A recent Lifeway Research survey of over 1,000 Protestant pastors reveals that while most churches have formal policies on church discipline, few actually put them into practice.

Only one in six pastors reported that their church had disciplined a member within the past year. The practice is particularly rare in Mainline denominations, where 70 per cent of pastors said they were unaware of any recent disciplinary action, compared to 47 per cent of Evangelical pastors.

Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, told The Christian Post that the low numbers are not due to a lack of sin among church members.

“Church discipline typically occurs when a member is not repentant for a sin or is no longer qualified for a role because of sin,” he said. He also noted that larger churches are more likely to take disciplinary action: “The more people you have in your church, the more likely someone’s behavior warrants discipline.”

While about 80 percent of churches maintain formal discipline policies, only a minority actively enforce them. The biblical foundation for church discipline is drawn from scriptures such as Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, which call for confronting unrepentant sin to preserve the spiritual health of the congregation.

Christian activist Reagan Scott told the outlet that American churches have strayed from practising biblical discipline, warning that “a little leaven has been allowed within these churches... tainting the purity of the Church.”