WMU TO PRODUCE CBF MATERIALS

by   Art Toalston                                                                                                                                           Vol. VIII, No. 7, August 1995

Woman's Missionary Union announced July 12 it will produce "missions education supplements" for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The supplements, according to WMU, will "accompany selected existing WMU materials for churches wanting to study the work of missionaries appointed by the Foreign and Home Mission Boards and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship."

The announcement came a week before the CBF's annual General Assembly, July 19-22 in Fort Worth, Texas – and less than a month after the Southern Baptist Convention formally added an affirmation of WMU to the sweeping denominational restructuring adopted June 20 in Atlanta.

According to Dellanna O'Brien, WMU executive director, the decision to publish materials for churches affiliated with the CBF, an organization formed by Baptist moderates in opposition to the SBC's conservative leadership, falls in the same category of WMU production of a Mission Friends product for Korean Baptist churches. WMU has been and continues to be involved in negotiations with several Baptist groups in North America about the production of tailor-made missions education resources, according to the WMU announcement July 12. "We are aware that our decision to produce materials in cooperation with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will concern some Southern Baptists," O'Brien acknowledged. "But we hope and pray that all Southern Baptists will see this decision as the fulfillment of our commitment to meet the needs of local Southern Baptist churches." O'Brien noted in the WMU announcement that churches wanting these new materials would have to specifically order them. "No church or individual will receive these materials unless requested," she said.

Morris H, Chapman, president and chief executive officer of the SBC Executive Committee, voiced a different assessment in a July 12 statement: "This announcement is astonishing. In light of WMU's strong appeal to have its loyalty to the SBC recognized in the restructuring report adopted just last month in Atlanta, I am disappointed. The decision of the national WMU leadership to customize materials in support the work of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship – the Southern Baptist Convention's most vocal critic – will be regretted throughout the SBC."

Larry Lewis, Home Mission Board president, said July 12, "I discussed this issue with Dr. O'Brien by telephone yesterday and expressed again my desire that WMU would continue its historic role of supporting only the two Southern Baptist mission boards. She did indicate the new line of materials will be generic missions study materials which could be used by any group desiring to support Christian missionaries. She said the generic materials could be customized for a group like the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. However, Dr. O’Brien assured me the customized materials will not appear in any publications which SBC churches routinely receive from WMU.

Lewis added, "WMU has also assured us that none of the funds which the Home Mission Board sends to WMU will be used to support development of the generic or customized materials."

Foreign Mission Board President Jerry Rankin was unavailable for comment July 12. David Button, the agency's vice president for public relations and development, issued a statement noting Rankin "is in South America visiting missionaries. The Foreign Mission Board does not have a response to the WMU action at this time." [BP]

 [Editorial Comment: During wartime there is a crime known as consorting with the enemy. That Southern Baptists are involved in spiritual warfare should be realized by all of us by now. (Should any reader be inclined to attribute this statement to your editor's "fundamentalist" perspective, he is invited to read the "Anti-Heritage" item in this Banner.) There is no question that Woman's Missionary Union has over the years done sterling work for the cause of missions. But organizations are only what the people currently deciding and carrying out policy make them. I suggest that there is a great gulf between the attitudes and loyalties of the great past WMU leaders and those of the ladies who fill the top slots today. This most recent act of consorting with the enemy is just that, only the most recent and perhaps most flagrant indicator that their hearts are no longer with the Southern Baptist Convention, nor with the SBC's affirmation of biblical inerrancy. We may expect to see more such disloyal actions over the forthcoming months and years.]