I believe most emphatically in Biblical separation. But I do not, and will not, accept a list of man-made rules. My son, Andrew, mentioned once to a woman that the Bible did not teach total abstinence; to which she replied, "But don't you think God holds us to a higher standard than that?"
You can trace all separatist movements back as far as the Pharisees, and yes, even further, to Israel of old. They added hundreds of their own commandments to God's law. We find such descriptive terms of these separatists as, "They say, and do not." And, "Thou that sayest a man should not...dost thou...?
Francis Schaeffer, J.I. Packer, and Harry Ironside all belonged to strict separatist groups in their day, the latter two coming close to nervous breakdowns, because they could not live up to the rigidity of the "elites" teaching. But each found, in time, that the strongest advocates of the movements didn't live up to what they preached.
This was the whole issue over Paul's stern rebuke of Peter in Galatians 2:11-14. Especially verse 14, "If thou being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest the Gentiles to live as do the Jews.?"
Let each reader heed the words of the first Church council."Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear."
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