March 4, 2002
TOGETHER:
BGCT helps courageous missionaries
___Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Director Emeritus Bill Pinson wrote me last week. He observed, "Opportunities often come to us disguised as challenges or problems." I believe that is exactly where Texas Baptists stand.
___In January, foreign missionaries received a letter from Jerry Rankin, president of the Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board, telling them they were required to sign an affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message. We have reason to believe IMB trustees will press to remove missionaries who refuse to sign, even if the president does not do so. But it is not just what we perceive. It is what the missionaries believe is being said to them.
CHARLES WADE
Executive Director
BGCT Executive Board
___The call to stand by those who are being asked to put either calling or conscience at risk cannot go unanswered. We must provide places of refuge and renewal, places of warm acceptance and dependable support, places where dreams of serving God can become reality again. I believe Texas Baptist churches and people want to do this. That is why the Executive Board overwhelmingly voted to establish the missionary transition fund, to help missionaries who resign or are dismissed because they will not sign a creed.
___If we do not stand beside these missionaries, then we have no right to speak about how Baptists believe in the priesthood of the believer, soul competency, religious liberty and the freedom of the Christian soul. Where in the Scripture is it ever recorded that men and women were required to sign a confession of faith or a creed? We are called to give testimony. We are required to give a reason for the faith that is within us. But there is nothing about signing some statement that a committee or a religious council has designed and insists you sign.
___The Executive Board also approved a recommendation that the BGCT establish a Chaplaincy Endorsement Board. This has been in the works for some time because chaplains were being told that the North American Mission Board would not continue to renew their endorsements if they would not sign the new Baptist Faith & Message. Within the last couple of weeks, yet another restriction has been handed down. Ordained women chaplains no longer will be acceptable for endorsement by NAMB.
___I am aware that we will be criticized by many for the stands the BGCT has taken. Some will say we are distancing ourselves from Southern Baptists. Let me say again, as I have said before: We stand ready to work with Southern Baptists. We have not wanted the things that have happened in the last few weeks to happen. We are focused on a lost world that needs our Savior and his gospel.
___We say to Southern Baptist leaders: "Why these distractions? Why these extra requirements? If we--or the missionaries--are heretics, show us by Scripture, and we will repent. But if you cannot say we are heretics, then work with us for the sake of a world that needs Jesus."
___And let us all thank God for however we heard the gospel, whether it came from a man or a woman. For when we miss hell and enter into glory, we will want to find and thank those who helped us know Jesus. Then we will wonder that anyone presumed to tell people what the sovereign God could or could not do with their lives.
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