imb and baptism

As many of you know, I am a trustee with the International Mission Board- the largest missions sending organization in the world. From time to time I will speak of IMB issues on this blog.

I will tell you straight up that what the board is doing around the world is breathtaking. The IMB is perhaps the most effective missionary organization with on of the most effective strategies in the history of Christianity. I am extremely proud of what we are doing and believe wholeheartedly in our staff and board. I believe Jerry Rankin is doing a terrific job in leading this agency and have found him to be a man of great integrity, faith, prayer and vision.

Our last meeting was a hard one for me personally.

At that meeting our board passsed a couple of policies that I and others found extremely objectionable. In short, the policies will require missionary candidates to pass through a narrow gate that in my opinion is much narrower than scripture, traditional baptist doctrine or the Baptist Faith and Message (the standard measure for missionaries on the field).

The policy states in short that a missionary must have a "proper" administrator of his baptism. That unless the administrator (the one doing the baptism) is doctrinally correct (credobaptistic, belief in perseverance of the saints, non salvific) the baptism is deemed invalid even if the candidate does not hold objectionable views but sees his or her baptism as a symbol of faith, not regenerative and in every way otherwise is in full agreement with Baptist doctrine. In my opinion, the policy is saying that the hand of the administrator of the baptism is more important than the heart of the believer. The policy further states that the believer must be baptized into a church. This is not scirptural, but landmarkist.

In addition, the policies specify that the candidate cannot have a "private prayer language."

My objection to these policy decisions has three grounds:

1. Theological- I believe it is bad theology. I have spoken with many pastors I respect and trust and have not found one yet who has disagreed with me on this.
2. Practical- We are narrowing the scope of our missionary support base both by the number of candidates who will qualify and by marginalizing good mission supporting Southern Baptist churches.
3. Spiritual- I suspect the policies were born out of carnal intent.

Although this meeting and decision was a blow and dissappointing, I have been willing to lick my wounds and let it go. A firestorm among bloggers has erupted over the issue however and I feel like I should speak out. The trustees are held accountable to the trust of the convention and when a large number of Southern Baptists are asking questions and want explanations, I believe it our job to come forward with answers and to speak plainly about the issues. The winning side has put the policy in place with their explanation. I and other dissenters should put our objections out there as well.

Issues such as these have a tendency to bring clarity. It does bring to mind the need to understand the role of the church in baptism. We commonly refer to the ordinances (baptism and the Lord's Supper) as the "ordinances of the church". But it is more correct to call them the ordinances of Jesus Christ. He is the one who ordained them. We are baptized into Christ, not into "the local church". (ie: catholicism, landmarkism).

"Unless I am convinced by Scripture and by plain reason, and not by popes and councils who have so often contradicted themselves, my conscience is captive to the Word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. I cannot, and I will not, recant. Here I stand. I can do no other." - Martin Luther, Diet of Worms, 1521