Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

MW11 has this, with no explanation of its history or circumstances:

    2 : to expel from an organization or group

Aha, you can find examples by Googling on this:

 <"was read out of" congregation>

I think it is a post-Biblical development.

Reading one out of the army (list of officers, etc.) is an old-fashioned
way of discharging with dishonor.

However, there is the predestination tradition that states that the
names of all the "Saved" (Latter Day Saints, for example, or some
Baptists etc) are written in a book.  Some believers in the tradition
"know" who they are, while others "know" that we are not to "know".

Thus "reading out of heaven" may be a reference to that belief,
indicating that names can be stricken off (crossed off or erased) from a
list.

A simpler idea of the traditional book is that in which some angel, or
St. Peter, with marks showing the good and the bad in our lives.  Upon
our deaths, (or on Judgement Day), as we approach the Pearly Gates, the
marks are summed up and Judgement is rendered, and the gates are opened,
or not.