Introduction
1. IT BEGAN IN SCOTLAND
   
2. THOMAS CAMPBELL WRITES HIS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
   
3. THE SPIRIT OF THE "DECLARATION AND ADDRESS"
   
4. PRINCIPLES OF THE DOCUMENT
   
5. HISTORIC NOTES ON OUR FIRST CHURCH
   
6. "LET CHRISTIAN UNITY BE OUR POLAR STAR"
   
7. THE NOBLEST ACT IN BARTON STONE'S LIFE
   
8. LEARNING FROM A BACKWOODS PREACHER
   
9. CHRISTIANS IN BABYLON
   
10. WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?
    
11. THE ESSENCE OF THE CAMPBELL PLEA
    
12. THE DEATH OF A DREAM
    
13. THE SAND CREEK ADDRESS
    
14. A MUDDLED MOVEMENT
    
15. THE AUTHORITY TOTEM
    
16. THE PARTY SPIRIT
    
17. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES
    
18. OUR COSTLIEST SIN: EXCLUSIVISM
    
19. RESTORATION OR REFORMATION
    
20. A BOY LEARNS THE MEANING OF BROTHERHOOD
    
21. THE BUTTING BRETHREN
    
22. ANALYSIS OF LEGALISM
    
23. THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
    
24. THOUGHTS ON FELLOWSHIP
    
25. ON THE ROCKS
    
26. WITHDRAWING FROM THE DISORDERLY
    
27. CAUSING DIVISIONS
    
28. TWO GREAT ERRORS
    
29. UNION IN TRUTH
    
30. ONE BODY IN CHRIST
    
31. UNITY AND IDENTITY
    
32. UNITY IN DIVERSITY
    
33. IS DOCTRINE IMPORTANT?
    
34. THE WEIGHTIER MATTERS
    
35. MUST WE GIVE UP OUR OPINIONS?
    
36. WHAT DIFFERENCES DO DIFFERENCES MAKE?
    
37. THE "ONE BAPTISM" AND FELLOWSHIP
    
38. ARE WE TO FELLOWSHIP THE UNIMMERSED?
    
39. OUR FATHERS ON "WHO IS A CHRISTIAN?"
    
40. "OUR BROTHERS IN THE DENOMINATIONS"
    
41. WHAT IS "OUR FELLOWSHIP"?
    
42. ARE WE TO FELLOWSHIP THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH?
    
43. I WOULD ABDICATE
    
44. A BASIC FALLACY TO OVERCOME
    
45. CAN WE BE UNITED AND NOT KNOW IT?
    
46. SEPARATED BUT NOT DIVIDED
    
47. THE ONE CHURCH INDIVISIBLE
    
48. UNITY WILL COME, BUT
    
49. IF NOT BROTHERHOOD, THEN CO-EXISTENCE
    
50. THIS IS OUR GLORY!
    
51. THE UNIFYING POWER OF THE CROSS
    

ARE WE TO FELLOWSHIP THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH?

An article in the July issue of Spiritual Sword, published by Getwell Church of Christ in Memphis, entitled "Should We Fellowship the Christian Church?" caught my eye. The article concludes with a ringing assertion that We can have no fellowship with the Christian Church!

One could hardly find a better (or should I say worse?) example of what has happened to the Church of Christ mentality in reference to that beautiful word fellowship than in this article. In the very question raised there is a crucial misunderstanding of the meaning of fellowship, for "the sharing of the common life," which is what the word means, is between persons, not institutions or organizations.

Presuming that the "We" in the question is the Church of Christ, I would have to agree that the Church of Christ cannot fellowship the Christian Church, or vice versa for that matter. In the light of Scripture, Koinonia (fellowship) is only between persons and between persons and God. Christians are in fellowship only with each other and the Lord, not denominations or religious bodies.

The Bible could hardly be clearer than it is on this truth, such as: "That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3). Indeed, even the construction of the English translation indicates this; ship suggests relationship, as in companionship and friendship. So fellow and ship is a relationship between fellows. It is a people thing (and people and God), not an institutional thing.

The question raised reminds me of those George Whitefield would ask of Abraham in his preaching back in Colonial America, which anticipated some of the thinking of the Stone­Campbell Movement which came along generations later. "Father Abraham, have you any Episcopalians in heaven?" he would ask. Abraham would answer in the negative. No Episcopalians in heaven. "Any Presbyterians?" Whitefield would go on asking. No Presbyterians, Abraham would reply. On and on Whitefield would go, naming the various sects. Finally Abraham would say, "We have only Christians here!"

In a similar vein I would say that we are not in fellowship with Presbyterians, Methodists, Roman Catholics, or whatever, but only with Christians. But surely we are in fellowship with all Christians, including those that are "not of us." They do not have to be "of us" but only "of Christ," and all those who are "of Christ" are in fellowship with each other.

An equally damaging fallacy in the question "Are we to fellowship the Christian Church?" is the implication that fellowship is a commodity at our disposal and over which we have control. It implies that Koinonia is ours to extend or to withdraw. While this is true of approval or endorsement, it cannot be true of fellowship, for only God determines its parameters and only He determines who is in the fellowship and who is not.

Again, the Scriptures are clear in this regard, as in 1 Cor. 1:9: "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." It is God who calls us into Christian fellowship, and 2 Thess. 2:14 reminds that we received that call when we heard and obeyed the gospel of Jesus Christ. If God calls us to Koinonia by way of the gospel, how much do men have to do with it? And on what grounds can men determine who is in the fellowship and who is not? Is fellowship ours to extend and withdraw at will?

Part of the problem here is that fellowship is confused with approval or endorsement. True, one may not approve or endorse what some denomination teaches or practices, but this has little or nothing to do with fellowship, which is a relationship that exists between a person and God and with other persons. I may not endorse the error that is espoused by a fellow Christian, but we may still be within the fellowship of Christ together. It was so in New Testament times. Paul so disapproved of the conduct of Peter on one occasion that he afterward wrote "I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed" (Gal. 1:11). But they were still in Christ together and still in fellowship.

Choosing Brothers

Another way to put it is that we can no more monitor who is in our fellowship than we can pass on who is in our family. My father begot and my mother gave birth to eight children. That made the eight of us brothers and sisters. I was next to the last to be born. When the baby of the family came along six years after I was born, no one asked if I would receive him into the family. I was not consulted. I had nothing to do with his becoming my brother. I was stuck with him. We were brothers, not because we approved of each other, but because we had the same parents. How we would get along in the ensuing years would depend on what brotherhood meant to us and whether we received and loved each other as brothers ought, even when we disagreed.

It is that way in God's family. We are begotten of the Word and born of water and the Spirit. God is our Father and the New Jerusalem is "the mother of us all" (Gal. 4:26). This brings us into "the fellowship of the Spirit" (Philip. 2:1). It is the Spirit's fellowship, not ours. In whatever heart the Spirit dwells there is Koinonia. If the Spirit dwells in you and in me, then we are in the fellowship together. The same thing that makes us Christians makes us fellows together in Christ, hence fellowship. Whether we yet like each other or agree with each other or approve of each other is another matter. There are many brothers who are not on speaking terms, but they are nonetheless brothers. So it is in Christ. We can accept each other as fellows in Christ when we may not yet choose to be close friends. I may even believe that you are "in error" on some matters (Who isn't?), but that does not negate the fact of brotherhood and fellowship. We are stuck with each other, but our mutual love for Christ should constrain us to "Receive one another, even as Christ has received you" (Rom. 15:7).

If we are concerned that we might be in fellowship with "brothers in error," it helps to realize that we have no other kind. We are slow to believe the plain words of James 3:2, "We all stumble in many things," and 1 John 1:8, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Who among us can say, in the light of such passages, that he does not stumble and sin? Can we not then enjoy fellowship with each other when we are far less than perfect?

We hear much of "withdrawing fellowship," so much so that one would suppose it is a biblical concept. These days we even have churches that "withdraw" from other churches. There is nothing like that in the New Testament, and "withdrawing fellowship" or its equivalent is nowhere found. Rom. 16:17 makes mention of certain factionists that were to be "marked" and "avoided," a measure taken to secure the peace of the young church, but there is no reference to fellowship as such. To "mark" a problem brother is simply to take note of him, and to "avoid" him is to not allow him to do his disruptive work. He is still a brother and still in the fellowship, but he has become a problem and must be dealt with as such.

The "withdrawal" text is presumed to be 2 Thess. 3:6, which in the KJV reads "withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly," and of course "disorderly" is made to refer to everything from getting a divorce to using a piano in church. But the context makes it clear that the apostle was referring to people who didn't do their fair share of the work, which led him to say that if one would not work he should not eat. Most any other translation will make it clear that this is no injunction to "withdraw fellowship" from certain ones and thus kick them out of the church. Such as the New English Bible: "Hold aloof from every Christian brother who falls into idle habits." Verse 11 of the same chapter further describes the "disorderly" as "not working at all, but are busybodies." We can warn such ones (see 1 Thess. 5:14), discipline such ones, and "hold aloof" such ones without presuming to exclude them from the fellowship of Christ. This is apparent from 1 Thess. 3:14­15 where Paul goes on to tell the church not to keep company with these idlers, then adds "Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother."

Only the One who calls us into the fellowship of the Spirit can cast us from that fellowship. Only Christ can remove the candlestick from a church, and only Christ can cast a member from his Body, for only he is its head. A church can and should of course discipline its members in love, as the above verses indicate, but this need not involve "withdrawing fellowship," which is the prerogative of no one, however much it is assumed by popes, councils, and elderships.

While the expulsion of the fornicator in 1 Cor. 5 is sometimes cited as a prooftext for this pontifical behavior, its situation is so unique that it hardly serves as a pattern for the modern church. In the first place, it was a personal representative of Jesus Christ that did it, the apostle Paul, which cannot be duplicated by any modern church. Paul said that even though he was absent he had already judged in the case (verse 3), and their action was based on Paul being present "in spirit," and so the evil doer was delivered unto Satan, just as if the apostle himself issued the condemnation. What congregation today can presume to deliver one of its member unto Satan?

We might deduct from 1 Cor. 5 that it would be appropriate for a congregation to recognize publicly that certain ones have conducted themselves in such a way that it is presumed that they have cut themselves off from Christ and therefore from His church and from the fellowship of that congregation. But even this must be done with great caution and with guarded words, for since we are fallible we can never really know when one has been cut off from Christ. What we must make clear is that only Christ can remove the candlestick either from a church or from the life of an individual. We can only say that when it appears that this has happened, we want to act consistent with that and thus remove the person's name from our register and no longer regard him as a brother. But we must never forget that one may be excommunicated by a church whom Christ has not excommunicated.

The brother's question about having fellowship with the Christian Church raises one further point: we seem more inclined to draw the line of fellowship than to obey the injunction of Scripture: Accept one another, even as Christ has accepted you (Rom. 15:7). We should think positively in terms of accepting those with whom we differ than in terms of rejecting them. Is that not more Christlike? If Christ were as hard on us as we are on each other, where would we be?

(Restoration Review: Vol. 30, No. 8; Oct. 1988)