Everybody Separates: It's Just Why and How

A major feature of the 2016 campaign was separation.  The wall separates the United States from Mexico.  The red states divide from the blue states.  Nationalists separate from globalists.  Brexit is an exit from the EU.  The Supreme Court represents a split vote.  Not everyone will be happy.

Noah got onto the ark and separated himself and his family from the whole world.  Others could have joined him, but they had separated themselves from him.  Both sides were practicing separation.

I would be known as a separatist by many, but I have noticed that everyone separates, it's just why and how. Junior high girls might alienate a classmate for her incoherent dress style.  Other children in a church might separate from the pastor's kids because they are afraid their own behavior might be reported to the pastor.  The modest female sticks out like a sore thumb on a state university campus.

Some beliefs about separation find commonality.  As it stands, I think most Americans don't want pedophiles working with small children.  Almost everyone practices that form of separation.

When I go door to door evangelizing in an urban area, I've found that very often people will self segregate.  A particular neighborhood will fill up almost entirely with one ethnicity.  Very often there are practical reasons:  they speak the same language.  However, in those neighborhoods, there will also be businesses and markets unique to the people who live there.

You've probably noticed that a Trump supporter can't show that support in certain locations across the United States without threat of violence.  You will not be allowed in a classroom in the United States if you express a certain point of view.  Educators or maybe demagogues won't allow you to stay.

Atheists would never darken the door to our church building.  Sure, I won't visit a United Methodist Church either, but both of us are practicing separation.  If atheists had a church, I wouldn't attend. What I've found very often is that I'd be glad to give a civil and reasonable explanation for my separation and the atheist screams and curses at me. We both separate though.

Scripture teaches a doctrine of separation.  It is a very defined and specific doctrine.  All sorts of separation are required.  The reasons are given and how it is to be done.  Separation keeps a person pure, a family pure, and a church pure.  Out of love, a church might separate from one of its members, for the purpose of discipline.  The discipline is meant to help.  That's how it is meant to be done.

Sometimes you aren't attempting to separate.  You shine the light and it repels those in darkness, who love the darkness.  You keep shining the light and those people will remain separate from you.  If you uphold the darkness, you'll have company.  Jesus talks about two roads too.  Those who travel down the broad road aren't taking the narrow one.  They are separating themselves from the narrow road, whether they intend to or not.

On the other hand, the Bible forbids certain types of separation, which it calls, causing division.  God doesn't want factions to develop based upon non-scriptural or even unscriptural issues or reasons.  If it is scriptural separation, it should be scriptural and the scriptural reason should be able to be stated.  If you just divide from people with no stated reason, really no helpful reason, then you are causing division.  People may quibble over what they should separate over, but when they do separate, they should show respect and love to the ones with whom they separate, so they will know why it is occurring.

Pushing the eject button is a form of separation, but it isn't a biblical form.  You don't just take off like a Judas or a Diotrephes, having loved this present world.  You should have a good reasons to separate.   

You've heard of mean girl syndrome.  My observation has been that most evangelicals separate like mean girls.  It is an effeminate form of separation, that I call "cold shoulder separation."  Have you ever been in a situation where you were getting the cold shoulder?  You didn't know what was wrong, but you knew something was wrong.  That's how mean girls separate from other girls.

A courageous and loving form of separation will at least state and at least briefly prove why they are separating.  When I talk to many various evangelicals and fundamentalists, they won't even answer me.  They will not allow me to comment on their blogs, which is their right, but they don't explain why.  I could respect them if they explained why and then were consistent with the practice.  I have to guess what the problem is.  My guess is that it is for one of three or four reasons.  These same people can comment on this blog any time.  They know it.  They might not come here, and that is also a form of separation, one which they will not explain.

Some people are so afraid to be identified with this blog, that they comment anonymously.  More than half of those who comment here won't state their name.  They don't want anyone to know that they even read me or even think that they read me, even if they don't.  This is not biblical separation. It isn't biblical behavior.  I understand that some people can't be allowed to comment at a blog. However, a biblical way of handling that is explaining why.  I think someone should even be given multiple opportunities to change.

I have to admit that it is humorous to me when evangelicals treat other evangelicals like mean girls, and they don't like it when they receive the same treatment.  At The Gospel Coalition blog, conservative evangelicals will criticize in the comment section and often their comments will go unpublished without explanation.  I've seen those excluded make a huge show over it, even operate their own twitter campaign against it.  I agree that it is an unbiblical way of dealing with someone, but it is how almost all evangelicals do separate (when they separate).  They seem incapable of practicing separation in a biblical way.

Much more could be said than what I've written above, but I wanted you to consider this thought that everyone really does separate.  Everyone is some kind of separatist.  The truth is that you are either a scriptural separatist or an unscriptural one.