We Must Learn the Truth About “Fellowship” Part I – Introduction

In recent years there has been a fellowship movement at work for the avowed purpose of bringing together all who profess to believe in the restoration of New Testament Christianity. The design of these “fellowship movements” is not to correct the differences and bring about unity by calling men back to the Bible. It is to have “Unity in Diversity.” That means to have unity in spite of differences. Impossible! We can not walk together while going different ways. That is ridiculous!

During the 1930s James Deforest Murch of the Christian Church and Claude F. Witty, who preached for the West Side – Central church of Christ in Detroit, Michigan, initiated a series of “unity meetings” in which they invited fifty “key men” from each group to participate. The first meeting was in Detroit on May 3, 4, 1938. Similar efforts have continued until the present time in some sections of the country among the Christian Church and some liberal churches of Christ.

H. Leo Boles wrote of such unity meetings:

“It is not only wrong to bring such things (acts of worship based upon human opinion) into the worship of God; it is wrong to tolerate them in the worship; it is wrong to affiliate with them or countenance those who bring them in. Hence, it is sinful to bring anything not commanded by God into the worship of God; it is unfaithful and disloyal to Christ to tolerate them in worship; It is wrong to encourage and fellowship those who walk by opinion; It is cowardly and rebellious to refuse to oppose them.”

I shall oppose all efforts at fellowship with sin and error as long as I live.