COULD WE FELLOWSHIP ALEXANDER CAMPBELL?

It may not be a crucial issue as to whether we could fellowship any person who lived more than a century ago, but fellowship itself is a crucial question, and this approach might cause us to examine some of our ideas and practices with more scrutiny. I select Alexander Campbell because he is by far the most renowned person in our history. All persuasions of the Restoration Movement look to him with more than common respect. He is to our people what Luther is to the Lutherans or what Wesley is to the Methodists. Campbell’s writings continue to be on our best-seller lists, and his debates and periodicals, even his Memoirs, have recently been republished.

A story right out of Denton, Texas will illustrate my point. During “the debate of the century,” held in our little university city two years ago, we were inundated by what I lovingly describe as “the right wing Church of Christ,” with the likes of Ira Rice, J.D. Bales, and Tom Warren all over the place. I was right in the midst of them, for I love the brothers in all our wings, along with their wing commanders. At one of the preaching sessions during the day (apart from the debate at night) one brother was lambasting all the “liberals” in the church, including Silas Shotwell (the former minister of the very church where they were gathered) and Leroy Garrett, who resided in the city and who was in the audience. Our names were called publicly with resounding denunciation, that we should be marked and withdrawn from. There were cries of Amen from the audience, including the present minister of said church.

But someone else’s name was called several times on that occasion. You guessed it. Alexander Campbell! His debates were referred to, his great fight for the truth, etc. No one denounced Campbell. He was a hero out of the past, hallowing their own struggle to save the church from apostasy. After the session I asked some of the brethren what there was about me that called for such severe condemnation, and that publicly before hundreds of people. All I could get out of them was that I “fellowshipped the Christian Church.” I denied the charge, explaining that I don’t “fellowship the Christian Church” any more than I “fellowship the Church of Christ,” but that I am in the fellowship with all those that are in Christ wherever they may be.

Then I asked about all this adulation of Alexander Campbell—not that I am one to put down our old hero. “You realize that he went far beyond fellowshipping the Christian Church, for he believed there were Christians in all the sects, and he accepted folk like Baptists as his brothers in Christ,” I observed. By this time a sizable crowd had formed a cluster around us. I asked the brother if he would “fellowship” brother Campbell if he were in our midst. I could not get him to answer. Finally he turned away, refusing to answer and refusing to repudiate Alexander Campbell.

The purpose “of this essay is not to argue for the excommunication of Alexander Campbell posthumously, but to point out that if our brothers can enshrine the old sage of Bethany as among “the spirits of just men made perfect” who form a cloud of faithful witnesses about us, then their circle of fellowship might include the likes of poor old Silas Shotwell, who could hardly be accused of anything more than preaching on love and grace as much as “first principles,” and even their sisters and brothers in the Christian Church.

Here are some things for some of our brothers to think about who want to disfellowship all the “liberals.”

1. Alexander Campbell not only endorsed the formation of the American Christian Missionary Society in 1849 but served as its first president. This fact is an embarrassment to those who accept brother Campbell but reject their other brothers who choose to work through such societies. They are willing to abuse history to make it appear that Campbell did not really approve of the society. After all, he was senile by this time and his brethren forced this upon him, electing him in his absence! This is laughable to anyone who knows the facts. Senile indeed! He had recently returned from a grueling tour of Europe, and in the following years went on some of his most exhaustive tours, several of them including visits to the annual meeting of the society. At 61 Campbell was vigorous and sharp. It is true that he was absent when elected president, but he accepted the post and served willingly. In fact he willed part of his estate (royalties on his hymnal) to the American Christian Missionary Society!

When a professor at a Church of Christ college, who teaches Restoration history, was asked how he handled this business of Campbell being president of the missionary society, he replied that he just didn’t mention it, lest it confuse the students! The truth is that Campbell always urged upon our people associative and cooperative endeavors. When the brethren dissolved the Mahoning Association in 1830 at the instigation of Walter Scott (he would come nearer being your anti-society man!), they left the puzzled Alexander Campbell standing on his feet in their last gathering, pleading, “Brethren, aren’t you going to meet any more’?” The very first gathering of representatives from the churches, in Wellsburg, Virginia, was called by Alexander Campbell.

2. Alexander Campbell associated himself with the Baptists, joined his earliest congregations to Baptist associations, and resolved to fellowship them and work with them as long as he was free to teach. And this was long after he had “found the truth” and been immersed. He and his father joined their Brush Run Church to the Redstone Baptist Association. A few years later, when they started their second church in Wellsburg, Va., which they called “a church of Christ,” among the first things they did was join the Mahoning Baptist Association. Campbell never renounced his Baptist association and never actually left or withdrew, but as the Movement grew the Disciples gradually became a separate and distinct denomination. He accepted the denominational status of his people, sometimes referring to “other denominations.”

3. Alexander Campbell was never baptized “for the remission of sins,” as our churches today generally teach that concept. He was immersed by a Baptist preacher in 1812, simply upon his profession of faith that Jesus is the Christ, which was then as contrary to Baptist practice as it is in many Churches of Christ today. where one must be immersed with an understanding that it is for the remission of sins. It was twelve years later in his debate with McCalla that he first articulated the doctrine of baptism for remission. He was not re-immersed. In fact he considered that he had long been a Christian at the time he was immersed. In the now famous Lunenburg letter he makes it clear that he believed that people who “habitually obey” Jesus are Christians, even if they mistake the form of baptism and have not been immersed.

4. Alexander Campbell had a broad view as to the basis for the unity of all Christians. In Lexington, Ky. in 1841, in a union meeting to which all denominations were invited, he issued this resolution: “That the union of Christians be scripturally effected by requiring a practical acknowledgment of such articles of belief and such rules of piety and morality as are admitted by all Christian denominations.” (Mill. Harb., Vol. 12, p. 259).

That means of course that he would not make things like speaking in tongues, instrumental music, and millennial theories tests of fellowship! We actually have churches today who withdraw from folk who will not affirm that instrumental music is a sin, even when they themselves remain non-instrumentalists—and yet they praise Campbell and garnish his tomb at Bethany.

5. Alexander Campbell relished the fellowship of all believers of whatever denomination, and it was common for him to have “respectable ministers from all Protestant denominations” (He was not so open toward “Papists”!) at his home in Bethany, at the Bethany church, and at Bethany College. In the early days he had a Baptist on the Bethany faculty, one who often spoke at the Bethany church. I can show from his travel letters that when in a city on Lord’s Day that had no Disciple church he would attend an Episcopal service or whatever. He himself spoke in all sorts of churches—in delightful fellowship and not “to show them where they’re wrong,” which is the only justifiable reason a Church of Christ preacher today could do such things. When Campbell went to Nashville to do what he could about the “spiritualism apostasy” of J. B. Ferguson, he spent the first Lord’s Day morning addressing the First Methodist Church. He was introduced by the Bishop, who expressed concern over the problem he was having with his own people. He then proceeded to take care of brother Ferguson, whom he challenged to a discussion on spiritualism, but the brother, boycotted Campbell’s meeting at the Church of Christ. insisting that he had received word from the dead that he should have nothing to do with Campbell when he came to town!

6. He also started a college, serving as it’s president. which I fear would undo him with all those who make “the college issue” a test of fellowship.

7. He even believed there was a distinction between gospel and doctrine, and preaching and teaching, which would get him into lots of trouble in Texas where folk have been withdrawn from for holding such “heretical” views. He also objected to the one-man minister system, teaching the ministry of elders for each congregation. That view alone would bring anathemas from lots of preachers.

8. He was even a millennialist. He says in so many words. “I expect a millennium, a thousand years of triumphant Christianity at no very distant day” (M H. Vol. 43. p. 74), and in the Rice debate he suggested it might come within his century. He argued in detail that the Jews would be converted “when the full number of the Gentiles be come in.” In fact from 1841-43 he wrote 26 essays on the coming of the Lord. It was a post-millennial view rather than premillennial, but he was a millennialist, a vigorous one, and not an amillennialist, which in our day among Churches of Christ has been made a test of fellowship. Campbell would have to be withdrawn from for believing that “all Israel will be saved” and for not having enough sense to know that Paul is talking about “spiritual Israel” the church, and not literal Israel. Well, that is enough. Ouida won’t let me tell of how he served wine to his guests at Bethany. Poor Alexander Campbell. He wouldn’t have a chance among his people in Churches of Christ in the twentieth century, even if they do intone his name and visit his grave with prayerful awe.

But this is no problem to me since I know no better than to “fellowship brothers in error,” including Alexander Campbell. I accept him as my brother when he’s wrong as well as when he’s right. Only recently I was reading his view on Rom. 8:26, where he contends quite persuasively that the Spirit (he says it should be spirit, small s) that makes intercession for the saints is man’s spirit within him and not the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit in scripture is never an intercessor, and he thinks it ridiculous to think of the Holy Spirit “groaning” within us. It is man’s spirit that groans to God and that helps man’s flesh in his weakness. Brother Campbell also believed that a Christian cannot pray the Lord’s Prayer, because of “Thy kingdom come,” since the kingdom has already come.

If he is right on these last two points, then I am wrong, which of course is possible. I am very reluctant to disagree with brother Campbell, for he was such a devoted and able interpreter of the scriptures, but I sometimes do. To discover that he was sometimes wrong, maybe even seriously wrong (such as being a phrenologist of all things!) does not bother me at all. We are all wrong about some things. If we cannot fellowship brothers and sisters in error. there is no one left to fellowship.

Being honestly mistaken does not challenge the reality of brotherhood. If anything, I should be more concerned and more loving and more accepting toward the one that I believe to be “in error,” for she likely needs me more.

It is only error in the heart that threatens fellowship. When brethren are conniving, underhanded, bereft of conscience, or as Paul describes them in Rom. 16:18: “They serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple,” this is when fellowship is endangered and lines may have to be drawn.

But Campbell was not out to deceive the innocent, even when he was wrong. He was serving Jesus, not his own belly. So with our Christian Church sisters and brothers, even when they are wrong. So with our premill brothers. So with our sisters who speak in tongues.

Let’s follow the scriptures and “Receive one another even as Christ has received you,” and let’s disfellowship only those who are perverted, factious, and who deny the Lord who bought them, serving their own bellies.

But if these brethren are going to go around withdrawing from folk over classes, cups, organs, literature, colleges, societies, Herald of Truth, tongue speaking, premillennialism, and all the rest, each party having its own demands for fellowship, then I think they ought to stop praising Alexander Campbell, and withdraw from him posthumously. Our folk are fully capable of such nonsense. When it comes to matters of fellowship, we are in fact experts in nonsense! —the Editor