Romans 16:17
Romans 16:1717Now I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who create divisions and obstacles that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Turn away from them.
("keep your eye on those who create divisions… and avoid them") is a primary Watchtower proof-text for the shunning policy. Disfellowshipped persons — including former Witnesses who left for theological reasons — are treated as causing divisions and are to be avoided completely, including by family members. The verse is held to mandate the comprehensive social severance the organisation now calls "removal."
Read the verse in context. Paul addresses "those who create divisions and causes for stumbling contrary to the teaching that you have learned" — false teachers actively undermining the apostolic gospel. He is not addressing baptised members who question a policy or commit a personal sin. 2 John 10-11 (the Watchtower's other shunning text) is similarly about travelling antichrist teachers who deny "Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh." Stretching these passages to cover every disfellowshipping offence goes far beyond what they say. And Paul's own discipline practice in is explicitly RESTORATIVE: "forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow." The Watchtower's 1947 Awake! magazine called such comprehensive shunning "altogether foreign to Bible teachings" and traced it to pagan origins. Five years later the same publication defended what it had condemned — using the same verses. The reversal stands without scriptural justification.