FELLOWSHIPING WILLIAM BARCLAY

I am not sure that fellowship has a participial form. Webster does not seem to think so, and the use of the term koinonia in the Scriptures, from which the term is translated, would not suggest it. If fellowship is a state or relationship, as is partnership or companionship, it would not have a participial form, for one would hardly speak of partnershiping or companionshiping someone. That fellowship is a substantive that describes a relationship between people is itself significant. We can certainly enter into fellowship, strengthen fellowship, and enjoy fellowship, but to speak of fellowshiping someone, or, more often than not, disfellowshiping someone, is to suggest that we control the relationship and that it is up to us as to whether we fellowship (verb) something or someone, instead of the heavenly Father creating the relationship.

And things become part of the problem, such as “We do not fellowship instrumental music” or Sunday Schools or whatever. In the same way we speak of “We don’t fellowship the other congregation in town.” We really mean something like They are not OK or We do not approve of them. There are people within the fellowship of God that have beliefs and practices of which I do not approve, but that does not impose upon the fact that they are in the fellowship (or in communion with the Father and all the saints, if you choose to use a different word). Paul and Barnabas once had to separate over a disagreement, but they were in the fellowship of the Spirit as much as ever, and so it would be misleading to speak of Paul not fellowshiping Barnabas over the question of taking Mark.

Well, this is not intended to be an essay on fellowship. But I was reminded of the problem when I turned to Webster to see how I should spell the participial form, only to find that he does not regard it as having verbal form. I think he is right. So in this piece I use the term as I often hear it among the churches, and so I want to ask if we can fellowship (verb) William Barclay. Perhaps you realize that he is rapidly becoming “the most read man” among Churches of Christ, even more than the renowned Adam Clarke.

Recently I was visiting with the Brainerd Church of Christ in Chattanooga. In the pew in front of me sat this cheerful sister, who sang and listened with enthusiasm. While she sat alone, she had two books at her side, her Bible and a volume from the Daily Bible Study by William Barclay. When I met her after the service, I told her some stories about Barclay that I had learned from two visits with him in Glasgow, Scotland. She was unequivocal in her appreciation of the late theologian and was delighted with what she was learning from his writings.

It reminds me of a question that I asked Barclay on one of my visits, as to why he was widely read in conservative circles, including my own Church of Christ, when he was a liberal. He amended the label by describing himself as “an evangelical liberal,” and he accounted for his conservative readership on the ground that he simply sought to interpret the text and not divert from it.

I found him to be eminently Christian, a delightful man who troubled himself to come to my hotel late at night for a visit with an American brother. We spoke of his hearing aid (“My deafness is a blessing, for I can remove my hearing aid when I study and be in a completely quiet world”), his resourcefulness (“I am blessed with a photographic mind; I remember everything I read, what book it is in, and even the page”), and the unity talks between his own Church of Scotland and the Church of England (“We can talk out the problem of baptism, but we are at an impasse on the ministry question,”) a reference to the Anglican position on episcopal succession, which does not recognize the Scottish clergy as duly ordained ministers.

Some of these things passed through my mind as I saw this dear Church of Christ sister with William Barclay sitting beside her, sort of. But as I sat there I was smitten by the cruel and debilitating Church of Christ doctrine on fellowship, which says that a sister may read and enjoy William Barclay in her Bible study, but that he is not really a Christian and cannot be fellowshipped. He could not even be called on to lead a prayer to the Father of us all or to address the congregation—even if he said no more than what he has already written, which it is all right for us to read! We can read him but not hear him, not in a Church of Christ. Being the exclusivists that we are, we can hear only our own people, except maybe Dr. Dobson on film. We are our own worst enemy. We greatly deprive ourselves by shutting ourselves off from the rest of the Christian world.

If he were still living, the crusty old Scot would have a great time visiting with the Brainerd Church of Christ. If asked to speak, he would no doubt get right into the Scriptures, more so I dare say than our own preachers do. He would be delightfully fraternal and would go out of his way not to offend Church of Christ sensitivities. And it would be to the utter delight of the sister who has been reading him all these years, along with many others. And in a social gathering with the doughty theologian it would be a day the church would long remember.

But the likes of Barclay are not OK. They are off limits. In fact they are not even Christians. I did not say this to our sister who is a Barclay fan, but I thought it: Does it embarrass you to belong to a church that insists that William Barclay was not even a Christian?

Well, it embarrasses me, and I am resolved to help our people overcome such suffocating narrowness. I am persuaded that a majority of our people have a more open view. It is the leadership that must get with it and bring our people within the framework of the Christian world. I appreciate the passion for being true to the Scriptures that has led our people into parochialism, but we must realize that we have fallen victim to the same legalism that destroyed the Pharisees.

It is probably true that people in other churches, like Prof. Barclay, have not obeyed God perfectly, and that they have errors in both belief and practice. But pray tell me, dear brother and sister, if one’s obedience to God must be absolutely perfect before he can be a Christian, then how about those of us in Churches of Christ? Are we willing to judge ourselves on the same basis that we judge others? It is like our own Alexander Campbell said (when advocating the acceptance of believers like William Barclay) that if one’s faith and practice has to be perfect before he can be a Christian, then there is not a Christian in the world and there never has been.

We must be more like Jesus, who was slow to reject anyone who was trying to serve God. “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us,” they said to him (Mk. 9:38). His response was that they should not forbid him, for “he that is not against us is for us.” Even though the man belonged to “another church,” Jesus came very close to “fellowshiping” him!—the Editor