Separation, the Key to Unity

Separation is a dirty word in almost every Christian circle today. Christians have mistaken a few important passages of the Bible to mean that believers of all sorts and stripes should ignore our differences get along in unity. They would accuse separation as the culprit leading the world to despise the faith. They would urge us to tear down the doctrinal walls and get along for the sake of Christ.

I beg to differ.

I would argue that separation is, in fact, the key to the testimony of Christian unity in the world. To deny our differences and force ourselves together is tantamount to forcing two electrons together. All that can happen is a clash. They each have their place, but it is not together.
To recognize the nature of each element empowers us to use those elements for good purposes. To attempt to force them where they do not belong is a mistake of nuclear proportions.

So it is, I would argue, within the world of Christianity. As a Baptist I am thoroughly convinced that each man has a right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience (and accept the consequences if he is in error). The last thing I would ever want to do is attempt to force someone to believe something they do not believe or worship in a manner that is contrary to their own understanding. On the other hand, I would be loathe to allow someone to interfere with my own understanding of worship and faith. I allow for the reasonable exchange of ideas, even when it comes to ideas of faith and worship. I may find my own faith sharpened by the challenge of another who has studied well their position, but has come to a different view than my own – so long as neither of us is bound in some way to agreement. Our very separation allows for a free exchange of ideas. The problem arises when we are bound together through some artificial means where one or the other or perhaps neither of us is free to express our faith and worship before the Lord without in some way offending the other party. Separation liberates us to worship the Lord according to the dictates of our own conscience without violating the conscience of the other.

The confused mess we find in Christianity today is, to a large degree, the consequence of ignoring the principles of separation. We have young couples ignoring these principles in their quest for a lifelong spouse. Believing they are free to do so, they marry someone of another faith, or else no faith at all. But this union must result in either conflict or violation of conscience. We see Protestants whose doctrinal perspectives are Calvinist yoking with a church whose tradition is Arminian. The argument is that the doctrines are insignificant compared to the relationships in the church. But someone has compromised their doctrine or else such a relationship cannot exist. Either the one joining has submitted his own theology or else the church has compromised theirs.

The same compromise of separation is happening within Independent Baptist circles. Because of the influence of Fundamentalism (which was a Protestant movement that Baptists got caught up in)

• We have some Independent Baptists that are decidedly Calvinistic (they would probably prefer the term “reformed”).
• We have some Independent Baptists that are quite Arminian (I refer to them as immersing Methodists. They have patterned themselves after the Fundamental Methodist Evangelist, Bob Jones).
• We have some Independent Baptists who try to avoid those Protestant influences and follow the Baptist conviction of Biblicism.

While most Independent Baptists claim to believe in the principle of the local church, we have, within the broad spectrum of Independent Baptists, various views of the local church:

• Some will acknowledge they also believe in a universal church
• Some believe in the local church, but see it as imperfect and therefore not authoritative
• Some see the local church as the only vehicle God uses
• Some see larger local churches as having obvious authority over smaller ones
• Some see the local church, regardless of size, as the pillar and ground of truth

The problem is we have come to think of all these persuasions as belonging to the same school of thought.

• We have preaching conferences and fellowships attended by men of any one of these persuasions.
• We send students off to Independent Baptist Colleges without regard to the particular persuasion of that school in comparison (or contrast) to our own.
• We entertain missionaries for church support regardless of which persuasion they may hold.

This arrangement breeds conflict. Someone must either submit their own conscience to that of another or stand for their conscience (and appear to be a belligerent) in someone else’s domain.

The answer is not, can not, must not be to ignore the differences. Unity at the price of conscience is not a fair trade. No. The answer is simply to

• Acknowledge the differences,
• Respect the differences and in Christian charity
• Separate because of the differences

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

The Missions Church

I got started as an independent Baptist in a missions church. The first Sunday I attended church, shortly after I became a believer, was the second Sunday of the church's existence. Cornerstone Baptist Church, all approximately ten people in it, was a missions church sent out of Bible Baptist Church in Selah, WA. I quickly learned that independent Baptists practice this principle of "churches make churches." In other words, the authority to begin a new church is not in a man, but in the local church. To preserve the integrity of doctrine, a church authorizes a man to

• Plant a church
• Evangelize a community and
• Baptize those who are converted
   

I also learned that most young preachers want to free their fledgling missions church from her sending authority as quickly as possible. I used to think that was because we were aggressive servants of the Lord. I have come to believe it is more because our sin nature does not like authority over us. Any authority; even the authority of a sending church. We view it as a sort of necessary evil. We would condemn a man for planting a church without this sending church, exclaiming his "church" as no real church at all. But we will shed our own selves from the shackles of this mother church at the first possible moment.

I propose that this needs to be addressed and changed. Some ministries would be better off as missions ministries, possibly indefinitely. Depending upon circumstances, it could be that they should be missions ministries permanently.

Consider what would qualify a church as indigenous:
Some would say it is the ability to support their own pastor.
I have seen this qualification cited a number of times but often neglected by men who will organize as independent living off of mission support from dozens of churches.

Some would say it is having a pastor and deacons.
But pastors sometimes move. Sometimes they move after only a brief time. Deacons, the biblical mandate for deacons only happens when church is of sufficient size that the pastor can care for the daily ministry by himself. Deacons are never seen in the Bible as leaders but as servants. The very fact that someone suggests a church isn't well organized until they have deacons suggests they have an unbiblical view of the office.

I have personally suggested that a church is not ready to be organized until it has ten faithful and tithing families.

I took the idea from the Jewish practice for their synagogues. However I have also seen this practice manipulated by getting friends and family to move to the town in order to get the ten and get out from under the sending church. (Frequently they still want money from the sending church, just no subjection to it.)

I want to suggest a different tact, I want to suggest that,

A church is ready to be indigenous when it is capable of keeping the course over generations.

• When the church has members who are longstanding citizens of the area in which the church is planted and who are convinced and committed to the doctrine and practice the church planter was sent to propagate,
• When there is a plan in place and agreed upon by members of that church to keep the church on course at the untimely demise of the current pastor (whether by death, departure or depravity),
• When those who are spokesmen in the church when the pastor isn't looking are as committed to the doctrines and practice of the sending church as the church planter claims to be

then the sending church may well consider organizing the missions church as an indigenous work.

By the way I would also propose that organization should always be upon the suggestion of the sending church and not the church planter.

The sin nature of the church planter will always be to get free of authority and that should never be the motive of independence.

This plan could only work with a shift in the current practice of using a sending church as a formality rather than a functioning relationship. The sending church ought not to be a preacher's friend from Bible College days or some big and well known church in the fellowship, but a vital part of the church planter's spiritual life, the best case scenario would be the church where he was saved and baptized and brought up in the faith.

I know there are problems with this plan too; many of them the result of pastors of potential sending churches not being stable enough themselves to stay in one place and be mentors to younger men in the faith. However we would be stepping in the right direction if we began addressing these subjects with both the young would be church planter and the more mature potential sending church pastor.

Baptist Heritage May Not Be What You Think

 One of my first experiences in church, once I became an adult was an issue over Baptist heritage. My friend, the man who brought me to a Baptist Church the first time, had loaned me a book by John R. Rice. Rice wasn't a strong Baptist though he was a strong Fundamentalist and thus accepted by the better part of those Fundamental Baptists I was aware of. Rice's book seemed to cast doubt on local church authority which led me to speak to my pastor. After a conversation with him, and reading The Trail of Blood, I became interested in Christian heritage and Baptist heritage in particular.

One of those lessons I learned is that Baptists don't agree on Baptist heritage.

• There are those who believe squarely that Baptists had their beginnings with John Smythe in England in the early 1600's and 
• There are those who believe (as did the author of the trail of Blood) that Baptists trace their roots through Anabaptists to John the Baptist

The two camps tend completely deny the veracity of the other's view. In truth there is some veracity to both schools of thought.

• It is undeniable that some Baptist congregations had their beginning with Smythe but 
• It is equally undeniable that others can trace their roots much further back. It is not an either or situation but a both situation

And herein lies one great rub amongst those who claim the broader title of  Baptists. We keep trying to tie our lineages together when in fact we are two separate systems of spiritual faith as diverse as  Methodists would have been to Presbyterians a century ago. These two schools, even if each claims to be fundamentalist, are unique, diverse, and in very many respects, incompatible.

Notice that I did not say un-christian. I am not advocating that we oppose one another but only that we acknowledge that we are not the same. The distinctives between us are, I believe, important enough to demand that we remain separated lest those distinctives be lost altogether.

• There are distinctives in the ordinances
• There are distinctives in heritage
• There are distinctives in doctrine 
• There are distinctives in emphasis

The melding of our respective camps, whether it be out of a desire to present unity in the world or a misunderstanding of our relationship given we claim the same name, has only served to create

• Confusion among the outside world
• Division within the Baptist community and 
• Compromise of important doctrines

I am thankful for those Baptists who, while being charitable, have begun to call Baptists to separate and identify their family of faith within the broader camp called Baptists.

Marvin McKenzie
In the fields

Classical Baptist

I friend of mine recently announced that he would self identify as a Classical Baptist rather than an Independent Fundamental Baptist.

Citing a number of reasons; from the excesses of some of the larger and more "excessive" IFB churches, to the effeminate nature of many of today's more common IFB churches.

He claimed for himself the term Classical Baptist in the likes of Benjamin Keach, Adoniram Judson, William Carey and  Charles Spurgeon whose doctrine and practice could hardly be compared to anything Baptists are doing today.

He claimed Classical Baptist in contrast to Reformed Baptist (for reasons I have not yet discovered).
Whose current trend concerns me first because the term reformed links them to Protestantism, which I do not believe true Baptists were ever a part of and secondly because Baptist Churches need no real reformation. Each church does correct its error or divert to the place it is no longer a biblically Baptist church. But those principles, practices and doctrines that make one Baptist need never, yea must never be reformed.

I have long ago determined I did not fit in the Independent Fundamental Baptist mold, though I am all of the above. 

• I am independent in church polity.
• I am fundamental in basic doctrine.
• I am Baptist in conviction

But I am wary of the movements that are identified with the title

Perhaps I too am a Classical Baptist.

I am a Fundamentalist

Hello. My name is Marvin. And I am a Fundamentalist.
I became a Christian in 1977. Trusting Christ as my Saviour has been the single most wonderful thing that has happened in my fifty two years of life on planet earth.

It would seem by some of what I have read lately that it is just unfortunate that it was a fundamental conversion that took place in my life. From the "IBFxers" to the Evangelicals, to the newly "Reformed Christian," it seems that the main stream Christian blogger, you know, the one whose stuff gets read by the larger numbers of relevant Christians, have little to nothing kind to say about a Fundamental Baptist. One blogger, does the kind service of finding and posting the horror stories of those who, like me, were unfortunate enough to have become involved in a Fundamental Baptist Church (but unlike me, are now fortunate enough to have escaped this torment).

I have read that we may be "rabid" and that perhaps the best thing to do when encountering a Fundamental Baptist is just run. I am reminded of an article I read many years ago about the forming of a group called Fundamentalists Anonymous. I dismissed it then. But maybe I just could not recognize the seriousness of this illness.

Perhaps I am still in the denial stages of my disease. I just don't get the problem.

Ok. I will admit that there have been some excesses among Fundamental Baptists. We've had our headline cases of top tier preachers caught in the immoral. And even among those who have done nothing criminal there are certainly cases a plenty of abuses of power. But is that really a problem inherent only to Fundamental Baptists? Isn't that more a problem inherent to humanity in general? Are there not cases sufficient to demonstrate that even among the more relevant religious leader models sin still exists? Aren't there at least a few who would disdain the title Fundamental Baptist from whose presence it would be best to flee?

I am still excusing my disease aren't I? I just don't get it.

And what is wrong with Fundamentalism anyway?

• Do we really want to believe a doctrine that is not fundamental?
• If our faith is not fundamental, meaning foundational, is it really worthy of our faith?
• Wasn't Christ's real message to the Pharisees to return to the fundamentals of their walk with God?

So what if the Fundamental Baptists believe the Bible has no error? Would it be better to believe it has error but hypocritically claim to follow it?

Let's see. What damage had been done (besides that same sort of damage that can be attributed to being human in general and not Fundamental Baptist in particular)?

• Fundamental Baptists have supported thousands of missionaries around the world, not only doing evangelistic work and planting new churches, but rendering all sorts of humanitarian assistance in places like Sri Lanka, New Orleans, and Haiti.
• Fundamental Baptists have voted alongside other morally and patriotically minded Americans for laws that encourage Biblical principles be followed in our country.
• Fundamental Baptists have urged husbands and wives to stay faithful to their marriage vows, learning to love one another and to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
• Fundamental Baptists have led programs intended to keep children off of drugs and alcohol and out off the sexual bed until marriage.

I just don't get it. It sure doesn't look like rabies to me.

Just looks like some seriously angry people who have found a popular venue in which to vent.

So I am not an IFBxer. I am more like an IFB+er.

My name is Marvin. And I am...a Fundamental Baptist.

Marvin McKenzie

From the Field

To my readers:

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