The Hope of the Believer . . .

ARE WE TO EELLOWSHIP THE UNIMMERSED?  

My opinion is that immersion is the only baptism. But shall I therefore make my opinion a term of Christian fellowship? If in this case I thus act, where shall I cease from making my opinions terms of fellowship? I confess I see no end. — Barton W. Stone, Christian Messenger, 1831, p.19.

You may agree that opinions should not be made tests of fellowship and yet insist that immersion is not an opinion but a matter of fact. Barton Stone anticipated you when he made the above statement, for he added: "You may say that immersion is so plainly the meaning of Christian baptism, you know not how any honest man can be ignorant of it. This is the very language of all opinionists."

He goes on to refer to the doctrine of the trinity as an opinion, though trinitarians insist that it is a fact of Scripture. Then he says, "So speak all Sectarians respecting their opinions."

It is impressive that while Stone was an avowed immersionist, noting on one occasion that there was not one in 500 among his churches that was not immersed, he nonetheless admitted that it was an opinion and should not therefore be made a test of fellowship.

What is an opinion? While Stone does not say it in so many words, he seems to understand an opinion to be a viewpoint held on a matter that honest, intelligent people may see differently. That is close to what Webster says, "a belief not based on absolute certainty or positive knowledge but on what seems true, valid, or probable to one's own mind." Is not the mode of baptism of this character? We might see the evidence for baptism by immersion only as overwhelmingly convincing (to us at least, as it was to Stone), and yet concede that it is not absolutely certain. If it is not "positive knowledge" it is an opinion. Even if we insist that immersion only is "next to certain" it is still an opinion.

One might ask that if immersion only is not an absolute fact what would be. There are many incontrovertible facts in Scripture. Baptism is one, for it is universally agreed that baptism was a practice of the early church. It is the exact mode and design that are questioned. Christ himself is an absolute fact of Scripture, but the nature of Christ is a matter of opinion. A fact is what is actually said or done. An opinion is what the fact or the thing done is made to mean. Jesus' words, "My Father is greater than I," is a statement of fact, and we can all agree that he said that. But we do not agree on what he meant by it. Fact and opinion.

If we insist that baptism by immersion only is a matter of absolute fact, we have the problem of explaining why most Christians through the centuries, who are as honest and intelligent as ourselves, have not seen it as we have. An interesting book on the history of the dispute about baptism, entitled The Water That Divides, shows that the issue is not as simple as we have supposed. He notes that while there is universal agreement that baptism was often by immersion in the New Testament, it is not universally agreed that all baptisms were by immersion. And so throughout the history of the church, the author states, baptism has been administered by immersion, pouring, and sprinkling.

How are we as immersionists to react to the fact that most professed Christians have not been baptized by immersion? Do we accept them into our fellowship or reject them? If we reject them, we are implying by our action that the vast majority of the Christians in the world are not really Christians. If we accept them, we may suppose we are being untrue to what we understand the Bible to teach.

It is noteworthy that the founding pioneer of the Restoration Movement, if we name only one man, and one who adamantly defended and practiced baptism by immersion, would not go so far as to refuse fellowship to the unimmersed. He did not believe there was any violation of Scripture in accepting them. In fact these words from the same essay that contains the above quotation indicates that he believed he would violate the spirit of Scripture if he did not accept them: 

But says one, I cannot have communion with an unimmersed person; because he is not a member of the church of Christ, however pious and holy he may be. I ask, is he a heathen, or publican? for such is the character of those excluded from the church, Mt. 18. All are either for or against Christ the Lord. "He that is not with me is against me." Shall we say, all are the enemies of Christ who are not immersed? We dare not. If they are not enemies, or if they are not against him they are for him and with him; shall we reject those who are with Jesus, from us? Shall we refuse communion with those with whom the lord communes? 

Stone asks some hard questions in this appeal for a broader fellowship. "Shall we make immersion the test of religion?", he asks, "and shall we center all religion on this one point?" He asks why immersion is emphasized more than the love of God, holiness, mercy, and self denial. He argues that if God could accept Cornelius before he was immersed, we should be able to accept those who have not yet attained to our understanding. He urges that we show caution in rejecting those that God accepts.

If you say it is a question of accepting those who are truly our brothers and sisters in Christ, Stone would agree, and he gives a definition to that end: "Let us acknowledge all to be our brethren who believe in the Lord Jesus, and humbly and honestly obey him as far as they know his will and their duty."

It is in that definition that I believe we have our answer as to whom we should accept: All those who are following Christ the best they know how. In doing so we are approving of no error they may mistakenly hold. We are compromising no truth that we hold. In an atmosphere of loving acceptance we can teach with "longsuffermg and doctrine" what we believe about baptism by immersion. We will likely immerse more people this way than by leaving the impression that we think baptism is the sine qua non of the Christian faith. This was the case with Stone and his churches, for while he had this liberal view toward the unimmersed he could nonetheless report that virtually everyone was immersed sooner or later, "not one in 500 is not immersed," as he put it.

Stone's more open view of fellowship is easier to see when we have a less institutional, organizational concept of the church. When we think in terms of becoming part of an organization or adding names to an official membership list, we are likely to think in more exacting and legalistic terms. But when we work alongside a nun in a city slum clothing the naked, with a Red Cross worker in rescuing victims in an earthquake zone, or with one from the Salvation Army in a soup kitchen, we are likely have a different view of fellowship, especially when we see a commitment to Christ on their part greater than our own.

If we can work with a nun in a slum to the glory of God, we should be able to enjoy fellowship with her in the assembly of the saints, not because she is a nun but because she loves and serves Jesus just as we do. Perhaps we cannot accept her in "our church" or in "our party" but certainly in a gathering of the Body of Christ! Jesus said, "If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor" (Jn. 12:26). Let us be followers of God as beloved children. — the Editor

     Indeed, The Christian Baptist contains some of the wisest and most tolerant of Christian writings. In his May, 1826 "Letter to an Independent Baptist" who had protested his association with other religious parties, Alexander Campbell revealed himself to be as all-inclusive and as modern as tomorrow's sunrise in his statement on tolerance and understanding among Christians. - Louis Cochran in The Sage of Bethany, p.75