Expert: Hoyt Roberson - 7/3/2011

Question
Is it wrong to have fellowship with liberal and conservative churches of Christ? Which of the two of them preaches more what the bible says?

Answer
Hi, Dan

You ask a couple different questions, actually. We don't actually fellowship congregations, we fellowship people. In Scripture, the limits on fellowship were drawn at denying Jesus as the Son of God/Messiah, those who continued to cause trouble in a congregation, and those whose moral behavior was considerably and chronically lacking. If someone didn't quite grasp the finer details of a theological or Biblical point, fellowship was not broken. So, if you know a Christian, either liberal or conservative, who doesn't fit the Biblical criteria for disfellowshiping, you should fellowship them.

The question of which congregation you should attend is another question, to some degree, but not by much. There are no perfect people and there are no perfect congregations. Any congregation you wanted to discuss is going to have some flaw. Since every congregation, liberal or conservative, believe they are following Scripture, the question becomes "do they grasp Scripture?" There are liberal and conservative congregations that do not grasp Scripture.

Let me illustrate: there are liberal congregations who seem to make Jesus optional. As long as you do nice things and help people, which God you worship doesn't really matter. Or again, there are liberal congregations who want you to have a great time worshiping the right God, but your life need not really change.

Then there are conservative congregations who seem to think that "doing church" is what God is after and the rest of the stuff doesn't really matter. Or again, treating the Bible as a legal tome rather than the descriptive story that it really is.

Both extremes miss the point of Scripture by a wide margin. I do not subscribe to the idea that your salvation is dependent on which congregation you attend. As long as the congregation falls somewhere within the Scriptural norm, it doesn't matter which end of the spectrum your congregation falls.

So, we should fellowship Christians as long as they're lives and behaviors don't meet the Scriptural basis of avoiding them. Unfortunately, most of the things we want to "mark" people for, or that we want to avoid them over, don't meet the Scriptural requirements for avoiding them. To shun someone simply because they don't grasp Scripture the way we grasp Scripture is both arrogant and anti-Scriptural.

Now for which, liberal or conservative, preaches more what the Bible says. As you can see from my comments above, the question isn't really a liberal or conservative question. Conservative churches of Christ teach that Ephesians says that we can't use instruments with worship, basing their conclusions on two points. 1) that Scripture says "sing and make melody..." and doesn't say "use instruments." The first is a conclusion from a positive statement, and the last a conclusion based on a lack of authorization. From my perspective, both conclusions are off the mark and fail to grasp the context of Paul's writing. However, this out of context argument doesn't keep Christians from avoiding other Christians who use instrumental music. This is an incorrect teaching.

Liberal congregations which ignore the call to righteous living, and excuse any and all behavior because "God loves you," also fail to grasp the thrust of Scripture. It is true that God loves you, but it is also true that God calls you to a transformed life here and now. Teaching that ignores the desired transformation or excusing failing to achieve it is a wrong teaching.

The middle of the pack is often larger than we assume, and there is considerable gray area instead of our normal black and white, liberal and conservative division of ourselves. That division itself is considerably off the mark and demonstrates a lack of understanding of God and love and care for people.

Hope that helps, and I hope you have a blessed week.