Wade Burleson says there was no “investigation” by the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board into his allegations of trustee improprieties—despite the insistence of some trustees that there was.
“What idiot told Mr. Burleson there was no trustee investigative committee?” asked trustee Jerry Corbaley recently on his blog.
That “idiot” was IMB president Jerry Rankin, according to Burleson.
The IMB trustees recently responded to Burleson's call for an investigation, issuing a statement Jan. 29-31 that said, among other things, that the agency has policies in place to prevent or correct some of the improprieties Burleson alleged and that other allegations were outside the IMB's scope and authority.
The Southern Baptist Convention will act on the IMB's response next June.
The response initially was described by Associated Baptist Press and several other news outlets as an “internal investigation.” But Burleson told ABP that Rankin told him that was not the case; no investigation was conducted. Instead the response reportedly was drafted by the staff.
An IMB spokesperson did not dispute that characterization Feb. 16.
On Feb. 2, Burleson posted a blog entry (kerussocharis.blogspot.com) titled “There was no trustee investigative committee.” He said an administrator at the board had told him that the term “investigation committee” in his initial post about the response was inaccurate.
Burleson affirmed the board's response, with the caveat that he was uncomfortable with moving beyond the doctrinal parameters of the Baptist Faith and Message without explicit SBC approval.
Then, on Feb. 8, fellow IMB trustee Jerry Corbaley of California used his own blog (sbcglossolalia.blogspot.com) to criticize Burleson's description of the response.
“Since July of 2005 the IMB [board of trustees] has increasingly tracked, searched into, inquired systematically, examined in detail, expressing care and seeking accuracy, regarding the myriad accusations of Mr. Burleson,” he said.
Corbaley, the director of a local Baptist association, continued: “What idiot told Mr. Burleson there was no trustee investigative committee? Or were such words twisted out of context?”
He said Burleson's description discounts the work of both trustees and staffers at the agency, given their long exposure to the controversies that led to the motion. “Such a statement disparages the integrity of the International Mission Board trustees [again] and the Richmond staff,” Corbaley wrote.
Soon after, Burleson responded.
“The report speaks to IMB policy, and it is quite accurate on all counts, but there was no ‘investigation' conducted into the major concerns I had expressed in the recommendation itself,” he said.
It is not clear how the SBC will respond to the IMB report. Burleson is hoping the convention will call for an external investigation.
“If an investigation is needed, and it may or may not be determined at the SBC that one is, then an outside ad hoc committee will be created by the president of the convention in consultation with the … Executive Committee—the very thing I asked at last year's convention,” Burleson said on his blog.
Burleson then said Rankin himself wrote Corbaley to note that he was the “idiot” who asked Burleson not to use the term “trustee investigation committee” to describe the response.
Corbaley countered that Burleson had improperly characterized Rankin's description of the board's response. “While I regret Mr. Burleson making Dr. Rankin an issue, I assert that whatever Mr. Burleson was told was twisted out of context by the time it was posted on Mr. Burleson's blog,” he wrote on Feb. 12.
On Feb. 14, Burleson replied that he “most assuredly did not” take Rankin's words out of context. “Dr. Rankin, in his usual forthright and gracious style, told me that I should remove the phrase. He said that the report to my motion was an honest and cooperative effort to answer policy questions raised by my motion, to not spend any more time dealing with my recommendation than necessary, to attempt to be as non-controversial as possible in the response, and to get back to focusing on the missions and purpose of the board.”