Scripture exhaustively and scrupulously furnishes and profits unto every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  For scripture to do this, it must be applied.  The Bible doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not smoke crack pipes.”  The Bible does make that point, but it must be applied to do so.  Scripture applies to cultural issues.  God wants His Word applied to cultural issues.  To obey God’s Word, the Bible must be applied to cultural issues.  When one disobeys God on cultural issues, he is sinning against God.Not applying God’s Word to cultural issues resulted in bigger evangelical churches, including the conservative ones.  They didn’t apply the Word of God to many different cultural issues.  I’ve read what they have said through the years and confronted them directly on those.  These issues, like many through the years, bleed over into many other doctrinal and practical issues of God’s Word.  You can see this in scripture too.In 1 Corinthians 6:18 and then 1 Corinthians 10:14, the Apostle Paul made two related commands:  “Flee fornication” and “flee from idolatry.”  In other places in scripture, God commands, “abstain from fornication” (1 Thess 4:13) and “ye shall make you no idols” (Lev 26:1).  The first two commands are beyond the second two.  How does someone obey the first two commands, which are more than merely not fornicating and not making idols?Is “flee” to sprint away in the other direction?  Does that obey the command?  Does a believer obey the command to flee by running really fast and hard a different direction?  It might seem like I’m insulting your intelligence, but these commands must be applied in order to be obeyed.  In 2 Timothy 2:22, Paul wrote to Timothy, “Flee youthful lusts.”  Same thing.  In 1 Timothy 6:11, Paul commands, “Flee these things,” things referring to “many foolish and hurtful lusts,” which are related to money.  These “flee” commands are some of many similar type commands that require application to obey.One is not adding to scripture or going “above that which is written” when applying these commands.  It isn’t adding to scripture like a Pharisee.  These types of evangelical, including conservative evangelical, attacks are red herrings.  They make way for not applying scripture, especially on cultural issues.In the great meeting of the Antioch and Jerusalem churches in Acts 15, James instructed the Gentile believers in the combination Jew and Gentile churches to “abstain from pollutions of idols.”  What is the obedience to that instruction?  How do idols pollute?  How does one insure he is not being polluted by an idol?  This is the first thing James said directed toward the Gentiles in his speech.  The meaning of “pollutions” could be “contaminations.”  This goes further than just abstaining from idol worship, but relates to association, something Paul addresses then in 1 Corinthians 10.Evangelicals and conservative evangelicals, including John MacArthur and Phil Johnson, have called fundamentalists and separatist believers, “legalists,” because of their application of the above types of commands in scripture that relate to social or cultural issues.  These issues do not reside in a vacuum.  They affect gospel oriented issues, even as they did in the Gentile cities, where Paul ministered.  I’m pointing out these two men, because now they and others, but especially them are being attacked because of their stands against evangelical compromise on cultural issues.  They are being attacked like they themselves attacked others in many different instances.  They accommodated the worldliness that now haunts all of evangelicalism.  They still don’t separate over it.  I welcome them outside the camp, bearing the reproach, that they themselves have given out.In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that the root identity of the believer, the citizen of His kingdom, is light and salt (Matthew 5:13-16).  Being those two meant not abrogating the Word of God (Matthew 5:17-20).  These are presented as salvation issues.  Someone leaves darkness to light.  He leaves the world system to the kingdom of God.I see pollutions or contaminations of all sorts of kinds in conservative evangelicalism too.  They have not broken with worldly “worship,” dress, and entertainment or amusement.  They see these as liberty issues.  Onc cannot flee from youthful lust and worldly lust and “make not provision for the flesh” (Romans 13:14) and accept these activities.  Peter refused to eat with Gentiles in Antioch in the presence of Jerusalem Judaizers and Paul withstood him to his face for that.  No scripture prohibited not eating with Gentiles — that was another application of scripture by Paul.Is the kingdom of Jesus Christ going to have the worldly and sensual worship of conservative evangelicalism?  Will it have the immodest swimming activities with bare legs and plunging necklines?  Will the inhabitants of the kingdom of the Lord listen to rock music and hip hop?  Will the women and the men dress in androgynous fashion in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, or will there be a return to the distinct male and female garment?Phil Johnson has sad that strict application of scripture lead to the progressive evangelicalism we see today.  They were pendulum swinging away from the legalism, caused by fundamentalists.  No.  The lack of consistent application of scripture leads to further capitulation.  Evangelicals continued to associate.  They didn’t flee.  They kept making provision.  Even without actual idolatry, it leads to pollution, contamination.  The contamination results in the gospel distortion now rampant in evangelicalism.I don’t think the conservative evangelicals will separate.  They won’t start applying scripture like they should have before, like true believers have through the history of Christianity.  They will bewail the fall of evangelicalism loudly, as if they had nothing to do with it.  Their compromise helped cause it.