Transition Fund for Missionaries Gets $1 Million Running Start
By Robert O’Brien

DALLAS—Eighteen prominent Texas Baptists announced a collective pledge of $1 million after the Texas Baptist Executive Board voted Feb. 26 to establish a fund to cover transition needs of any Southern Baptist missionary who refuses to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message statement.

“The individuals standing before you have come…to indicate our strong support … to aid our missionaries who decide, as an act of personal integrity, that they cannot sign a creed,” Baylor University President Emeritus Herbert Reynolds told an applauding audience.

Reynolds later said an initial goal for the special missionary transition fund is $5 million to help defray transitional support, transportation costs, housing, food and other expenses. Texas Baptists also plan counseling and support groups for missionaries facing a loss of identity and career.

Among other actions, the executive board approved establishment of a Texas Baptist Chaplaincy Endorsement Board and a motion to reaffirm their commitment to the Bible.

The introduction to the recommendation to establish the fund expressed “deep sadness” that International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin has requested missionaries to sign the 2000 BF&M.

It called the BF&M “a man-made document that is being placed dangerously close to equal ground with the Bible and that is now being used as ‘an instrument of doctrinal accountability.’”

The action voted by the executive board — called by several “a defining moment in Baptist history” — also said that the Baptist General Convention of Texas would:

• Actively seek churches and institutions to assist in caring for these missionaries (from Texas or any other state).

• Work with other Baptist groups (both in and outside the state) who share this concern. (Texas Baptist leaders said they have already received a number of such requests from out of state.)

• Instruct its missions review and initiatives committee to explore and report back, by September 2002, “positive and proactive ways” that BGCT churches and institutions “can encourage and assist these missionaries to express their God-given mission calling.”

“We’re not envisioning a massive missionary agency,” committee member R. Keith Parks later told reporters at a news conference. “We’re exploring ways to cooperate with others to help our missionaries maintain their integrity.”

Parks, flanked by a dozen former and current missionaries, told the executive board that in the previous two weeks he had already heard from more than 60 missionary couples.

“That number moves higher by the hour,” he said.

Earlier, the missions review and initiatives committee had announced establishment of an email address — newmissions@bgct.org — to collect confidential information from missionaries concerned about signing the 2000 BF&M.

Parks said Texas Baptists have no estimate about how many missionaries will reject a request from Jerry Rankin, his successor as president of the International Mission Board, to sign the BF&M.

But he reiterated a statement made earlier in a stirring address by BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade:

“If there is only one missionary family who, for conscience sake, has to return, I will be honored to stand beside them and be embarrassed if I don’t,” Wade said.

The vote to establish the transition fund came in a regular executive board business session against a backdrop of missions presentations. At one point, everyone in the room knelt to pray that they would reach lost and needy people with the gospel and ministry of Jesus Christ without distraction.

“God doesn’t see lines of division, he just sees people,” Carolyn Porterfield declared in a focus on missions. “He instructs us to go and take the gospel to them.”

Texas Baptist leaders introduced the motion to set up the special fund with stirring remarks about the folly of bowing down to a man-made creed.

“Some brave young men and women will not bow down to a creed even if it costs them their jobs,” said BGCT President Bob Campbell, who likened the request to sign the document to a request by King Nebuchadnezzar in the Old Testament to ask God’s people to bow down to idols of gold.

“What about you?” he asked. “Will you bow down? Today, you will be asked to demonstrate courage.” He softly began to sing from a hymn as the board members joined in: “My faith has found a Resting Place, Not in device nor creed…. It is enough that Jesus died, And that he died for me.” (Page 380 Baptist Hymnal.)

Texas Baptist leaders said missionaries were being asked to sign the document after Rankin promised that would not happen. They said the BF&M eliminates Jesus as “the criterion through which Scripture is to be interpreted” and tries to turn the concept of the priesthood of each individual believer into a corporate priesthood of believers who tweak a man-made document to suit their own interpretations.

“The Bible is the written record of God’s Word,” one rose to say. “We must have Jesus and the Bible. We need no man-made summaries. Write your own creed but don’t insist that another say it exactly that way.”

At a news conference, a reporter asked: “Most of my readers are non-Baptist. How can I tell them why this is important?”

“It’s a matter of conscience,” Campbell responded. “It strikes at the heart of Baptist work.”

Texas Baptists said persons wishing to participate may send checks, made out to “Missionary Transition Fund,” to the Baptist General Convention of Texas, 333 N. Washington Ave., Dallas, TX 75246-1798. Phone: 214-828-5100.

April 2002