CO-CHAIR THOUGHTS FROM JEROLD McBRIDE
Pastor, First Baptist Church, San Angelo

Missionaries Deserve Better Treatment!

Our foreign missionaries deserve better treatment than they have been receiving lately. At First Baptist, San Angelo, we believe in these good people and become concerned when they are kicked around. Evidence that we care for them is seen in our gifts last year. We gave $611,711 to all mission causes and $57,582 to the SBC Foreign Mission Board in addition to the $134,351 given directly to mission fields where the Foreign Mission Board is working.

Because of our personal involvement in and support for foreign missions, I am troubled by what the president of the Foreign Mission Board stated recently concerning our missionaries.

The Baptist Press, the official press of the SBC, quoted Rankin’s remarks to the Foreign Mission Board trustees. His statements reflect the fundamentalist’s line of “I’m right and you’re wrong, I’m in charge and you’re not, I’ll speak and you will listen, I’m a God-appointed leader so you must follow!” Here is some of what Jerry Rankin said:

“The real evidence of change will come when the following characteristics are reflected in our missionaries:

• “A passion to know Christ and make Him known with a total abandonment that supersedes concerns of finances, family and personal fulfillment.” (It is easy for Rankin to say this with his reported $114,225 annual salary, according to The Baptist Standard, May 28, 1997.)

• “A desire to focus on our own ministry and calling rather than demanding the right to be consulted in every mission decision whether it involves us or not.” (Any decision made by the FMB involves every missionary.)

• “A confidence and willingness to follow the wisdom and guidance of God-appointed leadership whether we necessarily understand or agree.” (Again we see the authoritarian fundamentalist mentality. If anyone is “God-appointed” it is those dear people who are laying down their lives for Christ on the foreign mission field!)

• “A recognition that the FMB provides the best, most equitable support possible, within available resources and letters about cost of living become a thing of the past.” (This is a lack of sensitivity to the needs of missionary families especially when the missionaries know funds that were available from SBC restructuring did not go to helping them.)

Rankin is criticizing our missionaries because they are asking questions and have concerns about family, finances and how the FMB makes its decisions. Instead of hearing what these people are saying, he tunes them out and basically says, “God put us in charge. Do not question us. Do what we say whether or not you understand or agree!”

Many of our traditional missionaries who were on the field long before we would appoint “graduates” from Luther Rice, Mid- America, Criswell College, etc., are painfully trapped. They are called to serve. They want to serve. But they do not agree with this neo-fundamentalism agenda and they certainly are not accustomed to being treated in such an abusive and high-handed manner. They expect and deserve something better than that from the Foreign Mission Board and its president.

A question with which I am personally struggling is, “Are we truly helping our missionaries by supporting the Lottie Moon Offering or are we strengthening the fundamentalist leadership which interprets our gifts as a sign of support for their agenda and tries even harder to force conformity on our missionaries?”

I wish it were possible for Texas Baptists to support those traditional Bible-believing missionaries who want to be free to serve without harassment and verbal abuse.

Join me in praying that the Lord will give our missionaries strength to serve and us wisdom to know what to do.

June 1997