24 April 2003

An open letter to Jerry Rankin and the IMB Board of Trustees:

It is with a heavy heart that we write these words, because we are sorely pressed to be able to “live at peace with everyone” (Rom. 12:18), and at the same time be true to our conscience. In Rankin’s letter to us of April 10, he points to our “unwillingness to be accountable to Southern Baptists who send and support” us as the primary reason for recommending our termination. Yet his requirement that we agree to carry out our responsibilities “in accordance with and not contrary to the current Baptist Faith and Message” does not seem to us a true measure of our accountability to Southern Baptists.

We have to ask whether such accountability should focus only on those Southern Baptists in attendance at the 2000 Convention, which approved the current Baptist Faith and Message as the “official” expression of “our common faith.” We personally know many Southern Baptists who help send and support us on the mission field, who do not consider the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message to be an adequate expression of their beliefs. Entire state conventions could be cited as examples. Does their voice no longer matter in the Southern Baptist Convention? Do they indeed constitute such an irrelevant minority that their perspective is no longer worthy of consideration? It is for the sake of these people that we choose not to resign, especially since we do not believe God has revoked our calling to serve in Spain. When you terminate our service with the IMB, are you not sending a message of alienation to these faithful Baptist people to whom we also feel accountable?

We have thoroughly clarified our doctrinal stance and praxis, both at the beginning of our pilgrimage with the IMB (1988) and more recently when you “requested” that we sign the document in question. Is this really “unaccountability”? Throughout our missionary career, we have sent reports back to those who pray for and support us, telling of our projects, victories, and needs, constantly revealing our true faith and practice. Is this the “unaccountability” you refer to? Volunteers from numerous states have co-labored with us here, and on stateside assignments we have shared the missions story in countless churches. Is this being “unaccountable”? Through it all, we have worked closely with our fellow missionaries, our team, our regional leaders, always seeking to show ourselves accountable! Furthermore, we have been careful to demonstrate that our beliefs are totally within the parameters of conservative Christian teaching, and are in no way inconsistent with those held by many Southern Baptists (see our statements, March, July, & Sept. 2002, on file with the IMB). Historically, Baptists have been a people who celebrated their unity in diversity. If you indeed allow for “differences of interpretation, based on Scripture,” as your Southern Baptist missionaries David and Susie Dixon in Madrid, Spain, sent the following letter to International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin, choosing not to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, not to resign by his May 5 deadline and to accept termination. They released this after IMB trustees met in Framingham, Mass., May 6-7, and, according to early reports, fired an undetermined number of missionaries for failing to sign the 2000 BF&M. letter insists, how is it that our minor divergences from the current BF&M are considered grounds for dismissal? Is this truly the spirit that Jesus prayed would characterize his children? Why are we called “unaccountable” simply because we do not agree to conduct our ministry in accordance with a fallible, manmade document?

By asking us to submit our ministry to any document other than Scripture, you are turning a corner that Baptists have historically not been willing to turn. “As for me and my house,” we continue to be unwilling to turn that corner, and history will have to bear out which of us has been truer to our Baptist heritage, “No creed but the Bible.” Southern Baptists have never needed a “papal” committee to bring about conformity to one sole interpretation of biblical doctrines. Secondary issues of interpretation have always been safely left to individual Christians and to local churches as they examined the Scriptures and sought the leadership of the Holy Spirit; such questions are not a matter on which some select committee should dictate for the rest of us the “proper biblical interpretation.” In Spain, our Roman Catholic friends and neighbors have a pope to tell them what the Bible means and how they should interpret it. As Baptists, my wife and I cannot and will not affirm a document that seems to take us in that same authoritarian direction. Are we indeed thereby being unaccountable to Southern Baptists?

Does the Holy Spirit himself act always “in accordance with and not contrary to the current Baptist Faith and Message”? We need only witness events in China to discover that he does not: women serving as pastors, evangelists, church planters! They demonstrate that when it comes to winning the lost and gathering them into the kingdom, God uses any instrument available to do his bidding! And the IMB reported on it with enthusiasm, not condemnation (June Commission, 2002)! If the Holy Spirit decides to reap a harvest such as China is experiencing in the country where we serve, we don’t want to miss out on it!

Therefore, in our observation and personal experience, we find that God is passionate about his word, not about human documents that pretend to give the definitive interpretation of his word and impose it on those who would serve him. Moreover, we find that God is passionate not about the letter of the law, but about the Spirit—not about rules, but about souls! In our Christian life and ministry, we will continue to affirm these priorities, and no others! Are we thereby unaccountable to Southern Baptists? We acknowledge that temporal responsibility for judging this matter is in your hands, but we urge you to realize that much more is riding on your decision than our own personal participation in IMB missions.

By the grace of our Lord Jesus, David C. Dixon & Susan F. Dixon Madrid, Spain

June 2003