14 Do not try to work together as equals with unbelievers, for it cannot be done. How can right and wrong be partners? How can light and darkness live together? 15 How can Christ and the Devil agree? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 How can God's temple come to terms with pagan idols? For we are the temple of the living God! As God himself has said,The passage advocates a radical dualism, an absolute separation of the sheep from the goats. The Message translation (here) avoids using the words "unbeliever" and "believer," but translates "unbelievers" in verse 14 as "those who reject God" and 15 as those who "mistrust". That is, the passage enjoins those who accept and trust God (i.e. have faith) to separate themselves radically from those who reject and mistrust God (i.e. have no faith).
“I will make my home with my people
and live among them;
I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.”
17 And so the Lord says,
“You must leave them
and separate yourselves from them.
Have nothing to do with what is unclean,
and I will accept you.
18 I will be your father,
and you shall be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.”
7:1 All these promises are made to us, my dear friends. So then, let us purify ourselves from everything that makes body or soul unclean, and let us be completely holy by living in awe of God.
This may have been good advice to new Christians in the second century. It is not good advice to mainline Christians in the 21st century. Our spiritual struggle is, at least in important part, with dualism, absolutism, prejudice, and ideologies of exclusion. Our calling is to love our neighbors of other faiths, persuasions, cultures, orientations, ethnicities, and beliefs as best we can—to build bridges rather than walls. This passage seems to demand that we tear down the bridges and reinforce the walls. What to do?
First, we would do well to acknowledge that the Spirit speaks through scripture to each generation in the language of that generation. Separation may well have been as much good news to early generations of Christians as it is bad news for us today. Second, however, we should consider how this passage speaks to us today. It is a warning that there are ways of thinking and behaving that are incompatible with faith and that there are people who think and behave in those incompatible ways. That is true enough. But, should we refuse to work with them and separate ourselves from them? It depends on who "they" are and what we mean by "separation".
Suppose we seek to understand this passage in a non-dualistic, pluralistic way. "They," then, become those who behave unjustly, oppressively, and with prejudice against others. "They," may well be taken as those who fail to display the fruits of the Spirit described in Galatians 5:22-23. speaking honestly, we are all complicit in that failure. "They," we must finally admit are us (thank you Pogo). It is fair to say that we are being called by the Spirit in our age to separate ourselves from behaviors rather than people, attitudes rather than neighbors, and ideologies of separation rather than people who think differently. Verse 7:1, then, makes a whole lot of sense for our time. Acknowledging that we cannot be pure, we are still being called by the Spirit to purify ourselves as best we can of such things as dualism, absolutism, prejudice, and dogmas of separation—among other things such as fear and hatred. This is a life long calling and task.
