Reductio Ad Absurdum: Conservative Evangelicalism Meets the Doctrine of Separation pt. 2

This is part two of a series.  It would be helpful to read part one if you haven't already.

*********************

Usually people who want to correct someone on a practice first know and observe and teach what is the right practice.   For instance, if you wanted to correct someone about a wrong kind of separation, you would first know and observe and teach a right kind of separation.  People who never talk about separation to begin with shouldn't be the ones who are correcting anyone about wrong separation.  You don't want the sequoia beam of no-separation in your eye, blinding you from the proper discernment about the toothpick of hyper-separationism.

If there is a hyper-separationism that is wrong, one would assume that there is a separationism that is right.  The hyper-separation would be some kind of abuse of biblical separation, which really does exist. However, if you don't teach or practice separation, shouldn't you first be concerned about no-separationism?  For instance, if we had someone who never brushed his teeth, he wouldn't have much room for criticizing the way someone else did brush his teeth.  You've really got to do some teeth brushing to be enough of an expert to know what bad teeth brushing is.

Let's put the separationism doctrine or topic into the realm of dish washing.  Someone may think that you hyper-wash your dishes.  The critics are not washing their dishes, but that doesn't stop them from both thinking they know all about dish washing and then going ahead and criticizing actual dish washing.  I've seen those in the real world.  They wander into the kitchen where people are actually washing dishes.  They haven't washed any, but they have lots of opinions about how dishes are supposed to be washed.  And then let's say you've got a whole convention of non-dishwashers involved in rebuking the way others wash dishes.  I could see how that people who don't like to wash dishes could enjoy the criticism of dishwashing.

You see, you don't have a whole, huge load of separatists out there.  Separatists are really in the minority in the country and the world.  It's not popular to be a separatist.  So, when you are criticizing this major problem of hyper-separationism, it's hard to know who you are really directing that towards.  Is there really some major movement toward hyper-separationism today?  Separation of all kinds is becoming fast extinct because it's hard to do, kind of like love and mercy were hard for the Pharisees, so they stopped doing those. The criticism of types of separation seems to be on the side of getting rid of it all, especially from those who never, ever lay out a doctrine of separation in a positive way.  The no-separationists would like to stand as the chief hyper-critics of how people practice separation.  Typical, huh?

Toleration of everything is in the vast majority today.  Mostly people want everyone to tolerate them.   In their discernment conference, Todd Friel and Phil Johnson want to teach discernment by pointing out the errors of others.  They don't think error should be tolerated.  They think that their intolerance should be respected.  It's their intolerance.  It's got to be the good kind, since it's theirs.  They want tolerance of their intolerance and tolerance, their perfect balance between the two.  Not tolerating them, and then separating from them, would be hyper-separationism.  Of course.

Usually separationists are doing a little more than pointing out error.  Separationists are, of course, also separating over unrepentant error out of obedience to Scripture.  Friel and Johnson never teach separation, however.  They just teach against hyper-separation.  Separation is in the Bible.  They don't teach about that. They teach against hyper-separation, and never indicate what or where the warning is against that in the Bible.

And then we begin to consider this problem of hyper-separationism.  It's a little like the concern over micro-chips in my cheerios or breathing in from the clouds of nanites that the government has released for purposes of brain control.  All of that really could be a problem if it really were a problem.  But is it?  This is where the absurdity of their illustration comes in, and it shows that they need to spend some time breaking down what the Bible says about actual separation, before they move into abuses of it.  There are abuses of separation.  There are.  But that really is not the major problem related to separation today.  The major problem about separation is that people are not separating.  They're tolerating too much.  And then rather than separating, they're doing like Friel and Johnson say is best---make incessant speeches and hold conferences about the error.

Let's hit some of the problems with their presentation.

First, you don't separate from someone because you don't like them.  That really is a ridiculous assertion.  Friel and Johnson talk about that again and again, really misrepresenting the doctrine of separation with that claim.  "You know, when someone separates from you, it's because they don't like you, so, um, don't be concerned about it."  Separation is motivated by love, first love for God, and then love for the one from whom you are separating.  That would have been a good thing to communicate by the two.  That's how discernment really does work.  You follow the Bible in decision making.  Friel and Johnson represented separation as an act that was done because you didn't like someone.  That bad misrepresentation will hurt the discernment of the audience to whom they are speaking.

The one who separates according to Scripture actually loves the person more whom he separates from than the person who won't separate.  And truly the one who won't separate isn't loving at all.  It's like a parent who will or will not spank his child.  The non-spanking parent doesn't love the child more because he gives him incessant speeches about what he's doing wrong.  I really do think that especially Johnson knows that, which, of course, makes their presentation a deceitful one.   Johnson knows what Scripture says.  He does.  He's not ignorant.  And for that reason, and I hate to say it, because I don't dislike Phil, but I believe he's lying about it.  Again, he's not ignorant.  Unfortunately, it's a type of lying that is pandering to an audience that doesn't want to separate, so they are eager to hear a tortured exaggeration of how it's practiced.  They can pocket that built in excuse for disobeying the biblical teaching of separation.  Todd and Phil gave them their own excuse for disobedience.

Second, when someone is unrepentant for an unbiblical practice, the biblical way of dealing with that is not what Johnson said:  "you're never going to hear the end of it from me."  That got a big laugh from the audience, and never ending speeches might sound like a tough thing to do, but it is not what the Bible teaches.  You do talk to someone at the beginning of the process.  Separation is the difficult thing to do.  If someone won't obey the Bible, you don't continue with speeches, attempting to persuade the person to no end.  The speeches are supposed to come to an end when the unrepentant will not hear.  Jesus didn't continue dealing with people who wouldn't hear.  He said not to cast pearls before pigs.  He would leave a town that didn't heed His message.  And He removes His candlestick from the church which would not repent.  Friel and Johnson hurt biblical discernment with their instruction.

Third, you do separate from someone who won't separate.  Separation itself is a command.   Not obeying the command to separate is a sin.  Friel and Johnson attempt to evade this simple point with the absurd.  "If you don't like McGillicuddy and Franzen won't separate from him, then you separate from Franzen, and if Johanson won't separate from Franzen who won't separate from McGillicuddy, then you separate from Johanson, etc."  And what's the point of all of this?  Not to separate.  It's to encourage more speech-making and discourage separating.  But separating is what Scripture teaches.  Friel and Johnson never make that point.  This is a con job.  It's  a red herring.  It's a smokescreen.  It's a straw man.  Yes.  All of those.

You like McGillicuddy.  He's disobeyed the Bible and won't repent.  You like him so much that you separate from him.  Franzen keeps fellowshiping with a disobedient brother.  If he won't practice separation, then he is indifferent to McGillicuddy's disobedience.  He's now an accessory to his evil deed.  What Friel calls hyper-separationism is what some have termed "secondary separation," a pejorative Friel and Johnson attempt to discredit by turning it into the absurd with third, fourth, fifth, and sixth degree separation.  We should act in faith and obey the Bible.  Separation should be practiced.  Their hypothetical doesn't stand as an actual reason to disobey the teaching to separate.  Reducing separation to this absurdity is a common fallacious argument against separation.

Fourth, irrelevance is not a valid argument against separation.  In essence, Friel and Johnson say that "in about 10 years, we will have a wonderful church of one"  if we separate.  This is in truth an argument from relevance.  It is a pragmatic argument.  Who cares if you get down to one?   The world got down to one family with Noah.  Paul said he got down to one Timothy who was like-minded with him.  Here you see the obsession with numbers for evangelicals.  They're like Jack Hyles in that way, arguing for whatever he did by how many people showed up.  Of course you'll have more people if you don't separate.  Duh.

Separatists don't actually get down to "one."  I have fellowship with a lot of men who believe as our church does and practices separation like our church does.   It's probably not a big enough group for Friel and Johnson.  It wouldn't probably suit their purposes.  But even if we did get down to "one," it's not a good argument.  You don't develop discernment by using pragmatism as a basis for what you do.  "If you don't want to work yourself down to one person, then you better not practice separation."  What biblical basis do we have for that mattering?  We don't have one.  It's discernment ruination coming at a discernment conference, so that a crowd can avoid some problem that they'll call "hyper-separationism."  And this coming from no-separationists.

To Be Continued