Ninety-five retired International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries who served in the Middle East and North Africa recently signed a resolution calling for Christian leaders in America to refrain from making inflammatory statements about the faith of the people in the mostly Muslim area.
The admonition was sent in a letter addressed to former Southern Baptist Convention president Jerry Vines and Richard Land, executive director of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The letter noted Vines used “very strong language to deprecate the founder of Islam” and cited Land’s endorsement of President Bush’s pro-Israel policies. Both actions were particularly distressing to missionaries, the letter said.
“Because of the deep and continued concern for all the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa,” the resolution said, “we, the retired missionaries of this area, urge Christian leaders in America to respect the faith, values and aspirations of all the peoples of the entire area, and to reflect this respect in their public and private statements.”
The retirees, representing more than 1,625 years of combined experience with the IMB, sent the letter after Vines, pastor of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla., told a group of pastors last month that he stands by his June 2002 comment that Mohammed was a “demon-possessed pedophile.”
A similar call for restraint was issued last January by a group of current IMB missions workers in Muslim countries.
Vines and Land failed to return requests for comment. Likewise, the International Mission Board declined to comment, according to a spokesman.
(ABP)
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