Friday, Feb. 21, 2003

Mainstream seeks to get past Baptist battles

By Robert O'Brien

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Participants at the second national convocation of the Mainstream Baptist Network (MBN) in Birmingham, Feb. 8-9, looked beyond nearly a quarter century of Baptist theological and political strife to a vision for missions networking in the 21st century.

They also honored 10 new inductees into to the MBN Hall of Fame who have shown courage in standing for Baptist principles, heritage and freedom. The inductees included R.G. Puckett, retired editor of the Biblical Recorder.

Bob Stephenson, a layman from Norman, Okla., was elected MBN national co-chair. He succeeds Phil Lineberger, a pastor from Sugarland, Texas. Bill Wilson, a pastor from Waynesboro, Va., was re-elected as the other national MBN co-chair. Tony Woodell of Little Rock, Ark., who heads Mainstream Arkansas Baptists, remains as secretary-treasurer.

Convocation speakers spun out a theme focusing on missions networks around the world that have emerged from years of pain and exclusion felt by many Baptists as the Southern Baptist Convention has moved strongly toward the right.

"We at this meeting are familiar with pain," Fred Loper of Oklahoma City, a medical doctor and former missionary of the North American Mission Board (NAMB), told more than 200 Mainstream leaders from 15 states.

"There's agony over what has happened to Southern Baptists over the last 20-plus years," Loper said, now associate executive director of the Baptist Medical-Dental Fellowship, an autonomous group based in Tennessee. "There is even pain about what all this has done to missions. But it's not all bad. Pain serves as a warning of danger and has caused us to change for the better."

MBN participants gave a standing ovation of approval for Loper, who left NAMB with help from the Texas Baptist transition fund for missionaries who cannot in good conscience sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message statement. They also extended that ovation to include Clay and Debbie Porter, now missionaries in residence at Samford University in Birmingham, who resigned from the International Mission Board for the same reason after 12 years service in Macao and Hong Kong.

"We realized that we can't fear God and man at the same time," Clay Porter said in an interview. "The IMB didn't fire us. We fired them."

Two state Baptist executive directors, Charles Wade of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and John Upton of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, outlined approaches to missions in their two states which they said will seek to include any Baptist who wants to network in the cause of spreading the gospel and ministry of Jesus Christ around their cities, states, nation and world.

"It's easy to camp out where we've been and nurse our hurts," Wade said. "The future is where God is calling us, and we can't allow our critics to define our future."

Upton, addressing the convocation via video because of his wife's recent surgery for breast cancer, said his convention's plan called for collaboration and partnership in a church-based approach that honors differences and shares resources.

Suzanah Raffield of Birmingham spoke of gender inclusion and the needs of women around the world. "The call to minister with women around the world is louder and more powerful than any denominational crisis," said Raffield, coordinator of Global Women, Inc. "The callings of the women on whose shoulders I stand are more powerful and louder than a reaction to a convention."

Two missions veterans, Keith Parks of Richardson, Texas, and William R. (Bill) O'Brien of Birmingham, opened and closed the convocation respectively with addresses on the priority missions and a vision for future missions.

"The Bible is not a book that just includes missions; it is missions," said Parks, former president of the SBC Foreign (now International) Mission Board and former CBF global missions coordinator.

Parks said Mainstream's "spiritual ancestors" focused on missions when they formed the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in 1845. The current SBC instead emphasizes doctrine, he said.

"The fulfillment of this God-given missions priority for those of our persuasion is not possible within that system," Parks said.

Instead of responding with bitterness or recrimination, Parks said Baptists should reclaim their heritage and focus on missions - "Christian-by-Christian, church-by-church, and state-by-state in cooperation with all who share this biblical priority."

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