More fog about NAMB's future

Stay in the dark, Southern Baptists.

Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF) member Ted Traylor told the Florida Baptist Witness that he “did some serious thinking” about the prospect of simultaneously leading the North American Mission Board (NAMB) presidential search committee.

He of course accepted, thus raising again the keystone question:

Will the troubled NAMB be merged with the troubled International Mission Board?

Traylor acknowledged speculation the GCRTF may recommend merging IMB and NAMB or creating one new mission board to replace the current mission boards, but said, “I also know what is being discussed in the GCR meetings. However, I do not believe it is my place to discuss those things until we come to some solid conclusions.”

We already know SBC chief Johnny Hunt doesn't want anyone to talk about the fate of the recently troubled and, a well-respected Southern Baptist leader says, misconceived agency. So GCRTF members go on filling the air with fog.

Addendum

Read the entire story and you will see Traylor either isn't reading or has decided not to heed Wade Burleson's warnings against attaching God's name to our decisions.

Whither straight GCR answers?

Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt thinks state baptist newspaper stories about North American Mission Board/International Mission Board merger are "ludicrous."

Meanwhile Ronnie Floyd, the chairman of the Great Commission Resurgence task force. is feeding that ludicrous fire.

Floyd reportedly told the Florida Baptist Witness three times in a recent email interview:

. . . the search committees of the respective entities should be "very prayerful and watchful of the work of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force" when asked if the GCR Task Force may be considering recommendations that could alter the structure of those entities.

Now what do you suppose he meant by "alter the structure" of the NAMB and/or IMB?

Clarification was sought by the Baptist Witness. Asked to if the retirement announcements of Jerry Rankin (IMB) and Morris Chapman (CEO of the SBC Executive Committee), and the forced resignation of Geoff Hammond (NAMB) indicated a restructuring, Floyd said:

"These developments have clarified that God is doing something among us and we need to be intentional on finding out what He is doing and joining Him in it."

Okey-doke.

Still needed: Straight GCR answers.

IMB numbers game

Tony Cartledge of Baptists Today analyzes The IMB numbers game:

Former IMB trustee Wade Burleson began the new year by suggesting that the IMB make a resolution to put some integrity into its numbers. On its website, the IMB cites statistical reports claiming that in 2007, IMB mission efforts resulted in 609,968 baptisms and 25,497 new church starts.

Burleson points out that such numbers would require that each of the IMB's 5,500 or so missionaries would have to be responsible for five new church starts and about 120 baptisms, and George Frink picked up on that discussion, pointing to an Ethics Daily post from 2005 that cited several international Baptists who dispute the way the IMB takes credit for baptisms and church starts that are unrelated to its work.

Please read it all here.

Inflated/fabricated Baptist mission numbers

Former Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board member Wade Burleson persuasively argues that key mission numbers are inflated and some are fabricated.

In a Jan. 2 blog entry A Proposed New Year's Resolution for the Southern Baptist Convention: Integrity in Numbers, he writes:

For example, in the Fast Facts posted on the International Mission Board web site, one reads that 5,551 missionaries were responsible, either directly or indirectly, for 25,497 new church starts in 2007, and 609,968 baptisms.

He explains that "planting" a church is a complex, time-consuming, typically expensive process.

Likewise, the conversion and Christian nurture process which attends baptism is also complex and time-consuming.

Yet IMB numbers suggest that each of the 5,551 missionaries in the field:

• Plants an average of five new churches per missionary in 2007.
• Baptises an average of 120 new members per missionary in 2007.

The numbers defy belief, he and some of those who commented on the blog suggested, and are not supported by the documenting data required to answer questions like:

"Where do these churches exist?", "How many people attend?", "Who pastors them?", "How many are still in existence?" etc . . .

He reports having inquired:

I have asked some of our SBC missionary personnel to give me the names of those baptized under their care as reported on the Annual Statistical Report - only to be given a blank stare by many. It seems there is no record of either the names of those baptized or churches they attend. The baptism number is simply that - a number.

How are the numbers padded?

. . . all that IMB field missionary personnel have to do is simply say they started a church, and it is recorded as a "new" church start. Or, sometimes, as reported to me by several field missionaries, they report on some excellent Bible study groups they have started, and "presto" - several new churches are born and wind up being reported by their supervisors on the Annual Statistical Report. Or, as has happened in various regions, statistics are given about "new" church starts that have nothing to do with SBC personnel; they have been started by indigenous people groups that have absolutely no connection with SBC personnel in the area.

He bases his views on confidential reports from those in the field:

I have had missionary personnel from different regions in the world write me with concerns about the reporting process and ask "When is somebody going to challenge the numbers?"

His view is supported by comments from Montgomery, AL., pastor Alan Cross, who wrote:

I wrote a similar post on the now defunct SBC Outpost last May. To back up what you are saying, I communicated with missionaries from 4 different regions before writing my post. None of them were connected but they all told the same story. Pressure from superiors (both administration and trustees) had created an environment where numbers were being exaggerated and sometimes fabricated.

Cross also indicated sweeping problems with the reported numbers. He wrote:

There are CPM's (church planting movements) that have been reported that do not exist presently, or if they ever did, they are not able to be found now. There are church plants that have been reported that do not exist, or if they do, they are totally the work of indigenous believers. The baptism numbers are totally wrong.

They seem to agree about why numbers are being exaggerated and fabricated. As Burleson wrote:

The fault lies with the system we have constructed that puts such an ungodly emphasis on numbers.

Their desire for simple reform is painfully clear.

Such systems are, unfortunately, rarely self-correcting.

Will Baptists help the Women's Missionary Union?

The fundamentalists vs. moderates theology war tearing apart the Southern Baptist Convention has come to the SBC Women's Missionary Union as painful retrenchment.

Wade Burleson wrote on Dec. 12:

Day before yesterday, the employees of the Woman's Missionary Union were called to a meeting to announce difficult but preemptive measures that were being taken due to the economic downturn. The WMU is short two million dollars in revenue. The executive director of the WMU, Wanda Lee, is working very hard to keep all of the WMU's employees in place, not wanting to lay anyone off. To accomplish this, the employees of the WMU are having to take what amounts to a four week furlough, spread out over an eight month period, without pay.

The problem is as much by design as it is a result of demographic change and the effects of our current economic difficulties.

The theologically moderate WMU refused to come to heel when SBC fundamentalist leadership whistled, so funding has been progressively cut off and sustaining work taken elsewhere in a process which from the outside looks like deliberate destruction of a historically sustaining institution.

The WMU's Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions and the WMU's Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board, respectively.

In return the WMU until recently received reimbursements from both organizations. But after some maneuvering which included an attempt by the NAMB to strip the WMU of the Lottie Moon trademark, both contributions have been sharply reduced and one is being phased out.

Burleson details the history of WMU sustenance of key Southern Baptist institutions, a part of which was a Great Depression bailout of what was then the Home Mission Board.

He in effect calls for Southern Baptists to come home from the theology wars to their consciences in this matter when he writes:

I imagine the WMU will not publicly wave a flag, asking for Southern Baptists to step into the gap for them. However, in my opinion, this is a true test for those of us identified as Southern Baptists. Will we now turn our backs on WMU when they are at a low point, financially?

In the history of what has been called the SBC conservative resurgence, that apparently would be an unprecedented denominational turnabout.

It is unlikely.

How tangled an IMB Web?

Frink calls attention to a retired insurance broker's assessment of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board's embezzlement coverup:

So .. I was really shocked when I heard about the Gray Harvey case. Not only have I been active in churches for 45 years or so, in the SBC for 27+ years, but I spent 50 years in the Property & Casualty Insurance business, which is the line of business that covers stuff like employees stealing. So I know a bit about that.

For one thing, I doubt that the SBC insured employee theft. If they had, they would have been reimbursed for Mr. Harvey's theft, and I figure the insurance company would either have collected from the malefactor, or prosecuted. I DON'T figure they'd have let it die a natural, peaceful death.

He makes his view of the IMB trustees who allowed the case to go unprosecuted and took the reported oath of silence quite clear when he says:

If I was somebody like Sam Walton, and this sort of shenanigans had gone on in MY company, I'd fire the lot of them.

We concur, although former IMB trustee Wade Burleson's attempt to hold them to account earned him a drumbeat of anonymous criticism which implied that Burleson was egolistically damaging missionary efforts, until Burleson responded:

If you are the person who used to work for the board and worked with Gray Harvey, you may also be the person that two people told me was involved in the embezzlement.

Please email at wwburleson@hotmail.com and I will tell you if you are the one identified by two people, in writing, as an accomplice.

In His Grace

Wade

Fri Dec 05, 10:04:00 PM 2008

Accomplices?

How tangled is the disastrously miswoven web?

Secrecy leads to deception

A massive Alabama insurance fraud might have been prevented had one of the accused faced criminal prosecution by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.

Instead of pursuing criminal charges, the Mission Board settled for a judgment ordering Benton Gray Harvey to repay.

The Alabama Press-Register reports:

The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention won a judgment in Richmond, Va., in March 2005 against Harvey for $362,499.62. A spokeswoman for the Richmond-based board said that the case stemmed from Harvey's service overseas for the board as an accountant. She said she didn't know when or where Harvey served, or what he did that led the board to sue.

The mission board's reasons for failing to prosecute Harvey in 2004 are far from reasonable. They involve concealment and evasion of responsibility by the board itself.

An Associated Baptist Press article details the Baptist connection to the fraud investigation reported by the Press-Register in Mobile, Ala.

Former Mission Board trustee Wade Burleson fought the decision to not prosecute Gray Harvey, as he explains in his blog. Burleson came to the board after the decision and says that as a result he did not take the oath of secrecy to which other board members bound themselves in the case.

That such a Mission Board oath exists at all is a matter of concern.

More immediately disturbing is the board's rationale for refusing to prosecute Harvey, who had an overseas appointment, apparently in Istanbul.

According to Burleson, the mission board leadership gave three reasons for the failure to pursue criminal charges:

1. Prosecution might compromise missionaries if it took place in the country where Harvey was when the embezzlement occurred.
2. The Mission Board didn't want bad publicity while in the midst of promoting its Christmas offering.
3. Harvey had agreed to repay the money.

Let's address the reasons in inverse order.

First, Burleson argued that the mission board shouldn't trust someone who had embezzled money, and he was right. Court order notwithstanding, Harvey stopped repaying the money a couple of months after he left the board's employ.

Second, the mission board's desire to avoid bad publicity during its offering implies that good Southern Baptists would stop giving because of the embezzlement scandal. The board's cover-up and apparent contribution through neglect to the Alabama insurance fraud may, however, cause many givers to pause before opening their wallets.

Third, on close examination there is a flaw in the board's strategy of sending missionaries into the field under false pretenses.

We're well aware that some countries aren't open to missionaries, but we're not convinced that deception is an appropriate way to further a gospel which forbids deception. Moreover, in this case, secrecy abroad was used to help justify convenient concealment at home.

If the Alabama fraud had not been discovered and linked to the International Mission Board incident, good Baptists would still not know that their offerings were stolen from the mission board, and not repaid.

The incident also revives questions San Antonio messengers raised about the IMB's recent audits.

IMB President Jerry Rankin's claim that the audit procedure used last year, was adequate, no longer seems satisfactory.