IMB: Zero and none are the chances

... Wade Burleson will get his day at the SBC meeting in Greensboro, NC, this month.

In a post at his blog, "The Decision -- A Motion In Greensboro," Burleson says ...

After listening to the advice of many people, visiting at length with my wife, and both requesting and receiving from the Lord a peace in my spirit regarding my decision, I am ready to take what I believe to be the next appropriate step in my service on behalf of the Southern Baptist Convention at the International Mission Board.

There will be a motion to the Southern Baptist Convention in Greensboro, North Carolina requesting messengers to authorize the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention to appoint an Ad Hoc Committee in order to to listen to, view evidence of, and possibly investigate further, five concerns involving the International Mission Board.

Burleson's motion will raise five issues he and others would like to see investigated by the Convention:

(1). The manipulation of the nominating process of the Southern Baptist Convention during the appointment of trustees for the International Mission Board.

(2). Attempts to influence and/or coerce the IMB trustees, staff, and administration to take a particular course of action by one or more Southern Baptist agency heads other than the President of the International Mission Board.

(3). The appropriate and/or inappropriate use of Forums and Executive Sessions of the International Mission Board as compared to conducting business in full view of the Southern Baptist Convention and the corresponding propriety and/or impropriety of the Chairman of the International Mission Board excluding any individual trustee, without Southern Baptist Convention approval, from participating in meetings where the full International Mission Board is convened.

(4). The legislation of new doctrinal requisites for eligibility to serve as employees or missionaries of the IMB beyond the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.

(5). The suppression of dissent by trustees in the minority through various means by those in the majority, and the propriety of any agency forbidding a trustee, by policy, from publicly criticizing a Board approved action; and ...

The motion continues at that point to recommend certain behavioral modifications within the IMB Board of Trustees.

Parlimentary sessions at all levels of the SBC can be an uneven playing field to say the least. I've seen moderators and Convention officials familiar with parlimentary practices use their knowledge to block actions from the floor at every attempt, to destroy lessor opponents, or to so demoralize opponents so that they wilt under the heat. I've seen officials use the Convention clock and agenda to stimy some really important issues ... issues they decided in hall meetings not to allow to see the light of day.

I've seen parlimentarians use the stage like a puppet master uses his marionettes; making parlimentary decisions in the dark shadows of the stage out of the sight and the understanding of conventioneers ... citing obsure sections of Robert's Rules or interpreting the Convention's Constitution and By-laws to fit the needs of unknown Machiavellian power-brokers with every effort of the floor.

Sadly, most Conventioneers are as emptyheaded as the Puppet Master's dolls, as dense as the Republican base, as naive as the Democratic base, and as ignorant as most Baptist Churches on a Sunday morning. The bobbleheads move their skulls en mass, praising loudly every yard gained by a losing team, raising their voting cards to be seen rather than to be counted.

Burleson ends his post with this ...

May God bless the IMB staff and administration, may God bless my fellow trustees, may God bless our missionaries, and may God bless the Southern Baptist Convention in Greensboro.

I believe he means every word of that prayer ... I do not see Wade as a troublemaker, as an obscurantist, or as an insincere brother. I pray I'm not wrong.

HT: ABP News

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International Mission Board, Polity, SBC,
Southern Baptists, Wade Burleson, Religion