c. 2003 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board voted Wednesday (May 7) to terminate 13 missionaries who declined to affirm the denomination’s statement of faith.

The board’s trustees also accepted the early retirement of 10 missionaries who chose to retire instead of affirming the Baptist Faith and Message that was revised in 2000. In addition, the board voted to accept the resignations of 20 others who cited the faith statement as a factor in their decisions.

“We regret that any of our missionaries have chosen to resign rather than affirm the faith statement, but we feel it is time to move forward and keep our focus on sharing Christ with a lost world,” International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin said in a statement released after the meeting in Framingham, Mass. “It is not appropriate to expect Southern Baptists to support those who are not willing to work in accord with what the denomination confesses to believe.”

Rankin, who leads one of the nation’s largest missions agencies, had sent most of the affected missionaries an April 11 ultimatum letter regarding their status with the missions agency.

Nancy and Rick Dill, who will return to Germany under new auspices on Wednesday, were two of six missionaries who were given only the choice of resigning or being terminated because they had publicly stated their disagreement with portions of the faith statement.

“After all this time of knowing it was coming, I was surprised that I was still so sad, sad for our convention that it has come to this,” Nancy Dill said in an interview Friday after she learned of their termination from a regional leader.

“We didn’t resign because we didn’t feel we did anything wrong.”

Mark Kelly, spokesman for the mission board, could not confirm any names of affected personnel, but said those who were no longer given the option of affirming the statement were among the terminations.

The revised statement has prompted much controversy within Baptist circles, with more moderate Baptists declaring it to be a creed because it refers to “doctrinal accountability” while more conservative ones deny that it is creedal.

As the May 5 deadline for their decision came and went, several missionaries across the globe expressed disappointment with the turn of events. Though some hoped the board would not take the expected action, trustees acted on the terminations, retirements and resignations with no discussion and no dissenting votes.

The now-released missionaries are a distinct minority among a missionary force of 5,500 _ more than 98 percent have supported the statement _ but their stance marked another juncture in the long-standing debate between conservative and more moderate Baptists.

“We do not believe that any thing, any human document, should be placed above the Scripture as our authority,” said Rick Dill, who is ending his service as a missionary-in-residence with his wife at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark.

He realizes that his interpretation of the faith statement differs from others’, but he thinks that’s a matter of religious freedom.

The Dills also disagreed with aspects of the statement dealing with interpretation of Scripture and the role of women. The document calls for women to be submissive to their husbands and says Scripture does not permit women to be pastors.

Lydia Barrow-Hankins and her husband, Ron Hankins, have served 28 years in Japan and said they were told by Rankin that their resign-or-be-fired ultimatum did not reflect on their work.

“If this is not about our effectiveness as missionaries, then it means Southern Baptists no longer put proclaiming Christ as a priority,” she told Religion News Service in an e-mail message responding to questions.

“Rather, what is at stake here is bowing to pressure Stateside and sacrificing not only missionary lives and careers, but the work overseas as well for the sake of an arbitrary orthodoxy.”

Two years ago, the trustee board had decided that an affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message was not necessary, but a year later Rankin said that the lack of a supportive stance from missionaries was “creating suspicion” about inconsistent beliefs among the missionaries. He asked that they sign the affirmation for protection from “charges of heresy.”

IMB spokeswoman Wendy Norvelle said in an interview before the trustee meeting that “Southern Baptists throughout the convention raised questions,” prompting Rankin to determine their signed agreement with the faith statement was necessary.

“This was a request for our missionaries to reaffirm what they believe,” she said.

Since Rankin first requested affirmation of the statement in 2002, a total of 77 missionaries have refused and have resigned, retired or been terminated, board officials said.

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The Rev. Jonathan Bonk, editor of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, said the mission board action continues a historical pattern.

“There is a long, long, long precedent for Christians to place a fine point on doctrinal distinctives,” said Bonk, who is based in New Haven, Conn.

A recent example, he said, occurred in the 1960s and 1970s when increased interest in charismatic Christianity caused controversy among some evangelical mission groups.

“When some of the missionaries began to become involved in the charismatic movement, speaking in tongues, it led to a number of dismissals,” he said.

Robert O’Brien, editor of a recent book, “Stand With Christ: Why Missionaries Can’t Sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message,” said the steps by the mission board affect the rights of missionaries to interpret the Bible differently.

“What it’s going to do is put missionaries on the field who will only be in lockstep with the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message and all of its interpretations,” he said, comparing it to pre-Reformation days when lay people were encouraged to take biblical interpretation from the church rather than reading the holy book themselves.

Some missionaries who expected to be terminated have specific plans while others do not.

The Dills, the first Southern Baptist missionaries to enter East Germany after the fall of communism, have founded an organization called Germany for Christ to continue their work with new supporters. Having started a church through their IMB work that has grown from 11 to 170, they now plan to help start three new churches.

Barrow-Hankins and her husband intend to continue their work in Japan with support from Japanese Baptists.

But Leon and Kathy Johnson, the third couple given the choice of resignation or termination, are unsure about their future. They have served together for more than 20 years in Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

“We must find some form of employment,” Leon Johnson said in an e-mail response to questions from RNS. “Whether any Baptist church will consider us for a position or whether we’ll need to try to be greeters at Wal-Mart or burger flippers at McDonald’s, is uncertain.”

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