra quality about the place which makes it “a good place”, or “a good place to work”, like “good morale”. If it was a church, the extra “…” is called fellowship or community, and you’d say that’s a good thing to have.
Why, then, is there nothing collectively bad associated with a bad institution, instead it’s just bad individuals?

I agree, I guess the problem with the rebuke arises where the persons faith appears evident, though when rebuked, the opposite is seen. We are told to expect many in our churches who look as though they believe, but in fact do not. I think some that have been hurt have been hurt becasue they believe their sin isnt real, or important.
Having said that, I believe that being sinful people, we will get this very wrong from time to time, and we must turn from that. It is just that I hear Bell saying that to turn from that effectively is to cuddle eveyone into the kingdom, which is also not the answer.
As for institutions hurting people, of course it is possible, institutions, after all, are simply groups of people united under some common cause or movement. Therefore, a group of sinful people can indeed hurt an individual. The institution of the church can do it from time to time, no doubt, but the same principles apply for a group of people as do for individuals as I have outlined earlier.

i still think the point stands, people are the ones that hurt each other, not the institution, it is always the people

“cuddle people into the kingdom”
given we need to take a stand sometime but i think a lot of the time we have taken stands when we could have cuddled, i suppose it is still a tension issue that we need to keep both in check. sometimes we need to cuddle, some times we need to say “get on the bus or out of the way”

Thats the point its a tension…..
Others dont view the tension

“People are the ones who hurt each other, not the institution”
When you work for an institution, you serve the institution you work for, and you are not being paid to act in your capacity as an individual; instead you are being paid to act as the institution tells you to act, as its representative (except, for example, now, when I’m goofing off at my desk). The institution imposes it morals or lack thereof onto the individuals who compose it. Institutions can and do hurt people.
Extreme example: Did the SS, as an institution, hurt anybody?

does that suppose that people have not free will to decide what is right or wrong??

does that suppose that people don’t have free will to decide what is right or wrong??

Josh,
Corporate people still have free will, but all to often it is overridden in the interests of the company.
What was that movie that had Russell Crowe in it as a tobacco company employee-turned-whistleblower?

I wonder also, if you are hurt by a number of people who are from or represent the same institution, whether you have any valid claim to assert that the institution itself has wronged you.
However, in reality an institution is incapable of doing anything right or wrong – it is a structure. That is why the heads of Enron and HIH faced trial, and the individual perpetrators in the SS, not the institutions themselves.

Tiger,
You’re right that an institutuion is incapable itself of doing anything right or wrong, but yet . . .
When, as an outsider, you have been wronged by an institution, you may not know the individual inside who has wronged you, so you will consider that the institution as an entity has wronged you. Plus, I thought that in corporate law a company is treated the same as an individual, that is, it has an identity separate from its employees.
So to your points about the SS and HIH and Enron, yes, but yet it is so easy to deny personal responsibility for your (bad) actions, and this is where a bad institution itself can do bad things.