Recently, when I read 2 Corinthians 6 and 7, Rod Dreher’s book, The Benedict Option came to mind. In 7:1, the Apostle Paul wrote: “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”

Paul’s exhortation to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit” points back to the mashup of Scripture quotations near the end of chapter 6. (7:1 belongs to the preceding section and rounds it off.) Among the Scriptures cited, we read: “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord…” That was the line that brought Dreher to mind.

Long before the publication of The Benedict Option, the Amish were “going out from their midst and be[ing] separate from” even their fellow Anabaptists. But nearly 1400 years before the Amish, the desert fathers were separating themselves from the larger church, doing their utmost to cleanse themselves from every defilement of body and spirit. The Benedict to whom Dreher’s title refers pulled away from the larger church culture in the sixth century. In the 11^th century, the Cistercians felt the need to cleanse themselves from the defilement of their Benedictine Abbey.

Following the Cistercians came the reform movement led by Bernard of Clairvaux. Later still, the Trappists attempted to purify the Cistercian movement, just as it had tried to purify the Benedictine movement. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries came the Restoration and fundamentalist movements. The separationist impulse continues to this day.

The promises that Paul spoke of in 2 Corinthians 7, which provide the reason for cleansing oneself from defilement, are great and precious promises. Paul listed six of these promises a few verses earlier: God promised to make his dwelling among (or to indwell) us; to walk among us (as in the Garden of Eden); to be our God, and to take us for his people. (These last two are part of the new covenant, spelled out in Jeremiah 31.) Additionally, God promises to welcome us and be a father to us, and to take us as his children.

The urge to pull back from the world (and even from the larger Christian community) in order to experience the fulfillment of these promises is understandable. Yet, time after time, the separation movements lose their initial passion and wane. Though many retain their outward form, too often the heart that once beat underneath has flatlined.

Knowing this, what are we supposed to do with the apostolic and biblical commands of 2 Corinthians 6 and 7? How are we to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit”? What does it look like to “come out from them and be separate”? Should we follow the Amish in their rejection of fashionable dress, technological advances, and the majority culture’s entertainments? But that has not separated the Amish from greed, envy, and strife—at least that is what my formerly Amish friend once told me.

Even though it must be admitted that the Amish did not succeed in purifying themselves “from everything that contaminates,” they have approached this issue more seriously than many other Christians. Their problem, it seems to me, is not that they went too far, but that they went on a tangent. That is, of course, a problem for almost all of us.

The use of the verb translated, “be separate,” might help us wrap our minds around what is involved in coming “out from them” and being “separate.” It is used elsewhere of God’s action in setting the Apostle Paul apart for his service. Though he was set apart, Paul did not stop living among worldly people. He continued to eat their food, wear their dress, and read their books (like those of Epimenides and Menander), yet he was a separated man for he was Christ’s man. He did not serve himself, but Jesus. Perhaps our separation is not about how we dress or whether we use smartphones, but about whether we see ourselves as boss (like pretty much everyone else in the world) or see Jesus that way. Or, to use biblical language, we “confess Jesus Christ Lord.”

Wearing unfashionable clothing (without a smartphone in any pocket) might readily distinguish us in other people’s eyes, but maybe the point is not to distinguish ourselves in others people’s eyes. It is what God sees that matters, and he does not judge by outward appearance but by the heart.