Letter of Support for Missionaries Fund

Editor’s Note: This letter was written to Jim Denison, chair of the BGCT Texas’ Missions Sending Agencies Study Committee.

Dear Jim,

Please add my name to the list of those who share the concern you expressed in your letter of February 22, 2002, regarding Jerry Rankin’s decision to require all of our missionaries to sign a loyalty oath to the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message statement.

I fully support your suggestion that the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Missions Sending Agencies Study Committee recommend to our state’s Executive Board the creation of a fund to help support our missionaries who refuse to sign the statement being required by the International Mission Board.

Further, all of us in Texas should be alarmed at Morris Chapman’s arrogance. I greatly resent his personal letter asking me to undermine my own state convention’s budget through his recent blatant attempt to influence me as a pastor in my congregation’s support of the BGCT’s budget. Chapman offends all Baptists as he continues to try to create a papal-like hierarchy in a denomination founded only on the hierarchy of the local congregation.

Fundamentalists like Rankin and Chapman will never accept a working relationship among equals. It is time that the BGCT takes the steps necessary to ensure our continuing autonomy and support the missionaries who have served sacrificially for so many years.

Sincerely,

James R. Fuller, Ph.D., Senior Pastor
Calder Baptist Church
Beaumont, TX

April 2002