Kent has written a lot on this subject over a period of time. He believes "separation" is a major doctrine and in the same class as "salvation" is. You will need to read his articles on his website, and I would encourage you to do so to get his points of view.
He believes you should not have any fellowship with anyone who does not separate themselves from the things that you need to separate yourselves from.
QUESTION: Would it be bibical and scriptural for me to go to this conference with these men as speakers?
- Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, C.J. Mahaney, and Albert Mohler led the conference, joined by special guests John MacArthur, John Piper, and R.C. Sproul. Along with these men, pastors from many nations spent three days studying and celebrating the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and its centrality to the task of faithful, biblical preaching and pastoring
In our Christian climate today, with so many conferences, you can be in a conference with 5000 people, and you know many will hold different opinions than you do. So the question is do you go to these conferences and line yourselves up with them?
I set for years in the IBYC and All Day Seminar's with Bill Gothard, and most of the people there I would say had different opinions than I did. So was I wrong in going?
Kent has a real problem with John MacArthur it seems. This is where my problem with Kent is.
If I am going to listen to anyone, of course it would be John and not Kent. But with that said, Kent has some good points.
The issue today is "let us get together for the Gospel sake" and set aside the "little minor doctrine issues." This is where Kent has a problem. There are no little "minor" doctrines. They are all the same in importance.
I have always here this statement: "Fundamentalists are often majoring on the minors." They are heavy on not going to be movies, and dancing. But light on the doctrine of salvation. The doctrine of discipleship as not been a strong point, but not having fellowship with those who dance is.
If you are not a KJV only preacher you want get invited to preach at a conference. . But at the same time you can neglect the area of discipleship and its not important that you teach the Word of God as it is in the context of the text.
Are there issues in life that we should not be so dogmatic on? Are come points in scripture that might be ambiguity in nature?
Do we have to all agree on all points to be in right fellowship with God?
What does it mean when we say that we should be obedience to God and His Word, and the authority of scripture in our lives are to be our objective?
Do we separate ourselves from anyone who we believe is wrong in their opinion of what we believe to be the opposite? Of course I do remember I was just about this way in the past. If you didn't believe the way I did, I was not going to have any kind of fellowship with you, no matter what.
I don't believe we should have the minimalism approach of any doctrine in the Bible. There is a danger in this minimalistic approach. At the same time, I can't always agree with all my father in law.. So does that mean I can't have supper with him tonight? Don't thank so.
Can I have supper with a non-Calvinist? Can I have supper with a pastor who is a young creationist? Can I have supper with a pastor who is not a Baptist? Can a pastor have fellowship with me if I have fellowship with John MacArthur? Now here is where I would draw the line? If its between John MacArthur and you, I will choose John MacArthur anytime. Sorry about that. But I would love to have fellowship with you even if you don't like John. By the way, many of the preachers I know, don't like John anyway.
Okay enough of this for now, I need to eat supper with my father-in-law pastor and preacher.
