Separatism

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The Biblical Teaching on Separation

There are three major points which the Bible teaches on the subject of separation. First, the position that we must hold. Second, the attitudes that we must maintain. Third, the objectives that we must seek.

The Biblical Position

The position that we hold is set forth in three subdivisions.

First, separation is an eternal and unchanging principle of God.

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By Paul Jackson (1903-1969): keynote address delivered at the 1958 GARBC Conference.

The Bible teaches clearly that every believer should be separated from all sin, including unbelief and apostasy. We shall seek to prove this statement with the Word of God, and to show that we must also have proper attitudes and objectives in the practice of Biblical separation.

Some time ago I had a long talk and walk with an older, godly, academic separatist about the history of separatism. By separatist, I mean someone who separates not only from apostasy but also separates from those who do not separate from apostasy. (I am being vague on the timing and details as the conversation was a friendly courtesy to me.)

About an hour or so into our talk, I played my rhetorical trump card—the original word for Pharisee means separatist. It cut him deep. And for first time we moved from theory to life. I looked into the eyes of a godly, thoughtful man and recognized the truth of what he next said with tears welling up in his eyes, “I am not trying to be a Pharisee; I am just trying to serve Jesus.”

I backpedalled a bit and tried to draw out the sting of my words. We recovered the emotional balance of the conversation and moved on. Yet the Holy Spirit has used the conversation and the moment of deeply hurting a servant of my Lord as a helpful reminder to speak and write carefully on this issue.

By Norm Olson. Republished with permission from Baptist Bulletin Jan/Feb 2012. All rights reserved.

In an ecumenical age when Christians are expected to shed their differences in order to achieve whatever man-made unions can be mustered, Bible-believing fundamentalists are often castigated for emphasizing pure doctrine. We’re seen as negative, obstructionist, bigoted. “Separation” becomes a dirty word, an old-fashioned idea from another era.

But in recent days a most interesting phenomenon has been taking place—people in mainline denominations are separating in droves! Three groups in particular have been in the news: the Episcopal Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church USA. These groups, rather than experiencing the unity they are so adamant about, are witnessing a proliferation of new denominations or associations composed of dissatisfied members. Why are these people leaving and forming these new groups? Are certain Biblical teachings nonnegotiable after all?

Before taking a look at each of these three representative groups, one should note that the mass exodus of people from these denominations is actually not new and has been occurring for many years, particularly since the late 1950s. I spent the first 11 years of my life in an ELCA church, and I remember vividly the events surrounding my parents’ seeing ominous clouds on the horizon in the group even in the late ’50s. As born-again believers, they felt the need to leave for doctrinal reasons, as did a number of other families and individuals. The exodus continued. Between 1988 and 2008, the ELCA lost 737 congregations and 654,161 members. Some congregations lost up to 50 percent of their members. Denominations lost millions of dollars in annual giving.

Today the issue of homosexuality has become the last straw, finally grabbing the attention of church members in the fracturing groups. More than a social issue, the religious acceptance of homosexuality reveals the long-term denominational drift regarding the authority of Scripture in all matters of faith and practice.

Just when readers think that the evangelical “four views” genre has covered every possible angle, editors Andy Naselli and Collin Hansen have come up with a book that explores evangelicalism itself. Zondervan’s Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism succeeds in presenting four engaging essays that describe the range of positions within evangelical thought. But the book leaves readers with a question. Are there really four views, or can they be boiled down to two?

More specifically, are we headed toward a convergence between mainstream fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals?

Sorting out the positions

Kevin Bauder presents mainstream fundamentalism as an idea worth saving, but not a movement worth saving. While many readers within fundamentalism are familiar with his views, the other three authors seemed somewhat surprised by his measured tone and his willingness to critique his own movement. Bauder contrasts his position with hyper-fundamentalism and populist revivalism, which he identifies as “deficient forms of the movement.” Bauder even worries that these two forces are now more prevalent in fundamentalism, with his own position losing influence. But for those who think that mainstream fundamentalism is identical to conservative evangelicalism, Bauder clearly states that it is not. For Bauder, there are still doctrinal differences related to the definition of the gospel, and practical differences related to separation. (Kevin Bauder’s chapter is excerpted as “Defending the Idea of Fundamentalism” in the November/December Baptist Bulletin.)

Al Mohler chose the term confessional evangelicalism to describe his own position in order to emphasize evangelicalism’s doctrinal center. He could have chosen the more popular title “conservative evangelicalism” (and in conversation he acknowledges they refer to the same movement), but the word “conservative” carries its own political baggage. Unlike the two authors who follow him in the book, Mohler wants an evangelicalism with clear, gospel-defined boundaries. His “first level theological issues” sound a lot like “fundamentals,” which he confirmed to me in a later Baptist Bulletin interview. For that matter, Kevin Bauder also affirms that they are talking about the same essential doctrines. But the difference between their two positions remains a matter of discussion.

In 1982 my wife and I planted our first church in Philadelphia – Faith Independent Baptist Church. The long church name seemed awkward back then but I wanted to be sure people knew up front where I stood. Fresh from eight years of ministry training at fundamentalist schools, I was a committed independent, fundamental Baptist. As extra insurance to validate my IFB credentials, I often added “militant and separatist” as well. The church’s doctrinal statement enshrined a dispensational hermeneutic essential for correct interpretation, the pre-tribulational rapture as the next event on the prophetic calendar, and the King James Version as the official translation. As a church we were known more for what we were against than for who we were.

Fast forward to 2011 where in the same city I am now working with a team of elders to plant another church in a spiritual wasteland where we parachuted in with a few families but without a significant core group. After thirty years of church planting I claim no special expertise, offer no guarantees of success, and sense an even greater dependency upon the Lord to build His church. Similar struggles, resistance to the gospel remain.

This one-year-old church is elder led, non-denominational, non-dispensational, and uses the English Standard Version. Much has changed. Most remains the same. I would venture to add that what is essential has not changed. In areas where change has occurred, thirty years of ministry, of study, of relationships, and of experiences have conspired to bring me to the place I am today. For many years IFB was all I knew or cared to know. Now I find myself rarely at home in this fragmented movement of competing networks. I find myself increasingly on the outside looking in. This is my journey, but I’m glad I was not alone.

After planting a church in Philadelphia from 1982-1987 my family and I went to France and then Romania in church planting and pastoral training ministry. Those years spent overseas provided opportunities for fellowship with believers from different horizons and spared me the need to engage in many of the needless conflicts being fought in the States. There was less need to conform to others’ expectations of what it meant to be safely within the fundamentalist orbit.