By Jim White with BP and ABP
International Mission Board trustees voted to appoint 89 new missionaries during their Nov. 14-17 meeting in Huntsville, Ala., and learned that Southern Baptists last year took the gospel to 137 previously unengaged people groups and planted the first evangelical Baptist churches among 14 of those groups that had no evangelical work.
In June, the number of unengaged people groups numbering over 100,000 was estimated to be 511. By their meeting in November, the number had grown to 630 because people groups populations keep increasing. “Even as we reach many, there are others who are crossing that threshold and now entering that category of 100,000 people or more” cited Rankin.
“We realize that even with the cooperative efforts of the major mission agencies in the evangelical world, we will not do it alone. Only as we facilitate, mobilize and enable all of God’s people called Southern Baptists to be engaged in our Great Commission task can we hope to reach a lost world.
“We have to train, equip and facilitate more Southern Baptist churches to join the task and accelerate reaching the unreached people groups.”
The trustees took other action, however, to disqualify those Southern Baptists who use a “private prayer language” from being appointed as missionaries.
Based on action taken by the trustees on Nov. 15, the IMB will no longer appoint Southern Baptist missionaries who use a “private prayer language”—which many confuse with speaking in tongues and which was practiced at one time by IMB president Jerry Rankin.
The International Mission Board already excludes people who speak in tongues in public worship from serving as missionaries. But IMB trustees amended the list of missionary qualifications to exclude those who use a “prayer language” in private.
The restriction of “prayer language”—widely, but not universally, understood as a private version of the charismatic practice of tongues-speaking. The action was approved by a vote initially reported on the IMB website of 25-18 with some trustees abstaining. The numbers were later removed because an exact count of the vote could not be verified, according to Wendy Norvelle of the IMB staff, who acknowledged that the vote was divided.
The policy guideline, which applies only to new appointees, states: “In terms of general practice, the majority of Southern Baptists do not accept what is referred to as ‘private prayer language.’ Therefore, if ‘private prayer language’ is an ongoing part of his or her conviction and practice, the candidate has eliminated himself or herself from being a representative of the IMB of the SBC.”
The policy interprets New Testament passages dealing with tongues as talking about a spiritual gift enabling the bearer to speak a language that “generally is considered to be a legitimate language of some people group,” and adds that a “prayer language as commonly expressed by those practitioners is not the same as the biblical use of glossolalia.” It also asserts that the apostle Paul’s “clear teaching is that prayer should be made with understanding.”
This is not the first time trustees of the agency have addressed tongues-speaking. When Rankin was elected in 1993 as president of the agency (then known as the Foreign Mission Board), there was mild controversy over reports that he had engaged in such private prayer practices.
At the time, Rankin reportedly acknowledged he has “prayed in the Spirit” privately. He also interpreted, or translated, a message spoken in tongues at a public worship service in Singapore, where he served as a regional missions director for the agency prior to his being elected to serve as President of the IMB.
In 1995, two years after he was elected, Rankin and the IMB fired missionaries Charles and Sharon Carroll of Singapore for promoting charismatic practices. By this time their beliefs and practice included being “slain in the Spirit” which, in the judgment of Rankin and the IMB trustees, simply went too far. Rankin had accepted the Carrolls’ speaking in tongues at they practiced it at the time when he was their Singapore-based supervisor.
IMB spokesperson Anita Bowden noted that the prayer policy will not apply to IMB missionaries appointed before Nov. 15. It also will not apply to Rankin or other non-missionary personnel at the agency’s Richmond, headquarters, she said.
Also on Nov. 15, IMB trustees elaborated on their policy for the forms of baptism acceptable for missionary candidates.
The new policy declares that candidates must have been baptized in SBC-affiliated churches or have received believer’s baptism by immersion in another denomination or non-denominational church. If the candidate received baptism in another tradition, it must be viewed as symbolic rather than sacramental or regenerative. Also, the church or denomination in which the baptism took place must adhere to the doctrine of the “security of the believer,” or the belief that one cannot lose one's salvation.
The vote to approve the baptism policy was approximately two to one, according to the IMB website.