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Texas Baptists Aiding Missionaries Who Refuse to Sign Creed By John Hall DALLAS (ABP) The missionary transition fund of the Baptist General Convention of Texas has supported 41 missionaries who resigned or were terminated after refusing to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message. The BGCT has dispersed more than $526,760 in financial assistance to missionaries since it was started last year. Pledges and gifts to the fund total more than $1.3 million. Thirteen missionaries currently are receiving financial assistance from the account. As of March 31, 141 overseas and stateside missionaries have contacted the Texas Baptist transition team to voice their concern about the requirement that all International Mission Board missionaries and all new North American Mission Board missionaries sign the revised faith statement. This number includes 45 IMB career missionaries who have resigned, 12 pending IMB resignations, nine IMB retirements and two terminated IMB missionaries. It also includes two North American Mission Board missionaries who resigned and two terminated NAMB missionaries. The numbers differ slightly from those reported by IMB because not all of those who are resigning have yet informed the IMB, Texas officials say. The financial assistance has provided a cushion for missionaries who sacrificed their jobs on principle with no other position waiting for them, said Ron Gunter, who received funds for six weeks. "We came back with nothing waiting in the wings for us," said Gunter, now a BGCT regional representative in Houston. "We had no idea what we were going to do, but we knew we could not stay with the IMB." The transition fund "provided for all our needs because we had nothing to fall back on. We had given everything on the field. It was our livelihood." Frank Dudley, who resigned from the IMB while on furlough in the United States, received money from the fund for several months before becoming director of Howard Payne University's Harlingen extension center. The BGCT monetary support helped pay bills, but it also served more as a symbolic reminder that others understood Dudley's stance and supported him, he said. "It meant more in terms of moral support than financial support," the former West Africa missionary said. "It told us somebody in Texas knew who we were, approved of the choice we had made." Missionaries can be marked for the duration of their ministries for choosing not to sign the Baptist Faith and Message, Dudley said. He said he knows missionaries who are struggling to find a new position after refusing to sign. "We recognize we probably had the easiest journey of anyone we know," Dudley said. "We are very fortunate." |
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