Kill the Beast

There has been quite a bit of press in the last few weeks over a recent decision of the IMB. For those that don't know IMB is short for International Mission Board. It is the overseas missions arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, of which I am a card-carrying member. I believe that the good people of the IMB are accomplishing many great things for the glory of God, however I don't think that means that they are without their faults. For some time I have been cautiously questioning their actions and I have seen no shortage of hyprocrisy.

Two fundamental aspects of Southern Baptist philosophy and practice are the priesthood of the believer and the autonomy of the local church. In other words, each person is responsible for their relationship with God. They don't require a priest or any other intermediary. They can go to God themselves, and presumably in their own unscripted way. Additionally each church is responsible for determining their method of ministry and even their teaching. More and more it appears to me that the IMB is sidestepping those centuries old foundational beliefs.

The recent flurry of press came when IMB trustees voted to disqualify any missionary candidate who practiced speaking in tongues in any form, including a PRIVATE prayer language. They also voted to disqualify any person who didn't meet their strict guidelines for baptism. Those guidelines included post-conversion baptism in a church that believes in baptism as a symbol and no more and also ascribes to eternal security.

In each issue I think we see the IMB overstepping their bounds. First, in regards to the use of a prayer language, it seems that this is clearly a private matter between a believer and God. I don't and to this point have never had a private prayer language but I know several Godly people who have. This isn't an abuse of the tongues gift and seems to fall in line with Paul's discussion of tongues in 1 Corinthians. Note that the IMB isn't talking about disqualifying people based on their character or any questionable, immoral behavior. They are disqualifying people based on a personal issue. They argue that it is not normative of Southern Baptists to practice tongues in this form and for that reason it should not be practiced by our representatives on the mission field. Well, I hate to bring this up but "normative" for Southern Baptists could easily include spiritual apathy, an indifference towards lost people, a lack of financial commitment to the works of God, and so on. Are these the normative characteristics they want to use to judge their missionary candidates by? Candidates should be men and women of humility and character. Whether they use a private prayer language has no bearing on that.

The second issue, that of baptism, flies in the face of the autonomy of the local church. Each missionary candidate has ALREADY been examined and approved by their home church. Their character, commitment, and spiritual maturity have been attested to by those who know them best. They are active, participating members in their Southern Baptist churches and if they are deemed fit and their baptism is deemed in order by their home church then that should be all that matters.

All of this is compounded for me on top of the decision by the trustees several years ago to begin requiring missionaries to swear allegiance to the Baptist Faith and Message of 2000. Baptists have always been a non-creedal people. It goes back to those two foundational principles I mentioned earlier. Now we're making IMB personnel, who again have been approved and attested to by their home churches, sign what amounts to a creed. Their beliefs must rigidly adhere to the majority opinion in order to qualify.

Based on these things I can only conclude that the power has gone to their heads. I like what someone posted earlier on another site regarding the pendulum swinging too far after the conservative resurgence. Our leaders have built themselves a fine box and now they are doing everything in their power to defend it. Any disagreement or divergence from the accepted way or the "normative practice" of conservative Baptists is a threat and could signal the destruction of our way of life.

The IMB was begun as a way for Baptists to pool their resources in order to more effectively share the love of Christ with the world. To that end I think it is a worthy cause. However, what it has become is an entity that supersedes it's authority and keeps godly people from being able to fulfill their calling. That's when it's gone too far. I wonder if it's not time for local churches to re-assert their autonomy and stop feeding the beast.