RICHMOND, Va. -- The Southern Baptist Convention is making another attempt to get all its overseas missionaries to pledge that they agree with the denomination's revised statement of faith, according to The Associated Press.
Avery Willis, senior vice president of the SBC's International Mission Board, has been contacting missionaries by phone to follow up on the original request, made a year ago by board president Jerry Rankin.
The nation's largest foreign mission board estimates that less than 1 percent of its 5,400 personnel have not yet complied, the Baptist Press reported.
The dispute involves missionaries who were hired under pledges to agree with the previous, 1963 version of the "Baptist Faith and Message" statement.
The 2000 revision, among other things, opposes female pastors and claims the Bible is inerrant.
Willis is telling personnel currently in the United States that they will not be returned overseas without making a commitment. However, an SBC spokesman said the phone calls are meant to persuade the missionaries to agree to the faith statement, not to tell them they're fired.
The board said 32 missionaries who resigned in the past year cited Rankin's letter as one reason, but the Baptist Standard of Texas says others are believed to have left for that reason without explicitly saying so.
Newly hired missionaries are required to adhere to the 2000 faith statement.
