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Evangelicalism seems fairly safe, but in reality it is filled with dangers and is a bridge to every sin and heresy in the “broader church,” which is the one-world church being formed in our day in preparation for the final edition of Mystery Babylon in the Day of the Lord as described in Revelation 17-18.
The reason evangelicalism is dangerous is its lack of firm boundaries because of its rejection of biblical separation.
Evangelicalism’s separatism is not totally nonexistent, but it is mild, mushy, plastic, ineffectual.
Consider what happened to the General Association of Regular Baptists (GARBC). Founded in 1929 as a reorganization of the Baptist Bible Union, the GARBC had a separatist stance from its inception. It was pre-tribulational and committed to the six-day creation and a literal global flood. The GARBC’s former publications on separation helped me as a young preacher. Consider two examples from the 1940s and 1950s:
GARBC Literature Item # 12, “The Position, Attitudes, and Objectives of Biblical Separation,” by Paul Jackson: “Separation is an eternal principle. It is God’s commandment that we must separate from unbelievers. Further, in the third place, it is God’s commandment that we separate from our brothers when they walk in disobedience. Now I know that many men who will go along forthrightly, and shout Amen as far as we have gone, will object at this point, and say ‘I believe in full fellowship with all evangelicals.’ Well, God doesn’t!”
GARBC Literature Item # 10, “A Limited Message or a Limited Fellowship,” by David Nettleton: “Many have been carried away from full obedience by a noble-sounding motto which has been applied to Christian work, ‘In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity.’ Some things are not essential to salvation but they are essential to full obedience, and the Christian has no liberty under God to sort out the Scriptures into essentials and non-essentials! It is our duty to declare the whole counsel of God, and to do it wherever we are.”
The separation of the old GARBC is gone, having been devoured by New Evangelicalism. By the 1980s, the association’s founding principle was labeled “second-degree” or “secondary” separation” by a new generation and was rejected as unreasonable, impractical, and unloving.
Consider Richard Christen who was elected the National Representative for the GARBC in 1995. In a “Vision Statement,” Christen said, “We must allow for differences in drawing the lines of secondary separation. ... We must shape a positive outlook and image.” Prior to his election, he told the gathering: “Instead of a two-foot thick wall around our GARBC, let’s build A STURDY PICKET FENCE.”
That is almost like a bad joke. A picket fence is chiefly for decoration, not protection. The typical picket fence keeps nothing out. Small predators can walk right in, and larger ones can climb or jump over or crash right through.
Earlier that year, Christen published an article entitled “A Reaffirmation and Clarification of Belief.” It was a clever repudiation of biblical separation. Consider an excerpt:
“Distinctions do exist between evangelicals and fundamentalists. BUT LINES OF DEMARCATION ARE DOTTED, NOT SOLID. ... there may well be legitimate individual back-and-forth fellowship through the dotted lines, carefully orchestrated for the sake of mutual benefit and oneness in Christ’s true body. ... there are times when fundamentalists may venture into the evangelical camp and evangelicals into the fundamentalist camp. ... To be a voice repudiating does not mean we have to be a people alienating. ... There are legitimate inter-cooperative efforts among evangelicals.”
This ignores two important facts:
First, it ignores the rebellious character of compromise. The typical evangelical today is involved in deep disobedience. The Bible plainly forbids him to fellowship with heretics, but he claims he is free to do so. He claims there are advantages to doing so; therefore, he will do it. He follows pragmatism and ignores the clear instructions of the Scriptures. To fellowship with him in his disobedience instead of rebuking him and separating from him is to participate in his disobedience and is to say that his disobedience is not serious.
Second, it ignores the corrupting character of compromise. Compromise is a contagious disease. Compromise is an ATTITUDE of neutralism, a MOOD of positivism, a SPIRIT of non-militancy. This attitude, mood, and spirit is highly contagious. Those who refuse to practice biblical separation and persist in mingling with modern evangelicals will be affected by their compromise as certainly as night follows day. “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Co. 15:33). Pastors who affiliate with compromising evangelicals bring that compromise into the lives of their people.
Christen’s picket fence separation was a clear rejection of the old GARBC (biblical) standard of separation. The spaces within the GARBC’s picket fence approach to separatism have grown wider with each passing decade and they will continue to do so.
The same is true for evangelicalism at large. This is why the world of evangelicalism is so dangerous. If you join an evangelical church or read evangelical literature or peruse evangelical social media or listen to evangelical contemporary music, you will have no protection against the dangers that proliferate in these evil days.
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