.
17 Now
I beseech you, brethren,
mark them which cause divisions and offences
contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
18 For
they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ,
but their own
belly; and by good words and fair speeches
deceive the hearts of the
simple.
Romans 16:17-18 (King James Bible)
BEWARE OF SOFT SEPARATISM
May 23, 2013
David
Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port
Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions
about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the
information paragraph at the end of the article) –
The
separation that is practiced by many fundamental Baptist churches is
“soft,” meaning it is insufficient and ineffectual. It is insufficient
in warning, insufficient in education, insufficient in the actual
practice of separation.
Soft
separatism is characterized by focusing on positive truth and avoiding
“negativism and criticism.” Soft separatists don’t reprove error plainly
or name the names of compromisers. They avoid dealing with
“personalties.”
Soft
separatists don’t distance themselves properly from those who are
headed in a wrong direction in order to cut off the leaven of compromise
from their personal lives and families and churches. Compromise is a
contagious spiritual disease, and separation is the only thing that will
protect us from its pollution. [I experience all of the above, consistently, which is a real shame! People will not learn when it is they get the wrong example!]
Soft
separatists don’t properly educate their church members so that they
won’t be led astray by the evangelical bridge builders and contemporary
worship musicians, etc. In a soft separatist church the people are
largely ignorant about important issues such as contemporary worship
music, textual criticism and the modern versions, New Evangelicalism,
the Southern Baptist Convention, Reformed theology, reconstructionism,
Darwinian and theistic evolution, contemplative mysticism, and the
emerging church.
If they are given any education on such things, it is paper thin and ineffectual.
Soft
separatists don’t carry books containing clear warnings of such things
in their bookstores. They don’t encourage the people to read
publications that issue clear warnings about such things. They don’t
have conferences to provide education and exhortation on such matters.
Their conferences are focused on evangelism and world missions and
“positive” Bible preaching and “friendship,” which are important topics,
but the equally important issues of separatism and related topics are
neglected.
Since
the previous characteristics are actually principles that have
characterized New Evangelicalism since the 1950s, it is no surprise that
soft separatism leads to full-blown New Evangelicalism within a
generation or two.
Soft
separatism is the mindset that has already led a great many IBaptist
churches into the contemporary sphere, and it is going to have the same
result in a great many more churches in coming years
This is because soft separatism is not biblical separation. It is separation in name only.
Some
years ago a leader in the GARBC said separation should not be a wall
but a picket fence. That is a perfect description of soft separatism. A
picket fence is for decoration rather than protection.
That
is the type of separation that many fundamental Baptist preachers have
today. They aren’t really separatists and they don’t like separation;
they are pragmatists more than Biblicists; but they still espouse
separation because it is expected by their crowd. Since they are
man-pleasers, they try to maintain this profession until the mood of
their crowd changes and it becomes acceptable to renounce separatism.
And the mood of the crowd is changing rapidly today!
Soft
separation is the path that is leading many from fundamental Baptist
churches to “conservative evangelicalism,” which in turn is the bridge
to the broader evangelicalism that is filled with ancient and end-time
heresies.
“Soft
separation” was the type of separation that was practiced at Highland
Park Baptist Church and Tennessee Temple in Chattanooga, Tennessee, when
I was a student there in the 1970s and it was a major reason why
Highland Park is a rock & roll emerging church today.
Dr.
Lee Roberson left the Southern Baptist Convention, but he never really
separated from it. He continued to bring in SBC preachers and didn’t
properly educate the church members and students about the deep
compromise and liberalism in the convention. He brought in evangelical
speakers such as Warren Wiersbe, thus giving a confusing signal. Are we
independent Baptists or are we Southern Baptists, “fundamentalists” or
evangelicals? Who knows, because our leaders have a foot in all camps.
In his pursuit of education and bigness, Dr. Roberson allowed the school
to become a “mixed multitude” in the sense of allowing contradictory
positions to be held on many important issues.
There
were men who supported modern textual criticism and men who rejected
it, men who supported and used only the KJV and men who taught from the
modern versions in the classrooms, men who believed in repentance and
men who didn’t, men who were full-blown New Evangelicals and men who
were opposed to it, men who were Calvinists and men who weren’t, men who
loved “Christian” psychobabble and men who opposed it, men who were
“universal church” and men who were local church, etc.
When
soft separatism has sway, the trumpet gives an uncertain sound and the
people don’t know exactly what to do. Should they arm for war? With
whom? On what basis?
With soft separatism, it’s not clear.
____________________________
Distributed
by Way of Life Literature Inc.’s Fundamental Baptist Information
Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other
fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Established in 1974, Way of
Life Literature is a fundamental Baptist preaching and publishing
ministry based in Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which
Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. Brother Cloud lives in South Asia
where he has been a church planting missionary since 1979.
OUR
GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS
TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE
CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who
personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed
unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/subscribe.html .
TO
UNSUBSCRIBE OR CHANGE ADDRESSES, go to the very bottom of any email
received from us and click "Manage My Subscription." If you have any
trouble with this, please let us know. We take up a quarterly offering
to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to
participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O
Timothy magazine, which is in its 29th year of publication. Way of Life
publishes many helpful books.
WAY OF LIFE LITERATURE SHARING POLICY: Much
of our material is available for free, such as the hundreds of articles
at the Way of Life web site. Other items we sell to help fund our
expensive literature, video, and foreign church planting ministry. Way
of Life’s content falls into two categories: sharable and non-sharable.
Things that we encourage you to share include the audio sermons, O
Timothy magazine, FBIS articles, and the free eVideos and free eBooks.
You are welcome to make copies of these at your own expense and share
them with friends and family, but they cannot be posted to web sites.
You are also welcome to use excerpts from the articles in your own
writings, in sermons, in church bulletins, etc. All we ask is that you
give proper credit.
Things we do not want copied and
distributed freely are items like the Fundamental Baptist Digital
Library, print edition of our books, PDFs and other electronic editions
of the books that we sell, the eVideos that we sell, etc. The items have
taken years to produce at enormous expense in time and money, and we
need the income from sales to help fund the ministry. We trust that your
Christian honesty will preserve the integrity of this policy. “For the
scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the
corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward” (1 Timothy 5:18).
...
...
...
No comments:
Post a Comment