Matt Postiff's Blog

I've been interested to watch the debate on fundamentalism, conservative evangelicalism, and separation unfold over the past months. I have some thoughts on the subject that I hope will help us stay on the Biblical track that I would like to develop over some upcoming posts. Actually, I already have three posts on the subject that you can read elsewhere in this blog.

You will have to forgive me for my somewhat lax use of the term separation. I will use the term generically for now, understanding that there are different gradations of separation depending on the case. There is the "put out" kind; the "come out" kind; the "stop having fellowship" kind, and the "don't start having fellowship" kind, among others. But even though there are different species of separation, I will, at least initially, be speaking about separation as a genus, the broader category that includes all the species as sub-types.

The point of this post is this: basically everyone is doing some kind of separation. As I pointed out in the "Non-Separatist Separtists" post, even those known as new evangelicals (who repudiate the doctrine of separation) exercised separation from their fundamentalist brethren. Others lamented how attacks on inerrancy came into the movement and how those holding errant views should have no right to the evangelical label. This is an attempt to exercise some kind of separation. Other examples:

1. A parent tells his child to stay away from certain types of friends, or the playground bully.
2. Dads and moms restrict their children or themselves from watching certain kinds of television programs because of sinful content.
3. A church puts out an unrepentant adulterer from its membership.
4. A church decides to avoid any partnership with ecumenical organizations or para-church ministries that do not share its beliefs.
5. A man decides to cut off a dating relationship because the woman is an unbeliever.
6. A businessman realizes he cannot continue in the close business association with an unbelieving partner.
7. A husband decides to take his family out of a church because of a perceived shortcoming in the ministry, and to move to a different church.
8. A Baptist never darkens the door of a Presbyterian church.
9. A pastor leads his church to direct missions funding to some missionaries or mission funds and not others.
10. People choose to attend or join one local church and reject others because of doctrinal differences such as mode of baptism, cessationism, continuationism, views on social issues, type of music, personal dress standards, and any number of other factors. My thought here is limited to those factors that are considered issues of right or wrong by the person. Other factors come into play (size of the church or youth group, for instance) that are not matters of right and wrong, at least as I see it, but are rather just preferences.

If it is the case that "everybody's doin' it," what we need to do is think about how consistent we are and how faithful we are to God and the Scripture.

I've recently run into some examples of an odd situation. The basic form of it is that there is someone or some group who articulates or at least clearly practices a non-separatist position (NS). The NS then initiates some act of separation from someone who articulates a belief and practice of separation (S). Maybe it is just me, but something strikes me as very inconsistent in the NS's behavior.

Example 1: Church attender says, "You believe in separation and we do not. We have to leave." The church (S) was content to allow the church attender to keep attending (though not to join membership) in hopes that the attender would learn the Scriptural position that requires separation from unbelief, compromise with unbelief, errant brothers, and the world.

Example 2: Great Homeschool Conventions recently kicked Ken Ham out of upcoming conventions because he called out Peter Enns and other evolutionists on their views that conflict with the clear teaching of Scripture. The goal of AiG was to warn homeschoolers from the bad influence of evolutionism, and so they teach accordingly. The Convention group is not separatist by any stretch of the imagination—it includes secular and Jewish groups, among others, in its ranks, but it decried AiG's "unChristian" behavior. See Kicked Out of Two Homeschool Conferences for more details.

Example 3: In a way, it seems to me that the New Evangelicalism did a similar thing. The movement was clearly NS. It repudiated separatism from the start because it was disgusted with fundamentalist separatism (S). And though it had no resultant ability to separate from doctrinally unorthodox younger evangelicals that came into its midst, it did put a good bit of distance between itself and fundamentalism. It started schools (like Fuller) and organs (like Christianity Today). It re-entered academic, theological dialogue and social action that were not in accord with the S's. The new evangelicals might not call this separation, but it sure looks a lot like it to me.

May I make a couple of applications? Let us be careful that we do not exercise separation in an inconsistent fashion. Don't separate over small things while at the same time avoiding separating over bigger things! And don't claim you are a non-separatist if you are separating over separatism or other things you don't like. In such a case, you are a separatist, just for different reasons than the people you are separating from.

In a previous entry, I asked the following question:

In your view and considering 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15, how would Paul deal with professing believers who reject (1) a six-day creation; (2) a millennial reign of Christ; and (3) the cessation of revelatory sign gifts?

Dr. Robert McCabe from Baptist Theological Seminary responded to this question as follows:

“In the context of 2 Thes 3:14-15, along with Matt 18, and assuming that a believer has been clearly taught about (1) a six-day creation; (2) a millennial reign of Christ; and (3) the cessation of revelatory sign gifts, I would say that a church needs to hold this brother/sister at arm's length.”

“However, I need to nuance this in two ways. On the one hand, principle in 2 Thes 3 goes beyond a specific local assembly in that it seems to apply to anyone with whom a local church has an existing relationship. On the other hand, I do not think this applies to evangelicals with whom I have no existing relationship. I think the better term to use is non-cooperation, rather than separation. This is to say, I would not do joint ministry efforts with an evangelical leader/church who do not embrace (1) a six-day creation; (2) a millennial reign of Christ; and (3) the cessation of revelatory sign gifts. However, this does not involve separation since there was no existing relationship. I would think it better to refer to this situation as one of non-cooperation.”

I want to offer a word of thanks to Dr. McCabe for offering an answer to the query.

In light of the Preserving the Truth Conference question and answer session last Saturday, one of FBC's church members asks this question:

In your view and considering 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15, how would Paul deal with professing believers who reject (1) a six-day creation; (2) a millennial reign of Christ; and (3) the cessation of revelatory sign gifts?

Any one care to comment? Please send me an email or post on your own blog and let me know and I will post or point to your reply.