I feel very sorry for the little section of scripture in the second Epistle to Timothy, second chapter. It's not so much a source of doctrine as a hook to hang a doctrine on, and it groans under the strain.
As the saying goes: “No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means”.
Several times recently I have found myself trying to explain the "exclusive" aspect of the brethren, and it's not an easy matter. OK, it's simple enough to set out the bare details, but getting across to an innocent outsider why the brethren don't see their behaviour as arrogant and holier-than-thou is another thing entirely. Yes, the brethren do tend to get infected with the notion that they are better than those around them, but it isn't inherent in the doctrine.
If you start by assuming that the world in general is going to hell, and rapidly, as the brethren do, then the decision to keep formally separate from it is not hard to understand. If, added to that assumption, you also conclude that you are unable to remain pure because of human weakness, it only strengthens that decision.
More than that, there is a heavy emphasis on "links", not unlike the famous six degrees of separation. The logic is that although the person nearest to hand may be OK, a fine upstanding citizen and possibly even Christian, there is no knowing who they may be connected to. If they own shares in a company, for example, they are joint owners of an entity in common with others of whom they know nothing, and the chances of there being no evil among the group are very slim. If brethren allow themselves any kind of connection with the good citizen, they would find themselves connected to that evil in a secondhand kind of way. And that cannot be allowed, whatever the hurt to this hypothetical citizen.
So when brethren refuse to do any of the things they consider to be acts of fellowship, it really isn't personal, however mistaken the doctrine is. And those acts include some very old-fashioned ideas such as eating together, which most modern-day people find very puzzling and insulting.
Anyone pointing out that Jesus ate with sinners will be met with a weary reaction. The brethren are used to that one. They know they aren't Christ, they will say, merely his followers, and while he was intrinsically pure, they can and would be corrupted.
As with so many things, it won't do much good to see flaws in the doctrine, because the doctrine comes first and rationalisation after.
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14 comments:
The bare truth about the doctrine of separation is of course that, viewed obgectively it is arrogant nonsense bordering on delusional.In practice it is also hypocritical in the extreme.
Staying apart by not participating in the voting part of democracy for example while at the same time enjoying all its benefits and also powerfully influencing the outcome of elections by other means is not just illogical, it is immoral.
It's not surprising to me that you have trouble getting outsiders to see it in a good light; what is more surprising is that you can see it in an indulgent way yourself.
Clearly many other ex PBs live with deep longstanding emotional pain because of it
I'm aware of all that, so much so that I didn't feel the need to say it myself. My problem, as with so many other aspects, is not one of trying to persuade people everything is OK, but to adequately explain how it seems from within. The "brethren's eye view" is a very difficult one to put across.
I find myself in a quandary.
A real quandary.
I can see the point of view from Robert's position, but I also have to accept that what survivor is telling us is something we really need to learn about today's Brethren.
Let me put it this way. Each of us go to the same window. The curtain is drawn back. Each one of us write down the first three things we see outside that window.
What we write down may very well be in a different order - or something no-one else had seen.
The undisputed fact is that we are looking at the same view, but a tree to me might be the first thing, a chimney might be the most striking thing they see, another might see the clouds and another... You get the picture (excuse the pun).
I do not get the impression that survivor is trying to justify the behaviour of the brethren. It seems to me to be simply stating this as he sees it today. I cannot ignore his comments as he is a recent leaver, and some of us still remember the days when things might very well have been different than today.
In the years that have past, many of us (and I mean posters on peebs net) have tended to draw a lot of assumptions on the basis of our [their] personal experience a long time ago, and, dare I say, a lot of imagining what the Brethren think today.
But as a footnote, I rather like the quote (which I have not heard before) about "No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means." As survivor suggests it is already a saying, I will have no hesitation in using it elsewhere.
The question of "links" is quite interesting. For example, the shared wall or sewer pipe with a neighbour, which is eschewed.
How do the brethren deal with matters such as:
- a binding commercial agreement with a non-brethren client or supplier
- the collective financial participation in public amenities including the sewer mains
- the matter of their businesses and trusts collecting bank interest, obtained from unknown and collective investments of their money ?
To answer Eric's points:
1. It depends on the legal terms. Most contracts seem to be OK, but many are rewritten to avoid some phrases. One forbidden one is "jointly and severally". I'm not sure why it's OK to sign documents with an outsider, but that's fine.
2. Brethren don't live in places where there is explicit joint responsibility for amenities, such as in private roads in the UK. Otherwise, money paid out to the authorities is held to be discharging the responsibility to them, not sharing in it.
3. A bank agrees to pay interest. Where they get the money from is their responsibility.
Believe me, all these things have been considered!
What hasn't been considered, though, is the insult meted out to neighbours by the non-sharing of party walls and sewer pipes policy. When EB in my locality moved from terraced houses to detached properties in the mid 1980s, the reason for this move became known and Brethren were marked forever as people who thought they were too holy to share sewerage with their neighbours.
As you describe, Survivor, Brethren are vigilant about spotting the mote (and mote-links) that are in their neighbour's eye, but do they observe the beam that is in their own?
I have actually posted comments (on peebs.net) that are sympathetic to the EB doctrine of separation. Robert, consider this: if you knew somebody to be an active paedophile or rapist or something equally bad, would you share a drink with that person socially? Probably not. In which case you are practising exactly the same doctrine of separation in principle as that of the EB. If evil could be measured on a scale of 0-10, where 0 was absolute purity, and 10 was the sort of activities mentioned before, then the only difference between my and the EB doctrine of separation is merely (but crucially) that I would draw the line at having fellowship with those on level 9-10, and the EB draw the line at having fellowship with those above level 1. Possibly.
To expand on Survivor's "link" theory, if somebody soiled his hands with a vile substance e.g dog c**p, but whatever you think is suitable disgusting, and offered to shake your clean hand, you would no doubt refuse to shake his hand, however politely, until he cleaned it. If person 1 had not actually soiled his hands in the substance directly, but had shaken the hand of person 2 who had, then you would still not shake the hand of person 1, because it was contaminated from person 2. Now, whereas I would draw the line at shaking hands with a hand that had been soiled by THIS substance, the EB draw the line at shaking a hand that had been soiled by anything other than mineral water.
I like Nico's simile, but I think it needs one extra thing said:
The brethren won't start on the handshake chain because of the chance of someone way down the line having a soiled hand, not because they see something specific they object to. It's not the person, not even their known connections that cause the problem, it's the lack of a guarantee of purity.
Of course, impurity is found inside with monotonous regularity, but that's different.
Survivor wrote:
"It's not the person, not even their known connections that cause the problem, it's the lack of a guarantee of purity"
A most peculiar notion they must have of "purity"! This is IMO simply a lame justification for keeping members apart from any potential personal outside contacts. If so, it's very typical cult behavious.
And Nico, I can't disagree more with your narrow examples and your interpretation of separation from evil. What would you and the EBs make of one of the most wonderful of scriptures, Psalm 23?
It seems to me that people who walk fearfully through "the valley of the shadow of death" are extremely weak in both faith and in personal moral strength.
Apologies Nico! Only after posting did I realise that you were leading us down the garden path!
But I'll also take this chance to comment on Survivor's perceptions of the breth accepting bank interest without any hint of morality or ethics entering the equation. That is "A bank agrees to pay interest. Where they get the money from is their responsibility"
This seems inimical to many of their other notions of guilt by association. Even some "worldlies" are concerned by the nature of their investments.
And if one were to take Nico's facetious comments at face value, even the handling of currency would be a dicey matter.
From the interesting perceptions on this blog, I can only conclude that the brethren are basically amoral.
Survivor, I fully agree with you. It's not the person they object to (normally), it's the "soil".
Yes they certainly were narrow examples I gave, Robert, (and extreme too), to try to explain the EB's narrow pathway. In strongly disagreeing with my comments, are you implying that you WOULD socialise with e.g. an unrepentant murderer? If so, that's fine by me - I'm sure that Jesus would have too - but I wouldn't. I'm simply saying that I understand where the EB are coming from on the principle of separation, even though I disagree with they way they apply the principle.
I'm sure Psalm 23 seems very beautiful. Other scriptures seem pretty vile. That's why I would never quote the Bible as justification for anything I believed or did.
As to associating with an unrepentant murder, one doesn't need to be Muslim, Buddhist, atheist or Christian to feel the nervousness, or even repugnancy of so-doing.
The supposedly "high ground" the brethren take in their notion of separation is very tribal and narrow in vision. Filled with prejudice, ignorance and self-delusion. Simply put, cultish.
Nico implies that he would separate from serious evil, whereas the EB would separate from much lesser degrees of evil. I don’t see it this way at all. The EB don’t separate from evil at all. They separate from anyone who disagrees with them.
True, Ian. But they do believe that anyone in disagreement with them is in disagreement with God, and therefore is worthy of separating from. Anyway, sorry Survivor, I feel as though I'm hijacking your blog here. (However it's to your credit that your posts are creating debate). Enough from me now.
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