IMB Policies Demoted… to Guidelines?
May 9th, 2007 | Posted in » Baptist Issues
Okay, I don’t get it. Wade Burleson reports that the IMB policies on private prayer language and baptismal requirements put in place almost a year and a half ago were demoted to “guidelines” at yesterday’s Trustee meeting in Kansas City (I’m kicking myself for not attending!). The guidelines are a bit more clearly worded, but the same basic message as the old policies remains.
So what’s the difference? The guidelines state that missionary candidates who practice “ecstatic utterances as prayer language” have eliminated themselves from being IMB missionaries… ditto with the policies. The guidelines state that candidates who have not been baptized by immersion under the authority of a local church that does not comply with all of the “guidelines” must be re-baptized in such a local church… ditto with the policies. The wording and implementation are almost identical… so why bother changing it from a policy to a guideline? What mitigating circumstances might exist where the guidelines would be waived?
Although I understand that “guidelines” are less binding than “policies”, the whole thing just doesn’t make any sense to me. If the guidelines are intended to weed out certain missionary candidates, why not just keep them as an official policy? Is the “demotion” intended to lessen the blow? To provide wiggle room to account for the fact that the IMB currently has employees that would be excluded under the “policies” (including Jerry Rankin, the IMB President)? Something else?
Maybe I’m just too dense to understand.
One Response to “IMB Policies Demoted… to Guidelines?”
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By Bob Cleveland on May 9, 2007
Whatever other conclusions one might come to, we still have one gift of the Spirit which is met with disdain and suspicion by those in authority in the IMB (and NAMB). And still a denominationally self-centered view of baptism.
Sorry, but they just don’t wash with me.