Below is a letter published as an open letter to Southern Baptists in the Biblical Recorder of North Carolina. I'm using this without permission because of that fact and the freedom to print the article given at the bottom of the page. Rodney Hammer and family are career missionaries with the SBC IMB and were written about by Wade Burleson here..http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com/2008/05/hammer-has-fallen.html.
I read in a comment where this could be viewed as being similiar to a four star General resigning because of differences with the Joint-Chief-of-Staff or the President. Whether that is so or not.. I believe it is revealing something that is systemically wrong with our Convention at present. Let me know what you think.
Dear Southern Baptist Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My name is Rodney Hammer, and I have the privilege of being an International Mission Board (IMB) missionary of the Southern Baptist Convention. My wife and I have shared the gospel in three of the eleven regions of the IMB over our almost 18 years of overseas service, the last 10 years being in regional leadership positions. I most recently was privileged to serve the IMB and the superb missionaries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as regional leader.
I love working with the missionaries and people of CEE, but I resigned as regional leader in order to share my convictions about IMB missionary candidate policies. I am expected as a regional leader to accept, own, and support the policies of the IMB Trustees. I can do so no longer.
I am in fundamental disagreement with the current IMB missionary candidate policies concerning baptism and private prayer language, and the unnecessary, extra-biblical narrowing of parameters for Southern Baptist cooperation in the Great Commission they represent. While I have other serious concerns, I believe the missionary candidate policies are most in need of redress and illustrate most significantly why change is needed.
Why should you care?
The IMB is its people. The missionaries and Board personnel are the IMB and what makes it great in so many ways. IMB personnel deserve not only continued prayer and financial support, but also a Kingdom-oriented, transparent, accountable, BF&M-aligned trustee board and missionary candidate policies and guidelines that do not exceed the only consensus doctrinal parameters of the SBC nor move us from sounder biblical moorings. Even more importantly, the unreached people groups, the unevangelized of the world's cities, and the lost without Christ everywhere compel us to biblically maximize our efforts and missionary force, not restrict it unnecessarily.
What's wrong with the policies?
The current "guideline" (a de facto policy) for IMB missionary candidates regarding baptism puts the emphasis on the faith/beliefs of the baptizer, rather than the one being baptized. This seems to be a shift away from biblical teaching and Baptist tradition.
BF&M 2000 article on baptism
"Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord's Supper."
Romans 6:3-5 - "Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."
The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and the Holy Scriptures put the emphasis on the work of Christ, and the faith and testimony of the believer being baptized into Christ, not the particularities of the beliefs of the Christian administrator of the baptism.
The new missionary candidate policy regarding baptism goes beyond the above consensus doctrinal parameters of the SBC, and scripture, adding extra-biblical stipulations concerning the church and administrator of the baptism. It also puts the IMB in the place of the autonomous, local Southern Baptist church in determining the validity of a candidate's baptism ... and worse than that insists to some that they re-baptize the missionary candidate. Organizational compliance is not a biblical reason for baptism or rebaptism. A Southern Baptist church member whose baptism by immersion, after regeneration, in obedience to Christ and as a testimony to their faith in Christ was accepted by a Southern Baptist church should be acceptable for service in a Southern Baptist entity or agency.
Private prayer language
In regards to the "guideline about private prayer language" (another de facto policy), three things should be noted.
Much of the discussion and rationale given for needing such a policy forbidding missionary candidates from having a private prayer language was that there were widespread problems regarding this among our missionaries on the field. Regional leaders demonstrated that was not and is not the case.
Many biblically conservative Baptist scholars disagree on the hermeneutic that was used to support disqualifying candidates who pray privately in a prayer language.
Our trustees were assured that the vast overwhelming majority of Southern Baptists could not and did not support the concept of private prayer language. This contention was proven false in a survey by LifeWay research last year.
I will forgo revisiting the ample cessationist and continualist viewpoints on spiritual gifts. I will simply say this ... in our IMB Manual for Field Personnel we have a robust, sufficient policy against the advocating of any particular spiritual gift as normative for all believers, or the public use and causing of division by such advocacy or practice. This policy is enforced whenever necessary, although that is rare. It has been an adequate protection against inappropriate behavior or teaching.
What we are talking about now is the forbidding of a private prayer language. Private. Prayer. We have no business going into anyone's private prayer closet who calls Jesus their Lord and Savior, nor forbidding otherwise qualified Southern Baptists from service through the IMB because they may pray differently in private than you or I may, nor judging any current or potential IMB policy-abiding missionary to privately utilize under the Lordship of Christ a gift they believe is bestowed upon them by the Holy Spirit. There was and are no field realities requiring or necessitating such a move.
Upon the outcry in opposition to these policies from many Southern Baptists, IMB trustees made minor, cosmetic semantic changes and made both "guidelines." However, they are applied as de facto policies comprehensively.
We've been led down a Landmarkist ecclesiological path by some influential IMB trustees. They used unfounded rationales to justify missionary candidate de facto policies that overly restrict and disqualify many good, conservative, God-called and otherwise qualified Southern Baptists from missionary service through the IMB.
Who is being disqualified?
Dozens and even hundreds of Southern Baptists for short and long-term service through the IMB, including some current students of our SBC seminaries, who:
are God-called to cross-cultural missionary service.
are members of an SBC church for at least 3 years.
are conservative Christians baptized by immersion after conversion as a testimony to their faith in Jesus Christ.
affirm the BF&M.
meet the qualifications for service OTHER than the new, overly narrow restrictions.
are willing to abide by IMB policy and parameters.
are willing to sacrificially go to the ends of the earth.
How do I know these things to be true?
I have attended multiple IMB board of trustee (BOT) meetings per year now for the last 8 years. I am personally well acquainted with the methods, policies, and practices of our collective board of trustees, its leadership, and their impact on our work on the field, our support within the Convention, and upon candidates for missionary service.
It brings me no joy, and no personal gain, to express these concerns and appeal for change. I have no illusions of any real or perceived personal influence within the SBC. However, I firmly believe that God would have me express these concerns further, and to advocate for those who can no longer serve through the IMB due to these policies. I will trust God to do with it what He desires.
Regarding the policies, I sought to dialogue and express my concerns along the way. I waited, prayed, sought counsel, and asked for wisdom and peace from the Lord to move on when they were enacted two and a half years ago. While I sought to address the overseas committee and entire trustee board unsuccessfully, I did internally discuss with staff, my regional committee and some trustees for almost one year. After those efforts I made one public appeal for reconsideration of the rationale given and the policies that were enacted. I was formally reprimanded. I accepted that and submitted myself again to senior leadership and to the policies and direction of the board.
The IMB BOT received much concerned feedback and decided to review the policies on baptism and private prayer language. Again I waited, prayed, sought counsel from scripture and others, dialogued with some trustees and asked for wisdom and peace from the Lord to move on. I repeatedly requested the opportunity for myself and other regional leaders to give our perspective and field input into the review process. It was finally granted after many months. But then our field leadership input that the policies hurt our legitimate candidate pool, the work and morale of many missionaries on the field, and the lack of any field realities requiring such policies was summarily dismissed.
I have sought to pray, understand, yield, reconsider, search the scriptures, and dialogue with senior IMB leadership and trustees about these concerns and policies over the last two and a half years now. I have submitted to them. I have watched as the supposedly softened "guidelines" are implemented as de facto, hard policy and many a good missionary candidate is turned away. I know of some personally, I hear of many others. I am expected as a regional leader to accept, own, and support the policies of the IMB trustees. I can do so no longer.
I had to resign my position as regional leader because of my biblical convictions and leadership from the Lord to dissent further and to advocate for those Southern Baptists who cannot serve through the IMB now, and have no voice.
I believe part of the reason for the decline in the SBC is the unnecessary narrowing of parameters for Great Commission cooperation. I know for sure it is keeping us from getting many additional Southern Baptist missionaries, turning off a younger generation of future missionaries and leaders, and harming the confidence of some IMB missionaries in their stateside supporters and trustees.
I simply want to appeal to our IMB trustees and Southern Baptists to return to a sufficiently conservative, yet broader consensus and parameters reflected in the BF&M 2000 for missionary service through the IMB. I am asking that all born again, bible-believing, BF&M affirming, otherwise qualified Southern Baptists who are called to overseas missions and desire to serve through the IMB be allowed to do so ... for the glory of God, the betterment of the SBC, and the sake of making disciples among all nations.
Respectfully submitted,
Rodney L. Hammer, regional leader
Central and Eastern Europe, IMB-SBC
P.S. Let me state unequivocally that I love our IMB trustees in the Lord. I appreciate their voluntary service. I recognize that they love the Lord Jesus Christ and wish to see Him glorified among the nations as well. I appreciate that they have put up with my own faults as well. There are many who serve with no agenda other than faithfully supporting Southern Baptists' obedience to the Great Commission, and to send and support God-called Southern Baptist missionaries. Some have worked behind the scenes to resist the implementation of these policies and opposed these practices. A few have dared to publicly dissent until such was also voted out of order. I appreciate them greatly. I also love and appreciate those with whom I disagree.
[From me..Paul..what do you think?]
Paul B.
11 comments:
I have yet to hear, or read, a reasonable, scriptural explanation telling me why holding a slightly different view on either of these doctrinal issues would hinder the work of a Southern Baptist missionary in any way. It's not as though missionary candidates from SBC churches would hold a position on these views that 99% of the Southern Baptists who are supporting their work wouldn't accept. Nor are any of the views that have been designated as being "inconsistent" with the status quo indefensible under acceptable scripture interpretation.
Southern Baptists are desperately in need of a revival of our missions education objectives. Our leaders seem to have forgotten that the Cooperative Program, and the SBC itself, was created to foster missions cooperation between Baptists of differing doctrinal views, not to promote and enforce one point of view over another. I learned that in RA's.
Paul,
From my personal friendship with a former missionary under Rodney Hammer's supervision, I know that Hammer was one of the "corporate types" who toed the "party line", as it were. So I figure that, if the rules got to someone that devoted to the IMB and the SBC, who adhered that firmly to the rules, it must be a lot worse in there than it looks from out here.
Sad sad sad.
From the letter...I am in fundamental disagreement with the current IMB missionary candidate policies concerning baptism and private prayer language, and the unnecessary, extra-biblical narrowing of parameters for Southern Baptist cooperation in the Great Commission they represent.
Got my interest up with this statement.
I'm not real sure why he is upset with baptism issue. He has not been real clear. Does he not agree that baptism is for a believer as a public testimony of his faith in Christ? Or does he think that paedobaptism represents scriptural teaching? Or maybe he thinks that the person responsible for administrating the baptism should just baptize without really being sure of the testimony of the baptized? Or does he think a Southern Baptist organization need not actually practice Southern Baptist doctrinal guidelines just because it is not a church?
Prayer language...
from the letter, We have no business going into anyone's private prayer closet who calls Jesus their Lord and Savior, nor forbidding otherwise qualified Southern Baptists from service through the IMB because they may pray differently in private than you or I may, nor judging any current or potential IMB policy-abiding missionary to privately utilize under the Lordship of Christ a gift they believe is bestowed upon them by the Holy Spirit.
AMEN!
He is well with in valid reasoning about the so-called private prayer issue.
In the grand scheme of things though, the four-star general analogy is way over the top -- maybe colonel. To step down is noble. But instead of moving into "regular" field work he should consider furlough, er, stateside assignment.
That's what I think.
In His Word,
Scott
Lee,
Your reference to RAs [Royal Ambassadors for the uninitiated] took me back several years. I wasn't in the RAs but, after my conversion as a teenager in the early fifties, I was a leader in the RAs and do remember how it was not the nuances of minor doctrines that captured our thinking back then but the sharing of the gospel around the world by cooperating together as churches in a mission program. To be frank, it was a lot more Kingdom in intention then denominational or identified baptist. [Whatever that is.]
Bob,
Your final three "s" statement sums it up for me.
Scott,
I had to chuckle at your comment... "In the grand scheme of things though, the four-star general analogy is way over the top -- maybe colonel." I think you nailed it. It was a bit over the top. I'll settle for General. :)
In reference to Rodney's problem with the baptism issue I would assume it is in regards the policy stating it must be done by a group that holds to "eternal security" since this would add an element that is not a scriptural component to believers baptism in the eyes of many of us as southern baptists.
The issue is not the candidate, [believers only] the mode, [immersion] the motive, [as a testimony of my identity with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ] but, rather, the belief system of the one baptizing. [Baptizing group must hold to the doctrine of eternal security]
For some of us [myself included] were one to come to our church having been converted, baptized by immersion, testifying by this of their identity with Christ and His Cross work, all this being done in an Assembly of God fellowship, they would be accepted into our ekklesia without being dunked by our hands.
But the new policies would require that person, were they to become a missionary candidate with the IMB, to go back to our ekklesia and be immersed again because the original group did not hold to eternal security as we do.
We simply believe that the truth of eternal security would be part of the instruction ["teaching them to observe all things"] we would have given after that person's baptism..not before. The biblical [as we see it] candidate-mode-motive components would have been sufficient for us to accept him/her. Thus the new policy goes beyond what is seen as scriptural by many southern baptist churches and what is even outlined in the BF@M.
Thanks for commenting.
Paul,
I know that we are supposed to be upside down on this side of the world, but, I'm beginning to wonder who is upside down.
Like the H.Q. here, the H.Q. over there seem to have a different Bible and a different Jesus to what I've taught for fifty years.
Aussie john,
I'm beginning to wonder too.
Thanks, Paul, for sharing this.
Traveller,
I certainly don't have a wide blog readership but I do want those who read what I have to say to know of important issues like are presented in this resignation letter. It affects us all in the SBC.
Paul,
In your reply to my comment you said,"But the new policies would require that person, were they to become a missionary candidate with the IMB, to go back to our ekklesia and be immersed again because the original group did not hold to eternal security as we do."
I don't even know of a Baptist church that holds to this policy. In my practice, if a person could testify to immersion baptism as a public confession of the inward move of the Holy Spirit in conversion then so be it. "Rebaptism" only became issues if immersion was not part of the journey and/or conversion/regeneration.
That does seem weird and uncalled for.
Thanks.
In His Word,
Scott
Scott,
If I'm reading you correctly, you and I would agree that "rebaptism" isn't even a real option. It either is.. [when experienced] or it isn't.. based on your description and mine if, as I said, I'm understanding you.
In fact, I'm convinced that baptism biblically is the initiatory [one time] testimony of my being in Christ and the Lord's supper is the continuational [as often as you do it] testimony of Christ in me. They relate to an ekklesia gathered [testimony] but reflect a connectedness to the whole Body of Christ [Church] as well. [My union with Him.]
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