Summary of Changes in the SBC from a Missions perspective
by: Keith Parks, 1993

Editor's note: Reprinted from March 1993 TBC newsletter as quotes from a dialogue with Keith Parks. In 1992, Parks resigned from being the president of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1999, he retired as global missions coordinator for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and now lives in Richardson, Texas.

 "Some interesting things have happened in the last dozen years or so . when things began to move in different directions in the Southern Baptist Convention. I had conversations with quite a number of those who have emerged as leaders and those in control of the SBC now, and found they were arguing that it really was not missions but doctrine that held us together.

"Now our charter, our constitution, our budgets, and our history, all say missions was the cohesive force that brought us into being, and the dominate force that has kept us together. But the SBC leaders being elected said "no, that is not true at all."

"I argued with them thinking that they were just misunderstanding our SBC history, but it finally dawned on me that they were Baptists who do believe that we are joined together by doctrine. Once that became the most important thing about the SBC to those who were in the controlling leadership posts, everything with our convention began to change.

"When expression of a particular doctrinal view is the litmus test, when that is the most important thing, whether you are being considered as a trustee of an institution, an executive of an agency, or to publicly speak somewhere, when that is the determining factor, then the SBC has changed from where it once was. This means that everything we do has begun to change, including our mission program. "I am up close enough to the SBC mission program that I can identify many, many changes that have taken place.

"Another change that has taken place is that when doctrine is the crucial issue, and not just doctrine but the kind of doctrine that certain leaders insist that everyone espouse, believe, preach, support, - when that is the central issue then everything that we do is measured by that rather than be missions.

 "And when missions begins to be measured by doctrinal purity, according to that definition, then missions here, the missionaries, what happens overseas, all begins to be radically altered.

"Another change that has happened is that never in our history have trustees wanted to control everything that was said. Anything displeasing that might be said, they have moved in to put pressure on that missionary, that staff member, to retract, change, or simply not say that particular thing.

"When you come to a place where fear, intimidation, where reward and punishment are the controlling factors in a denomination then we are no longer a Southern Baptist Convention. That has happened in every agency all across the convention.

May 2000