Complicit: The World's Knowledge of and Hypocrisy In the Doctrine of Separation

Almost all of my news I read online at sites of my choosing.  Some I receive by video, almost entirely through clips at RCP.  RCP posted a SNL skit, a spoof of a fragrance ad to mock Ivanka Trump for her association with her father, entitled, "Complicit."  The ad was intended to shame the president's daughter for supporting her own dad as president and not standing against him. Opposition to Trump had already started this course with a boycott of products with Ivanka's brand.  The strategy has backfired so far, with Ivanka sales going through the roof.  I'm saying that "Complicit," the fragrance, would sell very well right now if it existed.

As a first aside, of interest to me is the current state of humor in the United States, its intersection with activism, entertainment, and commerce.  SNL sells itself to advertisers like these night time talk shows, so it must attract an audience to watch the ads. Unless you enjoy mockery, it isn't funny. Right now it targets a niche audience of bitter Hillary voters, who lap up ridicule of the winners, and alienates the people they hate.  It probably also draws a very thin slice of Trump voters for the sheer and smug spectacle of breathtaking and brazen bigotry, the equivalent of slowing down to gawk at a severe traffic accident.

"Complicit" right now is a talking point of the left.  A medium sized group of radical protesters crowded outside the San Francisco home of tech billionaire Peter Thiel to oppose his advocacy of Donald Trump.  Their goal was to make life more miserable for him until he acceded to their demands. One of the signs read, "You Are Complicit," capitals and double underlined.  People showing up for Thiel might hesitate because of what now looks like guaranteed violence in these situations.  Democrat leadership promotes violence in their rhetoric, signalling permission. Urban areas, blue on a political map, require their police to back away from protection of conservative activists, unless they retaliate.

"Complicit" is being used as a derogatory term to deride association or lack of separation.  Someone is complicit with bad if he associates with bad.  I agree.  A person is doing a bad thing by being complicit with a bad thing.  They get it. They really do get separation. The SNL skit was to shame Ivanka for complicity.  However, SNL and all its actors are complicit with the sewage pipe that is Hollywood.  To get ratings, women take their clothes off and are objectified.  Very tight clothing is worn to increase ratings.  Nudity sells. This is definitional misogyny.  Complicit.  No one drags women down more than Hollywood.  Hollywood is complicit with all sorts of human depravity that sells on the small and big screen.  SNL and the actress playing Ivanka are both complicit.

What heartens me about "Complicit" is that people know what complicity is.  That concept is known.  Someone remains complicit without disavowal or disassociation or separation.  You've got to separate or you are complicit.  I agree with that.

As a second aside, to participate in politics, you are by nature complicit.  A republican form of government brings people to the same page that do not agree on everything.  That does not in fact mean that they are complicit with everything someone stands for.  In politics, two people can be for the same thing that are divergent in numbers of other ways.  Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton were complicit in welfare reform.  Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are complicit in opposition to major trade deals.  Sometimes Supreme Court justices make unanimous decisions, both left and right agreeing on an interpretation of the United States Constitution.  I agree with Peter Thiel on political issues, even though he is a professing homosexual.  I hate the homosexual lifestyle.  It's an abomination.  My complicity with Thiel on politics doesn't make me complicit with Thiel's lifestyle, anymore than my complicity with Trump makes me complicit with everything about him.

I have explained to our church that a church is different than the government.  We must align in all our doctrine and practice except where we have liberty not to do so.  When someone sins, every believer has a responsibility to deal with that sin, or else be complicit with it.  As Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:11, "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them."  We are commanded to reprove the unfruitful works of darkness.  We should not be complicit with them.  Churches and believers are not to cooperate with groups or individuals that will not or do not submit to all that God said.  Churches that do not practice biblical separation are complicit with false doctrine and practice.

If the world understands complicity, despite its hypocrisy, believers surely should understand it.  We are most responsible for purity.  Governments should function like what the Bible teaches about government.  However, the New Testament requires separation of churches and believers.  If the world understands complicity, churches and believers should especially understand it, because God requires them to separate.