As debate escalates over an effort by the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board to remove one of its trustees from office, a Texas Baptist pastor has warned that he might seek to have the entire board dismissed.
Benjamin Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, issued an open letter to IMB trustees in response to their proposal to remove trustee Wade Burleson from office.
Trustees voted Jan. 11 to seek Burleson's removal due to “broken trust and resistance to accountability,” according to IMB trustee chairman Thomas Hatley.
Burleson was criticized by trustees for his frequent Internet blogs expressing concern about recent IMB actions. According to Burleson, trustee leaders accused him of violating board confidentiality. Burleson denied that accusation. He said “the real issue is crusading conservatives vs. cooperative conservatives,” warning that dogmatic trustees are excluding too many Southern Baptists from missionary service and meaningful participation in the Southern Baptist Convention.
Because denominational trustees are elected by SBC messengers, they can be removed only by action of the SBC, which meets June 13-14 in Greensboro, N.C. If the IMB proposal to remove Burleson is adopted, it reportedly would be the first time a trustee has been dismissed in the SBC's 160-year history.
In his open letter to trustees, Cole-whose church is a member of the conservative Southern Baptists of Texas Convention-said he has “scoured Rev. Burleson's website for evidence of his wrongdoing, and my net has returned empty.”
“If there is information regarding acts of impropriety on his part that are not publicly available, then I will wait to hear the rationale for his removal when offered by the trustee chairman at this year's annual convention in Greensboro, N.C.,” Cole wrote. “If no adequate rationale is provided, I will consider offering a substitute motion to vacate the board of trustees of the International Mission Board altogether.”
Warning that bringing the issue “to the floor of the convention … will divide us all,” Cole emphasized that each IMB trustee “is individually accountable to the convention.”
“While I choose to give the benefit of the doubt to both Rev. Burleson and the trustees who would move his ouster,” Cole wrote, “I am suspicious that your unprecedented decision to recommend the termination of his term, whether successful or not, has brought irreparable harm to the confidence Southern Baptists will have in your suitability for continued service.”
Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., was elected last June by SBC messengers to a four-year term as an IMB trustee. He is immediate past president of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.
Associated Baptist Press