By Editor Bob Terry
It is no secret that International Mission Board (IMB) President Jerry Rankin opposes the board of trustees’ recently adopted policy that excludes anyone who practices a private prayer language from serving as a Southern Baptist missionary. What is surprising is that Rankin is now being blamed for the trustees adopting the policy in the first place.
The charges and countercharges around the policy indicate just how difficult things are at what has long been viewed as Southern Baptists’ crown jewel, the IMB.
It was the IMB president, Rankin’s critics say, who insisted that the issue of practicing a private prayer language be voted on by the trustees. If Rankin had not pushed the issue, there would be no controversy, they contend.
As the story was told to me, Rankin forced the vote on the issue in an attempt to get missionaries who practice glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, on the field. Because Rankin practices a private prayer language — something that has been a part of the public record since before his election as IMB president in 1993 — he was sympathetic to others with the practice and did not want speaking in tongues to be a barrier to missionary service, the argument goes.
Not surprisingly, Rankin frames the controversy differently. When asked about the charge of pushing the issue, the IMB president acknowledged that he did insist the issue be voted on by the board of trustees. There the similarity of stories stops.
According to Rankin’s version, the IMB trustee personnel committee formulated a guideline that effectively excluded anyone with a private prayer language from serving as a missionary. In Rankin’s words, “It (the guideline) was drafted in a way where there wasn’t really any wiggle room. I mean it was pretty explicit.” The committee faithfully followed its guideline and missionary candidates were rejected.
Yet more than half the members of the board of trustees had no input into the guideline, and the guideline was being implemented as if it were an IMB policy.
Rankin explained that the bylaws of the board of trustees prevent any committee of the trustees from acting on behalf of the board. “In fact,” he said, “there is no board action apart from full board (action) in plenary session.” It was a desire to be “circumspect” in the process that caused him to insist on action by the full board, Rankin said. His own feelings were not an issue.
“If we’re going to be expected to carry this out, our personnel staff, and implement this (the guideline), then the full board [needed] to act on it,” Rankin reiterated.
Rankin’s explanation sounds like prudent administration. No trustee or group of trustees carries the authority of the full body unless it is given them by action of the body. Certainly a policy about who can and cannot serve as missionaries needs to be determined by the full board and not a minority of the board.
It is both surprising and disappointing that some of those who formulated the original guideline in the personnel committee now want to blame Rankin for the controversy over the issue. Those who backed the new policy do not apologize for their position, only the fact that it became a source of controversy. Evidently they would have liked it better had the policy been quietly implemented without Southern Baptists ever knowing about it.
So while Rankin gets no credit for the policy, he gets all the blame for the controversy, according to his critics.
Somehow that sounds like twisted logic. Rankin is not responsible for the controversy. Those who formulated the policy are.
There are other strange twists at the IMB. At the March meeting of the trustees, only a caution from the trustees’ legal counsel prevented a vote on a motion instructing Rankin and other staff members to furnish any trustee any information about the IMB that trustee might request.
Can you imagine the chaos of responding to 89 different trustee bosses, of working in a situation in which nothing can be confidential? It is an axiom of corporate governance that administration is responsible to the full board but not to each individual board member.
And then there was the disagreement between Rankin and some trustees over the doctrinal integrity of the missionaries. Rankin said he felt compelled to defend the missionaries in light of the controversy swirling around about private prayer language. Rankin said no one had been able to indict the missionary force and he wanted to attest to its doctrinal integrity. When Rankin finished speaking, a few trustees pointed out some particular cases of doctrinal concerns being examined by trustees. Rankin’s explanation that the fact the cases were under examination emphasized that procedures are in place to deal with the rare instances that surface did not seem to satisfy these trustees.
It is no secret that Rankin is under pressure from a segment of IMB trustees. Events make that perfectly clear. How large that segment is remains to be seen. Also it is no secret that he continues to serve under pressure from some who objected to his election as IMB president in 1993. As those pressures combine, it seems to increasingly result in some strange twists and turns for the IMB.
Rankin, the trustees, the international missionaries — they all need to be lifted up in prayer during these critical days. World evangelism is supposed to be part of the glue that holds Southern Baptists together. It doesn’t need to be soured by more political elbowing.
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