Fellowship Without Conformity

A Reply By Stanley K. McDaniel

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     Reuel Lemmons' editorial of 12-1-70 in Firm Foundation is an expose of what he labels the "fellowship without conformity heresy." As usual, Brother Lemmons' writing is clear and direct. The implications of his position are obvious and his position is traditional among the Churches of Christ. Nevertheless, I believe his position is incorrect and I propose to reply to his editorial in this article.

     My reply is given, not for the purpose of "writing him up" or "off," but to stimulate my brethren to a greater depth of thought on a problem that has been perennial in the Restoration Movement and to cause Brother Lemmons to consider that he may have fallen into the same intellectual pitfalls that he claims have banned others.

     I shall comment first on his claim that the "fellowship without conformity heresy...seems to hold that no conformity at all is legitimate." Brother Lemmons is not specific as to what persons or writings he is referring to in the above comments. Therefore my comments must be based on the guess that he labels the writings of Carl Ketcherside^1,2 and others like him³ as teachers of the "fel-

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lowship without conformity heresy." If my guess is accurate then I contend that Brother Lemmons has missed the issue entirely by saying that they seem to teach that no conformity is legitimate. Ketcherside and others are not saying that conformity is illegitimate, nor are they implying that randomness and unpredictability among men is acceptable. A careful review of Ketcherside's writings shows that he rejects the position that fellowship is based on an intellectual conformity concerning the meaning and application of the apostles' teaching to the problems of Christian living.

     What Brother Lemmons seems to ignore is the claim that the basis of fellowship is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Fellowship is a miracle of the love of God which takes hold of our very being when we come to God through faith in Jesus. If fellowship is doctrinal conformity through intellectualizing then man would have something to boast about. But God has made foolish our wisdom by his wisdom and love.

     The real issue as I see it asks, what is the basis and method of producing our fellowship? One position states that fellowship is a miracle of the Spirit of God working in the life of one who has been touched by Jesus through the gospel and the conformity produced is natural, like birth into a family. It flows from our conformity to the most severe and demanding law ever given, the law of love (Rom. 13:10). And it grows, not because of our conformity but in spite of our diversity. The other position states that fellowship is obedience to the gospel plus intellectual conformity to the religious groups' most generally held conclusions about the meaning and application of the 27 books called the New Testament. The conformity produced is forced since this position demands excluding diversity. I find the former position in keeping with the teaching and life of Jesus, the latter position in keeping with an institutional concept of Christianity and a legalistic concept of the purpose and function of the Christian scriptures. I choose the former.

     A second issue arises from the following statements.

"In opinion there must always be liberty...But this view seems to hold that no conformity at all is legitimate...This view would reduce every point of doctrine in the Christian spectrum to a matter of opinion, and would force me to fellowship those whom God will not tolerate...The Bible does not teach that men are to consider a matter of opinion what the Bible makes a matter of faith."

     Before these statements have any utility for the Christian they must be related to some criterion by which all people can discern what is in the realm of opinion and what is in the realm of things where God will not tolerate any nonconformity. In other words, if fellowship is based on conformity to those things which are called matters of faith then we must be able to categorize items of faith and be extremely accurate about it since to make an error here is something "God will not tolerate." Brother Lemmons does not provide this criterion nor do other writers I have read who take a similar position.

     Experience has taught me that in actual practice the criterion for deciding on what issues we must have absolute conformity is the power elite in the publishing houses, which provide literature for feeding the flock, or the Christian colleges, which provide the shepherds for the flock. Whatever is decided by these men and proclaimed by the big name evangelists becomes a matter of faith. The elite speaks ex cathedra and unless conformity is your conditioned response you become a non-person in the fellowship. The only difference I see between this criterion and the Roman Catholic criterion is that we have several infallible groups of pontiffs around the country (who don't always agree with each others pontifical declarations) while the Roman Catholics have one infallible pontiff. I believe both systems are failures but at least the Catholics have less overhead.

     My position on this issue is not to deny that matters of faith and opinion exist.

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This is what I believe and like Brother Lemmons I believe that matters of faith allow no diversity. What I reject is an ambiguous, unstated, and almost dishonest belief in a criterion that has dashed the Ship of Zion on the rocks. What has happened is that we have operated on a criterion that has allowed any person to declare any position on any issue as a matter of faith and use it as a test of fellowship.

     As a solution to this problem I propose that we recognize the good news about Jesus and the apostles' teachings are related but different messages with different purposes and audiences in mind⁴ and that we consider the good news of Jesus as being the basis of our faith that leads to fellowship, and not our deductions and inferences about the apostles' teachings. Whatever facts the good news proclaims for us to believe and whatever acts it asks us to perform in order to become a child of God are items of faith upon which we must agree intellectually and conform with all our emotional energy.

     As I see my position it means that there is one fact to be believed and one act to be obeyed in order to be born into the fellowship. That fact is Jesus, God in the flesh. That act is to symbolically follow Jesus and be incorporated into his death, burial, and resurrection through immersion of the body in water. This fact to be believed and this act to be obeyed are what Jesus instructed his disciples to preach to all the world. This is the fact and the act they bound upon their audiences as recorded in the book of Acts. The criterion, which is implicit in my position, has been stated succinctly by others, as, "Bind nothing on another person except that which God has explicitly required for salvation" or as Thomas Campbell phrased it in the Declaration and Address," "...nothing ought to be inculcated upon Christians as articles of faith; nor required of them as terms of communion, but what is expressly taught and enjoined upon them in the word of God."

     A third issue arises from Brother Lemmons statement, "And God does reject some whom he has received as sons. When God turns a son over to the Devil, I am obligated to do so." He supports this principle by alluding to Ephesians 5:11 and 2 Thessalonians 3:6. The above stated principle gives me no problem in accepting and implementing it. Where the conflict exists is in certain questions I must honestly ask in order to implement the principle. Why does God reject some He has received as sons? What are the unfruitful works of darkness? What does it mean to walk disorderly? A superficial reading of Ephesians 5:1-12 shows that we are to have no fellowship with a brother who regresses to accumulating wealth, using the spoken word, or practising sexual intercourse in a way that is destructive to a loving relationship among God's children. The disorderly walk we are to disallow which is mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 3 is the problem of the illegal taking of goods and services from others by refusing to work and consequently becoming a leech on the community. I think the scripture is very plain on these points and I am obligated to reject a brother who regresses in these ways.

     The fellowship problem arises when one takes the liberty to label anything he disapproves of as a disorderly walk or an unfruitful work of darkness. Some of my brothers categorize singing with a piano, dividing into Bible school classes by age groups, supporting the Herald of Truth, using more than one cup at communion, and etc., as disorderly behavior and works of darkness. Then they drive me out of the flock with Eph. 5:11 and 2 Thess. 3:6 as their sword. And some who take the same position as Brother Lemmons but are more "non-progressive" than he, give him the same treatment.

     I think here is an area in Brother Lemmons' editorial where the thinking is not clear and the bitter end of such thinking has not been calculated. It seems to me

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that there is a total disregard for the distinction between the gospel and the apostles' teaching. Also, I think there is no distinction made between the apostles' teaching and our inferences about what we think they taught and how we think the teaching should be applied. Further, I see no recognition between positive law and moral law. It seems to me that Brother Lemmons is willing to categorize all the party shibboleths as moral law and then use Eph. 5:11 and similar scripture as a means of enforcing party dogma.

     To be specific, let me pose to Brother Lemmons a genuine problem we would have if we lived in the same city. I meet on Sunday morning to worship with a group of Christians who sing with the accompaniment of a piano and organ. Sometimes we have a guitar. Does my brother really think I am disorderly? Is my participation in the above mentioned acts to be categorized as being the same type of acts condemned in Eph. 5? Have I violated God's moral law or have I violated the fact to be believed and the act to be obeyed which are the gospel? I think not. I have violated what a certain segment of the community of God on earth doesn't like. This I am guilty of without a doubt. But this is by no means a reason to have no fellowship with me. Eph. 5 does not teach this practice and Romans 14 teaches just the opposite.

     There is a final issue I would like to examine. It emerges from the following statements of Brother Lemmons.

"If it were not for Divine Revelation there would be no such thing as a disorderly walk...If we are encouraged to extend fellowship to those who disregard this standard of conduct we actually destroy confidence in the standard itself. When this confidence is destroyed we are no longer a Bible believing and Bible following people."

     Let me say first of all that my comments here are limited to what constitutes the basis of moral law, and since Brother Lemmons' editorial does not make a distinction here I may be arguing an issue on which we both have the same position. I infer from the above statements that he believes that the basis of morality is scripture and that if a society has not been given the Christian scriptures they have no workable standard of an orderly walk. Secondly, I infer that he believes if the scriptures don't spell everything out then a person may act in any way he chooses since "if it were not for Divine Revelation there would be no such thing as a disorderly walk." My inferences may be altogether unfair to Brother Lemmons but if they are accurate then I see a diversity of thought here that is basic to our concept of the nature of scripture and the basis of morality.

     Brother Lemmons' editorial says to me that morality is obeying the do's and don'ts of the scriptures and the scriptures were given to us so we may have "faith in the binding nature of Divine Revelation." Both of these premises I reject. I believe morality has its basis in the nature of man. Man is so created by God that it has always been immoral to steal, kill, lie, and commit adultery. Men were following taboos against these four danger areas long before Christianity arrived in history. Even today there are many societies without our scriptures that have a concept of moral action in these danger areas. In fact the moral commandments of Moses' law and the Christian scriptures such as Eph. 5 appear to be universal codes held by man⁵. The scriptures do not have to say don't kill, steal, lie, and commit adultery in order for these actions to be immoral. They are immoral because they don't work in the affairs of man. They have always proven to be contrary to the image in which man was created and toward which he must strive if he is to live without destroying himself physically or mentally.

     This concept of the basis of morality is a grand tribute to the priceless value of the scriptures. They are not dead letters to be legalistically obeyed. They are living letters from the Father, revealing ourselves to ourselves and His concern for us.

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The Bible is true, I can say, and demonstrate it empirically because what it teaches works. In other words, the moral teachings of the Bible are true, not because they are in the Bible, but they are in the Bible because they are true.

     The other issue involved here concerns the nature of the scriptures. Why do we have them? What use are they to man? I cannot answer these questions in this limited space except to say they are to bring us to Jesus and then encourage and guide us as we live by faith and love. I cannot agree with Brother Lemmons' concept where he speaks of "faith in the binding nature of Divine Revelation." This is, to me, a B.C. concept of an A.D. religion. I am willing to admit that I do not have faith in the binding nature of Divine Revelation. I have faith in Jesus and the liberating nature of Divine Love. I am no longer bound by law. Through Him I have been transformed and live by love which has broken every legal fetter that bound me. I am a dead man and only live in Christ. To see the Christian scriptures as books to believe in for the purpose of binding ourselves is to make the life and death of Jesus meaningless and a stupid, tragic mistake. Jesus didn't have to die to give us a code. We already had one, and a very good one.

     Let me summarize what I have advocated. 1. Fellowship is a miracle of God, created when one comes to Jesus through the gospel. 2. Matters of faith allow for no diversity and these are what God has explicitly asked us to believe and to do to be born into His family. 3. When a Christian transgresses God's moral law he is to be treated as an unbeliever, but scriptures like Eph. 5:11 do not apply to our inferences and deductions on religious issues. 4. The basis of morality is not in written code but is in the nature of man as he was created and the scriptures were given to us not as a binding code but as guide and encouragement to get on the way of love and keep on it.

     If Brother Lemmons really believes what he has written in his editorial then I think his conscientiousness, which he says caused him to write the editorial, would not allow him to stop at that editorial. He claims that people like myself in the Churches of Christ are "cunning teachers" and "slick manipulators" of words. He also implies strongly that we are responsible for creeping "Christian atheism." This really sounds like bad news. It is even worse news from Brother Lemmons' point of view when you consider that his position is getting harder to find, especially among the young people of high school and college age. If truth is his armor then he should wage an offensive war before it is too late. Until he has engaged in open discussion and debate with men like Carl Ketcherside before the student bodies of schools like Pepperdine, Harding, and Abilene he has not matched with action what he describes as a spiritual tragedy on a nationwide scale. I urge him to follow the exhortation he gave to us in his editorial of October 6, 1970 entitled "The Right To Differ." I thank my brother for it and urge all to re-read it because it is classical. I shall conclude with Brother Lemmons' exhortation to us.

Any time two brethren, or groups of brethren decide to meet together it signifies at least two things. It acknowledges the existence of significant Bible differences in the thinking and understanding of each, and it expresses a concern that these differences should be faced and eliminated. We feel that unity sought on any other grounds or bought at any other price is false and insecure. Differences cannot be ignored; they must be faced. It is basically unsound to try to pretend that they do not exist and that unity can be had by ignoring them.

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     2. Carl Ketcherside, "The Spirit and Unity," The Unity of the Spirit, Volume 25, Number 7 (July, 1963).

     3. Harold Key, "Fellowship and Endorsement," The Brotherhood of Faith, Volume 26, Number 3 (March, 1964).

     4. Carl Ketcherside, "Gospel and Doctrine," The Twisted Scriptures, Volume 27, Number 2 (February, 1965).

     5. Ralph Linton, "Universal Ethical Principles," Exploring The Ways of Mankind edited by Walter Goldschmidt, pp. 544, Holt, Rinenart and Winston, New York, 1960.