July 15, 2002
Currie not invited to visit IMB after all
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___David Currie won't be visiting the International Mission Board for a chat with President Jerry Rankin after all.
___The leader of Texas Baptists Committed and the Mainstream Baptist Network announced in February that he had been invited to visit the Southern Baptist Convention mission board in Richmond, Va., by Texas pastor and IMB trustee David Evans.
___At a Feb. 16 meeting of the Mainstream Baptist Network, Currie publicly announced he would accept the invitation to visit the IMB. On that visit, he said, he would like to learn firsthand about the concerns of unnamed people Rankin cited in requiring missionaries to sign an affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.
___Currie followed up his acceptance of Evans' invitation in a Feb. 21 letter to Rankin.
___Four months later, Rankin wrote back to Currie, expressing regret that Currie "perceived an invitation from an individual trustee as an official invitation" when it was not.
___"The invitation was not authorized or issued by me or our board," Rankin wrote in his June 18 response. "As a Southern Baptist entity serving cooperating churches, associations and state conventions, there would be no apparent benefit in hosting a representative of Mainstream Baptists."
___Evans, contacted by the Standard, declined to comment, explaining that he wanted to do no harm to Currie or Rankin.
___Currie, however, wrote back to Rankin July 2, expressing disappointment in Rankin's unwillingness to meet with him and disputing Rankin's assertion that the invitation had come from Evans alone. "There are people's ministries at stake here, and I cannot see the harm in sitting down as fellow Baptists and discussing the impact the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message is having on them as it is being implemented by the IMB," Currie wrote.
___He added: "I may be a leader of Mainstream Baptists, but I am also a member of a local church that sent over $20,000 to Lottie Moon last year. As a Baptist whose church is paying your salary and supporting IMB personnel on the field, why can I not receive answers to my questions? Some of the missionaries under your care are members of my church. I would like to know what the future holds and who has questioned their integrity."
___Currie is a member of Southland Baptist Church in San Angelo. The Lottie Moon Offering is the SBC's annual designated offering for IMB work.
___"It appears to me that you want our money but have no interest in accountability to those of us who give the money," Currie concluded in his response.
___In his earlier letter accepting the invitation Rankin says never was issued, Currie also asked Rankin for the names and addresses of all IMB missionaries "so that many may pray and share their concern with these missionaries as they consider your recent request that they sign the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message." He further asked for "documentation/evidence of persons questioning the doctrinal purity of any current missionaries" and for a copy of the minutes of the IMB trustee meeting held in January 2002.
___Rankin responded with a copy of the minutes but said he could not provide the other information.
___"As a matter of policy, we do not distribute names and addresses of our missionaries, not only for the sake of security but also to protect them from mass marketing and appeals," he wrote.
___On the matter of documenting the unnamed individuals Rankin has said prompted him to ask missionaries to sign an affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, he wrote: "It would be inappropriate and impractical to share documentation of those who have expressed suspicion of our doctrinal accountability, as it reflects widespread and growing rumors as well as phone calls, e-mail and correspondence considered personal and privileged."
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