Texas pastor calls for BF&M statement on tongues

ARLINGTON, Texas — A prominent Texas pastor is asking Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders to consider an amendment to the convention’s faith statement dealing with spiritual gifts, including tongues and private prayer language. Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church, Arlington, Texas, in a letter posted on the church’s Web site and addressed to SBC President Frank Page and the convention’s Nashville-based Executive Committee, wrote that “a lack of consensus and clarity on these issues among Southern Baptists” exists. McKissic wrote that although those who dispute the modern use of tongues are the majority in SBC leadership, they are “defining Southern Baptists in the public square” without the convention’s faith statement speaking to the matter.

The letter asks Page and the Executive Committee to “initiate a process of addressing and formally adopting a position sanctioned by the SBC in [the] 2007 or 2008 Annual meeting, to be included in the Baptist Faith and Message, regarding our position(s) on spiritual gifts, private prayer language and speaking in tongues.” The tongues and private prayer language issue has been prominent within the convention since late 2005, when the trustees of the SBC International Mission Board adopted a policy excluding missionary candidates who practice tongues or a prayer language.