The Making of Biblical Separation | GARBC Baptist Bulletin
This short history behind one of the most important books of fundamentalism demonstrates the relationship between literal normal interpretation, dispensationalism, and biblical separation. Pickering’s book is under attack today by some, but it is at their own peril. Pickering’s book is a must read. (KSchaal)
When Ernest Pickering wrote Biblical Separation in 1979, fundamentalism had not yet benefited from the dozens of academic studies that would be produced in the 1980s and ’90s. Most fundamentalist leaders were at least mildly peeved about the public’s perception of the movement, believing that media attention was often dismissive and inaccurate. And despite their historic suspicion of scholarly research, fundamentalists were oddly hurt when academic studies seemed to ignore their core theological values. For fundamentalists, the 1970s was a period of resurgence in the popular conscience, but not a period of enhanced understanding.It had been this way since the 1925 Scopes trial, when it became popular to parody fundamentalist leaders as “not enough fun, too much damn, too little mental.” Rather than engaging the ideas of fundamentalists, it was easier to relegate them to playing stock characters in Hollywood double features: the Bible-thumping revivalist, the hayseed preacher, the storefront church on the edge of town that was filled with rubes and yokels.Caricature or not, this was a life that Ernest Pickering knew. He was reared by devout parents, Salvation Army evangelists, who recruited their nine-year-old son to play bass drum in the revivalist band. He was quickly promoted to playing first trumpet, but once he reached high school, Pickering became a street-corner evangelist, “dodging rock throwers and tomato throwers,” as he put it. Leaving home at sixteen, he spent his college years at Bob Jones University.On the weekends, he and his friends would take the train to dusty southern outposts. Their first stop was usually the tavern, the center of a town’s social life. Convincing the owner to hold a revival meeting, they’d clear off the pool table and lead the crowd in hymn singing before preaching the gospel.“Don’t go to seminary, Ernie—it will ruin you,” was the advice that Bob Jones Sr. gave Ernest Pickering upon graduation in 1947.
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