No missionaries in other countries, that will be effected by reciprocating laws.
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Pastor Resigns as IMB Trustee over Support of mosque construction
- Thread starter JonC
- Start date
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Maybe their missionaries in the nations that provided funding for the mosque in that township in New Jersey.
I understand the reasoning, and to an extent I agree with the principle. I also agree that as citizens we have a responsibility to uphold the constitution of our nation (which here would include, if it is within the realm of our responsibility) supporting the rights of other citizens regardless of religious persuasion.
I say this because I don't want you to misunderstand why this rationale (not your's, but the rationale of the IMB) is something I find troubling.
While the decision may help foreign missions (I doubt it would actually help, and I doubt there would be reciprocating laws enacted because of this township's resistance to the mosque) there is another consideration in terms of local missions. While the SBC took a stand for the freedom that American Muslims should have under our Constitution, the SBC also took a stand against a township in NJ. Regardless as to the correctness of that stand, there are people who believe they've seen the "true SBC" in it's opposition. If the ultimate goal is Constitutional rights, then the decision was warranted. If the ultimate goal is spreading the gospel, then the IMB should have stopped short of engaging in the fight against the township.
Still, the larger problem for me is the liberty the IMB believed it had to make the decision. Perhaps it was in support of their missionaries. But the missionaries do not dictate the direction of the IMB, it churches that it represents do. That the SBC (through the IMB and the ethics committee) has departed from the churches it represents (at least from a number of those churches) is evident in both the call for accountability against the SBC leadership and the response of David Platt.
I may allow a friend to stay in my home, but when he starts remodeling then we have a problem. And sometimes friendships, even life long ones, come to an end because a trust has been violated. I'm suspecting many are morning the loss of a friend as they consider what they will do concerning their own affiliation with the SBC. And it is not just because of this one incident (please understand this as well). The SBC has been moving away from a group of people for some time now (and, granted, they are probably moving towards another group...such is life).
Jon, I may be misunderstanding your point, but it seems that you are saying that religious liberty as traditionally advocated by Baptists did not advocate "a freedom for all religious belief." Yet, historically, many Baptists have specifically mentioned other religions in their call for religious liberty. For examples:
"The King is a mortal man, and not God, therefore hath no power over the immortal souls of his subjects, to make laws and ordinances for them, and to set spiritual Lords over them...For men's religion is between God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure." -- Thomas Helwys (1612)
"Sixthly, it is the will and command of God that (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries; and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only (in soul matters) able to conquer, to wit, the sword of God's Spirit, the Word of God." -- Roger Williams (1644)
"Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians." -- John Leland (1790)
"We may regret that all men are not Christians, and wish that they were, and we may wish that they held Christian principles as we hold them, but we have no right to enforce our doctrines by law, and others have no right to force their doctrines upon us by human statute. We hold that if a man chooses to be a Mohammedan, a Jew, a Pagan, a Roman Catholic, a Protestant or an Infidel, he has a right to be that, so far as the civil law is concerned. Therefore, all persecution for the maintenance of this or that religion is radically wrong." -- Thomas Armitage (1890)