The Gospel and Separation: What's Worth Separating Over?

The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 1:8-9:

8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.  9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

If someone preaches another gospel, let him be accursed.  This expresses the maximum in separation. If someone knows there is something worth separating over, he knows that the gospel is worth separating over.

Evangelicals don't talk about separation, but they will say the gospel is the basis of unity, intimating that it is also the basis for separation, since you can't have one without the other.  If you aren't uniting, then you are separating.  Many fundamentalists say the gospel and those doctrines upon which the gospel depends are a basis of separation.

Included in the subject of the gospel is whether repentance is necessary and, if so, what it means.  At what point does error about repentance result in a different gospel?  In light of what Paul wrote, this should be a concern.  With what evangelicals and fundamentalists say about the gospel, one would think they would be more concerned about it as well.  I'm surprised at the indifference, so what is this all about?

Last week on Wednesday, I wrote something about an article on repentance by John Mincy at the FBF website.  From what I understand, about half of the FBF board members would agree with Mincy and the other half not.  Am I to assume that the members who disagree see Mincy's position as not sufficient enough error to harm the gospel?  Even if I think there are more reasons to separate than the gospel, I wonder why what Mincy teaches isn't enough of a perversion of the gospel to separate over it.  If the gospel is, as Kevin Bauder likes to say and write, "the boundary of Christian fellowship," then how does this difference on repentance relate to that boundary? Men should at least know why the difference on repentance doesn't qualify as a separating issue, even though it is about the gospel.  I haven't heard why not -- ever.  It begs the question, "How much corruption of the gospel merits separation like the Apostle Paul talked about?"

Many times the focus on gospel perversion relates to the issue Paul confronted, that is, adding works to grace.  Maybe fundamentalists would separate over botching up the Trinity or the deity of Christ, because that is another Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:4), who doesn't save.  Readers here know that I believe that Jack Hyles taught a false gospel.  From a doctrinal standpoint, what I am reading from Mincy is very similar, if not the same, to what Hyles taught.  At what point does repentance dip below a tolerable level?

If you asked John Mincy if he believed repentance was necessary for salvation, he would say, "yes," I'm sure.  He would call it "justification-repentance."  If you ask a Mormon if he believes in Jesus, he would say, "yes," I'm sure too.  Saying that repentance is what the Bible says it is, does John Mincy believe in repentance?   He says he believes repentance is necessary for salvation, but is his teaching biblical repentance?  I wrote that it wasn't, but does his version so change the gospel that it is now "another gospel" or a false gospel?  The FBF board members at least treat his position as a non-separating issue.  They remain in fellowship with him to this day.

If Mincy wrote an article in which he turned to a King James Only position or he had embraced the belief that women wearing pants are an abomination, what many of them would call non-essentials, I'm very sure he would have received extreme censure far and wide from fundamentalists.  He advocates for a perversion of repentance and he receives indifference.  Are the board members of the FBF indifferentists?  Are those who fellowship with or in the FBF indifferentists?  If what Mincy says is acceptable, it's no wonder there has been essentially silence through the decades on Jack Hyles and Curtis Hutson.  Thousands are sucked into the vortex of their false teaching without warning.  Their corruptions are an acceptable iteration of the gospel for the FBF.

In the last year or two, James White sat down for an interview with Steven Anderson on the version issue.  Anderson maintains a repentance blacklist site to espouse his corrupted gospel.  He started that site long before his conversation with White.  White treated him like he was a fellow Christian.  Most important to White was Anderson's position on Bible versions.  For all the talk about the gospel either as the center or at the boundary of fellowship by evangelicals, conservative evangelicals also often behave like the version issue or cultural issues are more important than the gospel.

I contend that advocacy of modern versions overrules gospel among fundamentalists.  Your view of repentance is less important than what version of the Bible you use.  This belies the gospel boundary contention.  In many cases now, fundamentalists want to be sure they have liberty to listen to their music, dress like they want, and keep their choice of entertainment more than they're concerned about the relationship of the doctrine of repentance to the gospel.  It doesn't engender that much interest. The discussion about gospel boundaries is mainly about maintaining gospel minimization for the purpose of a larger possible tent.  Restrictions in fellowship stop at the gospel, they say, but they really are less restrictive.  Neither does your gospel need to include repentance.