R.I.P. Separation in Fundamentalism

Attending a fundamentalist college, I heard some teaching about separation.  In hindsight, it wasn't anything clear or systematic.  I was never required to read one book on it.  Now I know that there was little written on it anyway, maybe one book that dealt with it in any serious way, written by Ernest Pickering (since then, perhaps two or three others were written). Nobody understood separation when leaving the institution from which I graduated.  It was assumed, however, that you would be a separatist, whatever that might be.  Now I get why it was so ambiguous.  We weren't being taught biblical separation.

Whatever it was that we were taught on separation in classes or garnered from sermons, fundamentalism is a long ways away from what it once was.  Some would say that's good, that fundamentalists were wrong in their separation anyway, and that now they're moving closer to the truth (you know, along with the nation).  Yet there is still the infrastructure of fundamentalism still standing, but the doctrine of separation is disappearing.  Certain activities were once absolutely separating issues.  You couldn't do them and think that men wouldn't separate from you.  That helped keep churches and men pure, for sure.  It put pressure on men to operate in a certain fashion if they didn't want to be marked and avoided.    Those days are clearly over and I want to talk about that.

Let me start with revivalism, really to get that out of the way, because even though revivalism is worse too, it's not moved as much as conventional fundamentalism.  I'm not so familiar with how the revivalist fundamentalist wing practices separation.  Generally, I've not known the revivalists to practice church discipline, and that parallels with not separating either. At one time, I fiddled with the edges of the revivalists, but was never in it or much with it, and only because I didn't know better. This was while I was studying and teaching the Bible and in so doing, also figuring out how to obey the Bible on separation.  The revivalists would say they practice separation, and by that, they mean that they're not in the Southern Baptist Convention and they fellowship with those who only use the King James Version.   Almost any watered down gospel goes, including the exclusion of repentance.  Their view of preaching allows them to use Scripture to preach ideas not found in the passage to which they refer.  Most of it is filled with rank pragmatism that manifests itself in numerous ways.  It would be hard to diagnose how revivalists have gotten worse on separation than what they already were, but the kind of practice, for instance, of Clarence Sexton has made things worse.  The Baptist Friends are a mess.

One group of revivalists that you would think believe in separation are the Van Gelderens out of Menominee Falls.  They, however, are bringing everybody together with their relationship with Lancaster Baptist Church and West Coast Baptist College.  The doctrinal and practical deviations of Paul Chappell and his church now are in fellowship (here and here) with Falls Baptist Church and Baptist College of Ministry.  The common ground between them, as I see it, is the revivalism itself.  It's a coalition built around a particular view of the ministry of the Holy Spirit and sanctification.  You find a contradictory combination of gimmicks and spiritual power.

The steepest drop in separation, a slide away from previous fundamentalist separation, is seen most in traditional fundamentalism, the Bob Jones branch.  Andy Naselli, a favorite on Sharper Iron and praised by fundamentalists with zero criticism that I have seen, let alone separation, has been the personal assistant to D. A. Carson and now is going to teach with John Piper up in Minnesota.   Joel Tetreau, on the board of a few fundamentalist institutions, comments "Straight foward, Andy."  This is what he and others have wanted to see, probably prayed for.  No questions or criticisms.  If anyone did, he would be attacked roundly there.  Recently, Piper made it clear he is a Charismatic (here and here).  We knew he was a continuationist, but he is of the generation that seeks after signs.  That dovetails with the "worship" at Passion 2013.  Naselli goes to join him.  No problem.   If I went to Passion 2013 when I was a fundamentalist college student, I would have been expelled.  Now you get endorsed.

We can enjoy the dispensational writings and studies of Michael Vlach, but does that mean fellowship with him and The Master's College?  I guess so now at Inter-City Baptist Church and Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.  This follows along the line of Northland's recent direction and activities.  Should Bob Jones University and Chuck Swindoll (The Grace Awakening, Promise Keepers) come together?  They do with Chris Anderson's music (here and here).  Who is on the blogroll at SharperIron?  These are promoted.  It would be one thing if it was indicated to be eclectic with a mixture of fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists, but it skews heavily toward those now in evangelicalism.  One teaches at a Southern Baptist seminary.  Another pastors at a Southern Baptist church.  One is Andy Naselli (mentioned above).  Another is an outright evangelical, non-separatist.  One is Evangelical Free, who attacks separatists.  Yet another recently wrote a long review of Les Miserables, promoting it after his attendance at the movie theater.

What I'm saying is that nothing is the same in fundamentalism anymore.  Nothing.  It can't be.  If you say some things are the same, you're wrong.  There is confusion and essentially elimination of the doctrine of separation as once taught by fundamentalism.   If you are a fundamentalist and you say that you're the same, you can't be, because you're a fundamentalist, and that now puts you together with these people. I'm not saying that fundamentalism and fundamentalists were right on separation.  They weren't.  They should read our book on separation, A Pure Church, which teaches what the Bible says about separation, and the only feasible belief and practice on separation.  But separation is no more in fundamentalism, unless separation is something different than what it was 20 years ago.

The only place where biblical separation exists in practice are in churches that teach and practice the whole counsel of God's Word.  These churches are not fundamentalist.  They are Baptist.  They are unaffiliated.  They have plenty of fellowship, including outside of their churches.  They, however, teach and practice what the Bible says about separation.  Fundamentalism was flawed from the start for many reasons.  Separation is not dead.  Well, it is in fundamentalism, rest in peace.  But it is alive and well, but where it belongs, in New Testament churches.