The Cooperative Program Is More than a Money Trail

The Cooperative Program is a way of polity. In other words, it is a ethos of cooperative work among Southern Baptists that just happens to work best with a certain financial pathway.

It is Cooperative Planning. The Cooperative Program ideal means that none of us get precisely the budget we might plan all by ourselves. Rather, we join forces with sister churches who are around us and plan a consensus strategy and a consensus budget for the work we are going to do with one another.

This kind of vision is difficult for some of our Southern Baptist churches to embrace. I think one reason is because it demands a high level of respect for sister churches, and sometimes we tend to get so wrapped up in our own little silos that we lose sight of intercongregational fellowship and partnership in the gospel. This is made more difficult when Southern Baptist bodies grow very diverse doctrinally, methodologically, doxologically, and otherwise. We can work together through a great deal of diversity, but there has to be some unifying basis around which we gather and work. Our confession of faith is probably the best provision for that need.

Working in this way requires that our mutual respect for sister churches should facilitate a quest for a common plan. We have to be ready to submit our personal visions, plans, and objectives to the communal negotiations of the family of churches and work toward some consensus plan that lies within the realm of the possible outcomes.

To disagree with the budget of one's state convention and then summarily pull out of the Cooperative Program without having at least attempted to step up to the mike and influence the common plan toward some superior alternative is to betray this communal, cooperative planning mindset. It is a go-it-alone approach that views missions not as our common business but as our individual pursuits.

It is Cooperative Fundraising. The entities that benefit from the Cooperative Program have historically agreed to forego direct solicitation of the churches for anything other than the Cooperative Program. There have been, of course, exceptions (like the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering), but the general agreement is that Southern Baptist entities cooperate with one another in raising money toward the common good through the Cooperative Program.

Five years ago I tried to describe the lay of the land before we had the Cooperative Program in a post entitled "The Year 25 BCP." When our entities were counting on direct funding from individual churches rather than upon the common stream of the Cooperative Program, increasing amounts of money were lost to the professional fundraisers.

Cooperative fundraising benefits us all because the moneychangers all take their cuts and we therefore benefit from the relative lack of them in our system. Right now those churches who just give large sums of money directly to the IMB are getting illegitimate benefits. They know about the IMB because of CP-funded promotional work, but they give around that stream. When the Cooperative Program dies, the funding for the fundraising will have to come out of those funds being raised. As the competitive environment becomes more threatening, entities will lose higher and higher percentages of their received gifts to cover fundraising overhead.

It is Cooperative Giving. We had one transitional year when our church delved into a little bit of direct giving to entities. We were, at that time, still in the Baptist General Convention of Texas. When the BGCT capped the amount of CP dollars that could go to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, making sure that our church's CP dollars could not flow through to SWBTS, we started to give some amount of money directly to SWBTS in order to offset that spiteful act.

I quickly discovered that a lot of perks and benefits come from direct giving. We had never been recognized before, but suddenly the same level of contribution, given directly to the institution, qualified us for the President's Club. I got invited to soirees. Our church's name was printed on fancy programs.

But as soon we were able to do so, we returned to a thoroughly Cooperative-Program-focused giving strategy. Our church didn't get the same level of recognition, but we weren't in it for the recognition to begin with. We just wanted to be found faithful to do our part in giving to support our common Great Commission work. We give not only as an obligation to our Lord in fulfilling the Great Commission, but also as an obligation to our sister churches, that we should not leave others on the hook for more than their fair share of the burden of what we have planned together.

It is Cooperative Work. The Cooperative Program is built around the idea that it takes a multi-homed approach to accomplish the work of the Great Commission. It's wonderful that we have an International Mission Board. Now, who's going to train the missionaries? We're going to need seminaries for that, and they're going to have to produce students who aren't up to their eyeballs in educational debt. By the way, where will the seminaries find those students? They're going to be the students who surrendered to missions at Falls Creek and at other Baptist encampments maintained mostly by state conventions and operated either by them or by folks like our friends at Lifeway. How did they get there? They fell under the influence of pastors or youth pastors or other people at a local Southern Baptist church, which was probably planted once upon a time by a state convention and whose leadership probably attended a seminary. That local church, by the way, will provide the funding for every link in the chain.

The Cooperative Program is simply what you get when you fully realize that none of these parts will thrive without the others. We work cooperatively because we cannot succeed otherwise.

Conclusion

Do you see why I think it is so important that the leaders casting the vision for our convention should be proven supporters of the Cooperative Program? It is more than just a question of accounting. It is more than just dumpster-diving through ACP records to ferret out who gave what when.

Promoting leaders who have a passion for a Cooperative-Program-centered vision for our future means promoting leaders who buy into a whole philosophy of cooperation. It will affect the way that they raise funds. It will affect the way that they view their relationships with one another and with the state conventions and local associations and churches. It will affect the way that they envision the interface between the cogs of their work and all else that happens in Southern Baptist life.

Having this CP-vision is therefore among the most important qualifications for a person who would serve in a role like the IMB Presidency. At least I think so. Whatever bold vision a man might have for the future of the IMB, the power to achieve it will be found only—mark my words—only in his ability to bring Southern Baptist mules (a deliberately chosen metaphor!) together and yoke them into the same harnesses and get them coordinated in the traces. The only approach that has ever accomplished this objective well has been the approach that we call the Cooperative Program.

The best bet for a leader who will successfully accomplish that approach is the man who has already demonstrated an appreciation for it. May the Lord give us that man.

Why David Platt Should Not Be the Next IMB President

I hope you'll recall that I have, in general, tried to be a voice of reasoned, calm moderation in the midst of previous administrative transitions in the SBC. When so many of my friends were vocally opposed to the election of Dr. Jason Allen at MWBTS, for example, I wrote this to ask them to take a deep breath and calm down (and I've got to say, I'm pretty pleased with his performance so far). Those of you who know me well have come to conclude, I hope, that I am not unreasonably reactionary.

Nevertheless, having received confirmation from multiple independent sources across the country that David Platt is the IMB Search Committee's choice to receive the presidency of the International Mission Board, I cannot help but express my opinion that the trustees must not elect him to serve in this position. I offer the following reasons, pretty much in descending order of their importance to me.

First, his election is a disastrous blow to the Cooperative Program. His church makes no Annual Church Profile report, and the strongest endorsement of the Cooperative Program he was able to make when asked was, "I'm still wrestling through how [the Cooperative Program] looks in the context of [the church I pastor]." Wrestling. In other words, he affirmed the Cooperative Program with his words even though he didn't lead his church to support the Cooperative Program financially. It isn't because they are so embarrassed about how high their CP support is that Brook Hills is refusing to complete Annual Church Profiles. The Southern Baptist Convention is full of pastors, missionaries, and laypeople who don't have to wrestle with it at all. We know how the CP looks in our churches. We give money through it and change the world for the gospel.

I've got to say, generally I'm the guy who is uncomfortable with all of us picking on each other about our varying levels of CP support. Churches are autonomous. They make their own decisions. Especially I find it distasteful for denominational employees to dare to criticize churches for what they give or don't give. We ought to be thankful for every dollar.

But the calculus of all of that changes a little, I think, when you're asking to be considered for the position of heading up the agency that receives over half of the national CP allocation. At that point, I think it becomes relevant whether you've been a CP visionary who has given actual leadership to strengthen the CP or whether you're somebody who didn't consider strengthening the CP to be worthy of your time and effort. The latter category reflects a group of people who are too lacking in vision and leadership to be promoted to such a position as the helm of the IMB.

David Platt simply has not given leadership with regard to the CP—neither to contribute to it effectively nor to fix whatever he thinks is broken that might prevent him from having confidence in the CP. I'm not saying that he could not; I'm simply observing that he has not. If he wants to go about doing so between now and whenever the next guy at the IMB retires, I'd be happy to consider him among the other qualified candidates at that time.

Look, friends, the Cooperative Program is not dead yet, and it will only die if you and I sit by and watch it die. If those setting the vision for the future of the SBC are a collection of people who really don't care very much about the Cooperative Program, then it certainly will die. I think that would be a shame. I'd be ashamed of myself if I stood by and watched it happen without having said anything. That's what brings me to my keyboard tonight.

Second, His election will be a needlessly polarizing event. And our trustees ought to ask themselves whether that's good for the IMB, good for the SBC, or good for the cause of the gospel. Think of all of the constituencies in the SBC who are going to be offended and polarized by his election:

1. Pro-Cooperative-Program Southern Baptists are not going to like it.
2. Anti-Calvinists are not going to like it (and this time there are not going to be non-Calvinist voices like mine speaking to mitigate them)
3. Anyone who uses "The Sinner's Prayer" is likely to have some concerns.

Perhaps you don't sympathize with ANY of those points of view. But that's not really the question, is it? The question is whether it makes a brighter future for the IMB to put a stick into the eye of every Southern Baptist who does fall into one or more of those categories.

Some of you will be offended by what I am writing tonight. I beg of you to ask yourself this question: If you and I have sometimes agreed… If you've ever in the past respected anything else that I have written or felt that I was at all a reasonable interlocutor when we disagreed… If ever you've felt that you and I were partners in the work of the Great Commission or could be partners in the work of the Great Commission… If any or all of that has ever been true for you, then do you think it is a wise choice for the IMB to elect a president who would bring you and me to an impasse like this?

Why, at this moment, in this way, should we polarize the Southern Baptist Convention over this?

The clear answer to me is that we shouldn't. There are other good choices. I pray that the IMB will make one of them.

Third, I fear that, even after his election were over, if it were to occur, he would prove to be a polarizing personality. His statements about "The Sinner's Prayer" are a good example. Ask yourself, how much worse would that controversy have been if the sitting president of the IMB were to make statements like that? And if the president of the IMB made statements like that, wouldn't more than his book sales suffer from it? Should the International Mission Board be jeopardized in that way?

But I think that being "Radical" necessarily involves being someone willing to charge off into controversy from time to time. The question is not whether the world needs people like that. The question is not even whether the Southern Baptist Convention needs people like that. The question is whether Southern Baptists need people like that…at the helm of the International Mission Board.

For my part, I think that personality type and aptitude fit very well the role of a seminary professor. I think it fits very well the role of a pastor and author. I'll even say that I'm entirely comfortable with the idea of David Platt as a successor to Al Mohler or Danny Akin (especially if he shows a little more leadership with regard to the Cooperative Program in the future). I just think it is a mistake we cannot afford right now for us to make him the IMB President. The right guy for the wrong job.

And I cannot make this point strongly enough (I mean that: I won't be able to make it strongly enough for most of you to hear it and believe it). I like David Platt. He's a good preacher. He's a good author. He has said a few things that we need to hear. I support him. I want him to succeed. I support David Platt, and I support the IMB. I just don't support David Platt at the IMB.

Those facts won't keep me from losing friends over this post. And with a heavy heart I realize that if David Platt were to author a post like this about me, I would certainly take it personally and would be offended. It would cast a pall over any friendship or partnership we might try to have afterwards. I realize that the personal stakes involved in a post like this one are high.

But I value the tens of thousands of dollars that my church annually gives through the Cooperative Program. I value the UUPG work that my church is doing through the International Mission Board, to which tens of thousands more dollars are going and to which I personally have given a lot of time, prayer, effort, and discomfort. I value the lives of young people and not-so-young people who are close to me who are serving through the IMB or are planning to serve there. I value the Great Commission. I value the cause of the gospel. I value these things too much to be able to remain silent at this point when I believe so much of this is on the line. We are to be servants of one another. To borrow a phrase from Thomas More, I desire to be David Platt's good servant, but God's first.

I believe in our trustee system. Our trustees have not voted yet. I beg of you not to do so until you have given these questions full and careful consideration. That's your job. You owe that to the rest of us. There are better choices out there. Please be careful to get this one right.

The IMB President's salary comes from the Cooperative Program. Whoever draws that salary ought to have been supportive of the Cooperative Program. For me, it's no more complicated than that. We need not an IMB President who wrestles with the Cooperative Program, but one who has embraced it.

Returning to Senegal

In August a deacon and I made first contact with our Unengaged Unreached People Group in Senegal. Much to our surprise and delight, a few people there trusted Christ for salvation on our very first journey. Thursday morning I begin the journey to return there with the same deacon plus two others.

This entire experience has awakened in me emotions that I didn't know I could have. The strongest follower of Christ whom we left behind was a young man named Marcellin. How I've prayed for him! How I've feared for him! With so much against him, so little given to him, so much riding on him, and absolutely no contact with him, all I can think about is to wonder how I will find him on Saturday (it will take that long to get all of the way there).

Our experience with the Embrace project of the IMB has affected my understanding of the New Testament in ways that no survey class could ever accomplish. I knew that Paul tried to write back to the churches that he had planted and tried to return for visits whenever he could do so, but now I find myself wondering whether Paul felt the same emotions with regard to the converts he left behind that I've been feeling about those I've left behind. I can't help but imagine that he did. Was his letter-writing and step-retracing strategic or compulsive?

I can't help but feel that my personal experience as a cross-cultural evangelist and a planter of churches in untilled land have given me stronger insights into parts of the New Testament than I had before.

The whole experience makes me wonder: How understandable is the Bible to those who are not actually trying to live the life of a disciple? Every time I obey more carefully what God has commanded in scripture, I come to understand scripture better. Does God really even care to communicate with armchair quarterbacks, other than to challenge us to rise up and get to work when we're in that category? Are our primary vehicles of Bible study (Sunday School, small groups, discipleship classes, etc.) places where we ought to invest more in praxis not as an alternative to propositional study but as a facilitator for it?

These are unstrung thoughts, needing much more time in the pot before the soup is ready to serve. The point of this post is not really to feed anyone, anyway, but rather to give me the opportunity to express my gratitude for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and the life-changing experience that their Embrace project has been for me and for our church—and, I trust, will be.

More Thoughts About Heart-Language

In January I posted on this blog asking the question "Is Insistence Upon Heart Languages Biblical?" Today, in the midst of a week spent mostly in the research of a short list of 9 UUPGs while we at FBC Farmersville attempt to locate the group we plan to adopt, I have a further question along the same lines.

One of the UUPGs that we're researching is in Mexico. The IMB lists it as a GSEC 0 people group. This means that they know of no gospel resources—no Bibles, no tracts, no Jesus film…nothing—available in that indigenous language. To present the gospel in that language would require starting from scratch. It would be a herculean task.

Performing further research on other web sites, I discovered that the native tongue in question has been classified as an endangered language. Linguists fear that this tongue will soon pass entirely out of use unless something happens to preserve it. The major reason why this language is endangered is the domineering pressure of the Spanish language within the community.

With all of this in mind, and in light of my previous post (which you should read if you haven't), I ask these questions:

1. Shouldn't we be rooting for this endangered language to become an extinct, dead language?
2. If language is the primary boundary separating this people group from others, is that a legitimate boundary if the language is dying and is almost dead? Why should missionaries make more of the linguistic boundary than do the people of the people group themselves?

3. Since there is an untold wealth of gospel material available in Spanish, absolutely no gospel materials available in this target language, and such near hegemony of the Spanish language among this group, wouldn't it be a criminal waste of time and resources to expend any money or time on the development of native-language materials for this group if that money and time could be used to bring the gospel to them in Spanish?

Is an Insistence upon Heart-Languages Biblical?

The New Testament was written in Greek. You've probably read some speculation that one or two New Testament books may have been written first in Aramaic, but it is clear that the preponderance of New Testament books were written originally in Greek and that all of them existed almost exclusively in the Greek language relatively quickly in the history of Christianity. Although it was, at that time, the ROMAN Empire, the apostles did not, as far as I can tell, make any effort to write in Latin. Although Asia Minor was polyglot and the gospel was spreading into Africa and across all of the diversity of the Mediterranean Basin, the apostles were entirely content to evangelize and disciple in Greek.

Greek was the "heart-language" of Thessalonica and Corinth, but apart from them, I'm not sure that it could be considered the "heart-language" of any of the recipients of the other New Testament epistles or books.

I'm presuming that we've all heard sermons and lectures extolling this attribute of the Greco-Roman world—the availability of Greek as a common language throughout the empire—as one attribute of the "fulness of time" that God exploited in revealing the gospel at just the time that He did. And yet, people who affirm that idea and preach that kind of sermon, we will turn right around and say with regard to this day and time that the gospel has not been proclaimed somewhere and the Great Commission has not been obeyed somewhere until we have proclaimed it in the "heart-language" of that people-group. Is it OK for me to wonder aloud whether that insistence is biblical?

Let me make some things clear:

First, I'm not saying that I'm AGAINST the translation of the Bible and the propagation of the gospel into every language known to man. I'm IN FAVOR of that. I'm contributing to make it happen. I'm a fan and a supporter. I'm in favor of a lot of things that are advantageous to the Great Commission. The question is whether translation into "heart-language" is ESSENTIAL to the Great Commission—that until you've done that, you cannot have fulfilled the Great Commission among a people-group.

Second, I'm not denying that there are people in the world who speak and understand no language whatsoever in which the gospel is available. There are people like that. For them, we must provide gospel resources in their languages or we have not obeyed the Great Commission until we do so.

So, what I'm asking is none of those questions, but this: Suppose there is a tribe of people in Central America somewhere, living in a country for which the official language is Spanish. They also have a tribal language that is, compared to Spanish, obscure. The preponderance of people in that tribe speak BOTH their tribal language AND Spanish. One might accurately describe the tribal language as their "heart-language," but they are entirely functional in Spanish, conducting their lives and business in it with regularity. About such a people-group, I ask:

1. If Spanish Bibles are available for this people-group, is it accurate to say that they have no Christian literature available to reach them?
2. If a Spanish-speaking evangelical congregation is in their vicinity, is it accurate to say that they have no Christian churches?
3. If Christians have carried the gospel to these people in Spanish, has the Great Commission been carried out and has the gospel been proclaimed to them?
4. How are they different from, for example, the Galatians, whom the apostles were content to evangelize and disciple in Greek?
5. How are they different from, for example, a tribe of Sioux in North Dakota who might have received English Bibles, may have professed faith in Christ in English, and might attend English-speaking churches?

I'm not shooting at ANYBODY with this post. It's just that, our church having embarked upon this Embrace initiative, I as a pastor am in a position to need to have thought more carefully and to greater depth about my own understandings of Biblical missiology. I'm trying to work that out, and I'd appreciate constructive dialogue.

Aging Heroes

Look for December 2012 to be an season of great fanfare within the Southern Baptist Convention. I'm already making special plans for our annual Christmas Eve Candlelight Service at FBC Farmersville. December 24, 2012, you see, will be the 100^th anniversary of the death of Lottie Moon, the matron saint of Southern Baptist international missions.

Lottie Moon was not the last heroic Southern Baptist missionary, but she is the last (so-far) of our Southern Baptist missionary heroes. In our culture it is a bit harder to have heroes than it was a century ago—the arena of Southern Baptist missions is not the only milieu suffering from this reality. With each passing year, the strength of Lottie's influence fades a bit, except for the historically obsessed like myself. This is the inexorable arc of heroism. People may know the story of Perpetua, Hus, Tyndale, Helwys, or Moon, but the farther back into bygone days these historical heroes are, the less connected many readers feel with them. These heroes may continue to impress, but they become less effective (across the broad swath of the population) to inspire.

It is when someone much like yourself does something inspirational that you are most likely to ask the question, "Shouldn't I be doing something like that, too?"

The most inspirational act within Christianity has always been martyrdom. I confess that my own feelings about martyrdom are strikingly similar to the attitude about chastity held by Augustine ("Give me chastity and continence—but not yet"). I am going to die (unless Christ returns first). I would far rather that I die a meaningful death for my Lord as a martyr than to expire on a hospital bed. But I don't plan to be on the hospital bed anytime soon (not that it is within my power to enact my plans), and it is really the manner of my death, not its timing, that I would like to change. Lord, give me martyrdom—but not yet!

The International Missions Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, it seems to me, is structured to avoid inspirational martyrdom. Our most dangerous missions activities are closely-guarded secrets, unable to inspire anyone but a select few. We do have missionaries who die in missionary service, some of whom die not because of medical conditions or crime but because of anti-Christian hostility. Of these, some number die from meeting anti-Christian hostility while in the midst of delivering a bold verbal witness for Christ, I'm sure. These are the kinds of stories that inspire. The passionaries and martyrologies of earlier eras in Christian history are instructive here.

Tertullian said that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." But we need to add to Tertullian's insight something gleaned from the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, who opined that "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." The blood of martyrdom is not only the seed of the church and her mission, but is some portion of her ongoing sustenance as well. We still need to tell the story of Lottie Moon. We still ought to have the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, and it needs to remain under precisely that name. But we have need of new heroes, and hard fields await the gospel where nothing short of ongoing repetitive martyrdom will lead to the widespread dissemination of the gospel. Among the enormous questions facing the future of Southern Baptist missions is the question of who tomorrow's heroes will be and how they will be made.

Sound Thinking about Church Planting

Ed Stetzer asserts that missiological cooperation is often the doorway to theological compromise and explains the tensions between cooperation and theological vigilance, as well as how the level of necessary theological agreement goes up depending upon what local congregations are attempting to accomplish together. Here's the link. I'm thankful to Ed for his insightful and thought-provoking answer to this question.

Andy Johnson, a pastor with Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, hits the ball out of the park dealing with the idolatry of pragmatism in church planting and missiology (here's the link). He specifically mentions Garrison's Church Planting Movements and indirectly refers to Greeson's The Camel. Johnson is a trustee for the International Mission Board.

International Mission Board No Longer Maintains that BGCT Is Escrowing Lottie Moon Christmas Offering Funds

After publishing my most recent post, I completed a revival that I was preaching and then swung by to see my surviving grandparents-in-law in far rural Missouri. For the past forty-eight hours I have been blissfully oblivious to the ongoing discussion generated by that post. As I pen these words tonight, I still have not read any of the comments that took place after my latest comment in the thread.

I have, however, received numerous telephone calls and emails, some of which I have read. Through these conversations I have learned something of a summary of what has ensued in that thread. I will read it when I have opportunity (but not before I preach tomorrow…priorities always), but there are well over 100 comments, and it may take a while.

I apologize for contributing to this imbroglio. A couple of telephone calls before clicking "Publish Post" and I could have helped to right a misunderstanding of someone else's making rather than becoming an unwitting accomplice. I candidly offer an explanation of why I did not do so, not as an excuse, but in an effort to allow others to learn from my mistake:

1. Because the source of the information was credible.

   The direct source of my information is immaterial. I did not go out of my way to publish this story. I was asked to put it up, and I was willing to do so. The essential data of my previous post was part of the information presented by the staff of the International Mission Board as it hosted its most recent trustee gathering. The exception, as I understand it, is that the BGCT was not identified by name in that presentation as being one of the three conventions. The BGCT's explanation makes it clear that it was indeed one of the conventions in question, even if the entire scenario was a misunderstanding. In discussing presentations at the trustee meeting, I am not talking about secret Executive Session data, but about information presented at a meeting that any of us could have attended had we wished to do so. I took that fact as all of the confirmation that I needed. Call it naivete on my part: I presumed that the IMB both knew what it was talking about and was prepared to stand behind whatever it told its trustees. At least one of these presumptions was demonstrably false.

   I still think that the International Mission Board is a credible source, just not an infallible one. As I was driving home today, I considered the location not far from my route where the I-40 bridge over the Arkansas River collapsed in Oklahoma. I still believe that our Interstate highway system is well-constructed and safe. I trust it well enough to drive over it without any apprehension that it might collapse under me. But we all now know that it happens on rare occasions.

   Likewise, the International Mission Board is staffed by good people trying to accomplish an important task—the important task. I will continue to trust what they say to their trustees and to the public. I consider this episode, inflammatory as it has been, to have been a fluke. Somebody either misunderstood something or made something up. It wasn't me. It wasn't anyone with whom I spoke. We bought it. And with the weight of the IMB behind it, I wasn't in "verify" mode; I was in "publish" mode. I should have verified.

   And then I repeated it, although I did so in a careful manner that remains factually accurate. I accurately reported someone else's inaccurate information, and in doing so was careful to represent the information as someone else's data and not as my own first-hand knowledge. Nevertheless, I threw some measure of my credibility behind it. If you believed it because I reported it, then I have done you a disservice. And for that I apologize.

   And if you ever write or speak in public as I am doing, then perhaps you can learn from this situation that you can never fact-check a story too much, no matter how good your sources are.

2. Because the scenario was believable to me.

   I imagine that some portion of the comments on the previous post questioned my motivation in reporting about the Baptist General Convention of Texas. I could write that I meant the BGCT no harm and was just dispassionately reporting what I heard from others.

   You wouldn't believe me, nor should you.

   Whatever the comment thread says, it would be unlikely for anyone to have placed into my mouth a lower opinion than I actually hold regarding the BGCT. Because they forward as little CP to the SBC as they can possibly get away with (they keep 80% and forward 20%), because of their ongoing animosity and hostility toward the SBC, and because they are reportedly struggling financially, the scenario seemed to me to be precisely the sort of thing that the BGCT would do. My opinion about the BGCT long predates the events of the past two days and arises from air-tight, publicly declared, verified data. Some of you will hold a different opinion of the BGCT. I have not shown you the disrespect of pretending that I don't hold regarding the BGCT precisely the opinion that you think I hold. My church's opinion of the BGCT was expressed in our actions when we determined not to cooperate with the BGCT any longer.

   That being said, I am in no way obsessed with the BGCT. Out of 537 posts on this blog, I only find 10 (now 11) that have to do with the BGCT, and of those 10, some actually say positive things about the liberal SBC denomination in Texas. I'm no Math major, but that constitutes less than 2% of my posts. I'm hardly playing Ahab to the BGCT's Moby Dick.

   But the lesson here deals with our human tendencies, when we see exactly what we expect to see, not to look too closely. Magicians depend upon this strongly ingrained feature of human intelligence. The story not only came from a credible source, but it matched up precisely to the reality that I could imagine to be most likely. Thus I posted without performing more research.

   And the entire situation puts me in the bitter-tasting situation of having somewhat wronged an institution that I dislike and owing it an apology. So, to the BGCT, I apologize for not taking greater care in reporting damaging information about you. I will endeavor, whenever criticizing you in the future, to exercise greater caution to stick to the many publicly verifiable items on which we disagree.

   And, although I believed the story, I am glad to learn that this is merely a situation of lackadaisical inattentiveness toward Lottie Moon money on your part rather than deliberate withholding of these much-needed funds from our missionaries. While we were still affiliated with BGCT, we designated around the convention budget for several years. We never had any reason to suspect that the BGCT did anything other than honor our wishes for our donations.

3. Because the subject matter was very important in my estimation.

   This, I think, is the reason why the trustee meeting was reportedly abuzz about this topic long before I posted my little blog entry. The slow pace of CP and LMCO funds coming to the IMB is reportedly jeopardizing our board's ability to appoint missionaries. I was in a hurry to report what I found to be a credible and disturbing story because I did not want our convention to fail in the funding of a single qualified missionary candidate.

   On this question, I hope that we all agree. The large number of comments is evidence that we all consider this to be a very important question. What I hear about the inflammatory tone of some of the comments is, if accurate, further evidence. We all care about this subject a great deal. Faced with a credible story of such magnitude and importance, I published it in a careful manner that remains to this moment generally factually accurate.

   But, I only achieved that level of enduring accuracy by employing weasel words to cover my limited research into the matter. As a result, I have contributed to a scandalous forty-eight hours that have accomplished precisely the opposite of my intentions—I have brought to the convention's attention a discredited story that will not motivate any Southern Baptist to do anything with regard to missions. And now the fact that our International Mission Board needs a renewed commitment among Southern Baptists to fund this ministry of paramount importance—that story has been lost in the shuffle. The story that I presented, if it had been true, would have been more important in my estimation. As a discredited story, it is obviously of much lesser importance.

   And because of the importance of the topic, I owe it to our missionaries to close out this episode and do my part in moving us all forward to the verifiable and pressing matters of the day. Toward that end, and to contribute to a speedy resolution, I will try to reply promptly to any person with questions to present on this post. I have closed the comments on the other post, not to stifle conversation, but to allow us all to have one place rather than two places to submit comments and to look for replies. I am not going to reply to any of the comments on the other post, but will make a good faith effort to converse in this thread with each and every person who wishes to inaugurate a conversation in this thread. I do not commit to an unlimited conversation with any individual, but I promise to try not to leave anyone out entirely.

I'm a bit embarrassed for whoever got this wrong to begin with, although I hold no ill will toward whoever that was. Furthermore, no matter what caution I exhibited before, I'm a bit embarrassed to have been at the center of it all. A blogger contacted me shortly after I posted my last article rueing the fact that I put it up before he did. Nobody has expressed that regret today!

Nevertheless, as a strong believer in Romans 8:28, I'm glad to do my part to try to bring something good out of it all. As I see those opportunities in this comment thread, I will try to avail myself of them.

DISCREDITED POST...SEE CORRECTION: BGCT Refusing to Release Lottie Moon Funds, Sources Report

The content of this post is no longer representative of the position of the International Mission Board. See the next post for more information.

Sources within the International Mission Board report that the Baptist General Convention of Texas is escrowing Lottie Moon Christmas Offering funds to safeguard BGCT cash flow.

Although churches collect the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for the sole benefit of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the funds generally follow the same pathway as do Cooperative Program gifts—churches send their offerings to their respective state Baptist conventions, which serve as the collecting agents for the Southern Baptist Convention. For eighty-four years the various state conventions have acted in good faith in this role, promptly forwarding Lottie Moon Christmas Offering funds to the International Mission Board for rapid distribution to the cause of international missions.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas has trimmed its staff, programming, and budget substantially over the past several years. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that my church has switched affiliation from the Baptist General Convention of Texas to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention within the past few years. Although the official BGCT budget has shown increasing hostility toward SBC ministries since the 1990s, this event would constitute a rare occasion of BGCT's taking action to blockade funds designated by BGCT churches to SBC causes.

NAMB, IMB, and the GCR

I promised my inerrancy piece next, and I've been delaying blogging in order to try to keep that promise. But that piece is coming out on a different site than this one, and the date of its publication is not entirely within my control. I have decided to move forward and let it come out whenever it comes out. I should also mention this—some of the comments on the last post seemed to indicate that I left a false impression. I am going to be writing about someone who does not affirm inerrancy. I am not going to be “outing” anyone. I will be interacting with the published works of someone. If you do not already know that he is an anti-inerrantist, then you just haven't been paying attention to this particular person. I don't want to spill the beans entirely at this point, simply to preserve a little drama for the unveiling of the piece, but this is not going to be a post in which I reveal that Keith Eitel is a closet liberal <snicker>

Now, to my post.

Recently I received in the mail a form letter from Geoff Hammond and Richard H. Harris commending FBC Farmersville for having given more money in 2008 to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering than any other church in the Collin Baptist Association. As I look at the piece of paper sitting on my desk, with the North American Mission Board logo emblazoned at the top of the stationery, I find myself wondering whether I should save the stationery in case it soon becomes a collector's item and a memento of bygone days in the SBC.

Tim Patterson, chairman of the Board of Trustees for the NAMB, has announced his support for the dissolution of the NAMB and the folding of its tasks into the present International Mission Board (IMB). Whatever Dr. Daniel Akin's and Dr. Johnny Hunt's intentions for Axiom IX of the Great Commission Resurgence document, Patterson's idea is what I expected would be the most likely initiative to emerge as the outcome of the discussion promoted in that document. I think that it is a bad idea.

Don't get me wrong—it isn't that I'm a big proponent of the status quo at NAMB. The letter on my desk is Exhibit A in the case that Southern Baptists could do a better job of cooperating through NAMB. Collin County, Texas, is a mostly urban area populated with many large churches. We're a small-town church in one of the few remaining relatively rural sections of the county. In a decade of ministry here, I can't ever recall us having been the top dollar giver for anything. At least in Collin County, NAMB is so under-supported that our mediocre effort took top prize. I suspect that our association is not atypical.

Frankly, at the risk of self-incrimination, I confess that I personally under-support both NAMB and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. I promote the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering much more. We send much more money to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering (and, by the way, get nowhere close to top ranking in our local association in spite of our doing so, so the other congregations in our association must be giving much, much more to Lottie Moon as well). Why? Respectfully, the answers have absolutely nothing to do with this being the twenty-first rather than the twentieth century. Our mission efforts at home have comparatively struggled since even the century before that.

I can see that the movement to consolidate NAMB and IMB has gained some momentum. I am dubious about the potential of my quiet objections way over here in the corner to divert the steamroller. I presume that some substantial portion of my readership is all jazzed up at the potential of a NAMB-IMB consolidation, and that some further impressive fraction doesn't care one way or the other. Either of these groups may actually be wiser than I am. Nevertheless, for the benefit of us all, I offer the following few ideas that I urge you to consider before supporting the idea of a consolidated mission board for the SBC:

1. Are you certain that this will solve NAMB's problems rather than spread them?

   Back in January 2007 I composed and published a post about the history of NAMB. In addition to providing you with a link, I would like to provide you with most of the text of the post (it was uncharacteristically brief for me):

   The institution that is now known as NAMB has struggled to define itself since 1845. It has struggled to find good leadership since 1845. And since 1845, Southern Baptists have regularly reshuffled and reorganized this institution, throwing at it all of the odds and ends of our denominational life. Just consider the names it has held down through the years:

   1. Board of Domestic Missions (1845)
   2. Domestic and Indian Mission Board (1855)
   3. Domestic and Indian Mission and Sunday School Board (1873)
   4. Home Mission Board (1874)
   5. North American Mission Board (1995)

   Each of those changes involved the folding in of new responsibilities and a reorganization of the board. The last of those was in 1995, when our Covenant for a New Century completely reorganized the SBC and threw all the leftover scraps into NAMB.

   As Southern Baptists, we need to remind ourselves that the scraps are not garbage. So many of the individual ministries inside NAMB are incredible success stories that we need (Disaster Relief is a prominent example that comes to mind, but there are others). Others are areas of pervasive need with few successes (like the evangelization of our major cities in the North). Some of these areas of failure are not NAMB's fault—carrying the gospel to Boston is not an easy assignment. But with the organization focused on so many different, unrelated things, one wonders how it could be expected to maintain institutional focus for such an important task.

   I do not work for NAMB. I do not know many people who work for NAMB. In no way can I give you an inside story about NAMB's achievements, failures, structure, etc., as regards the present day. But as a Baptist historian, I can absolutely tell you this: If the North American Mission Board today has a well-defined, well-understood, well-led, well-executed sense of its nature and mission, then this is virtually the first time in 160 years that such has been the case.

   The International Mission Board has had the benefit of pursuing a concise and clearly understood mission for over 160 years. We've never reorganized it from the outside, folding new entities into its structure. Even if a few proto-John-Maxwells down through the ages have tried to make their mark by “recasting the vision” of the IMB, the common Southern Baptist church knows that the International Mission Board and only the International Mission Board exists to apply the financial and human resources of the Southern Baptist Convention toward the spread of the gospel outside of the United States of America. In the mind's eye of the SBC churches, the International Mission Board exists only to do that.

   Nothing so simple can be said of the North American Mission Board, and that to its detriment. The lack of a clear, simple, intuitive understanding of precisely what it is that the NAMB exists to do eventuates in a lack of congregational allegiance to and support of this vital SBC entity.

   Consolidation of these two boards would do nothing to simplify the tangled web of dissonant tasks existing within the NAMB. Rather, all it would accomplish is the robbing from the IMB of the simplicity and straightforwardness from which it has benefitted for a century and a half. All of these problems would simply move from Atlanta to Richmond.

   Do we really want to do that?

2. Aren't we already organized for the twenty-first century? Are we now getting a head start on the twenty-second?

   A new “FAQ” section has appeared on the Great Commission Resurgence web site. The section is very helpful and was an encouragement to me in several areas. It addresses the fact that Southern Baptists radically reorganized the convention not so very long ago. It omits the name of our 1995 reorganization plan, which was “Covenant for a New Century” (perhaps we should have entitled it “Covenant for the Next Year or Two”). The purpose of that major reorganization was to streamline the SBC and design it to face the new challenges of our present century—the Twenty-First Century. The FAQ handles the objection that Article IX is nothing more than a call to go back and do the same old thing that we did before. Here is that particular question and answer in its entirety:

   We went through a restructuring of the SBC agencies in the mid 1990s, and some feel like the changes were positive while others believe they set us back. Why would we go through this hassle again?

   If you feel like previous changes made us more ineffective, to argue against making a change (since you felt bad decisions were made last time around) is to surrender and assume that we cannot or will not make good decisions as we reexamine the structure of our convention.

   If you feel like the changes made us more effective, to argue against discussing our structure again is to conclude that we cannot make even more effective improvements. We should always be willing to discuss anything and everything to make sure we are being wise stewards of Cooperative Program dollars and resources being used to advance the Kingdom.

   The logic is simple enough. If you didn't like the last round of reorganization, then you must not like the way things are today after that reorganization, and therefore you must see the need for change. On the other hand, if you did like the last round of reorganization, then you must see how beneficial it is to do this sort of thing. No matter what you thought of the last round of reorganization, your opinion must bring you to see how great it would be to reorganize again!

   Simple enough, but some of the logic is missing a few pieces. The key missing ingredient is the fact that reorganization is costly. Reorganization costs

   1. Energy. The Southern Baptist Convention only has so much denominational attention span and so much denominational energy. To commit to a path of reorganization is to decide that the brightest and best minds of our convention will spend the next several years focusing upon organizational charts instead of lost people.

   2. Ministries. Whenever we consolidate, some ministries always die. Consider the Brotherhood Commission. The Covenant for a New Century didn't improve the ministries of the Brotherhood Commission. They certainly needed improvement. RAs, for example, was a program in decline by 1995. Did the folding of the Brotherhood Commission into the NAMB make any actual improvement to the ministries of the former Brotherhood Commission? Not that I can observe. The RA program has gone from sick to comatose.

      Have the ministries of the Radio & TV Commission improved since we consolidated them into NAMB? No. In fact, we sold them out entirely. I think that Southern Baptists could benefit from some creative and energetic harnessing of electronic media. The Radio and Television Commission was a good idea poorly executed. If we cannot learn to use media to spread the gospel, then God help us. Television is full of TBN trash because they took TV seriously while we (Southern Baptists as a whole, not necessarily the folks at the RTVC) did not. Consolidating the RTVC into the NAMB was supposed to be the solution to these problems. It solved nothing; it killed the RTVC.

      Reorganization and consolidation means simply this: Killing off ministries that wind up being tangential to the new behemoth created.

      Am I opposed to the killing off of SBC ministries? Not at all. If we didn't kill off a thing or two from time to time, then we would be a bloated bureaucracy like you couldn't believe. Whatever we have that is not given to us in Scripture may be consigned to the categories of fading flowers and withering grasses.

      But if there are ministries that we need to kill, let us make certain that we do so intentionally and forthrightly. Let us not vote to improve something and wind up killing it instead.

   3. Money. Funding study committees, relocating entity headquarters, redesigning logos and business cards and stationery and the like—these things all take money.

   We're told, “We've got to do something. Why not this?” I agree that we've got to do something. But we don't have to do just any old thing. I am not impressed by the results of our last bid at reorganization. I've read and considered the argument that, because I don't like the results of the last reorganization attempt, that's all the more reason to re-reorganize. But the concept of consolidating the NAMB and the IMB does not represent a course correction from the Covenant for a New Century. No, quite the contrary, it represents a steaming full speed ahead on the same course of overconsolidation of muddled behemoth entities into even more gargantuan muddled entities. This is no slow turning of the Titanic; it is playing chicken with the iceberg.

3. Have you no interest in broadening participation within the SBC?

   Rather than consolidating the NAMB and the IMB, I think we ought to consider doing just the opposite. Leaders in the SBC always talk about trying to involve more people and bring in the younger folks into the SBC structure. They also keep talking about streamlining and efficiency. These are endeavors that work against one another.

   I predict that SBC President Johnny Hunt will proudly declare that his presidential appointments this year have reached out to people never appointed before to serve in the SBC and have brought in newer, younger leaders for the future of the SBC. Good for him; good for us all. When SBC presidents wish to show that they have taken action to broaden participation in the SBC, they always point to the appointment of people to serve on committees and boards.

   Well, the more that you consolidate the entities, the fewer committees and boards you're going to have. The fewer committees and boards you have, the less opportunity there is to broaden participation in the SBC.

   Consolidation of entities equals consolidation of power.

   If this trend continues, by the end of this century and the dawning of the next, fifty people will run the SBC during the year when the convention is not meeting. I'm a big fan of the trustee system. I've authored a paper in support of the trustee system. Some seem to think that the trustee system is the problem. Fewer boards! Fewer meetings! I say more boards, more members, and more meetings. Let us involve a greater number of grassroots Southern Baptists in our grand enterprise. Would this not be one good approach to getting Southern Baptists more involved in the pursuit of the Great Commission?

   Centralization always sounds good to the person in the middle. But I believe that the rest of us ought to think the matter through carefully before signing on the dotted line.

4. Isn't there a dramatic risk that domestic church planting will become (more of) a stepchild to international missions if these two boards consolidate?

   Presently, the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention vote each year on budget priorities balancing international missions and home missions. If we consolidate the mission boards, the messengers will no longer have that privilege. Rather, we will approve a generic line item for missions, and the new board will decide how much to spend on domestic church planting and how much to spend on international missions.

   Southern Baptists have always loved international missions more than we've loved the planting of churches in the United States. But a profound need exists for us to focus on church planting in the Northeast and the West. We will lose our nation unless we begin to impact those areas. If we consolidate the NAMB and the IMB, rather than having an entity for which reaching those areas is a top priority, we'll have an entity for which that mission is a footnote. Over time, I predict that more and more funding would migrate away from home missions and onto foreign fields, which has always been the kind of missionary work most exotic and appealing to Southern Baptists.

5. Aren't there some fundamental differences between what NAMB does and what IMB does?

   Here's one difference right off the bat: The North American Mission Board exists to plant Southern Baptist churches, but the International Mission Board cannot plant Southern Baptist churches. The IMB should plant Baptist churches and only Baptist churches, but IMB churches are not geographically eligible to join the Southern Baptist Convention.

   Will our projected new consolidated mission board start planting non-SBC congregations here in the USA?

   The NAMB's benefactors are also its dependents. Thus it interacts with state conventions and local associations and local congregations in a manner unlike anything that happens at the IMB—differentiated from IMB interactions, if in no other way, simply by the fact that the people who receive NAMB ministries also have the ability to choose those who oversee the NAMB and to set the NAMB's funding.

6. Is this a catalyst for a Great Commission Resurgence among Southern Baptists, or is it a diversion?

   Article IX will crowd out the remainder of the Great Commission Resurgence document. Whatever you think about the other articles, Article IX is shaping up to be the only article that matters.

   Here's why.

   First, Article IX is the only one of these articles that the Southern Baptist Convention has any ability to influence. Every other article represents tasks that can only be undertaken by local churches and individual believers, with the exception of Axiom V, which Hunt and Akin have clarified to be an affirmation of the status quo. The Southern Baptist Convention is inept to shape the actual ministerial practice of local churches and individual believers. This ineptitude is not a new development. It has never been the purpose nor the design of the SBC to shape the actual ministerial practice of its local churches and individual believers.

   So, to vote on the GCR at this year's annual meeting is to vote solely upon Article IX.

   Second, within Article IX, the only possible real outcome is a restructuring of our mission boards, seminaries, executive committee, and the ERLC.

   Do you think that some level of streamlining or reform needs to take place at some state conventions? The lack of financial support for national and international missions at the Baptist General Convention of Texas is shameful and criminal, in my opinion. I see areas within the Southern Baptist family that could stand some change.

   But I know that the Southern Baptist Convention is entirely powerless to effect any of those changes. The state conventions are autonomous. The local associations are autonomous. If the Southern Baptist Convention had the wherewithal to affect the workings of state conventions, the BGCT would not exist in its present form.

   So, no motion, no resolution, no study committee, no task force, nor any blue-ribbon panel of the SBC can get individuals to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ, can focus individual Southern Baptists or Southern Baptist local churches on the gospel, can prompt individuals to live out the Great Commandments alongside the Great Commission, can make the SBC any more committed to biblical inerrancy than we achieved in the Conservative Resurgence, can improve the fidelity of SBC churches to biblical ecclesiology, can make Southern Baptist preachers preach better, can make local churches be any more biblically faithful or any more methodologically diverse, or can make Southern Baptist families more distinctively Christian. These are all tasks given by God to people and institutions other than the Southern Baptist Convention. And the SBC cannot change local associations or state conventions or local churches.

   What's left? The SBC can consolidate, eliminate, or reshuffle the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, the six seminaries, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Lifeway, Guidestone, or the Executive Committee of the SBC. And in this category, the only specific idea that I've heard anyone mention is the concept endorsed by Patterson: The consolidation of these two mission boards. Thus, in my analysis, voting on the GCR is essentially a vote on the consolidation of the mission boards.

   And because I agree with most Southern Baptists that we do need to focus our efforts upon the fulfillment of the Great Commission, I am not supporting what amounts to another distraction from it—a fiddling around with offices and titles and mission statements of our para-church entities.

A person should try not to be critical unless he is prepared to be constructive. Don't shoot at other people's ideas unless you're willing to put forward your own. In an upcoming post I will share my own ideas about better ways to incubate a Great Commission Resurgence in the SBC.

In conclusion, I listened today to a podcast interview with Pastor Johnny Hunt on this topic. He had a great many positive and helpful things to say. I appreciated the interview. I encourage you to listen to it.

Two concepts that Hunt mentioned in this interview caught my ear. First, Bro. Johnny spoke about “pushback.” I want to clarify that, at least on my part, there is no pushback going on. Some of our leaders have taken us by the hand and asked us to go on a journey with them, with very few of the details of the trip known to us beforehand. Not all of us have responded with an immediate, “Yes! Whatever you say! Wherever You Lead, I'll Go!” A lack of immediate, unanimous, unconditional acceptance is not pushback. I'm not trying to oppose Bro. Johnny or Dr. Akin; I'm just trying to think this through and decide whether I think they have a good idea or a bad idea or just another SBC parade (to steal terminology from Tim Guthrie's recent excellent post). The consolidation of the NAMB and the IMB is, in my estimation, a bad idea put forward by good people. If the GCR is not about this consolidation, then it would be helpful to me for the GCR leaders to say so quickly, clearly, and publicly. Otherwise, what we have here is nothing more than my wondering aloud whether I personally intend to jump on this bandwagon or not. That's not “pushback” by any stretch of the imagination; it is just me being something other than an automaton.

Second, Bro. Johnny spoke frequently and at length about trust. Because I've been quoted in a couple of media outlets in criticism of the GCR, I feel some obligation to address the question of trust. Johnny Hunt and Daniel Akin have 100% of my trust that they love the Lord, love Southern Baptists, and sincerely want the days of our greatest obedience to the Lord to be ahead of us rather than behind us. I have no doubts that they want to help. There's a distrusting of people in which you suspect that they may be out to hurt you, but then there's also a distrusting of people in which you know for certain that they want to help you, but aren't entirely confident that they know how to help you. I know that Hunt and Akin want to help.

If I have any lack of trust in our leaders, it lies not in the area of their intentions, but in the area of their omniscience. Don't get me wrong: Each knows a great deal more than I know and has demonstrated it in the living of his life. They are probably right. I am probably wrong. I require them to convince me before I sign the document, but I acknowledge the high likelihood that they know better than I do. Indeed, for that very reason, I trusted our leaders in the 1990s when we reorganized the last time. But I've since lost the faith—not in the gospel or in the Great Commission or in Johnny Hunt or in Daniel Akin, but in the idea that we can reorganize ourselves out of our collective Southern Baptist situation. Ours are spiritual problems, not organizational problems. Our addressing them or failing to address them will take place this Sunday and the Sundays after that (and indeed, Monday may be a more determinative day), and not on June 23.

I Will Not Sign the "Time to Change" Statement

And the Baptist world is shaken to its core with this stunning revelation…

Before I go into my reasons why not, let me first say how much I appreciate the statement. After the subterfuge of last year's Garner Motion ploy, it appears that Wade Burleson's movement is finally ready to bring to our convention a straightforward presentation of the key disputed issues. Good for them. We can hold different opinions and still conduct an honest debate. Here are some of the reasons why I hope that they do not succeed.

Reasons Why I Do Not Support the "Time to Change" Statement

1. "Time to Change" really stands for "Time Not to Change a Doggoned Thing." The authors of the statement invite us to take a tour of the Potemkin village that they've erected within the IMB. There we see that the IMB, with thousands of faithful missionaries, has no doctrinal problems whatsoever, even within such a large entity. Every missionary is thoroughly orthodox and is Baptist to the core. The administration of the IMB is forthright and honest. The finances of the IMB are transparent and well-managed. The only problem plaguing the IMB, it seems from reading the statement, is a group of hyperactive troublemakers who have advanced these two problem policies.

   Unfortunately for the authors of the statement, the pasteboard façades on the banks of the Dnieper have long ago fallen down to reveal what is behind:

   • A book produced by IMB personnel and championed by the administration at the highest levels has had to be revised multiple times to restore basic Christian orthodoxy to the book (by removing the Modalism inherent to earlier versions) and to keep IMB evangelistic practice in line with basic Christian ethics (by not lying to Muslims in an effort to convert them). None of these problems were pointed out within the IMB structure, but changes only took place when people outside the IMB pointed them out loudly and persistently enough.
   • Although these former IMB trustees want to tell us what champions of the BF&M they are ("BFM 2000 - a statement that we affirm as conservative Southern Baptists as the standard for IMB missionaries"), anyone who has even casually followed Southern Baptist blogging for the past two years knows that some of these trustees gladly consented to at least one trustee and at least one missionary stating explicit disagreement with the BF&M yet continuing in their positions of service. One of the advocates of this statement was precisely the person in charge of new trustee orientation when the caveat was granted. Where was the fabled and storied commitment of these trustees to the BF&M when those decisions were being made? Where was their commitment to the idea that the convention messengers and the local churches ought to make doctrinal decisions on behalf of the convention? Their real philosophy is revealed in their actions: Nobody but the convention ought to be able to enforce policies beyond the BF&M, but small groups or individuals ought to be able to set aside portions of the BF&M without seeking the consent of the convention or even notifying the convention of what is going on. That's what we mean by the "maximal" view of the BF&M: Nobody can go beyond it, but behind-closed-door winks and nods can waive articles by fiat and murder our statement of faith by the death of a thousand cuts.
   • Just last week the blogosphere was alive with an IMB missionary's controversial statement that Mormon baptism can constitute valid Christian baptism.
   • Louis Moore's book (just out this week) is a troubling revelation of IMB administration efforts to manipulate and circumvent trustee oversight.

   In the light of these items that have taken place in the plain view of every interested observer, it is impossible for me to agree with a group whose goal is an emasculated trustee board of sycophants. In contrast to my friend Alan Cross's beliefs ("IMB trustees should return to their role as the chief supporters of the missionaries on the field, instead of their perceived current role as suspicious managers"), I do not think that a board of trustees ought to be a pom-pom festooned band of cheerleaders. If that's all they are, then they are a complete waste of money. Trustees exist to hold the IMB accountable, and while dysfunction is not necessary or helpful, firm resolve and fiduciary seriousness is a necessary part of the job.

2. I am not convinced by the "Time to Change" statement's assertion that the new guidelines undermine the autonomy of the local church. The authors inform us that the new baptism policy "has placed the board in the position of dictating to local churches what constitutes a legitimate Christian baptism." In their estimation, this constitutes a violation of the cherished Baptist distinctive of local church autonomy, because the IMB is daring to tell a local church that it considers invalid a baptism that the local church has ruled valid. By this definition, local church autonomy includes something like the federal government's "Full Faith and Credit" clause—a local church is not autonomous unless every other local church in the SBC is obligated to accept as valid everything that local church does.

   Of course, even the authors of the "Time to Change" statement don't really believe anything that preposterous—it is just a rhetorical argument that sounds good. In the selfsame paragraph these very authors feel quite comfortable in dictating to local churches that baptism must be by immersion and must take place in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Presumably, even if an autonomous local Southern Baptist congregation were to accept Oneness Pentecostal immersion or, as some local Southern Baptist churches have contemplated openly or have done quietly, were to accept sprinkling of infants as valid baptism, our trustees would nonetheless gladly presume in such a circumstance to override that church's determination and dictate to a local Southern Baptist congregation what is or is not Christian Baptism (Or would they? Two weeks ago I would have made bold statements that we were all agreed on the invalidity of Mormon baptism).

   If the issue at play here is one of local church autonomy, then what is the difference between rejecting local congregational judgment regarding the rightful administrator of baptism versus rejecting local congregational judgment regarding the rightful mode of baptism or the rightful spoken formula of baptism? No valid answer comes to mind. And that's because this question has absolutely not one thing to do with local church autonomy.

   Rather, we must acknowledge that local church autonomy consists of something akin to "freedom of speech" plus something akin to "freedom of association." My local church can affirm, denounce, practice, abstain from, support, or defund whatever we wish, and there's nothing that the SBC or the IMB can do about it. But one function of my church's autonomy is the fact that we get to choose with which churches and how we will partner for various tasks. In the SBC we make those decisions collectively through our annual meeting and the governing structures that we select and authorize through that meeting. Unless and until the SBC gains the authority to hire and fire our personnel or to buy or sell our property, no decision that the SBC or its entities make can ever imperil the autonomy of our local church. And the local churches that constitute the SBC are free to determine both the bounds of their fellowship and their criteria for employment of missionaries or any other thing.

3. I am not convinced by the the "Time to Change" statement's theory of restricting IMB policies to strictly the primary doctrines identified in the Bible. The statement urges us to consider carefully that "the Bible at no point raises [the] issue [of so-called private prayer language] to a matter of primary doctrinal importance." Well, of course it doesn't. That's a tautology.

   The Bible doesn't mention "private prayer language" at all, nor does the Bible categorize doctrines into matters of "primary doctrinal importance" versus other doctrines, unless our sagacious trustees are directing us to 1 Corinthians 15:5-8. And if they are, then they must concede that the list in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 of doctrines "of first importance" is pretty sparsely populated. The doctrine of the Trinity isn't in there. The doctrine of immersion is not in there—baptism isn't in there at all. So, if our former trustees are only interested in enforcing the doctrines listed in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8, then we're going to have a pretty minimalist set of guidelines for missionary appointment, but if they have some other list of primary doctrines in mind, then they must concede that "the Bible at no point raises [any of the other issues that our trustees enforce as policies] to a matter of primary doctrinal importance."

   See, I just thought that we were supposed to teach new converts to obey all that Jesus commanded us, not to make lists of Bible doctrines that aren't important enough for us to try to impart them.

   What the Southern Baptist people have to do, I guess, is to decide whether we believe that "Sheelrbaoehatoanta" is a grand utterance of divine origin. And if we cannot, then we'll have to determine whether our inability to achieve obedience to Christ at that point does or does not rise to such a level of importance as to prevent us from working together on those points at which we have reached agreement. The answer to that second question will probably depend upon how aggressive the Pentecostals among us will be in advancing their doctrines and practices. But this will be a practical question, and the adherents to this statement ought to stop pretending that there's some list of primary doctrines in the Bible from which our trustees must not stray.

I expect the East Coast political activists advancing this statement to bring measures to Indianapolis for the Southern Baptist Convention to consider. This is a critical year for them, for they will not have a committee structure and platform stacked so friendly toward them again anytime soon. Action has taken place this year "accidentally" to exclude duly elected conservatives from the governmental processes of the SBC by "inadvertently" failing to send them information forwarded to all other members of committees and boards and other groups until after the insiders had already finalized action. There's a deliberate effort underway at this moment to skew the SBC political process in favor of these measures. Those kinds of actions can only succeed for so long, and next week is the last, best moment of opportunity.

It is important for conservative Southern Baptists to go to Indianapolis. It is important to pay attention. Beware of vaguely worded motions or resolutions. If you aren't 100% sure what the wording of a motion or resolution means, if you aren't 100% sure that you recognize who is bringing forward a motion or resolution and what they are trying to accomplish by it, and especially if you see that any item of business before the convention is being disputed or debated, then you have a responsibility to the church that sent you and the Lord who saved you to inform yourself before you vote. I recommend that you bookmark SBC Today in your Internet browser and check it frequently next week, because this premier SBC informational blog will be providing comprehensive analysis of the convention as it unfolds.

A Witness to the Truth

Yesterday I received and read my copy of Louis Moore's new book Witness to the Truth (Garland, TX: Hannibal Books, 2008, 351 pages, $19.95 paperback). It now lies on the floor beside me, thoroughly consumed.

Oklahoma native Moore matriculated Baylor University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary before becoming the Religion editor at The Houston Chronicle for a lengthy tenure that included the era of the Conservative Resurgence. Although he is a lifelong Southern Baptist, he followed so well his commitment to journalistic objectivity as to leave even his most faithful readers largely agnostic as to his own denominational inclinations for several years. Moore worked in media-related positions for both the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and the International Mission Board, but he was publicly refused the top position at Baptist Press and was recruited to serve in an anti-CR troika by John Baugh. By his own admission, Moore possesses "an independent streak [that] would never let [him] sell out thoroughly to a cause" [219] and approaches Southern Baptist ideological disputes as someone "more interested in the processes than the final decisions." [191] He counts among his cherished friends, pastors, and advisors such names as Ken Chafin, Glen Hilburn, Richard Land, Paul Pressler, Robert Sloan, Charles Page, and other noteworthy Southern Baptists from every ideological corner of Southern Baptist life. Fundamentalist, Conservative, Moderate, Liberal? Moore defies and refuses labels and vanquishes stereotypes.

The book, like its author, defies categorization. The pre-publication promotional slogan ("Can you handle the truth?") conjured up images of Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) grilling Col. Nathan R. Jessup (Jack Nicholson) and hinted that the book would amount to a painful confrontation with inconvenient truths somehow related to American religious life—an affair of whistle-blowing or some sort of philippic. The actual title of the book, Witness to the Truth, suggests a first-person account belonging to the genre of autobiography or memoirs. The chapter organization (each bears an aphorism as a subtitle) posits the book as a reflective collection of life-lessons for American religious institutions gleaned from years of careful, first-hand inspection, making it more of a self-help, life-coach, "Who Moved My Cheese" sort of monograph.

The book impressed me as something of a hybrid—the fruit of a multitasker not content to attempt solely one thing at a time. Its whistleblowing aspects will probably contribute more to its sales volume than any other aspect of the book, but the tone I discerned in the writing led me to believe that the other two aspects were more important components of the authorial intent.

In my blogging career I've already reviewed one SBC exposé, and I was not terribly impressed. Moore's work fares much better. The relative paucity of bitterness and sanctimony in these pages only boosts Moore's credibility to the reader, although on occasion he reads a bit like Flavius Josephus evaluating the Jewish sects of his day. What is Moore's inconvenient truth? He labors to narrate for us a tale of entrenched religious bureaucracies that regularly lie to their constituencies and stab their colleagues in the back in order to protect their own power. Moore probably wouldn't put that fine of a point on it—never did in the book—but that's the bottom line if I read it correctly.

Epitomizing this thesis is the role played in the book by Dr. Jerry Rankin, Moore's former boss and the current head of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. According to Moore, Rankin misrepresented the salaries of both Moore and colleague David Button in order to lure them to IMB posts, misdirected IMB trustees to keep IMB headquarters in Richmond to save money while planning all along to spend over $40 million (far more than the projected costs of a relocation) on facilities upgrades on the East Coast, misled Moore as to Rankin's personal position on glossolalia, and misguided the IMB board during recent controversies regarding baptism and ecstatic utterances. The picture of Jerry Rankin that emerges from this book is of a micromanaging passive-aggressive maverick with no intention of allowing co-laborers below him (like Button, Moore, or missionaries who see things differently) or above him (like his trustees) to interfere with his personal plans. Moore obviously likes Rankin and believes that he has much to contribute to Christ's work, but believes that trustee complacency and sometimes ineptitude coupled with Rankin's own expert political maneuvering have transformed the IMB executive into an autocrat lacking the boundaries and direction that would make him most effective in his critical role.

Although I have no first-hand experience by which to evaluate Dr. Rankin, it is clear to me that some attempt is underway in Southern Baptist life to empower convention bureaucracy at the expense of solid trustee governance. Constant suggestions to reduce the number of trustee meetings, impose byzantine restrictions upon trustee conversation with one another about board matters (how many of you think that the employed bureaucracies of our entities don't "caucus" to prepare for their board meetings?), and contrive "change" petitions to strongarm trustees are all measures that undercut trustee governance leaving convention bureaucrats unfettered.

I wondered whether many denominational bureaucratic shenanigans could be prevented by a trustee board with an unflinching backbone and good professional advice from somewhere. I saw that the buck truly stopped one step further back than with the administrator. I wondered whether a tough, non-political evaluation system for denominational execs, bishops, and even popes [Moore covered a lot more than Southern Baptists in his career, as does this book] could benefit the cause of Christ.

I saw conservatives lose their ideals about reducing the size and scope of the bureaucracy, about eliminating the bureaucracy's lavish expenditures, about making the local church the true "headquarters" of the denomination. Once in power these conservatives found the large staffs, exciting expense accounts, and the controlling executive style of the denomination too tempting a prize to give up…

Regrettably, the early ideals of the Conservative Resurgence have not happened. Yes, on paper the SBC espouses a more conservative theology. And yes, the Republicans have replaced the Southern Democrats in the seats of power in the denomination. Yet in so many ways the denomination is exactly what it was when the moderates reigned supreme. Union cards and networks are still the order of the day. Names, faces, and in a few cases places have changed, but the "good-ole-boy" network still works just as it did three decades ago. (324)

Not that Moore is a thoughtless cheerleader for the board of trustees. He criticizes the secretive nature of SBC trustee governance, advocating a "sunshine law" to make all meetings in the SBC's governance system completely open to reporters denominational and secular. Moore further suggests that board standards for evaluating entity heads are mercurial and vulnerable to political abuse (although Moore does not regard all politics as inherently abusive). He advocates greater use of professional consultants to develop consistent, objective guidelines for our entities to follow in evaluating the performance of our entity heads. Throughout the book Moore communicates well his concern that conservative Southern Baptists might (have?) become little more than a rightward-nuanced variety of their predecessors in terms of the basic ills of "Baptistdom." Repeated references to George Orwell's Animal Farm dot the landscape of the book.

As I read the book, I found myself wondering whether Moore has ever stumbled across "Praisegod Barebones" (my blog, not the Cromwell-era politician and preacher). If he has, after reading his book, I find it difficult to deduce whether I think he would slam shut his laptop in disgust or fire off an email telling all of his friends to be sure to read my stuff. I suspect that he might succumb to some of both reactions if he read for very long. Certainly he is more of a journalist and I am more of an ideologue. But our similarities, not our differences, drew me into his book. We both experienced fairly young callings to ministry at Baptist summer camps. We both went to Baylor on scholarship. We both remained basically conservative in our personal theology while building relationships with a great many who did not. We both carried a good bit of naïveté into our first encounters with denominational politics. We both tire of the crazy preference of some Southern Baptists to pretend that they are not politicking when they are. I don't know that Moore could ever be a contented reader of PGBB, but I suspect that he could be an engaging and worthwhile friend.

I wholeheartedly recommend Moore's book to you. It will make you think about the recent history and the imminent future of our convention. As we pack our bags and head toward Indianapolis, it will give you something other than the facile "Landmark, fundamentalist, narrowing, crusading, uncooperative" language that has been spread hither-and-yon—something more earthy, more nuanced, and more believable—to try to understand why such tension seems to exist these days between the trustees on the one hand and the bureaucratic leadership at the IMB and their Internet champions on the other hand.

The book is also valuable just for the vignettes it serves up page-after-page: Nancy Pressler making PB&J sandwiches in the infamous Houston skybox, Mike Huckabee breathlessly shilling for James Robinson in his younger days, and the like. Moore's personal stories made me more sympathetic to the plight of religion reporters and gave me insight into their difficult and controversial jobs.

Moore is a good bit more inclined to theology in general and more sympathetic with Southern Baptist theology than is the average religion reporter in the secular press, but I still thought that the book made a bit too little of theology. As fascinated as I am with our process, I can't imagine being "more interested in the processes than the final decisions" of our SBC deliberations. Nevertheless, it has been helpful for Moore to remind me in his book that the bystanders to our Christian theological wranglings are often people who esteem theology far less and understand theology not nearly as well as seminary-trained Louis Moore. Ultimately, it is we pastors and theologians who are first called to be witnesses to the Truth. We ought to take care that those watching us most carefully do not find us regularly engaged in deception in our attempts to do so.

More Good News from the IMB; Bad News for Her Critics

For a data-packed Hallelujah story about what God is doing at the International Mission Board, as well as a pointed rebuttal of doom-and-gloom naysaying, I commend to you all Hershael York's latest post. Reading it will be time well spent.

The Camel and the IMB Contextualization Guidelines

At the recent IMB meeting in Springfield, IL, the board adopted five principles for contextualization. Having mulled over the principles for a few days and having read The Camel carefully multiple times (see series of articles summarized here), I proclaim it an obvious fact to any impartial observer that The Camel is in violation of the new IMB principles.

The first principle is a simple affirmation of the unique nature of the Christian Bible. I believe that the Camel's reliance upon the Qur'an to the near exclusion of the Bible could be construed as violation of principle one, but the Camel does not explicitly violate this first principle. The second principle poses greater problems for the Camel method.

We affirm that there is a biblical precedent for using “bridges” to reach out to others with the Gospel (Acts 17:22-23). The fact that Paul mentioned an aspect of the Athenians’ idolatrous worship was not a tacit approval of their entire religious system. He was merely utilizing a religious element of their setting (an altar to an unknown god) to connect with his hearers and bridge to the truth. Similarly, our personnel may use elements of their host culture’s worldview to bridge to the Gospel. This need not be construed as an embracing of that worldview. It should be noted that Paul not only used their system to connect, he also contrasted elements of it with the truth. Our evangelism must go beyond bridges to present the whole unvarnished truth of the Gospel (1 Corinthains 15:1-4). (HT: SBC Today)

The Camel is long on varnish and short on gospel. It fastidiously avoids the kind of contrast that Paul performed at Athens (see my earlier post on just this subject here). The Camel is just the kind of misapplication of Paul's work in Athens that is explicitly singled out in this principle as faulty.

The Camel is also at odds with the third principle.

We affirm an incarnational approach to missions that is bound by biblical parameters. Following the example of Him who became flesh (John 1:14), it is appropriate that our personnel continue to tailor their ministry to their setting. The Apostle Paul likewise embraced this approach, “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22b). We advocate the learning and appropriate utilization of language and culture. Constant vigilance is required lest contextualization degenerate into syncretism (1). Where linguistic categories and cultural mores are deficient, these must be challenged and corrected with biblical truth (2).

Note that footnote two deals with the use of the name "Allah."

For example, the theological construct represented by the term “Allah” in the Qur’anic system is deficient and unacceptable. However, the primary issue is not the term. The same name is used by devout Christians and it represents a sound, scriptural view of God. In fact, historically, the Christian use of “Allah” predates the rise of Islam. The missionary task is to teach who “Allah” truly is in accord with biblical revelation.

This footnote calls for the missionary to "teach who 'Allah' truly is in accord with biblical revelation" as an amplification to the idea that "[deficient linguistic categories and cultural mores] must be challenged and corrected with biblical truth. [emphasis mine]" Yet the precise core of the Camel method—that which makes it what it is—is the great care it takes not to challenge or correct Muslim notions about who Allah is. Rather, the Camel craftily suggests that the New Testament simply gives some additional information (sanctioned by Islam, no less!) to broaden the Muslim's understanding of Allah. The IMB offers a footnote about explaining who Allah is as an explanation of a proper situation calling for challenge and correction of false cultural ideas. To be in conformity with principle three, the Camel must incorporate a direct correction indicating that the Christian "Allah" is not the same as the Muslim Allah.

The fourth principle poses an additional hurdle for the Camel in its present adaptation.

We affirm both the sufficiency and unique nature of biblical revelation (2 Timothy 3:14-17). We deny that any other purported sacred writing is on a par with the Bible. While reference to a target group’s religious writings can be made as a part of bridge-building, care should be exercised not to imply a wholesale acceptance of such. [emphasis mine]

Yet the Camel says "I agree with what the Qur'an says about Mohammed" (see my post here), encourages the prospective convert to search the Qur'an as confirmation of the gospel message, and nowhere offers the slightest critique of the Qur'an in its authority, content, or any other thing. Surely one can presume that "[exercising care] not to imply a wholesale acceptance of [the Qur'an]," whatever that phrase might mean, means something other than doing absolutely nothing. Yet the Camel method does absolutely nothing to prevent the presumption that the "Isahi Muslim" is totally convinced of Quranic authority—indeed, the philosophical underpinning of the whole method is a presumption that everyone involved will affirm (even if dishonestly) the reliability of the Qur'an. The Camel violates principle four.

Finally, the Camel method is patently in violation of the last principle.

We affirm the need to be ethically sound in our evangelistic methodology (2 Corinthians 4:2). Becoming all things to all men in an incarnational approach does not necessitate an ethical breach. Jesus instructed his disciples to be as “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). We are to be wise in our bridge building. We are to be harmless in our integrity as we hold forth the truth ( 3).

Be sure not to miss footnote three.

Integrity requires, for example, that we not imply that a false prophet or a body of religious writings other then the Bible are inspired. There is a level of contextualization that crosses the line of integrity. Our Board has dismissed personnel who have refused counsel and deliberately positioned themselves beyond that line.

I have already demonstrated invincibly that the Camel dishonestly handles the question about what Christians believe about Mohammed (see my previous post here). Given the inclusion of the footnote, I do not see how anyone can come to any conclusion other than that the author of principle five had in front of him The Camel open to page 144 as he was penning this proscription. For anyone to suggest that the Camel might be compatible with principle five is to strain the limits of credulity.

Now that our trustees have given us these sound and godly principles, all that remains to be seen is what they and our IMB staff will do to correct an obviously aberrant missiological strategy in our midst—the Camel method.

A Measured Action by the IMB

I've heard many dissimilar rumors as to what would happen at the Springfield IMB meeting. In fact, I've heard similar rumors surrounding every trustee meeting at the IMB for the past year. Today we learn that the trustees of the IMB have censured Wade Burleson and have further restricted his participation in board functions for violations of trustee guidelines. I analyze these events as follows: First, for the past year I've heard many rumors as to what the trustees were planning to do at this meeting or that meeting to "deal with" the Burleson issue. The action taken by the trustees yesterday was far from the most severe remedy that I have heard. I have even heard people suggest that the trustees could unilaterally remove Burleson from their body. At one point, I even drafted a post decrying Burleson's removal as a violation of our polity, holding the post in waiting should the unthinkable ever occur. Having witnessed the tone of Burleson's recent posts, and suspecting that the climax of this drama might lie within this act and scene, I had that response ready to go today. I am so thankful that I did not have to post it. Only the Southern Baptist Convention can select our entity trustees. Thank you, IMB trustees, for respecting that important distinction and working within it. I appreciate the measured nature of your response. Second, I do not see how the Indianapolis convention can fail to take note of a formal censure adopted against a sitting trustee from one of our boards. This thing is coming to the floor in Indianapolis—they might as well go ahead and draw up a time-slot for it in the convention program. The trustees have taken what is (in my opinion) the strongest step that is within their power to express their dissatisfaction with Burleson's tenure on the board. Third, I have to wonder "Why now?" Criticism of IMB policies has been somewhat less strident on the Internet of late. I predict that phenomenon to reverse itself now. Was Burleson's recent criticism of the idea of life beginning at conception (and consequently, his next potential step away from yet another article of the Baptist Faith & Message) some sort of precipitating problem leading into this meeting of the board? Fourth, I predict that this event will initiate a spike in activity by all involved parties in the blogosphere. Fifth, I'm not nearly as interested in Wade Burleson's status as trustee on the IMB than the current status of the Camel method. I hope that we will have some opportunity in the near future (maybe the next meeting?) to hear that trustees have reviewed the contents of Kevin Greeson's book and are prepared to propose solutions to a problem that strikes to the heart of the gospel.