Messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention referred a motion to the International Mission Board raising concern over the appointment of trustees, alleged coercion of IMB staff and the narrowing of doctrinal parameters for missionary appointees. The board is to issue a report at the SBC’s 2007 meeting in San Antonio.
The call for an investigation of alleged impropriety among IMB trustees was made by Wade Burleson, an IMB trustee from Oklahoma and pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, whose motion called for the SBC Executive Committee to handle the matter.
Burleson has been at the center of controversy with the board for several months, but controversy at the SBC was quickly diffused when both Burleson and convention president Bobby Welch said they saw wisdom in waiting a year for the findings of an internal IMB committee.
During the June 13 discussion of the motion, Burleson said he is grateful for his initial year of trustee service and looks forward to continued service on the board. He said he submitted the motion because the IMB had reached an “impasse” on addressing the sources of controversy at the board. He also said he objected to the chairman of the board of trustees appointing the committee to examine the issue.
Welch said it is “overwhelmingly critical” that the matter be handled respectfully and that those who address the issue do so in a “kindhearted manner.” For that reason, he suggested that the matter not be taken up by the Executive Committee until after it had been addressed among the mission board’s trustees.
Burleson’s original motion called for the Executive Committee to name an ad hoc committee to examine “the manipulation of the nominating process” during the appointment of IMB trustees, “attempts to influence and/or coerce the IMB trustees, staff, and administration” by SBC entity heads other than the IMB’s president, and also the manner in which new doctrinal requirements were developed for prospective missionaries. At issue are new policies prohibiting appointees with a “private prayer language” or those from churches with baptism practices that do not reflect the doctrine of the eternal security of believers.
Burleson’s motion also called for review of trustee policies that allow for closed sessions, and the “propriety and/or impropriety” of an IMB chairman excluding a board member from meetings when the full board is convened. Finally, the motion called for the proposed ad hoc committee to examine alleged suppression of dissent on the part of the board’s leadership, which by policy prohibit the public criticism of a board decision by individual trustees.