SHARING WITHOUT FELLOWSHIP
by Cecil Hook

When Freddie Little started visiting our assemblies, we were all happily surprised. For many years he and Sarah, his faithful wife, had gone their separate ways religiously. She was present for every service, and he was equally active as a Baptist. With increasing frequency, however, he came with Sarah and he soon seemed at ease.

In time, Freddie went beyond a more passive participation, for he would enter into the discussions in classes, say “amen” at the conclusion of prayers, sing the invitation song with special earnestness, and invite others to our services. When it was Sarah’s turn to “prepare the communion” (?), he was always right there helping her. Once, when she was ill, he prepared it alone. He helped her with her World Bible School correspondence courses, and he even helped her teach a prospect in their home using film-strip lessons.

Everybody liked Freddie for he was an inspiration to all of us. But a problem developed with Freddie. Because he had been so much a part of us for so long, many newer members thought he was a member. It happened at a midweek service: there was a no-show for the dismissal prayer, and the fellow in charge called on Freddie on the spur of the moment. Freddie led an excellent prayer.

Undertone reaction was immediate, though no one wanted to hurt his feelings. The elders were quick to deal with this serious mistake. At their direction, the minister gave a lesson the next Sunday on “Does God Hear A Sinner’s Prayer?” That settled the congregation fairly well, but Freddie was absent that Sunday and did not hear it. So was the deacon who was newly assigned to be in charge of appointments. So, a few weeks later, this deacon appointed Freddie to help serve the Lord’s Supper. There he was, right there in front of everybody on Sunday morning! The preacher was put on the spot by this, but he wisely decided not to deal with the problem in his sermon which followed.

Freddie still did not know of the problem he was causing. Feeling so accepted because of those appointments, he “came forward to place membership” (We speak as the Bible speaks!) in the congregation during the invitation song. The preacher and congregation were so relieved to see him come down the aisle. The eager preacher asked him if he wished to be baptized and to become a Christian. Freddie replied that he had already been baptized and had been a Christian for many years. The whispered discussion between the two was so long that it became embarrassing to those assembled. Finally, the preacher explained as apologetically and tactfully as he could to the assembly that, although we love Freddie and want him to continue to come and share in our services, we cannot have fellowship with him in his present state.

Please forgive me for stringing you along, but Freddie and Sarah Little are fictitious characters. Even though the story is fictitious, it deals with some grave and starkly real problems of ours. It reaveals a strangely inconsistent fantasy that we have about being able to share without fellowship and of mutual participation without communion. Somehow, we seem to think that having a person’s name on the church roll (Where do the Scriptures speak of one?) puts one in our fellowship, but that sharing/communion/mutual participation in our corporate singing, prayer, communion, and giving is not really fellowship. It is sharing without fellowship!

Our words fellowship and communion are both translated from the same Greek word koinonia. This noun means: a sharing in common, partnership, fellowship. Every week there are persons in our assemblies whom we welcome and encourage to participate in our spiritual exercises. They share in common with us; yet we deny that there is fellowship! How can we explain and excuse such a contradiction? If we cannot recognize fellowship with a person, we should not be in fellowship with him or her by mutual participation. To be consistent, we must either accept fellowship with whoever examines himself and has partnership in our activities, or we must examine others and reject from partnership in our activities those whom we judge. There can be no sharing in common without fellowship.

Traditionally, in the Church of Christ, we have practiced “open communion.” We invite anyone who wishes to participate in the Lord’s Supper. In this participation in the body and blood of Christ, we share the truest experience of communion. We are each sharing in Christ on equal basis, in full partnership. We are one bread, one loaf, one body. Anyone who eats and drinks not giving discernment to the oneness of the body does so unworthily and thus eats and drinks damnation to his soul. For our participation to demonstrate any sentiment of party loyalty or rejection of others in Christ is but to destroy the real purpose and meaning of the communion itself. This moral defect is widespread among us. If each person is to examine himself as his prerequisite to communion, then we must accept him on his self-examination rather than our judgmental examination of him.

To withhold my own judgment of a fellow-communicant and to commune with him on his own self-examination would cause me to commune/have fellowship with one who is in error but thinks that he is not. True. But that person, and everyone else, is doing the same thing when they commune with me! I have not yet reached such a state of self-conceit and self-deception as to think that I am totally free of error. What about you? “I don’t know of any error that I believe or practice,” you may protest. Neither does the other fellow. You examine yourself and he will examine himself.

Fellowship does not mean approval or sanction. If it should, I truly would be limited in my fellowship, for most of the members of our congregation do things that I disapprove — the judging of others in Christ, for one example! But because others are members of the Church of Christ, wearing the right party label, we feel free to be in fellowship even though those persons are not free from all error.

Why can Freddie Little commune with us but not serve the supper or offer one of the prayers? Is one action fellowship and the other not?

The Scriptures speak neither of a church roll or of people being members of the church, yet we have made this the big issue in fellowship. We can enjoy the fellowship of Freddie in our spiritual exercises but not on the roll. To be consistent, we must either accept him as an equal in Christ or exclude him from participation in the singing, communion, etc. I know that we don’t want to face that choice, but we must, if we are to be honest. Freddie cannot share with us without fellowship.

The other fellow’s errors are worse than mine; so, I am justified in refusing fellowship, I may rationalize. Such self-righteousness allows one to forget, or ignore, all that Jesus and Paul told us about judging our brother.

Traditionally, we have considered being in the “right church” with doctrinal and practical correctness as the acceptable basis for fellowship, and we have necessarily become judgmental in determining who has met those prerequisites. But the basis of fellowship is the sharing in Christ, and we must accept a person on his or her own profession. If that seems too shaky to you, just remember that you saw few of the persons whom you accept baptized and you don’t know their real purposes or heart, yet you accept them on their profession.

“Open membership” is an ugly term among us, but “open communion” is considered praiseworthy! I do not advocate open or closed membership. That puts men as the judges and the church roll at the center of importance. God is the one who adds, or fails to add, members to his body. I do advocate open communion of those whom the Lord has added, for he put us in fellowship in one body. And the only way that I can have reason to believe that a person has been added to the body is by that person’s own claim of it.

If I cannot accept one on that basis, then I must exclude him from our communion and from participation in our spiritual activities, for there can be no sharing in these things without fellowship.