Ecclesiastical Separation

Relations with other "Religions"

First and foremost, we do not accept that Christianity is a religion at all. The Latin word for "religion" means "to bind or put in bondage", whereas Jesus Christ said "That you will know the truth and the truth will set you free", the exact opposite. Religion, we believe, is what mankind seems to need to do "to get to God", whereas Christianity is all about "what God has done for mankind". But, as the Apostle Paul described himself as a "bondservant of Jesus Christ", we also will accept same context that Paul did in his use of the word "religion".

We do not accept or recognize any of the comparative world religions other than Christianity as having the message of truth. We do not accept that they worship or point to the same God as that of Christianity, with the exception of the Jewish faith which does worship and point to the same God of Christianity. However, although Christianity has been engrafted into acceptance by God through the development of the Jewish faith into the revelation of Jesus Christ, we also see that the Jewish faith, as yet, has refused to accept Jesus Christ as the only Son of God and their Messiah. We believe that the only way of salvation and acceptance by the God of Christianity, is through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for the sins of the whole world upon the cross as a sacrifice to God for us. There is no other way of salvation. Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. So, although we respect individuals as having freedom of choice to believe or to disbelieve what ever they want, we state that all other religions are false and that only Christianity is the truth.

We therefore will not have dialogue with or communication with any other religion, as this would mean that we would thereby recognize that said religion as having equal status and or existence along side Christianity as a comparative "faith". This is our stand also in regards to occult religion or polytheistic societies such as freemasonry.  

Relations with other "Churches"

There are several categories of professing Christians with which The Pentecostal Holiness Church can have no official fellowship. Liberal theology, with its attack upon the authority of Scripture and its denial of the gospel, has placed itself outside the faith and under the condemnation of God. This we see is the case with many of the Protestant Churches who have taken membership in the World Council of Churches. Many of these Protestant Churches no longer hold to the Biblical fundamentals such as Jesus Christ being the only way of Salvation, the Deity of Christ, His virgin birth, His death burial and resurrection, the miracles of Christ and the gifts and fruit of the person of the Holy Spirit evidenced in the Church today. It must be said that we acknowledge that there are still true believers within these denominations who remain as a remnant and who personally still hold to the Biblical fundamentals of true belief in the scriptures and salvation through Christ alone. However, those Christians who are true believers who remain within these theologically apostate Protestant denominations does not mean that we condone their decision to remain under the dominion of those denominations. rather to the contrary, we should point out the overall theological errors that their denominations hold to in the hope that they will escape from holding membership in those denominations.  Also, we see Roman Catholicism’s failure to accept such cardinal doctrines as the sole authority of Scripture and justification by faith alone, together with innovations such as its teaching on Mary and the development of the papacy, render it impossible for any true Pentecostal to accept it as a Christian church. It is recognized, however, that there may be individual Roman Catholics who are true believers and all harshness and ill-feeling between Protestants and Roman Catholics is to be deplored.

Therefore The Pentecostal Holiness Church of Great Britain and Ireland believes in Separation.

"Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." -  James 4:4

"Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you," -  2nd Corinthians 6:17

The Two Type of Biblical Separation

There are two main kinds of Separation taught in the Scriptures. The first main kind of separation is called Ecclesiastical Separation. The other is called Personal Separation. In this article we will seek to explain what Separation is from both of these perspectives from a Biblical point of view.

Ecclesiastical Separation

So what is Ecclesiastical Separation. Well, in short the word Ecclesiastical Separation refers to "Church" separation. This is the reason there is separation among churches. This has two parts, one in that Christian Churches are commanded in the scripture to separate from non-Christian churches. The other part of this refers to the separation among Christian Churches from each other. This is sometimes call "secondary separation".

Ecclesiastical Separation from non-Christian Churches

Lets first look at the clear commands of the New Testament regarding Christian Churches intermingling with non-Christian Churches:

2 Corinthians 6:15-16

15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

We will be exploring 2 Corinthians 6 in much more detail in other articles relating to this topic. This passage is perhaps the centerpiece of Christian Separation in the New Testament. Many misapplications of the passage have lead to false teaching. But clearly this passage teaches that as Christians, on a corporate level, we are not to intermingle or work with non-Christian churches. This is only one of many applications of this passage which we will make in reference to separation.

So practically speaking, this means The Pentecostal Holiness Church may not send out missionaries with or corporately work together with the Muslim church down the street. They may not exchange ministers in their pulpits. It is an unfortunate reality than many churches, including some Pentecostal Churches have completely set aside the Scriptural teaching of Ecclesiastical Separation and have entered into unbiblical unities even with non-Christian groups.

An example of this is the advent of "multi-faith prayer meetings" where ministers in an area get together to pray. This would not be so bad if they were all Christian ministers from Gospel preaching churches, but these meetings have Pentecostal, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal or Lutheran ministers praying beside Muslim and Buddhist ministers. This is a blatant slap in the face to our God.

When you as a minister sit down to pray with a Muslim or Buddhist cleric you are saying to the world that you are praying to the same God. You by your action of praying with him tell him that his faith is just as correct as yours - this is completely wrong for any Christian minister or for that matter lay person to do.

We want to stop and take a moment here and call attention to a word we have been using and this is 'corporate'. What we mean by the use of the word 'corporate' is that while we as a body of believers cannot intermingle with or exchange pulpits with a non-Christian church that does not mean that we as and individuals may have no contact with the Muslim living next door to us. In fact we must do that if we are to have any chance of winning him to Christ. Certainly we might have opportunity to share our faith. Paul talks about this in I Corinthians 5:

1 Corinthians 5:9-11

9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:

10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.

11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.

Paul makes it clear that he does not want us to separate from the people of the world as individuals, else "you would have to leave this world". Many Christians in the past have made the mistake of doing just that. They set up compounds or whole communities where they may "separate themselves from the world". In fact many cults have used this passage to justify there seclutionist behavior. Paul's teaching makes it clear that this is not what Christian separation is about.

We do want to clarify one thing here regarding individual contact and relationships with non-believers. We must always remember that the central reason and focus for our contact with them is evangelism. If we loose that focus we can get ourselves into trouble. Remember that the Scriptures say "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." (Proverbs 27:17) This means that we can rub off on our unsaved neighbors or coworkers or they can rub off on us. If we see that someone is not sensitive to the Gospel and that they are becoming a bad influence on us the relationship needs to be severed or altered to avoid that influence.

Ecclesiastical Separation among Christian Churches

This arena of Separation has now become a hotbed of contention. When should one Christian church separate from another? If you asked five Pentecostal Ministers that question you would probably get ten answers.
In this area of separation among Christian Churches, we see in the Scriptures two kinds of separation. One is separation from Apostate Churches. The other is separation between Christian Churches which finds its basis in denominational distinctions.

Separation of true Christian Churches from Apostate Christian Churches

An Apostate Church would be one that teaches a different Gospel. An example of this would be the Mormon Church or Jehovah's Witnesses. An Apostate church really must be considered a counterfeit Christian Church, they are not a true church in any sense of the word. The Scriptures warn us about such counterfeiters and the penalty God will bring down on them:

2 Corinthians 11:4

4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

Galatians 1:6-9

6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:

7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
 
Modernism, Fundamentalism and New Evangelicalism

When discussing this topic of Separation, the topics of Modernism, Fundamentalism and New Evangelicalism cannot be ignored. The separation in this area is somewhat of a mix between the different type of Ecclesiastical Separation.

It is ironic that in the very place the Reformation was born, it also died. Germany was the heart of the Reformation during the 1500's and in the 1800's it became the heart of Modernism. Modernism questioned all the fundamentals of the faith, from the reality of Biblical miracles to the deity of Christ himself.

European Ministers were now questioning whether Jesus was really God and if he was really born of a virgin. The new theory of evolution was casting doubt on the Biblical Genesis creation account.

In some parts of Europe and mostly in America a new movement was born to counteract this growing tide of Modernism. "Fundamentalists", as they would later be called, arose to defend the faith. They pledged to stand against these modernist Ministers and to separate from and publicly rebuke these men for their false and many times Apostate teachings.

Fundamentalists remained united in their separatist stance against modernists until the 1940s. The term "New Evangelicals" was first used by Harold Ockenga in the late 1940's to refer to himself and a splinter group of fundamentalists. Before this time the term "Evangelical" could be applied to a fundamentalist. But within the fundamentalist movement there were those who thought ecclesiastical (church) separation was wrong. Instead of Bible Believers separating from modernist churches, they proposed a new strategy of "infiltration". The attempt was a miserable failure, for in the past 50 years almost all the churches which took on the "infiltration" approach with the modernist churches have themselves become modernist churches. Unfortunately this includes a large number of the mainline Protestant Churches like the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Anglicans or Episcopalians.

So today, Fundamentalists not only must separate from modernist (Apostate) churches, they also must separate from former fundamentalist churches (New Evangelical) that now intermingle with Modernist churches.

Separation of Christian Churches based on denominational distinctions

Another type of separation among Christian Churches is one based upon differences in interpretation and application of the Scriptures. This refers to separation that is among Bible preaching, Gospel preaching churches. The differences here are not ones in the Gospel, but ones that deal with things like church structure, baptism and prophetical view points.

It is an undeniable fact that many mainline Protestant Churches which once preached the Gospel do not do so any more today because of the effects of modernism and more recently New Evangelicalism. Their churches are no more than glorified social clubs. Having said that, there are bastions of conservative, Bible believing Christians still among these churches. The Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists are just some of these groups that while larges portions of their denominations have stopped preaching the Gospel, they continue to remain faithful. It is a mistake and an error for some Pentecostal preachers to stand up in their pulpits and proclaim that only the Pentecostals now teach the true Gospel. There are still faithful remnants left in some of the other Christian denominations.

These differences though among Bible believing Christian denominations, cannot be ignored. For instance, our Pentecostal Church cannot send out Missionaries with the Methodist Church down the street (even if they are conservative Bible believing Christians) because of differences in how we would teach church structure and Baptism as well as some other things. The scriptures tells us;  Can two walk together, except they be agreed?  (Amos 3:3)

Some would call these churches that still preach the Gospel yet teach and practice things like infant baptism "disobedient churches" rather than Apostate. Certainly we believe practices life infant baptism cannot be supported by the clear teachings of the New Testament. This is an error on their part. Yet some of the greatest Christian leaders of history have held to things like infant baptism and ritualism. This does not make them right, but it does not make them a "disobedient brother". We might use the label "mistaken brethren".

But why should we not just drop our differences and exchange Pulpits say, with the Presbyterian church down the street?

This is the reason:

Romans 16:17

17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.

Paul teaches us to "Keep away" from those who teach things "contrary to the teaching you have learned.". Some have tried to say Paul is only speaking of the Gospel here. But it is much more than that, or else he would have said the Gospel as he clearly did on other occasions. He is speaking of all the doctrines he delivered. This means if someone teaches a doctrine that we do not see in scripture although they may be correct on other things we must not join in with them by doing things such as exchanging pulpits or doing cooperative evangelism.

Take for instance infant baptism, this is something that we as Pentecostals believe is "contrary" to the teachings of the New Testament. Therefore we cannot engage in cooperative evangelistic activities with the Presbyterians or Lutherans down the street even if they are preaching the true Gospel.

We want to give one illustration from the New Testament of two brothers having differences:

Acts 15:36-40

36 And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the LORD, and see how they do.

37 And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark.

38 But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.

39 And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus;

40 And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God.

If Paul and Barnabas, two great pillars of the faith, could have "such a sharp disagreement that they parted company" what makes us think we today would be any different? There are honest disagreements that arise between individual Christians as well as Churches which some times leads to separation and the inability to work together. This does not mean we hate one another or that we do not regard one another as fellow Christian brethren.

It is simply comes back to Amos's question; Can two walk together, except they be agreed?  (Amos 3:3)

While we may not be able to exchange Pulpits or engage in cooperative evangelistic efforts does this preclude us from defending the faith together? We don't think so. The fathers of the modern day fundamentalist movement did not think so either. In the defense of the true faith we can and must stand together as one. In this sense we don't have a problem with multi -  denominational fundamentalists colleges and other para-church organizations which exist to defend and teach students the fundamentals of the faith. Many times these organizations will simply avoid topics having to do with denominational distinction and that is probably for the best.

 

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