Intelligence or Identity? The International Mission Board of the SBC and New President Paul Chitwood

From all accounts of those who are friends with the new President of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, and from my brief interactions with Paul Chitwood while we served together as fellow trustees of the IMB during three contentious and controversial years (2005-2008), Paul Chitwood is a personable fellow.  I wish him the best in his new role as President of the largest missions sending organization in the world.

I also question Paul Chitwood's biblical intelligence and his adherence to Landmark Baptist identity (Please read this link very carefully).

Paul Chitwood was the Chairman of the Personnel Committee of the International Mission Board when trustee leadership unwisely and unsuccessfully sought to remove me from serving as a fellow trustee at the IMB in 2006.

I opposed internal IMB policies on baptism and private prayer language, policies which exceeded the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message and were surreptitiously passed in a veiled attempt to remove Jerry Rankin as President of the International Board. Ten years later, with little fanfare, the policies I initially opposed were officially reversed by the trustees of the International Mission Board. The labor and delivery times of the baby named wisdom are often painful and prolonged.

But in the end, wisdom was delivered by the International Mission Board. The unbliblical, unconstitutional policies were reversed.

J.D. Greear, a pastor in North Carolina in 2008 and elected the President of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2018, put his name on a list of pastors who opposed the IMB's ill-advised policies way back in 2008.

That was the beginning of wisdom.

Paul Chitwood in 2008 was at the forefront of defending the unwise and unbiblical policies.

That, in my book, was the perpetuation of foolish, unconscionable, and indefensible leadership.

After Paul Chitwood and the Executive Committee of the International Mission Board sought to remove me as an IMB trustee in the spring of 2006, IMB Personnel Chairman Paul Chitwood wrote to Frank Page, asking for a "White Paper" to defend the new policies he had helped implement.

Let me repeat what I just wrote.

Paul Chitwood and the Executive Committee of the International Mission Board implemented doctrinal policies at the IMB in 2005 that exceeded the BFM 2000, violated the constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention in so doing, and only after my opposition to those two policies, then wrote a letter requesting a white paper defending the policy changes.

Typically a white paper is presented before a recommendation of policy changes. Visionary, astute leaders think before acting on behalf of an organization.  When organizational leaders act before thinking, that organization is in trouble.

Could it be...and I'm only asking...that Paul Chitwood and others who lean toward the Baptist Identity Movement (e.g. "Landmarkism") were taking orders from the one orchestrating Jerry Rankin's removal and "without whom the policies would never have been enacted."

I've been warning the Southern Baptist Convention for 15 years about the dangers of Baptist Identity (e.g. "Landmarkism").

Where Paul Chitwood leads the International Mission Board in the future will largely be dependent on whether or not Southern Baptists pay attention to what's happening in Richmond.