A Response to Jerry Rankin’s reflections on BF&M 2000
By Charles Deweese

International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin recently issued a statement [in Baptist Press] titled Reflections on missionaries’ response to affirming the Baptist Faith and Message.” His purposes appear to be two-fold: (1) to justify recent International Mission Board forced resignations and firings of missionaries who refused to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message; and (2) to prove that the way the IMB used the BF&M is not creedal. He failed on both counts.

One sentence in Rankin’s statement illustrates the problems: “For more than 400 years, Baptists have been expressing their distinctive stance on social issues and doctrinal positions in drafting confessions of faith—and they will continue to do so.”

First, all reliable textbooks in Baptist history show that Baptists originated in 1608-09, first in Amsterdam and later in England. Therefore, no Baptist confessions are more than 400 years old. Bad history typifies the fundamentalist mind-set. Inability to get the facts straight (coupled with manipulation of the facts in order to advance personal and institutional agendas) characterizes every religious movement whose goal is to control denominational enterprises at the expense of individual Christians.

Second, Rankin is right. Baptists have drafted confessions for hundreds of years. Baptist literature contains thousands of confessions, and therein lies the problem. Whose confession is right? Even the SBC keeps changing its own confession (e.g., 1925, 1963, 1998, 2000). How can a denomination canonize a confession and treat it like the 67th book of the Bible or worse as a substitute authority for the entire Bible in determining the qualifications of missionaries?

Further, what right does a denomination have to treat faithful missionaries disrespectfully simply because they refuse to sign a human-made document? Have the SBC and the IMB forgotten that the Bible is our sole written authority as Baptists? A confession is subsidiary, secondary, derivative—non-authoritative. Only the Bible can be officially, completely, ultimately authoritative.

Put simply, confessionalism affirms free faith; creedalism subjugates faith to someone else’s viewpoints. Confessionalism is faith with options; creedalism is faith with no options. Unfortunately, the IMB has chosen the path of no-option subjugation.

For further information on the role of confessions and creeds in Baptist history and life, see the essay “Historic Baptists Denounce Creedalism” which I prepared for the book Stand with Christ: Why Missionaries Can’t Sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message published by Smyth & Helwys.

Charles Deweese is executive director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society

October 2003