As one little guy to another (metaphorically speaking in my case, alas), there are some occasions in which I am faced with such decisions as you have noted for yourself. They are mostly few and far between in a direct sort of way like that, but they are everyday issues of discipleship when trying to help
Christians in our churches understand the ministry distance we keep from the friendly evangelicals across town.

And for those guys who have the academic credentials to begin to participate in ETS, it isn’t at all thinking about things we will never really face. We send young preacher boys to schools where fundamentalist professors (allegedly) are willing, sometimes eager, participants. They build personal networks with evangelical scholars. It can’t but have an effect on them, and consequently an effect on the young men we send to them for training. That’s why it matters.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

It’s the guys who are otherwise orthodox who do have him in or go to speak for him. What do you do about them? What happens when you forge friendships with those guys, the guys who work with the heretics but aren’t heretics themselves?

In response to this question (and as my last word unless something is directed at me specifically), when someone reaches outside the box of the gospel to give Christian recognition to an unbeliever (to use Minnick’s illustration), I think he has participated in his evil deeds (2 John) and we must separate from him.

The bigger question is what will I do with someone who doesn’t separate from the Christian who reaches outside the box (the guy who doesn’t separate from the guy who associates with an open theist)? That gets into the third and fourth degree separation, and my answer is that it depends on a lot of factors. I am not sure there is a one size fits all kind of response here, and I think we all know that whether we acknowledge it or not.

I could construct hypotheticals and answer them, but any hypothetical is going to be particularly pointed one direction or another since they are usually constructed precisely to make a point rather than to deal with a real situation. And I can’t really use any real life examples because it just doesn’t affect me aside from the time 13 years ago when I turned down a request from a local group to participate in a United Men’s Christian Fellowship because the Roman Catholic priest was going to lead in prayer. And I think that is true for most of us little guys (no pejorative intended). We spend a lot of time thinking about things we will never really face.

Again, it is like the difference between an x-ray technician and a doctor. An x-ray technician can provide valuable assistance in his area of expertise to a doctor. He can even say a lot of things about doctoring that are true — but I don’t want my doctors learning how to doctor from him, and I don’t want my pastor learning how to teach the knowledge of God from people who don’t know Him.

Your point on what constitutes “fellowship” is well-founded.

I never thought you weren’t separatist, BTW. It’s pretty obvious. :) I wouldn’t look askance at someone who participates in ETS, either. I would just say that a separatist who does is being inconsistent.

Thanks for the discussion.

1. I too find it odd that the “Evangelical Theological Society” doesn’t require one to be an evangelical, but it doesn’t according to their own page.

2. I don’t think reject and avoid means avoid all contact or interaction. In fact, we are sometimes called to confront and challenge, and not just out of their presence but to their face. I think it means do not join them in ecclesiastical enterprises where you side with their doctrine or practice; reject as a partner in ministry. IMO, ETS is not partnership in ministry, and it is not the kind of place where people assume you agree just because you show up. Disagreement is expected and encouraged (it’s how they set it up), except on the Trinity and inerrancy. So I can reject and avoid someone while being a part of the same professional organization for study and learning purposes because membership is not partnership or expression of agreement except on the Trinity and inerrancy.

3. I don’t think that ETS is much fellowship, biblically speaking. Fellowship means sharing or participating in ministry together. I am not sharing anything in terms of biblical ministry. This is, perhaps in some sense, in line with my objection to “ecclesiastical” being applied to ETS. “Ecclesiastical” has a meaning, and so does “fellowship.” I am not convinced that ETS is either “ecclesiastical” or “fellowship” except in the dumbed down version of the word. Perhaps I am wrong (and I am not a member and don’t intend to be, so I am not defending myself or anyone else here). I know people disagree with me on that, and I am fine with it. I simply would not look askance at someone participating in ETS on this basis alone.

4. Knowing God is linked to eternal life, but it is possible to know and express true things about God while not knowing God. Many people know and express truth about God in a way that is helpful, but probably don’t know God in terms of salvation. I doubt many in ETS are unbelievers, at least in terms of profession. So I am not sure that is really valid. This is the point of gospel-driven separation at least for me. If someone is outside the gospel, Christian fellowship is forbidden (indeed, impossible by definition). But inside the gospel, Christian fellowship is not demanded, and various levels are evident. I would imagine that most in ETS are believers and not living in open rebellion and therefore some level of Christian fellowship is acceptable. And it’s the kind of thing where you pick and choose what you want to be a part of.

5. As far as trusting unbelieving and immoral men, we do it all the time. Many of the standard resources for biblical study (such as lexicons, reference works, commentaries) were written by critical scholars. Understanding language, explaining paragraphs, correlating Scriptures requires no special spiritual understanding. I think that is a fallacy that has crept in over the years. Illumination, or the work of the Holy Spirit, is not in understanding words, sentences, paragraphs, and arguments. It is in the significance of it … doing what it calls us to do in terms of real belief and real repentance. So I think some tend to pick and choose how we apply this. To reject learning and interacting about theology at ETS because of the possibility of unbelievers in the midst and then to pick up BAGD, TDNT, BDB, or the like and learn from it seems a bit inconsistent in terms of the argument of learning from unbelievers. Again, we have no real way to testify to the spiritual state of anyone.

There’s more than could be said but I have gone on too long already. Truth is I am probably more of a separatist than most that you run into in the blogosphere, even among fundamentalists.

I have enjoyed the exchange and found it profitable. Thanks for your kindness. I will bow out here and give you the last word unless you direct some specific question to me.

Well, yes, but that’s an extreme example. It’s the guys who are otherwise orthodox who do have him in or go to speak for him. What do you do about them? What happens when you forge friendships with those guys, the guys who work with the heretics but aren’t heretics themselves? We are back to the new evangelical question.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

But if you are going in to speak as a full partner in a joint effort on the things you ‘hold in common’, you are communicating the wrong message and forging alliances that can/will make separation more difficult in other arenas.

I think the issue is “things held in common.” On the matter of open theism, it is not a thing held in common. Again, this is not a pastor’s fellowship where agreement is expected. It is a theological forum where disagreement is expected. I don’t imagine that anyone thinks that everyone at ETS is okay with open theists because an open theist my speak. That’s not the nature of the group.

As far as having a friendship with him, I could with no problem (assuming he isn’t a jerk otherwise). But as for having in him church, I would say no and explain why. No need to dance around about it.

1. It is interesting that an “evangelical” group is not a “Christian” group. I’ll have to think on that one for a few months or years or decades. What does “evangelical” mean? Doesn’t it have its very roots in “Gospel”? Doesn’t the very name imply, clearly send a message, that those who take part are Christians and have the Gospel right? This isn’t the “Trinitarian Biblical Inerrancy Society.” How many people would say it isn’t a “Christian” thing? I think you’ll be pretty lonesome on this one. This is a real weak point in what you are saying.

2. We are to reject (Titus 3:9) and avoid (Rom. 16:17) those who teach a false Gospel, as some at ETS do. It’s hard to reconcile the strength of those comments with collegial discussions with them about theology.

3. As to your #1, I think “fellowship in the things we hold in common” (with which I generally agree in principle) has to have further limits. II John or II Cor. 6:14-18 leave little ground for ANY fellowship with unbelievers, especially unbelieving teachers of a false gospel. I Cor. 5 and II Thess. 3 forbid what I’ll call “partial but limited” fellowship with blatantly disobedient brethren. We shouldn’t share a platform (ETS or elsewhere) to discuss Scripture and theology with a professing believer who is an unrepentant adulterer. I can’t square it with Scripture. Bauder’s principle applies only within the limitations of Scripture.

4. As to your #2, it comes down to what you mean by “theology”. (BTW, I didn’t say unbelieving “or” immoral, I said “and”. My primary focus was on “unbelieving”.) For me, true theology is not getting some facts right, but knowing God, and knowing His truth in the way He means it to be known. Unbelievers don’t know God, and even if they get some facts right, they aren’t going to hold the right facts rightly. It will be skewed. I Corinthians 2 applies. John 17:3 directly links knowing God and eternal life. You can’t separate them. Eph. 4:18 says their understanding is darkened. Unbelievers may get a lot of things technically correct, but they won’t get them rightly.

5. As to your #3, I’m with Don generally. There is a difference between going as a guest speaker to advocate a point and being a member of something.

My focus is not specifically on Dr. Bauder’s involvement (I don’t know enough to speak about it, really), but on the general concept — whether or not the principles that we apply to separation in a church setting apply in parachurch settings, including ETS.

6. Finally, your point #4 seems pretty sound. If ETS were a “Christian” organisation, I’d concede the point entirely. A doctor doesn’t have to be a good doctor in general to teach other doctors of things of value to them in doctoring. But if “believing the true Gospel” is left out of ETS membership qualifications, we’re in different territory.

No doctor’s association is going to knowingly bring in a quack to teach doctors about doctoring. They might bring in an x-ray technician to tell them about new technology, but he won’t be claiming to be a doctor and doing it falsely. They won’t bring in someone who dispenses laetrile as a cancer treatment, because they believe it to be a poison rather than true medicine, bringing death rather than life.

I don’t think your doctor’s association analogy really helps your case. It certainly would if ETS had tighter membership qualifications.

Larry, interesting. I like this one a lot better than what you said before because you fleshed out your reasons for your position in more detail. Of course, that takes more time than we usually have for blog comments. But I do appreciate what you have to say.

I’ll wait for Jon to respond, but I want to make room for a possible concession on my part regarding point 3 (I think Bauder’s ‘things in common’ puts too much weight on ‘things in common’ – the separation question hinges on the differences and the weight we should put on those differences. The ‘things in common’ only establishes the fact that we have a need to examine whether we can work together or not.) On point 3, however, as Kevin was invited to this meeting specifically to speak on the fundamentalist position … well, I am not really objecting to that.

Where I do object is to fundamentalist participation in ETS as a generic full-fledged member. I think it is all right to speak as a fundamentalist to evangelicals when it is understood that you are coming in to make the case for your point of view. But if you are going in to speak as a full partner in a joint effort on the things you ‘hold in common’, you are communicating the wrong message and forging alliances that can/will make separation more difficult in other arenas.

What I mean by that is this: suppose someone goes in to give a paper on Open Theism, say. You are joined with a lot of evangelicals on that point, you have perhaps another paper at the same conference on Open Theism generally taking the same point of view but perhaps addressing a slightly different slant on it. At the conference both papers are presented, you meet the other presenter, you share many things in common. A certain amount of collegiality is established, you enjoy one another’s company at the conference and have an edifying time.

Then a few months later, you get a note or a call from the other presenter. He is going to be holding meetings in an evangelical church in your town, has a few open dates after that meeting, wonders if you could schedule him at your church at that time. What do you do then? Say, “No, we don’t fellowship with that other church, we couldn’t possibly have you, but, hey, next year at ETS, hope we can have coffee?” Or do you try to weasel out of it some way, dates not convenient, something else going on… Or do you say, “Well, OK, but just don’t mention the other church.” Or???

That’s what I see as the entanglement that comes from joint partnership in Christian work where we aren’t fully agreed with those we are partnering with. (And by ‘fully agreed’, I don’t mean it in the sense Kent does, where he would insist on a wide range of almost total agreement before entering ministry partnership.)

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

1. I think Bauder’s issue of fellowship being “things we hold in common” is helpful to some degree (though I think the poor old horse struggles some under the weight he puts on it). At ETS, the “things in common” are the Trinity and inerrancy. No one purports to hold anything else in common necessarily. So some there might not believe the gospel (though most would probably espouse the true gospel), but that is not the point of ETS, but being there makes doesn’t cause a participant to make a statement about the gospel; only about the Trinity and inerrancy. In other words, I would say it is not a “Christian” group, per se, because being a Christian is not a requirement for it. Contrast there with an evangelistic crusade where participation is making a statement on what we believe the gospel is, and what the right response to it is.

2. I don’t agree that unbelievers or immoral people can’t do “good theology.” Truth is truth no matter how hypocritical the person might be who holds it or teaches it. He may have horrible flaws elsewhere. In fact, I probably have horrible flaws somewhere, but that doesn’t invalidate what I believe or teach that is right. There is no way I can testify to the salvation or sanctification of anyone (even myself sometimes, I feel). But I can judge what they say according to the Bible. And that is the standard of truth. Of course, truth should always be adorned by piety, but it is still truth when it isn’t.

3. One point of ETS is to interact on theology. Therefore, disagreement is both welcome and expected, unlike an evangelistic crusade or ministerial association where disagreement is verboten. The whole point of the panel discussion involving Bauder was to publicly express disagreement with the others on the panel. Isn’t that the very point of fundamentalism, at least to some degree? If Bauder doesn’t go, then no one expresses what most of us would consider a biblical viewpoint (though some might differ on how consistent he is).

4. The distinction between doctoring and theology that you make is one I am unconvinced of, as of now at least. It is true that doctors don’t doctor together, but they do teach, learn, and discuss doctoring in order to learn how to doctor better. If theology is primarily a feature of the church (and I think it is, and that was my primary point), then a theological group like ETS is where theologians learn better how to do theology in their local church. It is a teaching/learning session, just like a doctor’s association is a teaching/learning kind of group.

Thanks again …

I don’t care whether we call it ecclesiastical separation or ministry separation or whatever. From a Biblical standpoint, all parachurch organisations are in the same bucket, to an extent. They aren’t defined Biblically, they aren’t churches, but (from my theological viewpoint, anyway, and I suspect you’d agree) they have validity as an aid to the church. As such, if they are functioning as an arm of the church or an aid to the church, the same principles of separation apply.

We can talk about “ecclesiastical separation”, but that term isn’t in the Bible. There are, we might say, principles of purity and vigilance / leadership which are expressed in separation. When applied to the church, we call it “ecclesiastical separation”.

I can’t see any reason for excluding any ministry that purports to be an aid to the church from those principles. I am open to discussion as to whether those principles result in different decisions for “para-ecclesiastical separation” compared to “ecclesiastical separation”. I can’t see any reason to say the principles don’t apply. I’m not sure I see those who partake in ETS wrestling with that question, or enunciating why the principles apply in different ways.

It’s not enough to say, “It’s not a church,” because then you would throw separation out the window for other “not a church” organisations.

As to your penultimate paragraph, ministers are part of ministers’ groups, but there are plenty of ministers’ groups that I wouldn’t join, a statement with which I would guess you concur. And the level of disagreement at ETS calls into question the clarity of the Gospel, and Galatians 1 has some things to say about that.

It’s a little different, though. Doctor’s organisations don’t do doctoring together. Theological organisations do theology together. I’m not sure the Lord wants us to view theology in quite the same way as other pursuits. Those who don’t love Him enough to seek purity of life and doctrine are not, in general, good resources for forming our thoughts on the truths of the Word of God.

A good doctor can be a good doctor even if he is a rank unbeliever and horribly immoral. It’s impossible for someone like that to be a good theologian. He’ll have horrible flaws somewhere in his theology.