Not Enough
By Louis Cobb, Tyler

During the years I directed the appointment process for missionary candidates at the Foreign Mission Board (now IMB) I discovered many Baptists did not understand the significant difference between a person’s confession of faith and their doctrinal statement. Since Baptists affirm they are a confessional people and have no creed but Bible, attention is often directed Peter’s confession in Matthew 16: and to the confession of faith in Romans 10:9-10 to illustrate our “confessional” sharing of the deepest convictions of the soul.

For many years, missionary candidates were requested to write “in their own words” their confession or statement of faith. Although there was recommendation adopted in 1919, never implemented, for candidates appointment to sign their response the question, “Are your doctrinal beliefs in substantial agreement with those adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention as printed in the Baptist Faith and Message?”

Unfortunately, the IMB is not only requiring candidates to sign before are appointed, but now will require missionaries who have already been appointed, many of them 20- and 30- veterans, to affirm and sign the Baptist Faith and Message—or else. How sad. “Confessing with one’s mouth, and believing in one’s heart” seem no longer to be enough.

Louis Cobbs directed the appointment process for many years at the Foreign Mission Board (now IMB). This is copy of the letter he wrote to the editor of The Baptist Standard expressing his dismay regarding changes the missionaries must make or give up their calling.

April 2002