April 28, 2003
Missionaries respond:
'We are not guilty of misconduct'
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___"We cannot resign. We are guilty of no misconduct or false teaching and have been accused of none," missionaries Rick and Nancy Dill told International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin April 18.
___The Dills, the first Southern Baptist workers to enter East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, are among 31 missionaries who recently received letters from Rankin about their refusal to sign an affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message. Rankin announced in the letters a May 5 deadline to either sign, resign from service or be fired.
___That they received the letter was no surprise to the Dills, who currently are on a leave of absence as missionaries-in-residence at Ouachita Baptist
University. Earlier, they received a phone call from IMB Executive Vice President Avery Willis informing them they could not return to their place of service in Germany without signing the faith statement as requested by Rankin last year.
___Willis insisted this would not constitute "termination," however. But Rankin's latest letter makes it crystal clear: "If I do not hear from you regarding one of these options by May 5, 2003, I will be recommending that the board take action to terminate your service in their May meeting."
___Rankin told the Dills and other missionaries that failure to sign the controversial faith statement or to resign on their own initiative would "undermine the integrity and credibility of the IMB."
___The Dills asked Rankin why that is so. "The answer is simple," they then wrote. "It is not possible with integrity to terminate missionaries who are guilty of nothing but years of faithful service and having a deep sense of love for God's word."
___Rankin has insisted that missionaries must sign the revised faith statement to remain "accountable to Southern Baptists."
___"To which Southern Baptists are we being accountable?" the Dills asked in response.
___"The truth is that Southern Baptists have not required missionaries to sign the Baptist Faith & Message 2000. Alabama, our home state, acknowledged all three statements of faith (versions of the Baptist Faith & Message). Texas, our partner state for the last three years, rejected the 2000 version outright. ... Even the trustees of the IMB have not required missionaries to sign. To whom are we not acting accountably? Who is actually requiring us to sign?"
___Rankin has said non-signing missionaries are guilty of advocating "positions contrary to what Southern Baptists confess to believe." Again, the Dills asked, what positions have they held that are contrary to Southern Baptist beliefs?
___"Is it that we believe God's word must be supreme in our lives and that it is wrong to make a man-written document the test for our faith and calling?" they asked Rankin. "Or would Southern Baptists disagree that Christ is Lord of Scripture and that we must understand the word of God first and foremost through his love, his teaching, his death and his resurrection?"
___The only possible point of contention, they report, is their belief "that God can call whomever he chooses to serve wherever, whenever and however he so chooses." That runs counter to the new Baptist Faith & Message's declaration that women may not serve as pastors.
___"Is a different understanding of Scripture in this matter really grounds for dismissal?" they asked Rankin.
___Critics of the SBC's revised faith statement, including many in the Baptist General Convention of Texas, have faulted it for placing greater authority in the Bible than in Jesus, for demanding that wives "submit" to their husbands, for mandating that churches not hire women as pastors and for weakening the traditional Baptist understanding of the autonomy of the local church and the priesthood of all believers. Critics also have charged the faith statement is being used more like a mandatory creed than a voluntary statement of shared beliefs.
___IMB spokesman Mark Kelly said the missions agency has no response to the Dills' letter other than what had been reported previously in a news release about the deadline for missionaries to sign or lose employment.
___A letter similar to the Dills' was written by Leon and Kathy Johnson, missionaries to Mozambique.
___To say that they are unwilling to be accountable to Southern Baptists, as Rankin asserts, is an "untruth," the Johnsons told Rankin. "The IMB already has established proceedures for dealing with anyone who teaches or practices things not in accordance with accepted Southern Baptists norms. We already stand accountable to Southern Baptists. Signing a document will not make me more accountable."
___Like the Dills', the Johnsons question how missionaries can be accountable to the SBC by signing a document the SBC has not asked them to sign. "Are you acting in accountability to the trustees of the IMB and the churches of the SBC by imposing upon us a requirement that they have not mandated?" they asked Rankin.
___On Rankin's point that non-signing missionaries "continue to advocate positions contrary to what Southern Baptists believe," Johnson responded: "I challenge you to produce one piece of evidence to substantiate this statement. Avery Willis in his phone call affirmed that neither I nor Kathy have been accused of saying or doing anything contrary to the positions that Southern Baptists hold."
___It is Rankin, not the missionaries, who are undermining the integrity and credibility of the IMB, Johnson declared. "Your disregard of the truth in making false accusations and insinuations in public without giving the accused recourse to defense does more to undermine the integrity and credibility of the IMB than Kathy's and my refusal to violate our consciences by signing a document. We clearly perceive this document to be functioning in purpose and usage as a creed even if not in name."
___The Johnsons reminded Rankin that he said he requested missionaries sign the affirmation of the Baptist Faith & Message to protect themselves "from charges of heresy behind your back while you are overseas and cannot defend yourself."
___"Yet when challenged to identify any person making such charges, any person being charged or any heresy being suggested, you suddenly changed the rationale from protection against heresy charges to a demonstration of accountability to the IMB and SBC," the Johnsons' letter states.
___Further, the Johnsons challenge Rankin's statement that asking missionaries to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message is not a new requirement.
___"At any time in history have serving veteran missionaries on the field been required (or "requested") to sign the Baptist Faith & Message? When the 1925 version was adopted, were the serving missionaries required to sign it? When the 1963 version was adopted, were the serving missionaried required to sign it? If you answer "no," as you must, then this is a new requirement."
___Like the Dills, the Johnsons also declared they will not resign because they have done nothing wrong. "If you wish to ask the trustees to terminate us without cause, you can do so freely. ... However, in doing so you and the trustees must accept responsibility before God for your actions."
___IMB trustees meet May 6-8 in Framingham, Mass.
The Baptist Standard
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook
|