MACON, GA — Thirteen Baptist voices forcefully argue against the requirement that missionaries sign the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 . Their voices are collected in a new book, Stand with Christ: Why Missionaries Can’t Sign the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 , published this week by Smyth & Helwys Publishing.

The book’s chapters are written by respected leaders across Baptist life, including Catherine Allen, David Currie, Charles Deweese, Russell Dilday, James Dunn, Earl Martin, Kenneth Massey, John Pierce, Keith Parks, Bruce Prescott, Walter Shurden, and Charles Wade. Stand with Christ is edited by Robert O’Brien, a journalist with sixteen years of experience with the Foreign Mission Board, and seven years as editor of the Baptist Press news service. He speaks to the purpose of the new book:

"Stand with Christ gives voice to prominent Baptists who proclaim that Southern Baptists have crossed the line into lock-step conformity and creedalism with enforced signing of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as a test of faith and fellowship. As the book went to press, news reports and letters from missionaries validated that claim, revealing that the International Mission Board is telling missionaries they can no longer serve if they do not sign BFM2000.

Some will protest that Stand With Christ was written to attack Southern Baptists. That's not true. It emerges from Baptists' time-honored privilege to voice dissent over anything they consider alien to Baptist history and theology and to freedom of Christ as revealed in the Holy Bible, God's inspired written word. Those who would deny that privilege will interpret it one way. Those who allow that privilege will interpret it another way."

Arguing for the need for this book, Keith Parks claims, “It is critical for every Baptist church and its members to make informed decisions, in light of what has happened in the Southern Baptist Convention and its institutions. Some of Baptists’ finest people still serve as missionaries. Yet the direction and emphasis of the missions programs has veered sharply form past practice. Every Baptist needs to learn what those differences are. … I join this book’s publisher, editor, and chapter authors in the hope that we can reclaim the best of our Baptist heritage.”

Mark McElroy, senior editor for Smyth & Helwys, describes the book, “Stand with Christ explores and explains the history of, the problems with, and the biblical judgment of the recent Baptist Faith and Message revision and its uses as a force of control, internal purification, and conformity. Is this a balanced book? By no means. It tips the scales with a proud allegiance to “the freedom for which Christ set us free” (Gal 5:1) and a disdain for all creeds save the Bible. A line has been drawn in the sand…. this book dares to say on which side of the line we must stand.”

Veteran missionary and missions professor Earl Martin, explains the damaging effects of compliance with the BFM2000, “When missionaries propagate the BFM2000 in mission areas, it creates the potential for an insidious heresy. Demanding compliance with it in the missionary situation introduces the risk of complicating the gospel of Jesus Christ. Demanding obedience to a creed from another culture creates cross-cultural pitfalls. Such conformity insinuates that all Baptists must believe alike these matters.”

Pastor Kenneth Massey stands against the need for missionaries to sign a document of belief, “What do leaders want when they demand our names? They want for their own a lordship reserved for the One God. Why will some refuse to sacrifice their names on the altars of creed and conformity? Because their names have been written freely in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and that is enough.”

Stand with Christ is available from Smyth & Helwys Publishing at www.helwys.com or (800)747-3016.

Formed in 1990, Smyth & Helwys Publishing is a free press with a reputation for publishing high quality Christian education resources and books. For more information on Stand with Christ, contact Smyth & Helwys at (478) 757-0564.