Separation
Most professing Christians ignore the biblical doctrine of separation. Scripture teaches separation, but a vast majority don’t know what the Bible says about it. By far, more people know the Bible teaches unity, but separation and unity go together in God’s Word. Truly, you can’t support unity without supporting separation.
In what I will call, the ultimate will of God, God wants total unity. We know He will get it too in the future. In the meantime, God requires separation.
Faux Separation
As much as people don’t know what God says about separation, they still practice, I would say, more than ever, some form of separation. Many different issues and causes divide the country and the world. Especially young people today are separatists. They practice an insidious form of cancel culture. In the last month or so, I heard someone call it “quiet quitting” when applied in the workplace, where an employee just disappears without notice. I’m guessing employers might be against that (said tongue in cheek).
God separates as an attribute of His nature. This is His holiness. God is holy. Yet, God did not create mankind to separate from him. He wants a relationship with men. God Himself is the perfect example of separation. He separates from men, at the same time seeking a relationship with them.
It’s easy to give up on people and decide to shun or ostracize them. In the recent presidential election, the Democrat Party candidate for Vice President, Tim Walz, and his siblings don’t talk to each other. I understand that people may never get along, but it is God’s will that they try in a particular manner.
What Should Separate People?
Lines in the Sand
What kind of issues, behavior, or problems should separate people? If separation should occur, how should it happen? This is the title of this piece: What is to separate people? Today especially what should separate people does not separate them. What shouldn’t separate people does separate them. Separation happens most often for the wrong reasons. It isn’t a doctrine of separation, but a personal preference of separation.
Showing a concern for what separates people is a recent book by Joel Tetreau, called Three Lines in the Evangelical Sand. Joel expands on a topic he would often address many years ago when he participated on an evangelical forum, SharperIron. He divides what he calls fundamentalism into various types, which he labels first A, B, and C type fundamentalists. However, he breaks those further down into A+, A, A-, B+, and C. I’m guessing there’s also a B-, and C- too. This got on my radar in part because Joel and I speak very friendly with one another, and he put a special footnote in the book about me.
Separating Issues
I haven’t read Joel’s book, but I don’t understand the scriptural basis for how he operates. Maybe he includes it in his book. He himself draws lines in the sand, so he believes in and addresses separation as a doctrine. Helping to summarize his thoughts, Joel recently wrote:
I still see Type A+ as the King James Only crowd coupled with those who have standards that are ….. hard to track in the Scriptures. Type A are still those Fundamentalist who see the world as either Fundamentalist or New Evangelical from Type A’s have a fairly black and white view of much – including authority that often times crosses the line into being Diotrephes-like. . . .
Type A-/B+ guys have almost the same theology as the rest of B’s and C’s but they are petrified of Conservative Evangelicalism because in their mind that represents entrance into New Evangelicalism…. or they know it doesn’t but it would cost them too much personally and so they are afraid to take the steps into that broader world. Type A’s are still movement fundamentalists – militant fundamentalist, cultural fundamentalists.
Case Study: Cultural Issues
Let me take one point that Joel makes and relate scripture to it. He says he sees Type A+ as having standards hard to track in the scriptures. One strong standard held by most evangelicals for most of history was the patriarchy, which scripture teaches. Should churches still be teaching the patriarchy? I believe they should. Someone wrote to show the difference between complementarianism and patriarchy:
The concept of Biblical Patriarchy centers around the principle of “rule by the father,” endorsing the divine mandate for men to lead families, churches, and communities. This belief is firmly anchored in the consistent narratives and directives found in both the Old and New Testaments, particularly the creation narrative in Genesis 1-3. It emphasizes the roles of patriarchs, prophets, priests, and kings as exclusively male in the Old Testament and apostles, scribes, and church elders as male in the New Testament. Unlike the complementarian view, which confines male leadership to the familial and ecclesiastical domains, biblical patriarchy is consistent by extending male authority to all societal aspects, including civil governance and social life.
Cultural issues have become non-separating issues and now we have same sex marriage in the country and world. Churches should preserve these doctrines in teaching and practice. They do that by separating over them. Where does this stop?
The church leader or church that separates over cultural issues could make them A+ extremists on Joel’s taxonomy. They want to preserve the doctrine and practice God gave. These churches want to honor God. They can’t do that when they won’t separate over cultural issues. This is just one example, but it relates to what is to separate people.
Thank you for addressing this in the new context of the book you referred to. I hope to hear more from you on this once you have read the book. I tend to think that what the movement’s doctrine of the church (universal + local) has a lot to do with why the separatism of Fundamentalism was (in my view) unworkable and thus could not be perpetuated. Admitting human imperfection, biblical separation is doable with local-only ecclesiology. Protecting the unity of the church = separating from all who threaten that unity with unbiblical doctrine & practice, while keeping genuine love front and center in regard to both those “within” the church and those “without” it. God bless you!
Hi E.T.,
I wasn’t sure I would read it. I read what he wrote before and I don’t see there being anything new in it.
I agree with you on the connection to the nature of the church. You are right on.
How do you think the history of the TR and KJV coming through Erasmus and the reformation affect the landmark view of church history? Is Baptist succession essential in identifying a true church? I’d appreciate your thoughts. I enjoy reading you and Thomas Ross, even though I disagree with y’all on some things.
The two don’t feed off each other. They both depend on biblical presuppositions though, the right approach to knowing the truth. No one is neutral. The correct way for identifying the true church is mainly vertical authority, that is, from scripture. A true church has biblical characteristics. Those churches have a successionist history.
The true view is a biblical view. What God says always comes to pass. If it contradicts scripture, it is false.
Hello, “Me”!
The true words were in use by the true people of God, even if the editor of the first printed Greek NT, Erasmus, was the greatest Greek scholar of his day and a reforming non-separatist pre-Trent Catholic, and the Protestant scholars who oversaw later TR editions were not members of Baptist churches. Those words were, nevertheless, received by those churches.
Thanks.
I guess I just have a hard time following the implications of landmarkism, if I understand it right.
If you found out that the guy baptized the guy that baptized the guy that baptized the guy that baptized you was not baptized correctly in an apostate church, then left and established his own congregation calling it Baptist, then everything got on track, then wouldn’t that make all the following baptisms invalid and you all be part of a false church? I hope you know I’m not trying to be rude, this is a legit question.
Hello Me (and I don’t like anonymity here, I really, really don’t like it),
Landmarkism and Baptist sucessionism isn’t what you are describing. There have always been true churches and churches start churches. The Bible teaches horizontal authority, as seen in Jesus seeking baptism from someone with authority and the church alone being given the authority to baptize. How can they preach, unless they be sent? Sent by whom? How?
This authority is a matter of faith, the vertical aspect of the authority, and I could describe it, but I’ve done it here before a few times and you can read what I wrote. Where do you get the idea that Landmarkism is this chain link view? I’m serious on this. Where did you hear that? Or read it? I’m also not being rude.
Hello, it’s Me. Thank you Thomas and Kent for your responses. Sorry, Kent, I won’t post anonymously anymore.
I have read several posts and comments here, and a few things on faithsaves.net. I can’t find the post where one of you was talking about a hypothetical “New City Church” that definitely relates to what we’re discussing, but I’d like to go back and read it again if you know what I’m talking about. I’m not trying to misrepresent landmarkism. I’m interested in it, but not sure I can accept it.
You said “Landmarkism and Baptist sucessionism isn’t what you’re describing.” I don’t see how what I was describing is not a logical implication of the Landmarkism and Baptist Succession view.
Hi Andy,
Thanks for coming out with your name. I understand anonymity, and I would probably accept it here, except that usually it’s the critics alone that are anonymous. It’s as if they don’t want to identify with us at all, even to the point of saying they comment here, when I’m here every day answering people and standing out.
Related to Landmarkism. Those who took on the name Landmark in the 19th century did not believe in a chain link succession. Succession is a matter of faith based upon scripture and backed by history. The actual practice of succession is accepting Baptist baptism and churches with biblical or true authority. You look for succession. A church that started a church had authority because it was started by a church having a church. The new church was sent by another church, which was sent by another church. This is a matter of faith. It is not a requirement to trace yourself back to Jerusalem. I compared this to preservation of scripture, because there is no chainlink manuscript that made its way all the way through. They are based on presuppositions.
Dear Andy S.,
Thanks for the comment. The quotation below may help:
The ecclesiological position expounded here is often known as “Landmarkism” in contemporary American Baptist circles. Unfortunately, many who oppose this position on church truth have created all sorts of ridiculous misrepresentations of the Landmark Baptist position, so that many non-Landmark Baptists, including pastors and others in positions of leadership, ignorantly think that Landmarkism teaches that only Baptists will be saved, or only Baptists are Raptured, or various other types of utterly heretical nonsense. It has also been misrepresented as an assertion that a church must be able to trace a chain-link succession back to the first century or it does not have a valid baptism. It is unfortunate that those who hold to and propagate this sort of hot air do not take the time to find out what the Landmarkers they vociferously oppose actually believe. Let J. R. Graves, one of the first, along with J. M. Pendleton, to employ the term Landmarkism in the 1800’s to describe the ecclesiological position which he and many other Baptists of his day contended for, define the term himself: “Nor do we admit the claims of the ‘Liberals’ upon us, to prove the continuous existence of the church, of which we are a member, or which baptized us, in order to prove our doctrine of church succession, and that we have been scripturally baptized or ordained. As well might the Infidel call upon me to prove every link of my descent from Adam, before I am allowed to claim an interest in the redemptive work of Christ, which was confined to the family of Adam! We point to the Word of God, and, until the Infidel can destroy its authenticity, our hope is unshaken. In like manner, we point the ‘Liberal’ Baptist to the words of Christ, and will he say they are not sufficient?” (pg. 85, Old Landmarkism: What is it? Texarkana, TX: Bogard Press, 1880 (reprint)). Landmarkism is the Scriptural teaching that there has been an actual succession of churches, just like there has been an actual succession of men from Adam, but it does not assert the necessity of tracing that succession back church by church to Christ, because the Bible asserts its existence, and God’s naked promise is sufficient. It is a position based upon faith (Hab 2:4) in the promises of God about church succession, as found in the Great Commission and elsewhere (Mt 16:18, 18:17, 1 Cor 11:26, 12:13, Eph 2:19-22, 3:21, 5:27; see these passages explained in relation to succession on pg. 7, Landmarks of Church History, Robert Sargent, Oak Harbor, WA: Bible Baptist Church Publications, n. d.. 2 Tim 2:2 also suggests a succession of church leadership.). The definition of Landmarkism set forth by J. R. Graves is still that believed by those who gladly call themselves Landmark Baptists today. For example, I. K. Cross, “one of the most outstanding proponents of Landmarkism during the last quarter of the twentieth century,” a prominent historian and seminary professor for a school associated with the American Baptist Association, the largest group to universally assume the title of “Landmarkers,” defends the same position in relation to perpetuity delineated by J. R. Graves in his pamphlet Landmarkism: An Update (Texarkana, TX: Bogard Press, 1984- the quote above is from the back cover). He includes numerous quotes from Graves and rejects the misrepresentations of Landmarkism mentioned above. This modern day Landmark Baptist leader writes: “I do not know of a reputable Landmark Baptist student of church history who claims that every congregation must trace its individual history link by link back to Christ and the apostles. If this were true there would be few, if any, churches that could validate themselves. This is not [bold in original] the claim of true Baptist church perpetuity. This does not, however, weaken the need for church succession in New Testament church history.” (pg. 13, Landmarkism, an Update.) Neither those who coined the term “Landmarkism,” nor those who take the term to themselves today, believe the various strange, heretical, and unbiblical positions their opponents put to them out of either ignorance or spite.
That is from the study here:
https://faithsaves.net/great-commission/
Thanks.
Thank you for your response. God bless.
Thank you, Thomas. God bless.
I just want to be clear of one position that is attributed to Landmarkism which involves baptism.
Do Landmarkism rebaptize those who have been scripturally saved and baptised if they, for example, were baptised in a river by a “non-Baptist” minister?
Tom
Tom,
Scripture teaches several truths about baptism: (1) Proper Recipient, (2) Proper Mode, and (3) Proper Administrator. Baptist requires biblical authority. There is a horizontal aspect to authority. For instance, the Roman Catholic church and the state churches that proceeded of and from that line do not have authority. You are talking about the issue of proper administrator. For instance, people cannot baptize themselves. Two friends can’t just decide to baptize each other. Baptism requires authority. The issue for those called Landmarkers was the purity of their churches, protecting their membership. This gives some context to your hypothetical. Lots of questions could be asked either way on this.
Kent – God bless you guys…. As you will note in the book, The format is really a description of the history of fundamentalism and a “short-hand” description of sub-types. So, it deals with theology, church history, ministry approach to unity and separation. I think you will like that chapter because it interacts with a variety of Scriptures that help us aim for an ecclesiology and a private pursuit of God that is Gaius-like, that is aiming for “Truth” and “Love.” I’m sure we have differences – but I am thankful for your gospel work, your commitment to a Big God theology – and I even appreciate your commitment for men and women to honor what you believe God’s Word teaches about how that flips out in the home and in the Church. Looking forward to that monumental game of HORSE! Straight Ahead! Joel Tetreau (PS – I’d enjoy stopping by and meeting your congregation some Sunday when I’m out your way – shalom brother) [Southeast Valley Bible Church – Gilbert, AZ; Institute of Biblical Leadership; IFCA International]
Thanks Joel. I like discussing these things. I always like to say it’s my job and my hobby both. I think some people will get the book because they read about it here. Fun to think about playing horse, maybe just pig. ;-D
Whatever position someone takes, it’s got to be cohesive, so not contradict something else. I think this is one major way fundamentalism fails, no matter what letter it gets in your taxonomy. I say that respectfully hopefully.