12 Witnesses

I wonder to what degree those involved in the political struggle within the IMB and within the SBC are in it for the politics - and the fruit thereof. I know a good many who are in it for the missionaries. They believe that they are doing what is best, to the best of their abilities.

I know, also, that my views do not represent every missionary on the field. No one has contacted me personally to say that I don’t represent them, but by the law of averages, I know that I can’t possibly represent EVERYONE.

It is clear that some are not in it for our full set of current missionaries. They prove this by trying to exclude some who would serve now when others with similar criteria are on the field. Clearly these missionaries are set apart, because the BOT had to make the rule that the November stipulations would not be retroactive. I think they knew that a much harder fight would ensue if they were trying to pull missionaries off the field. Still, the evidence is there. They are not comfortable with them there.

I want to believe that everyone involved is trying to look out for the missionaries on the field and do what is best for them and for the Gospel. If that were true, though, then we would have a much more gracious exchange, I believe. Matthew 18:15-20 would not be violated repeatedly. People would be more willing to do business in the open. People would not be upset that bloggers were in the public meetings of the IMB - making public meetings of the IMB public to the rest of us.

The actions and attitudes of some tell us that not all motivations are governed by the well being of the missionaries.

I don’t want to claim high ground for anyone else, but I know that I am in it for them and for the SBC. I am in it so that we may be more effective in the spreading of the Gospel to the lost. I know that I do not need nor desire any position within the SBC. I am willing to work hard for the SBC. I am willing to serve it in any way that I can. I am willing to be a follower. My only requirement is that those who lead, do so well.

Today is Memorial Day. Memorial Day started as wives and mothers decorated the graves of fallen Civil War soldiers. Shortly thereafter, it was adopted by the President and has become what it is today.

I appreciate Memorial Day because it gives me the chance to remember all of those who have given so much for my freedoms here in America. This is personal to me. I have a friend in my church who was in the famous WW II battle of Iwo Jima. He rarely talks about those things. The only significant thing I have ever heard him say on the subject is that the Flame Thrower is one of the most devastating weapons ever invented. Knowing from history how that particular weapon was used at Iwo Jima, I can only imagine his personal experiences with it. His silence on the topic is more telling to me than many words.

I am grateful to him personally; to his comrades through the years who have returned from war with battle scars of the body, mind and soul; and to those who never returned. They have provided a place of liberty and safety for me and my family.

I have been receiving some email from Missionaries overseas. I hear from folks who are in places where their safety, and the safety of the children, are in constant danger. They represent Christ, me and all Southern Baptists. They are there because not all of us can be. They lay their lives on the line as well.

Today I also remember those who have given for Christ and His body in foreign lands. I give money and they give their lives.

It is unconscienable for me to sit idly by while their lives are pulled, stretched and squeezed in a political tug of war within the SBC. Some say that the solution is that I not pull the rope so that they are left in peace.

In fact, I do not have that rope. The tug of war is between the commission of Scripture and the politics of uniformity. My voice is the one on the side saying to those who prefer uniformity to effectiveness, “Lay down that rope!”

By speaking out, however, we all become the target of unwanted negative attention. We now become involved in what we were arguing against in the first place. Nevertheless, if we walk away, we leave our Missionaries with no allies back home.

It is time to stand and call for freedom. It will cost us. It has cost several of us personally already. If it costs me something, then I am willing to pay.

Last night, in a special called business meeting, my wife and I were elected to serve as Messengers to the SBC in Greensboro. I go there with one thought on my mind: To ask that the SBC cease and desist playing politics with our MISSION - on foreign fields and at home.

Whatever the cost may be for us personally, it is nothing compared to those who risk so much for the sake of the Gospel. For them, I am compelled to stand.

So are you.

You may want to check out www.baptistblogger.blogspot.com.

I know, you are thinking that this is just what we need - another blog about SBC issues. What can this guy bring to the table that everyone else doesn’t?

Log on and find out.

Also, I would like to direct you to a post from Paul Littlton. Paul publishes an email that he sent Drs. Hatley and Floyd concerning the supposed breach of confidentiality by Wade Burleson. He reveals that JD Greear revealed all that Wade said and such was posted in a blog interview with Tim Rogers 2 days before Wade.

You can find the post, Criminal Defense, at his blog.

Finally, Wade Burleson has opened his door to your input concerning his options in response to Wednesday’s fiasco. In a lengthy but riveting recount of the actions and events leading up to Wednesday, Wade gives three possible responses that he is currently considering. You can read it at:

In the Counsel of Many There Is Great Wisdom

Someone wrote me today, worried about what they had read on my blog. They were concerned about the statcounter thing and whether or not I was perhaps being paranoid.

I had to assure them (this is someone I know) that I knew more than they did. I do, in fact, know of some who scour our blogs for tips to our thoughts and weaknesses that can be exploited. I even know some of their names, though statcounter couldn’t tell me that.

For the rest of you, relax. I don’t pay much attention to where you are looking from and Missionaries, I especially want to reassure you. I will not be posting any list of your whereabouts. I don’t want any repercussions for you or anyone else who is interested in what I write. Also, my statcounter is private, so no one else can check the data there and they are purged as we go along, so there is no long term record of your presence unless I make one, and I don’t.

Speaking of there being more than the rest of us know, for months I have been hearing that there is more to Wade Burleson’s story than even Wade has told. In fact, I have heard that there is much, much more and that it had been shared with some on the Executive Committees of the IMB’s BOT and the SBC.

I have watched good and godly people be very confused about Wade and his actions. There seemed to be something motivating him to action that they mistook as raw arrogance. I understood that Wade was dealing with certain situations in a public forum while walking the tightrope of trying not to make everything he knew public.

Some will say that he should have been public long ago. They may be right. Still, I think he was doing his best in the best way he could. Apparently, Wade has decided that his prior course of action is not going to be effective as an agent of change within what is a political culture. As to defending his decisions, I will direct your questions to Wade. He should speak for himself as I don’t want to misrepresent him in any way.

He tells us that he is preparing a release of previously withheld information in his post:

The Spin Is In; The Tipping Point Is Reached.

I know of only a few stories about which you may hear from Wade next week. The stories I have heard have made my hair stand on end and made me nauseous at the same time. Be in prayer for what is to come. For most, it will be a time of deep soul searching about what has been going on behind the scenes of the SBC.

Next week will be a big one for blog town.

With everything else going on, we almost missed that Mark Dever, reformed pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, and head of 9 Marks Ministries, has confirmed that he would allow his name to be put forward as a candidate for 1VP in Greensboro.

I’ll edit this tomorrow with all of the pertinent info, but you can read the story here:

Calvinist pastor, Georgia evangelist likely to square off as 1st VP nomination.

[edit]
The following is pertinent church info from the article.

“Dever said his church had about $1.9 million in undesignated receipts in 2005 and forwarded $150,500, or 7.5 percent of that total, to the Southern Baptist Convention. The church stopped contributing to the national denomination through the District of Columbia Baptist Convention after the SBC’s North American Mission Board de-funded the convention in 2002. According to multiple DCBC sources, Capitol Hill was one of two member churches whose leaders raised concerns with SBC officials about alleged liberalism in the small regional convention.”

While the CP giving of CHBC is about average for most SBC churches, it is below the 10% called for by the Executive Committee.

Though Dr. Dever’s name has been floated for some time, he has been reticent to accept the nomination until now. Dever seems to be well respected by all in the convention, having spoken in chapel at Southwestern as well as being held in great respect by many within the Younger Leader movement.

Speaking of the Younger Leader movement, some YL’s are what the ABP article is calling “neo-Calvinists.” the definition of this term is posted by “K.B.H.” (Kevin Hash) in the comment section of this article. It had been speculated that many within this group were ambivalent toward the Convention in Greensboro as both presidential nominees had taken swipes at Calvinism publicly. As Kevin reveals in the comments, Dever may have just mobilized the “Calvinist Contingent.” Who they vote for as President, though, may be a choice between two theological opponents, in their eyes. To win their vote, one would probably have to seem more sympathetic than the other, though it may be hard for either of them to go too far from previous statements. What will happen remains to be seen.

One other thing. It has been noticed that BP is not the unbiased news source it once was. While it ran a story about the nomination of Keith Fordham, it has yet to say a peep about the nomination of Mark Dever for the same position.
[/edit]

At this point, I have to wonder at what is going on within the leadership of the IMB’s BOT. I have a friend who has theorized that the “Caucus Group” at the BOT has broken away from the “Power Network” and are acting on their own.

Why would anyone think this? Well, whatever the “Powers that Be” are, they are not bad at politics. Well, they aren’t as bad as some of the decisions that were made this week by BOT leadership. Even this last year’s decisions have been increasingly mind boggling.

The move to throw Wade Burleson off of the Board, then the ever changing characterization of the motives behind that move, then the unanimous vote to rescind that move, the rationale papers for the two missionary qualifications - not to mention the qualifications themselves, the open denial of any move to govern dissent within the BOT and the move a month later to silence dissent from the BOT, all wrapped by making Wade a martyr in front of his wife this week, with bloggers present, and a month before Greensboro…

All of these things tell me that this group is probably not taking its marching orders from “higher ups.”

Mark the difference in how the pros do it. Kind and gracious words, with a “hand of God - visionary endorsement” passes the nomination of Johnny Hunt to Ronnie Floyd, who humbly accepts. The blogosphere applies the same scrutiny to Ronnie as it applied to the IMB and to Johnny. Ronnie does not publicly run anyone down, but simply weathers the storm. Three Seminary Presidents then endorse Ronnie in various ways.

People loyal to Ronnie begin to enter the fray at the battle lines - in the Younger Leader movement and in the blogosphere. Some are loyal friends of Ronnie. Others are in for different reasons.

Here, the issue of Ronnie Floyd as President begins to bleed into the overall issue of control over the convention. Anonymous bloggers begin to ask leading questions that may illicit answers that could be used to discredit certain bloggers. Here are a few from my blog:

Anonymous said…
Where in Scripture do you gain your doctrine of the priesthood of every believer?

[Anonymous Pseudonym] said…
I have a question about #4 of the ‘declaration.’ What do you mean by ‘articles of faith that are not essential to Christian orthodoxy?’ What ‘articles of faith’ are not essential?

Anonymous said…
Is inerrancy essential or non essential?

I turned off the comment section on the Memphis Declaration because I was getting these baiting questions. I have received anonymous emails asking for the comments to be turned back on. These emails originate in places that cause me to suspect their motives. Since I can’t prove who I think was behind them, I won’t post them, and the server information that goes with them, at this time. But I have saved them.

Some of these questions are not anonymous. Brad Reynolds is a professor at Southeastern Seminary and has been asking/challenging Wade Burleson quite a bit on his blog.

Also, many know this, but I think the power structure has not yet caught on. We have stat checkers on our blogs that tell us the name of the server of the computers that log on. We can see who is reading but not commenting. You should see my list of institutions and churches who have been reading and re-reading certain things.
There is more, but I will stop there.

Some may ask, “Why has nothing come out, if people are gleaning information to attempt to discredit you?” Because information leaked now will be old news by the time Greensboro rolls around. A month in the blogosphere is plenty of time to answer any charges. That’s true even if you count the lag time in getting our quotes picked up by news agencies and state Baptist papers - those that would print our quotes. Besides that, our numbers are off the charts when it comes to hits we are getting from Baptists all over the world. We are on the verge of breaking down the wall that separates the established Baptist news agencies and ourselves. I know for a fact that my website gets more hits per day than the page loads of some news agencies and some state papers.

When would such accusations come? The week before convention is when public statements might be made. The grapevine is hard at work now. In the grapevine, Frank Page has been linked to Russell Dilday for saying that his firing was political and wrong. Frank is being called a “liberal,” behind closed doors.

Yes, this article is a notice that we know who is reading. It is also a notice that some might need to check their own backyard.

I am going to post an article tonight/late this afternoon.

In the meantime, here are a few questions:

Is the Caucus Group at the IMB BOT working on its own or is it taking orders from others?

What things would tell us?

Is the “Power Structure” at work right now within the blogosphere?

What would be the end goal of such a work?

Is there such a thing as a “Power Structure” anymore, or has it become splintered? If so, would a group separating and operating on its own be evidence of that?

On Wade Burleson’s blog today, he told of a Trustee rotating off of the board who took the opportunity to speak as a chance to verbally abuse Wade, though not by name.

I was disappointed by that. Some people don’t have enough sense to make peace when they should. It was not that surprising, though, because there are a few folks in every crowd who shoot their mouth off, especially as they walk out the door and know that they don’t have to live with the mess they make.

I did not, however, expect this from Tom Hatley today. I had heard that Tom was going to make a real effort to make peace and resolve any issues with the Wade Burleson situation. Either that was completely false, or the definition of “peace” among others and my understanding of it is completely different.

I talked on the phone last night to a man who heard Paige Patterson say of another person completely that many a great man of God does not finish well.

I would say verbally abusing Wade, accusing him of wrong doing without providing evidence, silencing the microphone when Wade went to ask for specifics about the charge and then putting Wade on a one year probation of service from any committee is a complete failure to finish well.

Wade comments on the exactitudes of Tom’s clumsy goodbye in this post:

This Really Gets Old But In The End It Will Be Worth It All

We are a cooperative. A cooperative is a group of individuals, allowed to maintain their individuality, who choose to cooperate around a common goal. The cooperative works as long as individuality is the accepted standard and the goal suits each individual.

The source of our individuality is the doctrine of “Priesthood of Every Believer.” Many will say that the SBC is a bottom up organization with the local church as its base and cooperative efforts then exist at associational, state and national convention levels. This is not quite accurate. The association is the second level of cooperation. The local church is the first level of cooperation among a base of individual believers. The Autonomy of the Local Church stems from the doctrine of Priesthood of Every Believer. The entire bottom up structure stems from this vital Baptist doctrine and distinctive.

Individuality is the source of our cooperation and when it is hammered together with a common goal we become a powerfully focused organization that is tremendously effective.

The goal of our cooperation is missions. The entirety of our cooperation was formed, and now exists, to spread the Gospel to everyone who stands in need.

Therefore, two things must be assured for the health of the SBC.

1. Uniformity must be fought at every turn. If people are not allowed to be themselves, they will no longer participate, even if they share a common goal. This is part of why we see the attrition of younger leaders and lay people within the SBC. It is why the SBC has its eyes on the Younger Leader movement. Those with vision know that if they lose this crowd of individualists, they will lose the future, as YL’s take their churches and the offerings that go with them, out of the Convention.

2. The Goal of Missions must be guarded at all costs. When our primary mission agencies are shaken the way NAMB and the IMB have been this year, all eyes must focus intently on them. If these two entities fail to effectively press toward our common goal, they will lose the trust of the individuals who sustain them. The loss of trust will bring about the same result as a loss of individualism. People will leave to go it alone.

The SBC is at stake. Great leaders from years gone by and new leaders must work together right now for the survival of this cooperative - if they believe that our cooperation is still as vital to the obtaining of our goal: Reaching the World for Christ.

So, I decided to make the switch. I was brought up with the King James Bible and struggled through it as a young Christian. In my late teens, I switched to the NIV and have studied and preached out of it for 20+ years, now. Somewhere along the line, I picked up a strong distaste for more paraphrastic “translations” of the Bible. I know that some of you will say that the NIV is somewhat paraphrastic, in places. I concede that.

At some point you have to strike a balance between readability and the detailed accuracy of translation. It is that way for all of us. The Holman Christian Standard Version came out not long after the NIV translators began to make noise about a “gender nuetral” translation. I started investigating.

Long story short - I went and bought the “Minister’s” HCSB last night at Lifeway. I bought this version, although it is way overpriced, because it was a single column printing with simple footnotes at the bottom of the page. It is apparently overpriced because there are all kinds of helps in the back for ministers. I guess it might be good for someone starting out, but I don’t need a wedding ceremony or a ceromony for a building dedication, having done both.

To my surprise, however, there were a few nuggets. Criswell’s article about reaching children was good. I think I have read some or all of it before, and quoted a couple of things from it, but well worth having.

Another interesting nugget was an article by Jimmy Draper on 21 Essentials of Authentic Ministry. I thought several points were particularly salient as they relate to the current climate of the SBC.

I’ll give you the bullet point version.

1. Don’t neglect your personal walk with the Lord.

2. Make time for your family.

3. Practice the ministry of encouragement.

4. Never make a decision when you are discouraged or depressed.

5. When your heart is right withe God and you are confident in that relationship, understand that doubt never means “yes.”

6. Be open and honest.

7. Always return your phone calls and answer your mail.

8. Don’t let anger be a pattern of your behavior.

9. Be quick to forgive mistakes.

10. Let your preaching flow from the Bible.

11. Always be prepared to preach.

12. Don’t flirt with temptation.

13. Cooperate with your fellow believers.

14. Be a steward of your position and influence.

15. Pour your life into a few people.

16. Cherish and protect your friendships.

17. Give credit to other people.

18. Keep confidences.

19. Lead by example.

20. Practice sevant leadership.

21. When you are wrong, admit it.

We might all take a word from Jimmy T.