International Mission Board (IMB) trustees are seeking the removal of one of their own, Wade Burleson of Oklahoma — a first for any Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) entity.
Burleson came under fire following his outspoken criticism about new IMB policies dealing with believer’s baptism and a form of speaking in tongues known as “private prayer language.” The new policies were approved in November 2005, when trustees met in Huntsville.
Since December, he has spoken out against the new policies on his Web blog (kerussocharis.blogspot.com), which has launched a firestorm of discussions, especially on his and other Web blogs. A Web blog is a Web site, available in most cases for public viewing, in which journal entries are posted on a regular basis.
IMB trustees — meeting in Richmond, Va., Jan. 9–11 — voted Jan. 10 to recommend that Burleson be removed as a trustee.
Messengers to the 2005 SBC annual meeting in Nashville elected Burleson to a four-year term on the IMB board. Messengers to the upcoming SBC annual meeting June 13–14 in Greensboro, N.C., will vote on the recommendation to remove him.
Tom Hatley, IMB board chairman, said in a brief prepared statement Jan. 11, “In taking this action, trustees addressed issues involving broken trust and resistance to accountability, not Burleson’s opposition to policies recently enacted by the board.”
At the same time, Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Enid, Okla., charges that a small group of trustees are holding secret meetings, which are against trustee guidelines, and that the group’s main focus is a plot against IMB President Jerry Rankin.
In addition, Burleson claims a battle is brewing among “conservatives.”
“A new war has begun,” he wrote Dec. 10. “The war that is now taking place with crusading conservatives attacking cooperating conservatives is following the same battle plan conservatives used to defeat liberalism.”
“Trustees of agencies are being ‘vetted’ or cleared by men and women who are of the opinion that no conservative is worthy of leadership that does not toe the party line,” he wrote. “Crusading conservatives are using private meetings at trustee meetings, an unethical violation of all agencies’ guidelines, to cram their agendas through,” Burleson continued, claiming the recently approved IMB policies on baptism and tongues is an example of what is happening.
The baptism policy mandates that candidates for missionary appointment be baptized by immersion and in a church that embraces the doctrine of the security of the believer.
The “private prayer language” bans the appointment of new missionaries who have practiced this form of speaking in tongues.
Both policies began Nov. 15. The action will not affect current IMB missionaries or staff.
But under the new policy, Rankin could not be a missionary, Burleson said.
Rankin told Christianity Today in an article posted on its Web site Jan. 3 that he has prayed in tongues for 30 years and that the trustees who elected him in 1993 knew that. “I am assuming that this (new policy) does not have anything to do with me, because it was stated that it doesn’t,” Rankin told Christianity Today.
Burleson contends that the policy has everything to do with Rankin.
The former IMB policy regarding speaking in tongues, or glossolalia, restricted missionaries from practicing tongues publicly, Burleson explained in his Dec. 10 blog entry. “But the new policy narrows the restriction to preclude a private prayer language.
“Dr. Jerry Rankin, before being hired to be president …, made known he had experienced a private prayer language, but agreed contractually to abide by the policy of the IMB as president and to never publicly practice …,” he said.
Burleson believes Rankin is a target. “I have been told by an authority in the crusading effort that there are some trustees who will settle for nothing less than Dr. Rankin’s head on a platter,” he wrote Dec. 10.
Almost a month later on Jan. 8, Burleson wrote, “I have felt for some time that there are a few trustees who are dead set on opposing the direction, vision and leadership of Dr. Jerry Rankin. … I am blogging to make sure Dr. Rankin is no longer undermined, or if he is, to call it out.” He also noted that journaling on the blog was faster than attempting “to explain to the number of people who called or wrote me asking, ‘How could you pass the new policies?’”
But many of his fellow trustees are not happy with the blog, Burleson said.
According to Burleson’s Jan. 9 blog entry, IMB trustee Winston Curtis, also of Oklahoma, told Burleson that some trustees feel the blog is harming the effectiveness of the IMB.
Burleson responded, “This blog is necessary because the board has spoken. … I am doing my best to keep people and churches involved in the SBC. I feel that some trustees are out of touch with where the convention is as a whole.”
He also addressed the private, invitation-only meetings. In the Jan. 9 blog entry, Burleson said, “A group of about 10 or 12 trustees were seated in the foyer of the hotel (during the recent board meeting). I decided to come back down and listen in on the conversation without being observed by the group.”
Burleson listened for 10 minutes before bringing fellow blogger and Georgia pastor Marty Duren and Georgia youth minister Joey Jernigan in on the conversation.
Confronting the group of trustees, Burleson said he asked them to explain what he had just heard, “things I am not yet prepared to place in print.”
“This to me was a clear violation of IMB policy,” Burleson wrote. “Our blue book clearly forbids other trustees meeting in caucus to establish agendas, motions or policies during the course of a regularly scheduled IMB meeting, without other trustees present.”
Duren, pastor of New Bethany Baptist Church, Buford, Ga., did journal about the experience Jan. 11 on his Web blog (www.sbcoutpost.blogspot.com).
“[We] listened as [Burleson] confronted the group about disparaging comments made about Oklahoma trustees,” he wrote. “During that conversation, a Texas trustee … said, ‘All I was doing was telling them that I was going to make a motion tomorrow because of the Web site (referring to conflicting vote tallies reported on the prayer language policy vote).’” Duren said the Texas trustee went on to say that he was only asking the group who would make the second.
“The man confessed in the presence of at least five witnesses to violating board policy by doing exactly what Wade and at least 10 current and former trustees have stated was the problem,” Duren wrote.
As far as the issue about the conflicting vote tallies, that happened during the count of trustees raising their hands as they voted for or against the “private prayer language” policy in November.
The original vote count was reported on the IMB Web site and by Associated Baptist Press Nov. 30 as 25–18 in favor of the policy. But the vote was taken on a show of hands, rather than a ballot or roll call. Some trustees claimed a 50–15 count. The IMB determined “no official count” of the vote was required, just whether it passed or failed.
At their January meeting, IMB trustees voted to require the IMB’s communication office to clear any stories about trustee actions with the board’s chair or someone he designates.
IMB spokesman Van Payne said, “We were trying to decide how not to get in that situation again. The trustee chairman will get a look at trustee stories before they are released.” (ABP, BP contributed)
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