Theology of Separation

No doubt you had a far different raising than I had. I've spent a good deal of my adult life rooting out the unscriptural stuff I was raised with including personal/individual seperation.

Your views are much closer to mine than I first expected.

 

Granted that there are fundamentalists who are un-Biblical and radical in some of their beliefs. However, my experience is that the great majority of us truly want to do God's will, and try to base all we do on the Word of God.

We have been so slandered and mis-represented in the media, even the Christian media, and here on the BB, that it's hard to blame the average Christian when they don't know what we are about.

 

Part of the problem is that there are way to many flavors of "IFB" not to mention "Baptists" in general. People on the outside are bound to be confused!

 

Exactly! Which leads to generalizations and mis-characterizations.

I'm more in the FBF circles due to my choice of a mission board: not KJVO, scholarship is important (my MA is from Maranatha BBC, which is regionally accredited), conservative in music, personal separation but without some of the shibboleths (pants on women, etc.) and silly stuff (wire-rimmed glasses and the like), strong on ecclesiastical separation.

 

You still don't get it do you? Ecclesiastical separation is for opposing false teachers, not brothers in the Lord.

 

Who decides if they are false? :thumbs:

 

Wait. Aren't you a preacher? And you seriously don't know how to determine a false teacher? Maybe that's why you refuse to answer my post. Study the passage man.

 

I'm just poking you John... You see, you and I are both, by the grace of God and hard work, biblical scholars at a level above many of the laypersons out there. Yet, you and I can both look at the same passages and come up with a different interpretation. Yes, we will be on the same page probably over 95% of the time, but that other 5% we will differ, and that difference -- to you -- means that we must eccesiologically separate. To me, it just means that we have a difference and that we will find out one day when we see clearly, but to you, those differences are a matter of separation, especially when they are held by a denomination or a sect, which I presume are made up of individuals, hence one of the flaws in your argument for ecclesiological separation.

More so, your independent tradition states most emphatically that you MUST separate, so that is what you find in the Scriptures. Meanwhile, I find that Jesus was ultra serious about the unity of His followers, and that those who are truly "in Christ" though of differing regions, leaders, etc., are yet all of one heart and mind together as brothers and sisters.

That is why I and others are giving you a hard time... Yes, it is a matter of perspective, and yours stems from a handful of authors you have read on the subject while mine stems from the words of Christ from the Gospels.

If you can demonstrate to me that Christ intended for brothers and sisters who are born again from above to be separate, then I'll start paying attention, but otherwise, I think that you are out in left field on this one.

 

You know absolutely nothing about how I came to my position. The truth is, I almost quit the ministry even before I started because of the issue of separation. I was at BJU in 1972 when my grandfather, John R. Rice, and Bob Jones Jr. had a difference on secondary separation. I struggled greatly and spent many, many hours in the Scriptures and commentaries (non-fundamentalist ones) and in prayer, even transferring colleges from BJU, before coming to my present position (which you have yet to even try to understand).

And once again, you show your complete ignorance of my position. I am discussing primary separation (separation from apostasy), not secondary separation (separation from true believers). Since you misrepresent my position, and are not willing to do the minimum of work to understand it, I see no need to discuss it further with you. Have a good day.

 

John, before you go off in a huff, let's think about a few things like brothers, huh?

First, you suggest primary separation against apostasy. I'll bite. What does that mean? Does that mean that we dare not go out and witness to the lost? Does that mean that we have to toss apostate attenders from our congregations? Or does it mean something else?

I recall, and you know the Scriptures as well as I do, that Jesus told us specifically that we are not to remove the tares from the wheat and more so, that we ARE to go out among the lost and share the gospel.

Yes, we are to remove a sinning brother or sister from our midst, and that after a course of action that confirms that they are sinning so that there is no doubt among the congregation of that matter, but that happens rarely and in many a church never at all.

So, at the end of the day, I remain confused about where and how you would advocate this separation, so perhaps you will need to bring me up to speed as to how it applies. Right now, I'm seeing it as one person's or one congregation's impression that another is straying from the path dictated by the one, and so separation is applied. That is rather nebulous, however, and leads to all sort of excesses as practiced by various congregations and individuals, from those who test new attenders by their practice with snakes to those who wholesale write off anyone who, for instance, is a Roman Catholic, never considering that God brings salvation and justification not some denomination.

 

Go back, read my posts and get the answers I've already given to several of these questions, then get back with me. At that point you might convince me that you are serious.