There is an
aspect of evangelical belief which is not as appreciated as it should be: the
doctrine of separation. These Christians believe that they should be “in the
world, but not of the world”. They base this doctrine on a number of scripture
passages, especially John. This separation encompasses everything: what people
read and believe, their choices in entertainment and clothes, their family
life, their friends and career, and of course who they pray with. Fundamentalist
parents do all they can to see to it that their families are not infected with what
they see as the sicknesses of the modern world, the clothes, the music, the
television, the ideas. Today’s Baptists and other hard-core Jesus people talk
up this separation business, in part as a way to control and punish their own
church members (the local Baptist group near me is very explicit about disciplining members who stray). The more extreme adherents insist on “second-degree
separation”: they should avoid not only the outsiders, but even fellow
evangelicals who don’t believe in separation. As though the modern world
constitutes contamination.
Which brings me
to the Amish. The true champs of separation. While today’s evangelical Baptists
and the like live lives much like ours, with the internet and cable television
and iPhones, the Amish actually walk the walk on separation. They restrict or
ban the use of anything connecting them to the big city, electric lines and
phones and cars. Although some members are leaving the Amish fold and some
Amish communities are loosening the rules a bit, for the most part the Amish
community maintains its 19th-century existence as well as they can;
their emphasis on “plain” humility extends to banning “fancy” zippers on
clothes.
It must be said
that not everything the Amish do is admirable: they make women subordinate to
men and rarely send their kids to high school. But there are some things they
do that one can admire. First, they are not the Pennsylvania Taliban: they
emphasize community, they let teenagers run a little wild before buckling down
to the rules of adult life, they smoke pipes and drink beer. Even the dreaded
punishment of shunning is only used as a last resort when the church
unanimously decides to impose it, and it can be cancelled once the sinner returns
to the church. Intolerance doesn’t seem to be their thing.
Second, the
Amish are not really obsessed with religion. They don’t let religion dominate
their lives like fundamentalists do – instead of building a big church for the
preacher and making that the centerpiece of their lives, they hold religious
services in each other’s homes. And more importantly, they are consistent about
being separated from the world: the Amish believe that running around and
quoting the Bible all day in front of other people is a “proud” thing to do, so
they don’t beat each other, or outsiders, over the head with their religious
beliefs. They keep their Amish stuff separate inside their Amish bubble, rather
than trying to sell the Amish way to all their neighbors. The government
recognizes that their beliefs about being separate from the outer world are
consistent and not “situational”, which is why the government allows them to
opt out of military service and the Social Security system.
Which takes me
back to the Baptists. They want to be separate from the world when they’re over
at their own house, inside their fundamentalist bubble: the Baptist rules
himself, his family, his home and his faith his way, and no outside influences
are allowed to hold sway. But when he comes over to your house, it’s a completely
different story. Not only does he want to win you over to his way of religion,
he wants to make you do things his way in other areas that have nothing to do
with religion. He wants his views to control not just the Fundamentalists, but
everyone else, and not just on religion, but also on science and medicine, law
and politics, the works. Abortion, gay marriage, contraception, HPV shots,
evolution, stem-cell research.
This problem is
rooted in the central hypocrisy of the fundamentalist movement. They believe in
the doctrine of separation, but they also believe in the doctrine of
evangelism, the notion that true believers are supposed to be going out there
in enemy territory, winning over new members. They want the flow of ideas to be
a one-way street: no “modern” influences are to enter the fundamentalist
bubble, but the evangelicals are supposed to be peddling their brand of medieval
snake oil outside the bubble, to the community at large. They are allowed to
try to sell their ideas to us, but we’re not allowed to try to sell our ideas
to them.
Here’s a
perfect example of the hypocrisy. Where I live, down the street there is a
Baptist family. They are hard-core evangelicals, ranting about gays and
abortion on their website and in every sermon. They were hell-bent on coming
down to my house to try to convert my young daughters to their faith. They even
sent their pastor and his wife down to my house, to preach at the girls. But
when I turned the tables on them – I printed out an article explaining why the
Baptist interpretation of gay marriage was fallacious, and sent my daughter to
the Baptists’ house with it – they went Absolutely. Bat. Shit. They determined
that my daughter is officially going to hell. And probably took a shower to
wash off the Devil Cooties, and burned my article in the fireplace before
anyone could see it.
If these evangelical
people want to separate themselves, and to not be of the world, then let them
do that. Let them wall themselves off from 21st century
civilization. But don’t use those little fundamentalist enclaves as sally ports
from which they can launch their little God Raids on their neighbors. Live like
the Amish, and stop wreaking havoc in our school boards, our legislatures, our
funerals, our Boy Scout troops, our doctor’s offices. If they want to be left
alone, they need to leave us alone too.
Just imagine if
there was an evangelical atheist movement. Go door to door?
“Howdy! Welcome
to the neighborhood, have a cookie! Man is an animal, the earth is a satellite,
the Bible is wrong!”
Maybe not.
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