His ‘case study’ is the recent conference in Powell, TN, the International Baptist Friends Conference. His view is that it is unacceptable to enter into ministry partnership with a church and pastor from Hammond, IN. In the main, I agree with this point.

In discussing the topic, Dave says this:

My guess is that plenty of people in the FBF are prepared to overlook it. It is clear that speaking for the Pastors School in Hammond doesn’t get one excluded from Bible Conferences or have churches refuse to host your music seminars. And that reality raises the point that needs to be discussed and illustrates something that I’ve been saying for at least a couple of years now—what ripple ramifications should this have for my fellowship?

Well, that is a good question. What should our relationship be with those who don’t see Hammond as such a problem as I do (or as Dave does)?

Dave goes on to say:

I doubt that many men in fundamentalist circles will stop having any of the good men who have spoken for or along side of Jack Schaap in to speak for them. They will ignore this or explain it away. They will say that these men have good reasons for what they are doing. They will minimize the theological and ministerial aberrations in Hammond.

To be clear, we are especially talking here about Vaughn, Binney, and Hamilton. A lot of fundamentalists will continue to have ministry partnership with these men, to one extent or other.

It sounds like Dave is saying that he wouldn’t have ministry fellowship with these men, given this statement:

I have good friends who are thoroughly committed separatists who will still have these men speak in conferences or in their churches or will serve with them on boards. It doesn’t make sense to me, but the bottom line is that it doesn’t need to make sense to me since they don’t answer to me.

A logical step from this position is to say that, on the other hand, fellowship with certain conservative evangelicals is legitimate even though they may have some problematic associations themselves. But, the logic would say, we shouldn’t condemn any brethren who do this, since many of our fundamentalist brethren are entangled with these other problematic associations.

To all that I say this:

1. The Hammond connection is a huge problem. I understand the rationale of Dr. Vaughn for attending the IBF conference, but am not entirely comfortable with it.
2. I don’t like the connections of Binney and Hamilton with Hammond. I still use their materials, but my connections with them likely end there.
3. One conference does not a pattern make. I am not comfortable with this choice, but it isn’t yet the end of the world for me.
4. I am appreciative of the apparent movement of Sexton towards the BJU/FBF orbit. I want to encourage it, but I wouldn’t just enter into unreserved fellowship at this point. He does need to shed the Hammond baggage if he wants less reserved fellowship, in my opinion.
5. The support of men like Dever for the Acts 29 (Driscoll) movement is far more problematic for me than Vaughn’s participation in the IBF conference. The charismatic confusion MacArthur promotes by his associations is likewise far more problematic.

As I say in my subject line, ‘it’s not simple’. The decisions of others make our relationships with them a matter of individual judgement. Since fundamentalism is largely an unorganized group of independents, it will always be thus. Some who wear the label won’t fellowship (partner) with others who also wear the label, for various reasons. Those reasons (and partnerships) may change over time.

This complexity is frustrating, but it is unavoidable if we wish to attempt a consistent fundamentalist testimony.

The celebration includes events around the world including a whole host of individuals. One of the events is Lausanne III to be held in Cape Town, South Africa.

Here is the speakers list for Lausanne III:

The expositors have been named as Ajith Fernando, Director of Sri Lanka Youth for Christ; Calisto Odede, Associate Pastor of Nairobi Pentecostal Church, Kenya; John Piper , senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis , US; Vaughan Roberts, Rector of St Ebbe’s Church, Oxford , UK; Ruth Padilla DeBorst, General Secretary of the Latin American Theological Fellowship (Costa Rica); and Ramez Atallah, Director of the Egyptian Bible Society, and his wife, Rebecca, who has a grassroots ministry among children and Sudanese refugees in the ‘garbage village’ in Cairo.

The article I first ran across had this to say about this conference:

The Cape Town Conference will be in conjunction with The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization and is considered the most conservative of the main conferences.  It features six keynote speakers (each apparently preaching a message from the book of Ephesians) from six world regions, with John Piper representing North America. Boston University doctoral student and General Secretary of the Latin American Theological Fellowship Ruth Padilla DeBorst is one of two women expositors,  4000 leaders from 200 countries have been invited and special criteria have been established to “include men and women from a broad spectrum of nationalities, ethnicities, ages, occupations and denominational affiliations.”

Well, the ecumenism is not surprising.

But so much for Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, eh?

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

John Piper & Wayne Grudem, editors

Well, that remains to be seen.

In the meantime, certain figures are seen by many to be the paragons of expository preaching. After them, as one commenter said, all you hear is “crickets”.

In other words, the world of preaching is dominated by these notable expositors and no one else rates.

Well… I recently had the opportunity of listening to a series by one of these princely preachers. The series was on the preaching of John the Baptist from Luke 3.1-17. The theme of the series was Repentance.

I was surprised at the repeated expositional errors this preacher made.

Here are some of them:

• John the Baptist is the model for Christian preaching. This comment was made repeatedly, a major point of the first message.

But wait a minute… is that how the New Testament presents the preaching of John? As a model for Christian preaching? Was John a Christian? What about the preaching in the book of Acts? Wouldn’t that be more likely to be called the models of Christian preaching, if any part of the New Testament presents any such ‘model’ at all?

• The 120 gathered in the upper room on Pentecost were all that remained of John’s and Jesus’ preaching. The people who thronged John and Jesus were false professors, who even these two couldn’t win with their preaching of repentance.

It is true that many who followed Jesus were following for the wrong reasons. The end of John 6 mentions some of them. But… for all that ministry, all the Lord and John had to show for it was the 120? What about the “500 brethren at once” to whom the Lord showed himself (1 Cor 15.6)? I guess 380 of them were false professors? Or died between this incident and Pentecost? Or what about the disciples of John who Paul came across in Ephesus (Ac 19.1-5)?

This statement is just a basic error – a statement that was repeatedly made throughout the four messages of the series.

• The preacher repeatedly asserted that John the Baptist was ‘the greatest man who ever lived’.

Is that the Biblical teaching concerning John? Well, Matthew quotes the Lord this way: “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” (Mt 11.11) We could quibble here and say, ‘See, John is just the greatest up till that time…’ But let’s not quibble. Let’s look at the whole story. Here is Luke’s version: “Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” (Lk 7.28)

Luke makes the reference clear. (And it is the same gospel the series is based in!) So… is the expositor right? Was John the greatest man who ever lived?

Just quibbles?

You might accuse me of just picking at trifling points. Well, they are minor points of the messages to be sure. They aren’t huge details in the overall scheme of the messages or the series.

But… they weren’t just ‘slips of the tongue’. They were statements repeatedly made. The preacher obviously has these details in his head this way, even though they aren’t exactly accurate.

And the points may be relatively minor, but they were stated in such a way as to be ‘supporting evidence’ to bolster the main point of the messages and the sermon series.

So… I wonder how good this expositor really is.

One last quibble

This really bothered me. In the bit where John says that Jesus will “baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire” (Lk 3.16), the preacher changed the text: he made it say “Holy Ghost OR fire”. Now… there are some respected men who do take it that way. But does it bother you the same way it bothers me? In order to take it that John is saying the One to come will offer two alternatives: Spirit OR fire (“turn or burn”), you have to change one of the inspired words. The word kai is never translated or – it can be translated ‘even’ or ‘also’, but never ‘or’: mostly it is ‘and’.

Since some commentators do take it as presenting alternatives, I can’t be too hard on this expositor on this point. But still…

Conclusion

Some have described this preacher as one of the great expositors of our time. After him and one other, “crickets”, some have said (meaning there is no one else after them).

If this is true, and if my examples of these expositional errors are accurate – maybe the reason we hear crickets after these guys is that everybody else is way ahead of them on the parade line. Maybe there is literally no one else after them!

I am purposely not naming the preacher involved here. You can guess away in the comments. There is no prize if you get it right, but I will acknowledge it if the preacher and the series can be identified.

I’d encourage you to listen to this message. Other than a few quibbles, I think that pastor MacArthur gives us good reasons for separating from unbelievers when it comes to any kind of joint spiritual enterprise.

However, I do have one major question about this message: Was it Paul’s original intent to limit the application of this passage ONLY to joint spiritual enterprises with unbelievers? Was this kind of thing really a problem in Corinth in AD 56 or so?

To listen to MacArthur’s message, one might be led to think so. But I can’t imagine that Paul was addressing a situation where the Corinthians were actually joining hands with the local idolaters in some kind of joint religious services, can you? Why would they, newly saved out of idolatry, need that kind of instruction?

Pastor MacArthur makes a point of their recent conversions directly out of idolatry, and he is right. From there he goes on to make application to joint religious efforts with unbelievers. I believe that application is a correct one, but it seems that he wants to limit the passage to that application only.

The Corinthians may have had some problems with cooperating with unbelievers, but these unbelievers would have been posing as Christians, the false apostles Paul was also contending with in 2 Corinthians. I am  not sure that it is these false apostles Paul has in view in 2 Cor 6, though he does deal with them later.

The Corinthians definitely did have problems in their relations with idolaters, however. We can see this in 1 Cor 8-10, in the famous meat offered to idols passage. There are various interpretations of how this particular compromise took place. Gordon Fee suggests in his commentary on 1 Cor that the Corinthians were actually eating the meat offered to idols in the idol temples! I tend to agree with Fee’s interpretation here (somewhat reluctantly, because I disagree with Fee a lot).

In any case, it does seem to me that the problems Paul is addressing in 2 Cor 6 include subtle compromises with idolatry such as those addressed in 1 Cor 8-10. It is these subtle compromises that are so easily made that trip us up spiritually, and Paul is dealing with them in very stark language in 2 Cor 6.

So yes, I agree with MacArthur, we can have no cooperation with unbelievers in religious services. That’s absolutely right.

But the passage has a much broader application than that. Surely it would include bringing the music of idol worship into the church as well, would it not?

At yet let’s heed Piper’s warning not to fall into an error of secondary separation. There is no need for us to separate from Piper over such a decision. We have plenty of latitude to disagree with him; let’s do so with respect for him and for his long and faithful history of ministry to the church. The sky is not falling, the world will go on.

JayC over at Sharper Iron asks a question:

In a context like mine, I’m not really sure that I ~could~ “separate” from Piper. The extent of the relationship that Piper and I have is that I download his books and will occasionally download a sermon. So in what meaningful way could I “separate” from Piper?

Jay’s question is a good one. How would anyone actually do secondary separation from Piper (assuming it is warranted)? In fact, let’s go a step further: How would anyone actually do primary separation from Piper?

The only way I could do either is if I was in some kind of ministry partnership with Piper. That is, if I was also invited to speak at Desiring God, then I could refuse to attend because of the Warren invite. Or if I was on the staff of Bethlehem Baptist, or a member, I could confront Piper personally and if I failed to achieve reconciliation, I could leave. If I were part of the BGC, I could raise the issue in the AGM and, if not satisfied with the Conference response or Piper’s response, I could pull out of the BGC. If I were involved in some other joint ministry with Piper (T4G, etc.) I could tell Piper that either he dis-invites Warren or we are dis-inviting him. Or failing that, I could break my relationship with him in this ministry and simply refuse to participate any longer as long as Piper were to remain part of it.

Have I covered every possibility?

Now, I am in NONE of these relationships with Piper.

So why should I care about who he invites to Desiring God? What difference does it make to me? What, if anything, should I do about it? Should I comment to anyone, should I make any criticism to anyone, should I discuss it with anyone? Should I blog about it?

All of what I have said so far assumes that I agree with Tim Challies in his evaluation of Piper’s decision to invite Warren to Desiring God. Well, I do agree. Challies says the invitation was wrong. I think Challies is right, Piper is wrong about this. It is a foolish decision, especially given the kind of influence Piper has in Christian circles.

But I think Challies final comment, dismissing ‘secondary separation’ is irrelevant and misses the real significance of Piper’s error.

Here is how I, as a local pastor of a small church should look at this situation:

• Piper is demonstrating tremendously poor judgement in this case. Read Challies for a lot of good reasons why this is so.
• Piper has, in fact, shown similar poor judgement in inviting others in the past (Mark Driscoll – twice! – is perhaps the prime example).
• Piper’s poor judgement belies a number of things he has written in his own books. Which speaks louder, words or deeds?
• Piper’s books and sermons are widely available. The people in my church can and do ask me about them from time to time.

THEREFORE I should be extremely careful about recommending Piper as a reliable source for my people to develop their spiritual lives. I shouldn’t recommend attendance at his meetings or support his gatherings by pointing my people to the online resources. And so on…

The point of this error is that Piper’s judgement is certainly open to question. This error is very significant, even evangelicals are criticizing it and using the “s” word in the discussion (“separation”).

If Piper’s judgement is so flawed, the next question is not “should we practice secondary separation?” – that is irrelevant, not a reality. But there is a follow-up question: Should we as pastors use and recommend his resources to others? How valuable are they if the author’s judgement is revealed to be so fatally flawed?

I suspect that evangelicals will answer the follow-up questions by “no, not yet, we still like what Piper does most of the time.” Fair enough, they haven’t evaluated the past history the same way I have. They see this as an aberration, not a pattern.

I don’t think fundamentalists should have the same reaction. Personally, I think this is yet another reason why we can’t really recommend Piper’s works for the profit of our people. This is yet another error in a string of errors that reveal fatal flaws in ministry philosophy. So I’m not going to promote him, and I don’t think other fundamentalists should either.

Well, what then? Will all fundamentalists follow the popery of the oxgoad as expressed in my last paragraph? As they say, don’t hold your breath. So what should I do about my fellow fundamentalists who don’t follow or agree with my advice?

Answer: mostly nothing.

The reason I should do mostly nothing is because for the most part, my fellow fundamentalists have little influence on the flock I am charged with guarding. They just aren’t big enough fish for my people to come and say, “What do you think about so-and-so?” So their decisions have little to no impact on me.

But you know, if my fellow fundamentalists become a group of people generally pushing the works of men who make such significant errors as this… well, we are going to have problems getting along. We are likely going to find ourselves in contention when things like this come up. We are going to find less and less in common and will likely find ourselves operating in distinct spheres of fellowship.

I hope that fundamentalists will see these errors as very significant and will begin to pull back from the love affair they have been having with Piper and others. I hope they will become more critical and discerning and at least less enthusiastic in their endorsements of men like this.

But it’s not about non-existent separation.

UPDATE: This comment by Matthew J on the Sharper Iron thread illustrates exactly the problem I am talking about. As a pastor, one has to be concerned at the inconsistencies of these men. This is why I have been warning against the wholesale use of their materials with little to no disclaimers by many. Inevitably, these guys will do something that makes the faithful pastor queasy about his previous recommendations.

Restore the local assembly to the center where God intended it to be. When your local assembly engages in Great Commission work outside its walls, find some folks you agree with and get busy doing it. Unity is built on agreement about the truth, not by politics. Few things are as political as trying to preserve movements once they have fragmented theologically.

Would that it were so simple. But it is not that simple. In the words of John Donne,

No man is an island entire of itself…

And certainly the pastor and church in question is no island, entire unto themselves. If we were talking about a small church in a small community it might be that simple, but … probably not.

Everyone influences someone else. That’s why our private decisions are important. They have influence on someone.

In particular, Dave is the pastor of an influential church, partly due to its history, partly due to its size, partly due to its location (in a major city), partly due to a particular aspect of its ministry (a leading fundamentalist seminary), and partly due to the impact of the ministry of its current pastor, i.e., Dave himself. When Dave speaks, many people do listen. When Inter-City Baptist Church takes a position, many people on the outside make observations, take notes, and some follow that lead. When Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary invites in speakers, the impact is felt not only by the current students, but by friends, alumni, and observers, both the like-minded and not so like-minded. That is the consequence of influence.

The fact is, God has blessed the ministry of this church and pastor for many years. That blessing enhances influence. Like it or not, that influence makes a difference in what others do and is subject to the public scrutiny, for good or ill, of outside observers. Some decisions will be applauded, others criticized. I suppose that every decision is likely to be criticized by someone, but I am speaking of the general constituency of influence that DBTS, Inter-city, and Dave Doran generally command. There are circles to whom these names mean nothing. But to those circles where these names mean something, they carry a measure of influence, and that influence is inescapable.

I guess it isn’t OK to call this Detroit/Doran circle of influence “fundamentalism”, but it does represent a group of people whose background, philosophy, interests, and ministries overlap and touch on one another in many ways. Some of this is due to the influence of other large educational ministries with overlapping constituencies and sometimes shared ministries (BJU, Maranatha, Northland, Central, et al). Some of this overlapping circle of influence is due to the influence of other large fundamentalist churches. Some of it is also due to the influence of parachurch entities like mission boards, the FBF, and even Sharper Iron and similar on-line communications hubs. What shall we call this group? The “Non-whack-job Conservative Fundamentalist Coalition”? The “Doran Axis”? I don’t know, you pick a name.

In any case, those of us in this group notice what others in this group, especially the influential leaders, are doing. We evaluate what they are doing and decide whether what they are doing is something we should also do. Maybe they have some speakers in that we think we should recommend to our people. Or not. Maybe they promote some new ministry that we think is worth gleaning some resources from for ourselves and our ministry. Or not. Everything that is done is watched, noted, observed, evaluated and decisions are made.

So it would be nice if one could simply reduce one’s ministry decisions to my local church and my local ministry, but it isn’t that simple. It probably isn’t even that simple for me, with a very small ministry compared to Detroit/IC/Doran, but it certainly isn’t that simple for Dave himself, no matter how much he might wish it is so.

The leadership Dave offers matters to a lot of us. The directions he goes matters. The people he cooperates with matters. The things he says matter.

It just isn’t that simple – there is more to the process than simply one’s own ministry and one’s own direction no matter how important the local church is.

In Dave Doran’s recent presentations concerning separation, he touched on the area of worldliness, some of which I objected to earlier. He continues this discussion by putting into writing a good deal of the material he covered in the presentations. This article deals with worldliness.

Dave starts off with a reasonable definition of worldliness:

Worldliness is having a heart and mind shaped by the world’s beliefs and values so that we engage in its sinful pleasures and pursue earthly treasures.

So far, so good. You can read any number of articles on worldliness and come up with similar definitions.

But it is the expansion of this definition that I find … what? Curious? Unusual? Discordant? Troubling? Perhaps all of the above…

In expanding the phrase, ‘we engage in its sinful pleasures’, Dave says that it is possible to trivialize worldliness “by treating it as if it means something like ‘popular among lost people.’” He says that popularity does not equal sinful. He suggests that the popularity of a particular hairstyle or style of clothing isn’t sinful simply because a lot of lost people like them. These styles can be questioned if they are immodest – popularity is irrelevant.¹

Dave then goes on to say this:

The consistent witness of the NT is on the sinfulness, not popularity, of any particular practice. Just after instructing the Ephesians in 4:17-24 about not living like those who don’t know Christ, the Apostle Paul provides practical instruction about what that means in 4:25-5:14. The contrast he draws is between vice and virtue—don’t lie, but speak the truth; don’t steal, but work and share; don’t use unwholesome words, but those which edify. He focuses on matters like immorality, impurity, greed, and filthy talk. In the same way, Peter marks off the difference in terms of vices like sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries (1 Peter 4:3).

Churches that are serious about resisting worldliness, then, will be serious about dealing with sin.

Let’s attempt to be clear about what is being said:

• Worldliness is to have a heart and mind shaped by the world’s beliefs and values so that we engage in its sinful pleasures.
• The NT issue is not whether a practice is popular or not, but whether it is sinful or not.
• The apostles instruct us ‘Don’t do sinful things’.
• Churches that resist worldliness deal with sin.

I think that is a correct understanding of Dave’s description. I am happy to be corrected if I have misunderstood him.

Dave goes on to expand on the second phrase of his definition, ‘pursue earthly treasures’:

Temporal, material preoccupation is clearly a sign of worldliness and must be resisted by believers and congregations. Frankly, assessing this aspect of worldliness has always been difficult since there is nothing inherently evil about material prosperity and it can be tricky to spot the line between having things and them having you. This is even more difficult when we apply it to congregational life. We all probably have our own views on when the line is crossed, but we’re not talking about disagreements or things we find objectionable. We’re talking about matters which cast doubt on one’s profession to be “seeking the city which is to come” (Heb 13:14).

So, let’s see if we can sum this up:

• Materialism is a sign of worldliness and must be resisted.
• It is difficult to know when someone has crossed the line here.
• The line is crossed at the point where someone’s profession of faith is in doubt because of their materialism.

Would it be fair to say that the way Dave is describing worldliness is to say that worldliness = sinfulness or a certain level of materialism?

Maybe these thoughts describe a certain amount of worldliness, but I am left asking, ‘Is that all?’

For example, let me give you another definition of worldliness:

Worldliness is not so much a matter of activity as of attitude. It is possible for a Christian to stay away from questionable amusements and doubtful places and still love the world, for worldliness is a matter of the heart. To the extent that a Christian loves the world system and the things in it, he does not love the Father.

Worldliness not only affects your response to the love of God; it also affects your response to the will of God. “The world passeth away… but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever” (1 John 2:17).

Doing the will of God is a joy for those living in the love of God. “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” But when a believer loses his enjoyment of the Father’s love, he finds it hard to obey the Father’s will.

When you put these two factors together, you have a practical definition of worldliness: anything in a Christian’s life that causes him to lose his enjoyment of the Father’s love or his desire to do the Father’s will is worldly and must be avoided. Responding to the Father’s love (your personal devotional life), and doing the Father’s will (your daily conduct)—these are two tests of worldliness.²

Note this line: “Worldliness is not so much a matter of activity as of attitude.”

It seems that most of Dave’s definition is limited to activity, certainly the part he expands on the most deals with activities, not attitudes. Warren Wiersbe’s definition puts the matter squarely in the area of attitude. In fact, he says, worldliness can very well be present when all the activities are blameless. Worldliness is a matter of the heart and its loves.

I don’t suppose I need to note that Wiersbe is not a fundamentalist.

Here’s another non-fundamentalist’s definition:

Wordliness (2:15–17). Given the nature of “world” in the N.T., worldliness is not a matter of some list of do’s and don’ts. It is adopting the perspectives (cravings), the values (lust of the eyes), and attitudes (the boasting of status) of man’s society rather than the perspective, values, and attitudes of God.³

You see, it’s not a list of do’s and don’ts. Worldliness is heart issues.

In Wiersbe’s lengthy comment on 1 Jn 2.15ff., partially quoted above, he emphasizes the tests of the devotional life and the daily conduct – responding to the Father’s love and doing the Father’s will (see above). He goes on to say this:

Many things in this world are definitely wrong and God’s Word identifies them as sins. It is wrong to steal and to lie (Eph. 4:25, 28). Sexual sins are wrong (Eph. 5:1–3). About these and many other actions, Christians can have little or no debate. But there are areas of Christian conduct that are not so clear and about which even the best Christians disagree. In such cases, each believer must apply the test to his own life and be scrupulously honest in his self-examination, remembering that even a good thing may rob a believer of his enjoyment of God’s love and his desire to do God’s will.⁴

Notice that Wiersbe goes to the same passage in Ephesians that Dave cited. He says there is no debate over these sins. They are categorically wrong. Then he says, “but”. It appears that in his mind there is a difference in category between doing something that is clearly and categorically wrong and things that may be harder to discern and require an application of his two tests. In analyzing these things, he calls for an analysis of the heart – the area where worldliness resides.

It seems that worldliness isn’t so much sinful practices as it is heart attitudes. No doubt heart attitudes may express themselves in sinful practices, but these may not be overtly seen as lying, stealing, etc, the things condemned in Eph 4. Wiersbe illustrates by telling of a fine young man preparing for the ministry whose preaching and personal life seemed to decline – no obvious sin, just less zeal and obvious distraction of some kind. The end of the story is that the young man realized he was so focusing on his impending marriage that he almost was wishing for the Lord not to come back before he got married. His heart was on the things of the world, not the things of the Lord.

Thayer gives this as one of the definitions of kosmos:

worldly affairs; the aggregate of things earthly; the whole circle of earthly goods, endowments, riches, advantages, pleasures, etc., which, although hollow and frail and fleeting, stir desire, seduce from God and are obstacles to the cause of Christ⁵

Worldliness occurs when desires are stirred and the heart is pulled from God and obstacles are thus put in the way of serving Christ.

A few more comments on worldliness and then I will close:

Too often Christians in the evangelical community have rejected the overt acts of worldliness but have retained the attitude of worldliness. Both worship and worldliness in their opposite spheres are more representative of attitudes than of acts. A person can go through all the motions of worship (and millions probably do each week) and yet have a heart that is completely out of touch with God and therefore unable to worship. At the same time, a person could meticulously avoid all acts of worldliness and still have a heart full of pharisaical hypocrisy, criticism of other Christians, jealousy, bitterness, and anger.

One obvious example of worldliness in church work is the Madison Avenue gimmickry which goes on in the name of evangelism or church education. If churches have to use Bozo the clown to attract children to Sunday school, they reflect not only cultural slobbism but also a very high degree of compatibility with the systems of this world.⁶

Or  how about this one about rock music used in the church. Is that an example of worldliness?

Contrary to the shallow viewpoint of the marketing advocates, rock music is far more than a life-style choice. It embodies and establishes a culture loaded with meaning and values, and the culture of rock music is antithetical, not neutral, to Christlike living. The fact that it can be embraced within the church for worship purposes is a tell-tale sign of contemporary evangelicalism’s inability to sense its own worldliness.⁷

Perhaps I am missing something, but it does seem to me that worldliness is more than overt sin or materialism. It also seems to me that if we can’t be clear on what it is, we have failed to align the compass of our next generation of Christian leaders.

I invite correction on these points and would be glad to know that I am misunderstanding Dave’s full view of worldliness. It does seem to me that we need to be thorough in our understanding and preaching in this area especially if we are going to make the issue part and parcel of the separation discussion.

1. Is modesty the only standard? … but my question digresses from the topic
2. Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books, 1996, c1989), 1 Jn 2:15 .
3. Larry Richards, The Bible Reader’s Companion, (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books, 1991), 893.
4. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, 1 Jn 2:15. [I highly recommend Wiersbe’s comments on 1 Jn 2.15 – there is much more than I quoted here and it is very good, in my opinion.]
5. Thayer, Lexicon, s.v. ‘kosmos’.
6. Kenneth O. Gangel, “Christian Higher Education at the End of the Twentieth Century — Part 4: Christian Higher Education and Contemporary Culture: Isolation or Penetration?”, Bibliotheca Sacra, (Dallas Theological Seminary, 1978; 2002), 135:301.
7. David M. Doran, “Market-Driven Ministry: Blessing Or Curse? Part Two”, Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal. (Detroit Baptist Seminary, 1996; 2003), 1:218.

First of all, one problem that seems to be fairly frequent these days is the problem of historical revisionism. The general outline of the history of separation is presented, but certain details are somewhat distorted in order to make a point.

Before I mention a specific example, let me say that I am not saying that anyone’s distortion is deliberate or malicious. We all have faults of memory and can often say a thing a certain way enough times that we think we are telling the story correctly, but it is a distortion nonetheless.¹

In the third lecture, a point was made concerning the early fundamentalist movement being one where Christians found their fellowship outside their local church in ‘parachurch’ gatherings. The notion was that since their churches were so divided they couldn’t find likeminded fellowship there, so their outside the church gatherings became their place of spiritual camaraderie and involvement.

I don’t doubt that some churches were divided like that, and that in some cases, people found themselves involved in churches where there was so little gospel preaching and belief that conferences and gatherings outside their own local churches provided a welcome relief. However, I can’t imagine that those churches led by the men who eventually came out of the Northern Baptist Convention were as described. That is not to say they may not have had some problematic non-Gospel believing people in their churches, but if these had the Gospel convictions that could provide that ‘welcome relief’ to Gospel-starved individuals in ‘parachurch’ conferences, it is hard to see how their own churches would not be beacons of true Gospel fellowship, belief, and practice.

Thus, I think there is a bit of a distortion of the state of things in the historical presentation of the first wave of fundamentalism. While this distortion may be relatively minor, there are many such distortions being promoted in the ‘Fundamentalist Modification Movement’ which attempt to make points about ‘what’s wrong with fundamentalism’ and to point to some new kind of attitude and orientation.

Second, in the fourth lecture, a pretty good definition of worldliness is offered. I’ll attempt to paraphrase it: “Worldliness is adopting the beliefs and values of the world in an enjoyment of its sinful pleasures and the pursuit of its earthly treasures.” The definition is really good, I think. But the following presentation keeps reiterating only part of the definition which seems to weaken the position of separation from worldliness that Fundamentalism has usually been noted for.

That is, a statement is repeatedly made to this effect: “If the activity can be said to actually be sinful then we need to separate from it, but if it isn’t clearly sinful, then we need to be tolerant.” I am not quoting directly, this is my paraphrase! But this is what I came away with: an activity must rise to the level of clear sin before it can be objected to.

For example, this makes some forms of music less problematic for Dave than for many other fundamentalists. That is, he is less bothered by musical styles than has been argued for, although his personal taste and practice is very conservative.

Now, I don’t want to get sidetracked on music alone here. My problem with the presentation is not some specific application. I think I would be more bothered by some music styles than Dave would, but that is not my point.

The problem is that the whole presentation in lecture 4 had to do with the “enjoyment of its sinful pleasures” part of the definition and made no mention of the “pursuit of its earthly treasures” part. It does seem to me that worldliness isn’t simply a problem with identifying something that is clearly sinful. It is a problem with a world-admiring value system, with lusts and desires that exalt the earthly rather than the spiritual. This part of the definition was left alone and as a result, separation from worldliness came down to separation from sin (clearly identifiable). Well, duh!

Finally, I have an objection to some comments that were made with respect to the ‘errors of fundamentalism’. In the presentation, we are told to be patient with evangelicals who are moving in the right direction. We are told that one deed doesn’t a pattern make. But then we have raised again an issue that occurred within fundamentalism. We are reminded yet again about someone’s teaching concerning the blood of Christ. This is mentioned as an example of fundamentalism giving someone a pass because he has a fundamentalist ID card, whereas an evangelical wouldn’t get the same treatment (supposedly).

I agree that the particular point of view isn’t biblical and it isn’t really acceptable. However, I question whether the view is actually one that undermines the gospel itself. I also question whether it is a pattern that leads to erosion of orthodox doctrine. What I mean by that is that denials of the virgin birth, of the supernatural in general, of inspiration, etc, all hallmarks of liberalism, certainly eroded orthodox doctrine and devolved into a kind of social gospel, good works salvation, modernistic teaching. How exactly did this one odd view of the blood of Christ work out into that? I don’t believe it did.

Dave has brought this thing up many times in the past. It appears to be something that seems to be a big objection to fundamentalism at large in his mind, and in the minds of several others.

I don’t defend the teaching, but it never had the impact on orthodoxy that any liberal aberration did. If in fact we should be patient with the errors of others, why shouldn’t we be patient with this one? Where did it lead? (Nowhere) What was its effect? (nothing). What’s the big deal? (It’s an opportunity to use as a whipping boy for fundamentalism)

And, as far as fundamentalism is concerned, it’s ancient history. No one is promoting it currently, it isn’t putting anyone at risk, and it is an evidence only of an error that essentially has corrected itself.

In the end, I think there is a good deal of value to the basic presentation of fundamentalist separatism as Dave has given it to us. There have been some overly separatistic practices by some on issues that were not ‘gospel-oriented’ essentials. This is true. I object to that kind of divisiveness as well.

I am concerned, however, that some issues might be minimized in this presentation of separation that shouldn’t be minimized. I am concerned that too much might be made of other, rather minor issues. And I am concerned that sometimes a distortion of history may lead to faulty conclusions.

Nevertheless, I do appreciate the presentation as it is. I think everyone should listen to it. I see Dave is writing out his views on his blog. It is worth reading.

1. I recently caught myself in such a distortion with respect to the purchase of our church property – for  years I have been telling people that the appraisal was one number when in fact it was an entirely different number.

I have listened to the audio of his first two presentations at the recent Mid-America Conference on Preaching. I have to say that in general I am in agreement with what he is teaching about ecclesiastical separation. We may differ on some points of application, but as to philosophy, biblical grounds and motivation, I think Dave has it basically right. (I am sure he is relieved to know I think so!) I would encourage anyone to listen to the audio for their own instruction.

But I do have some questions:

Dave says that one of the evidences there is no more fundamentalist movement is that we have no “Fundamentalist Council” and no leaders. Two questions from this:

1. No leaders? You don’t consider yourself to be one? Bauder, Vaughn, Jones III, et al are not leaders of Fundamentalism?
2. When did we ever have a “Fundamentalist Council”? From my reading of history, Ketcham, Riley, the Joneses, Rice and others took positions and some followed them. That was the movement in days gone by, no? Where was the Council?

Dave wants to use the term ‘Gospel-driven’ separation. Why this term specifically? I find it ambiguous and confusing. Dave himself has to spend the bulk of his first lecture explaining what it is. Here are some reasons I find it ambiguous:

1. Some people use the term ‘Gospel’ as a code word for Calvinism. I don’t think Dave is doing this, but to hear some talk about ‘Gospel-centered’ and ‘Gospel-focused’, etc., they mean
   Calvinism. Why use a term that has that connotation?
2. The more Dave describes his term, the more I hear the term “the Fundamentals”, as in “those things essential to salvation”. Is Dave trying to avoid the term ‘Fundamentals’ because so many want to limit it to a five item list? Or some other list?

In explaining ‘gospel-driven’ separation, Dave mentions that the virgin birth isn’t essential to salvation in that when he came to Christ as an 8 yr old, he wouldn’t have understood the concept, but certainly believes he was born again at that point. But… we aren’t really talking about 8yr olds when it comes to separation, are we? Aren’t we talking about orthodoxy here? That is, essential to orthodox Christian doctrine? Wouldn’t we consider the virgin birth essential to orthodoxy? Would we accept the testimony of a trained theologian who denies the virgin birth? Or anyone who, having been taught what it means, denies it?

What about the doctrine of inerrancy? Would that be essential to orthodoxy? Would we be willing to accept the Christian testimony of someone who denies inerrancy? Would we make ‘errancy’ a separation issue? Would an ‘errantist’ who is basically orthodox with respect to salvation be an apostate?

When it comes to the doctrine of secondary separation, i.e., separation from true Christian brothers, Dave posits the idea of someone who is in a denomination along with an apostate. He says that if an orthodox person in such a denomination is actively trying to oust the apostates, he would accept that person as a separatist.

So ok… would, say, an Open Theist be an apostate? Would it be tolerable to remain in a denomination that allowed an Open Theist to continue in membership? What if an attempt had been made to oust the Open Theist, it failed, and now the orthodox was just co-existing? Would that be acceptable? [This is all hypothetical, eh?]

Or how about a large Baptist group in the South. It has recently enjoyed a ‘conservative resurgence’. Were there at one time apostates in that group? Were the conservatives in that group pushing for ouster or control? Having gained control, are there still apostates lurking? Is anyone pushing for their ouster? Is this state of affairs acceptable from a Fundamentalist perspective?

What if we have a guy who is ostensibly orthodox in theology but uses gutter language and seems obsessed with the ‘shock value’ of certain subjects in his preaching and teaching? Would that kind of practice be acceptable? Is it acceptable for others who are orthodox to maintain close ties with such a person or his organizations?

Near the end of the second session, Dave sums up four positions.

• A = Apostasy
• B = Ecumenical Evangelical (formerly ‘New Evangelical’? – those who grant Christian fellowship to apostates)
• C = Inconsistent Separatist (Bauder’s ‘Indifferentist’? Those who claim separation but won’t separate from ‘B’?)

He says here, “I do not believe that we should extend fellowship to any of those.”

• D = Those who will fellowship with C – we won’t break fellowship with D for this reason, he is personally a separatist but is willing to be more open than Dave on C.

I hope I am understanding this right and am willing to be corrected. But if I have that right, I agree with this position.

I would but, say, Dever in the C position, basically. I don’t think that he grants Christian fellowship to apostates, but he is willing (I think) to have some fellowship with some in the B crowd. Actually, for me, it seems that Dave and some other friends of mine are the Ds – they’ll fellowship to some extent with Dever. This makes me nervous. But I’m not prepared to break fellowship at this point. That might be a future call, if some D brethren start looking more and more like C brethren, but if things stay as they are, I would be nervous but open to fellowship.

Does that make sense? Am I getting those views right?

One more thing: following this discussion, he takes the discussion to the area of King James Only advocates.

Dave says, “Let’s say there is someone who claims to be a fundamentalist but also attributes to an English translation what can only be attributed to the originals and therefore is undercutting the inspiration of the Scriptures.” Dave says, “no fellowship with that person.”

This brings up more questions in my mind. What is the basis for this ‘no fellowship’ position? Is Dave saying that the Ruckmanite is an apostate? That is to say, if we are applying the separation grid as Dave has described it, is that where the Ruckmanite would fall?¹

So then Dave goes on to describe the fundamentalist who thinks Ruckmanism is wrong to the point of heresy but doesn’t completely break fellowship with them. Dave wouldn’t have fellowship with this person either. So would these ‘professing fundamentalists’ be like position ‘B’ on the chart above? They aren’t ecumenical, but they are extending some sort of Christian recognition to a heretic, an apostate?

Next, we talk about guys who would now be in position ‘C’ with respect to Ruckmanism… they won’t break fellowship with ‘B’ (Ruckman fellowshippers) because they are giving them some slack because they are optimistic about them. Are these guys “Inconsistent separatists”?

According to Dave’s chart above, he says he won’t fellowship with ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’ (although I guess I accused him of fellowshipping with C, didn’t I!).

Dave says the ‘C’ men on the version issue are willing to fellowship with the ‘B’ men on the version issue, but not the ‘C’ men on the ecumenism issue because the ‘B’ men have the right “membership card”, not because they are consistently following Biblical principle.

Is that right? Have I got all my alphabet soup in the right order?

On this point, there are some key questions: Is Ruckmanism actually

an apostasy such that gospel essentials are being denied or sufficiently undermined so as to destroy the gospel? Can a man be a Ruckmanite and be a Christian? Are we saying NO to that question?

I am perfectly willing to cut Ruckmanites completely off. I have done so. (It actually created a little dicey situation in church yesterday.) I have urged KJO friends to do the same. But… are we saying that Ruckmanism is the same thing, spiritually speaking, as modernism? That Ruckmanites are not Christians?

~~~

Well, as you can see, I have a lot of questions. I agree with the basic grid as explained, but I still have a lot of questions.

1. Please note, Dave doesn’t use the term “Ruckmanite” in this discussion – I am using it for shorthand, because I think that this is who he is talking about.

My thesis has been that the early Fundamentalist movement was deeply influenced by Common Sense Realism, populism, and sentimentalism.

And is now asserting:

Because of these three influences, the Fundamentalist movement was never dedicated purely to defending the faith. To some extent, its defense of the faith always presumed and included a defense of the ideals of Common Sense, populism, and sentimentalism.

As evidence he cites the example of Billy Sunday, who, he says, was defending Victorianism as over against the ‘flapper’ lifestyle of the Jazz Age. If this defense of culture is truly a characteristic of Fundamentalism, should Fundamentalism instead have embraced the Jazz Age culture?

I don’t think that is where Bauder would want to go, but would such a conclusion be out of place, given his arguments?

Here is an expansion of his argument:

Billy Sunday was typical of those Fundamentalists who rejected the new culture, though he embraced its technologies. Part of Sunday’s appeal—and part of the appeal of Fundamentalism in general—was that he gave voice to the concerns of the older Victorianism against the new culture. In doing so, however, he was not so much defending Christianity as he was defending an older cultural consensus. Neither he nor the churches rejected the pursuit of popular culture. Instead, they drove a stake into the air and attempted to fasten Christianity and American culture in general to the older Victorianism, trying to halt the slide into the new culture.

Wikipedia describes Victorianism this way:

The word is often specifically directed at Victorian morality, puritanism, and the Victorian Social Order with respect to the contradiction between the widespread cultivation of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint and the simultaneous, reactionary prevalence of hedonistic social phenomena.

Do you think early fundamentalists were defending Victorian hypocrisy? Victorian private hedonism in the milieu of public ‘dignity and restraint’? Exactly how much of the Victorian culture did Fundamentalists embrace? I would think that they saw much of it as being as worldly as they would see the Jazz Age, the youth/Rock culture, the Hip-Hop culture, and all kinds of other deviance through the years.

I realize that Bauder’s essays are brief and it is difficult to prove much in the space he has available to him. But he is making some assertions about Fundamentalism that ostensibly are the basis for a conclusion about where Fundamentalism should go in the future.

Don’t you think the assertions should be proven before conclusions are reached?

So far the claim is being made that Fundamentalism was a defense of Common Sense Realism, populism, sentimentalism and now Victorianism. So far I don’t buy it – the assertions are not proved to me, at least.

And, in fact, I think this last one is just bunk.