Fellowship

In scripture, fellowship is a partnership in which members hold a common stake, share a table, and share their goods. Its measure for a networked age is whether members are present to one another and contribute to one another's needs.

Fellowship is the shared life of people bound to a common purpose. The English fellow comes from the Old Norse félagi, a partner who laid down property in a joint venture, and the New Testament's Greek koinōnia likewise means participation in something held in common. Latter-day Saints speak of "fellowshipping" a new member or a neighbor, and a quick reading takes fellowship to mean friendliness: a warm greeting, a shared meal after a meeting. Scripture asks for more. Its fellowship is a partnership with something at stake, in which members bring what they own, eat at one table, and remain answerable to one another.

Koinōnia and the Common Stake

The New Testament uses one word for the church's fellowship and for the money its members gave to one another.

The first believers in Jerusalem "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42). It has long been recognized that this koinōnia included shared meals and shared property. Less often noticed is how directly the word carries money. When Paul gathered funds from the Greek churches for the poor in Jerusalem, he called the collection a koinōnia, which the King James translators rendered "contribution." The English word carries the same history, since a fellow was first a business partner. Fellowship in this sense begins when a member puts something of value into a common life and accepts a share in its losses as well as its gains.

The Right Hand and the Table

The early church tested its fellowship at the table, where the question of who may eat together became the question of who belongs.

When the leaders in Jerusalem accepted Paul's mission to the Gentiles, they "gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship" (Galatians 2:9). The agreement soon met a harder test at Antioch. Peter had eaten with Gentile believers, but when visitors arrived from Jerusalem, "he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision" (Galatians 2:12), and Paul opposed him to his face. Jesus had drawn the same complaint from his critics, who murmured, "This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them" (Luke 15:2). In this connection the Book of Mormon gives the risen Christ's instruction to the Nephites. Even when a member is withheld from the sacrament, "ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister" (3 Nephi 18:32). Latter-day Saint practice has moved in the same direction. In 2020 the Church retired the term "disfellowshipment," explaining that it seemed to cut members off from association with the Church, and adopted "formal membership restrictions" instead.

Fellowship with the Father

Scripture grounds fellowship among believers in a fellowship with God that begins with embodied witness.

The first epistle of John opens with what its writers "have heard," "seen with our eyes," and "handled," and it declares its purpose: "that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ"; those who "walk in the light" have "fellowship one with another" (1 John 1:1, 3, 7). Restoration scripture gives that fellowship a ritual form. In the School of the Prophets, organized early in 1833, the teacher was to greet each member who came in with hands raised to heaven: "I receive you to fellowship, in a determination that is fixed, immovable, and unchangeable, to be your friend and brother through the grace of God in the bonds of love" (D&C 88:133). Going further, a fellowship among humans can widen into the society of God, which Mormon transhumanists hope to approach through every means God has given.

Fellowship at a Distance

Networked technology can carry fellowship across distance, and it can also supply its appearance without its substance.

When public worship was suspended in March 2020, Latter-day Saints met by video and administered the sacrament at home, and many congregations kept in touch through messaging and broadcast meetings. Such tools have since let homebound, distant, and disabled members take part as they could not before. Yet loneliness has persisted. In 2023 the United States Surgeon General reported that about half of American adults experienced measurable loneliness, and an early study of conversational AI found that its heaviest users also reported more loneliness and less time with other people, though the direction of cause is unclear. A feed or a chatbot can offer the warmth of the quick reading at no cost to anyone, with no table to share and no contribution to make. The test for any technology of gathering is whether it brings members into a common stake, with presence at one another's tables and help in one another's needs, or lets them consume the feeling of fellowship alone.