SBCOutpost

The Board of Trustees of the International Mission Board meet this week. It is the first meeting after the election of Johnny Hunt as President of the SBC and the first meeting after the public release of the broadly supported IMB Change statement requesting the rescinding of the controversial IMB guidelines brought to the fore by former IMB Trustee Wade Burleson.

Will the Trustees choose to continue to divide conservative Southern Baptists around tertiary doctrines? Frank Page and Johnny Hunt oppose the guidelines that have created no small furor and plenty of ink, type or computer screen material.

We know that four entity heads oppose them, including Jerry Rankin. We lived without them for a century. They became an issue in the recent election in the BP questionairre. Those who supported the policies were roundly defeated. This is dividing the convention.

Paul Chitwood has called for unity and that is what we need. But that will not come as long as these divisive guidelines are in place. We know, Trustees, that many of you genuinely believe these things. We are not asking you to change your beliefs. We are asking you to return to the BFM as the standard. Listen to Jerry Rankin, Morris Chapman, Frank Page and Johnny Hunt … do it for unity around missions.

I’ve gotten to know quite a few people over the past two-and-one-half years as we’ve discussed the IMB policy/guideline changes.  No one seems to express what I’m thinking better than my friend Alan Cross.  Recently Alan completed quite a bit of homework on our missions work and has written down his conclusions to the information gathered from a variety of first-hand sources over an extended period of time.

Over the past few years, I have been very active in the blogosphere opposing the policies regarding private prayer language and baptism initiated by the IMB’s Board of Trustees in November, 2005. I was very excited to see others take up the struggle against these extra-biblical and extra- BF&M policies as seen through the Time to Change Statement, which I quickly signed. Even though I am a stateside pastor, I have had relationships with missionaries on the field for many years now. I have been a big advocate for the IMB and believe that they are doing great work. As the current IMB BoT chairman, Paul Chitwood recently said, “The work of the IMB is the primary thing that brings us together.” I agree. That is why it is so important to all of us.

Recently, I have begun to hear about the disastrous effects that these policies are having upon our missionary force in the field. Read the rest of this entry »

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 2, 2008

Pastors, former missionaries join former IMB trustees in calling for removal of controversial, superfluous ‘guidelines’

‘Time to Change’ group opposes policies on baptism, private prayer practices

NORTH CAROLINA –– A group of 37 former Southern Baptist missionaries, former International Mission Board trustees and Southern Baptist pastors has issued a call for rank and file Southern Baptists to reverse “guidelines” enacted by IMB trustees in 2005 that prohibited appointment of missionaries whose baptisms and private prayer lives do not meet those guidelines.

“We express our concern over the restrictions that have been put in place in the form of additional ‘guidelines’ concerning a missionary candidate’s private prayer life and baptism,” says the statement, which was released June 2, 2008. “Our conviction is that these guidelines stray far beyond the parameters set forth by our denominational confession of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message.”

One position adopted by IMB trustees prohibited appointment of missionary candidates who were not baptized in conformity with a narrow, extra-biblical definition of baptism. The second position prohibited appointment of missionary candidates who practice a “private prayer language.”

The group objects that those restrictions amount to “intrusive scrutiny into the sanctity of the personal prayer closet” and “dictating to local churches what constitutes a legitimate Christian baptism.”

The result of adopting those “guidelines” – with no evidence they were needed – was that “otherwise worthy candidates” for missionary service are unnecessarily rejected and “valuable, faithful IMB personnel” are leaving the field at a time when the overseas missions harvest is greater than ever, the group says.

“Each day, we are all made painfully aware of the scope of the lostness of our world. We agree with the words of our Lord that, indeed, the harvest is abundant. We also, with great sadness, agree with His assessment that the workers are few,” the statement says. “There are good, loyal Southern Baptists who see the multitudes also, and just as Christ did, feel compassion for them. Let us as Southern Baptists not purposefully turn away any qualified worker who has heard and obeyed the call to ‘Go.’”

The group plainly asserts that their opposition to the “guidelines” should not be read as a lack of support for IMB missionaries, staff or administration. They “commend the obedience and commitment to God’s call of the more than 5,000 dedicated brothers and sisters who have been appointed, sent, and supported by Southern Baptists to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth” and declare that they “enthusiastically support our IMB missionaries through their praying, giving, and going.”

They also affirm that the IMB’s candidate approval process “has been fair, thorough, and complete, producing a dedicated, well-trained missionary force” that meet the criteria set out by the SBC Constitution that “all missionaries appointed by the Convention’s boards must, previous to their appointment, furnish evidence of piety, zeal for the Master’s kingdom, conviction of truth as held by Baptists, and talents for missionary service.”

The group “call(s) on Southern Baptists to hold the entities of the SBC accountable to the direction of the convention’s churches, not the churches to the sentiments of their entities” and “strongly urge(s) Southern Baptists to seek the removal of these controversial and superfluous guidelines from use in the candidate approval process.”

The group has created a Web site at imbchange.info to “encourage appropriate principles and guidelines for missionary service through the International Mission Board of the SBC.”

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For more information, contact:

Concern4Missions@bellsouth.net
Allan & Pam Blume 828-265-0220 or 828-266-9700
Steve Hardy 336-714-5468

One of the young pastors I have come to know over the last couple of years is Alan Cross. He blogs at Downshoredrift. Alan has led his church to partner in India. He takes an active role in his local association. And, Alan wonders about the SBC drift - a drift into relativism.

Many of you are aware that SWBTS has a website of theological and historical resources available for instructing the church along with other SBC entities in Baptist principles and thought. If you need to know how to write a book review, what Malcolm Yarnell thinks of the LifeWay study on Private Prayer Language, why Bart Barber believes you should support the Southern Baptist trustee system, what Dorothy Kelley Patterson thinks about women pastors, or a number of other subjects, there are white papers for one and all.

There you can also access the Southwestern Journal of Theology and various historical resources. One such resource is a paper entitled Seven Guidelines for Church Planting Which Reflect Baptist Ecclesiology, Submitted for consideration by the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board from the Theological Studies Division, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. It is a brief two pages and proclaims itself to “detail the historical interpretation of Scripture by Baptists as embodied in articles 6, 7, and 8 of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.”

There are seven guidelines mentioned all of which are of importance in church planting both here in the states and overseas. I think it is safe to assume that following these guidelines would lead to a “true” church plant - a church reflecting all that is necessary to be considered a good Southern Baptist church filled with members who would generally be qualified for service in various capacities within the Southern Baptist Convention. However, this document guarantees no such thing.

Of particular note is point number five related to baptism. Certainly this point does, in fact, agree wholeheartedly with the Baptist Faith and Message. However, both are silent on the requirement that the administrator of a person’s baptism must believe in “eternal security” or that the candidate themselves believe such a thing, for the baptism to be “valid.” It appears that our NAMB and IMB church plants could follow the Baptist Faith and Message along with these guidelines developed by the best theologians from SWBTS and yet produce members who may well be unqualified to become missionaries sent by our own missions sending agencies.

Curiously this paper is also lacking a statement preventing a church from having members who believe, teach and/or practice a Private Prayer Language.

Further, there is a white paper at baptisttheology.org written by Dr. Thomas White entitled, What Makes Baptism Valid? In the section on The Meaning of Baptism there is no mention that a belief in eternal security is required for the baptism to be valid. Dr. White does state that, “The proper meaning is essential to proper baptism. Does the recipient have to understand everything in theology? No. However, the subject must understand that baptism is not salvific, grants no additional grace, and does not insure sinlessness. Because the subject must understand, the subject cannot be an infant. The subject should also accept that baptism is the public profession of faith, identification with Christ, and the door to the local church.” All that, but no requirement that the subject believe in eternal security? How strange. [Even more strange is his contention that it is “unwise” for baptisms to occur in a seminary. Perhaps he has not spoken with his President.]

Dr. White also discusses the proper administrator of baptism. In this section he twice states that the administrator does not determine the validity of the baptism. In fact, he argues that to say otherwise is to fall into the error of Donatism. Nevertheless, care should be taken in who administers baptism, but apparently not so much care that it is necessary to explicitly require that the person baptizing, nor the church sanctioning the baptism, believe in eternal security. This seems to be a rather odd omission in light of the policies guidelines now in force at the IMB. Apparently the quality of the theologians at SWBTS falls short of the quality of the theologians on the IMB board and at Mid America seminary.

So a Southern Baptist missionary/church planter could follow to the letter the practice outlined in the guidelines and white papers produced at SWBTS and still produce members who are not good enough for service with NAMB and/or the IMB. Are these guidelines lacking certain necessary provisions, or could it be that our mission sending agencies have made essential what our own theologians have not declared essential?

Recently the boys over at SBC Yesterday Today (just a little humor, boys. Don’t get your blood pressure up) made a proposal that when the time comes for Jerry Rankin to retire from the IMB the convention should look to a pastor to lead our great missions organization into the future. In light of that proposal I would like to suggest one of my own.

Let me first of all say that there are many things for which we can be grateful in regards to Dr. Paige Patterson. His best work may well have been in pulling Southeastern Seminary out of the miry pit and setting its feet on a solid rock. While there are things with which he and I would disagree - such as whether or not a woman can teach theology to men (and it seems to me that women regularly teach theology to men in the music and education departments at SWBTS even today - and if they do not then they should be fired) - nevertheless, he aided in the rescue of the SBC from a liberal drift and helped to set us back onto a squarely conservative path.

One of these days Dr. Patterson will retire from SWBTS. When that time comes I hope that the trustees will give full consideration to hiring a president who has no long-term educational experience. Read the rest of this entry »