The Excommunication of Don Imus

Abstract

Journalists used religious language to describe the firestorm of controversy in 2007 when Don Imus was banished for 8 months for insulting the Rutgers University women's basketball team. But journalists used this language in ironic and contradictory ways. They questioned whether he deserved to be condemned as a sinner but also challenged his expressions of penance as insincere. Later they expressed surprise that his protestations of contrition and appeals for absolution were effective and that his “excommunication” was lifted. Examination of theological understandings of excommunication finds that religious excommunication is often exacted through a public process, is therapeutic for both sinner and society, and can be reversed. That is, having legitimately, if ironically, referenced excommunication, journalists may have misunderstood why sinners may be banished and how they can be redeemed. Excommunication—as cutting off communion and communication—shows the flip side of the commonality among communication, communion, and community.