A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

tual conviction. As they saw it, incorporating members on the basis of ethnicity was not unlike the Reformed practice of incorporating infants: both caused the church to deteriorate from a fellowship of faith to an indifferent population that was Christian only in name.1 Such a practice, in their view, wiped out the distinction between church and world The natural out- come, they believed, was that the church would become a mere religious institution mediating salvation by clergy or ad- ministering it by an apparatus of theologians and bishops.2 THE CHURCH: A FELLOWSHIP OF TRUE BELIEVERS For Mennonite Brethren identifiable evidences of true faith-rooted in the atonement of Christ, manifested in the transforming power of God in repentance, conversion and re- generation, and resulting in a new creature in Christ Jesus-was inseparable from ecclesiology. This emphasis on a church of committed believers received central emphasis in the secession document: Regarding Holy Communion we confess that it serves to 39 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH strengthen the faith of true believers * . . yes, it is a sign that they stand in very intimate union with Jesus, their Saviour (1 Cor. 10:6). Furthermore, it serves as a sign of a covenant and fellowship of believers (v. 17), and not as a sign of the fellowship of believers and unbelievers.3 They then invoked Menno Simons' Foundations of Christ- ian Doctrine which also stressed that the church should con- sist only of truly born again believers. ^ The Confession of Faith of 1902 defined this understanding further: The Church of Christ is composed of all that through true faith in Jesus Christ and through obedience to the Gospel have separated themselves from the world and have their fellowship in the Holy Spirit with God the Father and Je- sus Christ their only mediator, and have come unto an in- numerable company of angels and unto the spirits of just men made perfect, as fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the founda- tion of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself be- ing the chief corner stone, Eph. 1:1; 1 Pet. 1:1-2; cf* "choosing," "conversion," "sanctification"; Rom, 6:17; 10:16-17; 2 Con 6:17; Acts 2:40-41; John 15:1-5; Eph, 2:19- 22; 1 Cor, 3:11-15; Matt, 6:16-18; 1 Tim. 3:15.5 It is also significant to note the characterization of the church as it appeared in the Confession of Faith: The characteristics of the true Church are the fruits of con- version and of the right faith in Jesus Christ revealed in a life of sanctifieation according to