AN URGENT OPEN LETTER TO DR. JERRY RANKIN AND TRUSTEES OF THE INTERNATIONAL MISSION BOARD

My concern for the missionary force of Southern Baptists and for the future fabric of mission life calls for a personal response to the current issue impacting the spirit of our people globally. Missionaries on every continent are being torn apart by the request to sign an affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message statement.

In essence, this request forces missionaries to do something Jesus admonished his followers not to do: to look back after once putting their hands to the plow.

Looking back is not at the missionary’s initiative, however. After having once passed a rigorous appointment process that dealt with their theological and doctrinal positions, the administrative signing request forces the missionaries to look over the shoulder, worrying if their praying, supporting constituency doubts their spiritual soundness.

Future fall-out is equally disturbing. Some missionaries will sign their affirmation readily. Others will not sign, feeling their integrity would be compromised. Some will feel if supervisors can “play this little signing game,” they can too. They will sign, not out of conviction, but as a way of trying to refocus their attention on their calling and their work.

The seeds of division are now planted. Suspicion of each other’s position on signing may lie hidden in the depths of the missionaries’ hearts until Satan seizes the moment to bring the bud to full blossom. The witness of a would-be harmonious mission family will have been blunted by the Evil one’s sowing discord on one side of the ocean in America and then guaranteeing a way for it to spread to every continent—all on the wings of a pious articulation of doctrinal soundness.

We have just returned from an awesome fact-finding mission in Liberia; we went during a national state of emergency declared by the Liberian president. Due to the rebel advances, over-crowded refugee camps, and memories of prior atrocities, everyone lives in fear. In Monrovia people move through the day acting like everything is ok. But their eyes are on borders for escape rather than on a future with hope. Sadly, like those in Liberia, many within the missionary force now move through the day pretending everything may turn out all right, but down deep they live in fear. That is not the work of the Holy Spirit.

An elected administrator of a mission agency is certainly accountable to those who elect him or her. But mission administrators and trustees also ought to be the strongest advocates for the missionaries, and adversaries of anything that will distract them from effective service. It now appears the administration has become an advocate for a denominational system that puts them in an adversarial role with the missionaries. There may be a denial of this charge. But whatever the intended outcome of this request to our missionaries, the consequences are horrendous.

I plead with you as trustees and administrators to rescind this action. If there is some unidentified Southern Baptist raising questions and doubts about the mission force, please be the kind of advocates that put those doubts to rest—permanently.

Lastly, provide for all of us a model of humble servanthood that asks forgiveness from those most affected. Give assurance that the fall-out now occurring will be taken care of quickly and wisely. (And I have mentioned nothing of the potential fallout among trusted national leaders whose willingness to work with us is already strained to the max in many places.) It may not be too late, but the clock is ticking.

Submitted in hope,

Bill O’Brien

William R. (Bill) O’Brien is a former missionary and executive vice president of the Foreign Mission Board, retired founding director of the Global Center at Beeson Divinity School of Samford University, and co-director of BellMitra Associates in Birmingham, Ala.

April 2002