ARLINGTON, Texas (ABP) — Wade Burleson thinks Dwight McKissic, the Texas pastor who caused a stir in the Southern Baptist Convention by acknowledging he speaks in “tongues” in private, will eventually be president of that 16-million-member group.
If Burleson is right, McKissic also could be the first African-American to lead the nation's largest Protestant denomination.
In a panel discussion on day two of McKissic's “Baptist Conference on the Holy Spirit,” Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., told the crowd he had “a word of prophesy”– “One of these days, Dwight McKissic will be president of the Southern Baptist Convention.”
The April 28 panel, set before roughly 100 people, came at a time of unrest within the convention for both Burleson and McKissic. Burleson has been outspoken in his criticism of recent actions of the International Mission Board, especially its decision not to appoint missionaries who use a “private prayer language.” Trustees of that SBC board sought to remove him from the board, apparently for posting information about the board's deliberations on his blog.
Likewise, McKissic, a trustee at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has feuded with fellow trustees over the SBC seminary's policies on glossolalia. The controversy began in August after McKissic mentioned in a Southwestern chapel service his practice of a private prayer language. Later, seminary trustees threatened to ask the convention to remove McKissic from the board.
During the panel segment, speakers were asked to specify the characteristics of a “Spirit-filled believer or church.” Benjamin Cole, a well-known pastor from Arlington, Texas, facilitated the discussion, which also addressed whether a church needs to practice all the spiritual gifts to have a healthy ministry.
Burleson pointed to McKissic, who leads the predominantly African-American Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, as a leader among a group of Southern Baptists slowly “turning the ship” of the convention. Many prominent young pastors and bloggers attended the event as a way to foster understanding of and unity about the role of the Holy Spirit in Baptist churches.
Burleson said he prefers to use the term “Spirit-spilled” instead of “Spirit-filled.” And while all Christians are filled with the Spirit, some Baptists simply have not learned to “just let the Spirit move,” he said.
“We are a convention that cooperates for the purpose of the Great Commission,” Burleson said, referring to Jesus' command to make disciples of all people. “Denominationally, all I'm asking for is to let people be free to be who God has called them to be. And let's put our money together and let's fulfill the Great Commission. That's all I'm asking.”
That theme of denominational authority in mandating guidelines about miraculous gifts, especially speaking in tongues and private prayer languages, reverberated throughout the conference, held at McKissic's church.
Jason Epps, founding pastor of Gospel Fellowship Community Church in Salt Lake City, told the group how he was denied church-starting money from the Southern Baptist Convention because he admitted to praying in tongues. After hearing his story, the group took an offering to support the Utah church.
“Why is it that it is such a bad thing what someone does in their prayer closet, [if it] is not heretical?” Epps asked. “From my position, I don't teach people how to pray in a prayer language…. I'm not trying to promote it. I'm not trying to 'charismaticize' people. Why is it such a big deal, man?” Epps said in a question-and-answer session.
Epps directed his question to Bert Barber, a well-known blogger who told conference attendees he supports the cessasionist viewpoint on miraculous gifts, which is that the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit — like tongues, prophecy and healing — ceased to exist early in church history.
Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville, Texas, said he doesn't care “what somebody does in their private prayer closet.” He speculated that a “very aggressive” presence of Pentecostalism in foreign countries had caused some SBC leaders to start the anti-tongues movement “to protect the planting of Baptist churches in those areas.”
Barber said he does not believe McKissic should be excluded from holding a position within the convention, and he does not think the practice of a private prayer language should be “a litmus test” within SBC ranks.
Other panelists at the conference varied in their opinions about the continuation of “miraculous gifts,” ranging from those with a cessationist view to those with an adamant continualist view, which purports that the miraculous spiritual gifts present during the apostles' time continue today.
Panelist Sam Storms, a cessationist for the first 15 years of his ministry, now calls himself a continualist. A graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and former theology professor at Wheaton College, Storms said he has no doubt that his “cessasionist brothers and sisters” are filled with the Spirit.
In a presentation prior to participating in the panel, Storms presented 12 “bad reasons” for being a cessasionist and 12 “good reasons” to be a continualist. He did not focus exclusively on the practice of speaking in tongues but noted that “signs and wonders” authenticated Jesus and his message, served to glorify God, edified Christians and helped in evangelism. Those purposes remain valid today, he said.
“If signs and wonders and miraculous gifts were essential with the physical presence of Jesus himself, how much more in his absence?” Storms asked. “If the glorious presence of the son of God himself did not preclude the need for miraculous phenomenon, how can we suggest that the presence of the Bible does?”
Barber called himself “a skeptic,” although he said he's “willing to be persuaded” to change his opinion. Still, he said, the Bible provides a standard so that “churches can determine the genuine gift of tongues or the counterfeit based upon the message communicated by the utterance.”
“Yet the modern practice of ecstatic utterances consistently refuses to submit itself to the biblical test of verification,” he said.
“I believe people spoke in tongues in the Bible,” Barber said. “I believe Moses parted the Red Sea in the Bible. The question is not whether I believe in the Bible. The question is whether I believe what is happening now is the same thing.”
McKissic, who says he's “too Pentecostal to be Baptist and too Baptist to be Pentecostal” said he called the conference to force Baptists to “deal with these issues.”
Some lay people even have taken notice. Bob Cleveland, a “Pentecostal-Calvinist-Southern Baptist” from Pelham, Ala., said he attended the event to show his support for Burleson and because he “loves talking with people who don't agree with me.”
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Read more:
Holy Spirit conference urges unity, decries its absence in Baptist life (4/30)