A story about a convicted murderer in today's San Francisco Chronicle contains this sentence:

He wrote counterfeit checks, was caught and later "disfellowshipped" by the church, a process of being shunned by other church members, even on the street.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/11/DDG4SD61TU1.DTL

I wonder if it is possible to be "disfellowshipped" even when the "fellowship" is a fantasy of a cult monopolizing a public forum, and the "disfellowshippee" was never a fellow fellow-worshipper in the first place?