In early October, the Greenhaws received
a letter from IMB President Jerry Rankin pressuring them to sign the 2000 BF&M
or resign. As we went to press, missionaries who refused to sign the creed
were beginning to receive notices of their termination from the IMB. Look for
updates on the Greenhaws at the bottom of this page.
Granddaughter of 'Preacher Hallock'
Won’t Sign the 2000
BF&M
By Mark Wingfield
Officially, Charlotte Greenhaw is a "church and home" missionary, working
alongside her husband, a former seminary professor who now is a church starter.
By training and experience, she's a music educator. In reality, she's an
evangelistic social worker among the poor and imprisoned of Recife, Brazil.
Hundreds of inmates in
northeastern Brazil have professed faith in Jesus Christ through Greenhaw's
ministry; some have gone to seminary upon release and are preparing to be
pastors.
"You can go anywhere
with music," the veteran Southern Baptist Convention missionary explained during
a recent interview at her daughter's home in Garland, where Greenhaw was
visiting a newborn grandson.
While God has opened
new doors for Greenhaw's witness in Brazil, she fears the politics of SBC life
may attempt to shut those doors. The reason: She and her husband, Houston, both
have declined to sign an affirmation of the SBC's 2000 Baptist Faith & Message
and an accompanying commitment to work "in accordance with and not contrary to"
the SBC faith statement.
Music has opened a door for Greenhaw's ministry not only in Brazil's prisons,
but also with the street children of Recife.
After working her way through the "Experiencing God" discipleship book, Greenhaw
felt God's leadership to move beyond the traditional music education ministry
she had done for years at the Baptist seminary in Recife. She was drawn to the
words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 25: "I was hungry and you gave me
something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a
stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick
and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."
Armed with a boldness that runs in her family--her parents were legendary and
innovative missionaries to Brazil, and her grandfather, "Preacher" Edgar Hallock,
was a legendary Baptist pastor in Oklahoma--Greenhaw hit the streets to round up
a children's choir. In Recife, thousands of children live on the streets, and
most are addicted to sniffing glue to ease the pain of their troubled young
lives.
She took an electronic keyboard, sat down on a curb near a church and started
playing. Soon she had a crowd of children interested in what she was doing.
She formed that crowd into a choir.
Her one rule: The children must put down their glue.
From that choir, other
ministries to the street children developed in which they learned the gospel of
Jesus Christ and received help for their physical needs. The ministry continues
with leadership from seminary students and others.
Greenhaw still felt she had not accomplished all God intended for her to do,
however. Matthew 25 still beckoned. So she went to prison, where she started
an inmate choir.
Again, the choir led to a Bible study, and the Bible study led to formation of a
church within the prison walls. Eventually, prison officials granted her
permission to build a chapel on the prison grounds. With help from First
Baptist of Norman, Okla., and others, a team of volunteers and the prisoners
themselves built the chapel in 5 days.
The chapel also features a well-used outdoor baptistry as a visual witness to
other prisoners. More than 500 prisoners have professed faith in Jesus Christ
in the last three years.
Greenhaw has expanded her ministry to serve the families of prisoners. She
assists them when they visit the prison on Sundays, and she devotes one day a
week traveling around the region to visit prisoners' families in their homes.
She has arranged for 45 prison weddings-—including 22 at one time-—having
emphasized to the male prisoners the importance of a marriage commitment.
Now, she's developing plans to assist inmates once they're released from
prison. Prisoners in Brazil often enter freedom destitute and with no direction
for their lives.
Meanwhile, she also
teaches at the seminary and assists her husband in his work as a church starter
among wealthy Brazilians. In a recent campaign which reached out to the whole
city, more than 900 young professionals professed faith in Christ. The Baptist
couple is reaching out to both ends of the socio-economic spectrum.
Greenhaw knows she is an American, but she feels just as much Brazilian.
She was born in Rio de
Janeiro and had only been to the United States twice before she arrived at the
University of Oklahoma to attend college.
Her parents, Edgar and Zelma Hallock, served as SBC missionaries to Brazil for
45 years. Her father also was a driving force behind the Baptist World
Alliance, coordinating world congresses in 1960, 1990 and 1995.
Her grandfather, known as "Preacher" Hallock, was pastor of First Baptist Church
of Norman for 46 years and was widely known as a conference speaker.
But now, that rich legacy, the evidence of her witness in Brazil and her own
rigorous theological examination upon appointment by the SBC as a missionary in
1980 appear not to be enough to satisfy unnamed skeptics among Southern
Baptists, she fears.
Jerry Rankin, president
of the SBC's International Mission Board, earlier this year mandated that IMB
missionaries must sign an affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message
statement. That faith statement was drafted by an SBC committee but has been
rejected by some SBC partners, including the Baptist General Convention of
Texas.
Critics charge the new faith statement was drafted—-and is being used-—as a
creed rather than a statement of faith.
Rankin said he is requiring missionaries to sign the affirmation in order to
silence unnamed people who are suspicious of the doctrinal integrity of the
missionary force.
Greenhaw said she and
her husband never thought the political and theological controversy that has
raged among Southern Baptists in the United States since 1979 would reach
missionaries who live and work outside the United States. But the day they
received notice that they must sign an affirmation of the convention's new faith
statement, they knew the controversy had indeed touched them.
For three days, Greenhaw stayed awake nearly all night, reading her Bible,
praying for guidance and agonizing over how to respond to the IMB mandate.
Finally, she settled on Daniel 3, the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
thrown into Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace because they would not bow down to
his idol.
At that moment, "the Lord spoke very clearly to me not to sign," she said.
She also thought about
her family's experience living in Oakington, England, before returning to
Brazil. Near their home was a church graveyard where three men were buried who
had spent a total of 52 years in prison rather than pledge allegiance to the
Church of England under Henry VIII.
"We are not willing to sign off on somebody else's statement of belief,"
Greenhaw said. "I will not sign as a statement of my faith something I did not
write. Neither will I promise to conduct my ministry according to a statement
of belief which was prepared for a situation foreign to the culture in which I
live and work."
During her appointment process in 1980, Greenhaw said, she and her husband both
completed all the scrutiny required by the SBC's mission board. At the
prompting of key questions, they wrote out their own statement of faith.
"My statement of beliefs still stands," she declared. "My faith has grown, and
my relationship with the Lord has deepened. But my statement of beliefs still
stands. "I will notify the IMB the day it changes, but it hasn't changed."
Three of the six IMB missionaries serving in Recife have not signed the
affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, Greenhaw reported.
Missionaries in Brazil
were given a deadline of March 31 to sign the new faith statement.
After that deadline passed, the Greenhaws were among 12 missionaries called to a
meeting with their regional leader and former IMB Executive Vice President Don
Kammerdiener. At that meeting, Greenhaw said, they were asked what it would
hurt them to sign the affirmation, and then they were admonished to sign it.
Then they were advised to "pray about this."
Greenhaw responded that she already had prayed about it, extensively, and still
would not sign.
"If you have a problem
with us as missionaries, come check us out," she urged. "Come see what we're
doing. Help us meet the daily spiritual and cultural challenges of ministry,
instead of taking doctrinal potshots from a distance on matters foreign to our
culture."
Although missionaries at the Brazil meeting asked Kammerdiener and the regional
leader, "Who are these people who have questioned our beliefs?" they received no
answer, Greenhaw said.
Now, as she prepares to
leave her new grandson behind in Texas and return to her
ministries in Brazil, Greenhaw wonders what will happen next. The missionaries
in Brazil who did not sign the affirmation have not been told what will happen
to them. They have been told only that IMB trustees will meet in May to discuss
the matter.
"I don't know what will happen," she said matter-of-factly. "But the Lord has
told me my time is not up, and I'm not leaving Brazil. I am not sure at this
point who will support me, but I'm not willing to back off on what the Lord has
called me to do."
Reprinted by
permission from the Baptist Standard
Discover Brazil
Check below for follow-up stories
on the Greenhaws:
Historic Partnership Supports Greenhaw's Mission
Work
Report from the Mission Field
Norman Messenger Vol. 1,
1 December 2003