Theology of Christian Separatism

'Good and Evil are an Exception to the Rule that Contrary Attributes Cannot be Predicated of the Same Subject. Evil Springs Up in What is Good and Cannot Exist Except in What is Good. Good however, can exist without Evil"

Augustine The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love Chapter XIV

Augustine tells us that evil cannot exist except in that which is good because "corruption could not have either a place to dwell in, or a source to spring from, if there were nothing that could be corrupted." Good, on the other hand, can exist without evil. "For a man or an angel can exist without being wicked; but nothing can be wicked except a man or an angel."

Therefore, the evil needs the good to survive, and good may destroy evil by depriving it of the benefit of the good.

First, we all know that evil is self-destructive. Most of us have seen how evil qualities in a person will eventually destroy that person- whether the evil is anger, bondage to drugs or alcohol, or other evil vices. Evil needs to be in the presence of good in order to actualize itself; alcoholism would not exist as a real thing unless there were alcoholics. Without a "good host" evil cannot exist, and since evil will eventually destroy its good host, it will eventually destroy the conditions necessary for its own survival, which is why evil destroys not only good, but also evil. This is the essence of the self-destructiveness of evil.

Good, on the other hand, can exist without evil, "because an angel or a man can exist without being wicked." But in this fallen world, good is always subject to destruction by evil. As much as possible, good needs to remove itself from the presence and influence of evil.

In a society which has become predominantly evil, good needs to remove itself from that society, if good is to survive as good. Otherwise, the powerful evil that seeks out the good to actualize itself, will find the good, and corrupt it.

Can there be any doubt that our society has completely crossed over into the realm of evil? The latest, if you're not already convinced, is that social scientists who catalogue mental illness in a standard reference work called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, have recently decided that pedophilia is no longer inherently disordered.

About thirty years ago, they made the same decision about homosexuality. Judith Levine, author of Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, has found a publisher for her book - The University of Minnesota Press. The book includes a preface from Clinton's first Surgeon General - Jocelyn Elders. Harris Mirkin, an Associate Professor at the University of Missouri, sees a future for "adult-child sex": "Children are the last basiton of the old sexual morality, he says." [1]

No kind or type of evil remains out of bounds for our society, which will soon be no longer "our" society, but "their" society.