Excommunication is a religious censure which is used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community. The word literally means out of communion, or no longer in communion. In some churches, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the subject member or group. Censures and sanctions sometimes follow excommunication such as banishment, shunning or shaming depending on the group's religion, its religious community or, its broader religious community. This article studies excommunication and spiritual condemnation often associated with excommunication, but not the religious censures and sanctions that follow excommunication.