A FORMER MISSIONARY RESPONDS T0 CRITICISM OF PARKS

A FORMER MISSIONARY RESPONDS T0 CRITICISM OF PARKS
By Dean Dickens

A response to Morris Chapman's statement about Keith Parks, "Dr. Parks has a well-founded reputation of being unpleasant in his dealings with people he disagrees with, but in this case he is particularly intemperate in his remarks. It is sad when anyone determines that he can only build up his work by tearing down that of others. Disgruntlement and bitterness spoil a man's spirit, jade his judgment and sometimes warp his integrity."

Quote from May 22 Baptist Press article. Chapman is president of the SBC Executive Committee.

In reading that Dr. Keith Parks had agreed to share with a Missouri group his insight and experience about the SBC changes, I was both surprised and appreciative. Surprised because, although Keith knows the inside story on the SBC takeover, he usually speaks on the missionary passion that marks his life and fires his passions.

While I was pleasantly surprised at his candid and painful reflections on the "deceit . . . lying . . . (and) cheating" in the SBC takeover, I was staggered and disappointed, but not surprised at the response from Morris Chapman of the SBC Executive Committee.

Nashville responses did not refute what Parks said. Instead they shot the messenger. I have sat for two months on my concerns about this attack yet still feel a need to respond to Chapman's uncharitable and unbiblical remarks. Why?

First, if anyone in this world has a well-founded reputation of being unpleasant in his dealings with people he disagrees with, it is anyone except Keith Parks. Having known, loved, and worked with him for 30 years, I have never heard of him being unpleasant or ungentlemanly to anyone let alone being bitter or disgruntled.

Those of us who know Keith know he is the consummate Christian gentleman. Chapman's self-serving piety reminds one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's words: "The more he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."

Second, Chapman expressed dismay that Parks would encourage people to support missions beyond the SBC Executive Committee's definition of the Cooperative Program. A reviewing of CP history reveals it initially used funds from people who gave in other designated ways.

For Chapman to say Parks came to this conclusion of giving outside the CP only after finding new employers is sad, sadistic and scurrilous. Chapman knows that Parks no more looked for new employers than did Larry Baker (Christian Life Commission), Loyd Elder (Sunday School Board), Russell Dilday (Southwestern Seminary), Milton Ferguson (Midwestern Seminary), Al Shackleford and Dan Martin (Baptist Press) and others.

Parks delayed going with the fledgling CBF, who simply wanted to have a real fellowship, be real Baptists and cooperate in an ongoing worldwide missionary task.

Chapman used that same convoluted logic about Parks having been hired and salaried through CP.

(1) Keith Parks has never been for hire. I don't recall Chapman ever having been attracted by the fantastic salary we Southern Baptist missionaries were privileged to receive. We were grateful for the privilege of serving. We were appreciative of support Southern Baptists offered. Chapman would do well to revise his insulting secular thinking.

(2) That massive $20,000 annual field missionary salary for which Keith Parks was "hired" comes nowhere close to the huge salary Chapman and others at SBC seminaries and agencies have negotiated.

(3) Many don't know that in Richmond and at CBF, Parks fought against getting more than a field missionary's salary.

Nashville often wails that "CBF mission giving will cause our missionaries to be cut off and abandoned." What SBC leaders don't want Baptist laymen to know is the International Mission Board has on hand more than $350 million in Invested Funds and an additional income of $215 million.

Reported investments incomes are $26 million. Neither Parks nor anyone begrudges IMB having hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars invested beyond their regular budget funds. We are glad. Let's not act as if CBF mission giving is going to harm mission finances.

Parks, in his Missouri address, also noted concern that SBC takeover methods were dishonest and unbiblical. He quietly mentioned he was forced out of Foreign Mission Board leadership. "Never one time did anyone try to accuse me of not believing the Bible."

No, they did not and cannot. More important, Parks obeyed the Bible. We need more of that today from New Boston to Nashville.

If Nashville can't heed the Holy Bible they told us they were anxious to defend, they might remember Russell Lynes' worldly observation, "Cynicism is the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence, the dishonest businessman's substitute for conscience, the communicator's substitute, for self-respect." Nashville's tune is a pathetic analysis.

September 2000