“Under the previous rules, candidates who spoke in tongues or had a “private prayer language” were barred. Under the new rules, speaking in tongues does not disqualify missionary candidates. Too much emphasis on charismatic gifts, like speaking in tongues, could still lead to discipline.”

For more than a decade, the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board (IMB) disqualified candidates who spoke in tongues or who had been baptized in churches that disagreed with the convention’s view of baptism.

Similar rules barred divorced people or those with teenagers from being missionaries.

That changed Wednesday, when the IMB’s trustees, at the prompting of their new president David Platt, approved a new, simplified set of rules for the agency’s more than 4,800 missionaries.

Missionary candidates must affirm the doctrines found in the Baptist Faith and Message statement of beliefs, be baptized by immersion, be a member of a SBC church, and demonstrate an “intimate, growing relationship with Christ.”

Previous rules required would-be missionaries to have been baptized in an SBC church, or in a church that held SBC-like beliefs about baptism. Candidates baptized in a church that did not believe in eternal security—the idea that true Christians can’t lose their salvation even if they sin—or a church that views baptism is a sacrament were rejected.

The new rules allows those who were baptized by immersion and who are members of an SBC church to be candidates.

The changes also address the question of charismatic worship and prayer practices, which have been controversial for Southern Baptists. Under the previous rules, candidates who spoke in tongues or had a “private prayer language” were barred.

Under the new rules, speaking in tongues does not disqualify missionary candidates. Too much emphasis on charismatic gifts, like speaking in tongues, could still lead to discipline.

“IMB may still end employment for any missionary who places ‘persistent emphasis on any specific gift of the Spirit as normative for all or to the extent such emphasis becomes disruptive’ to Southern Baptist missions work,” according to a FAQ about the new rules posted by IMB.

Divorced candidates have been allowed to serve in short missions. Now they will be eligible to serve as long-term missionaries, depending on the circumstances of their divorce and other factors, such as the culture they will work in.

Parents of teenagers will also be potential candidates. The IMB had previously disqualified them out of concerns for the challenges that teenagers would face by being uprooted and having to move overseas. Now IMB leaders will decided on a case-by-cases basis whether or not to allow parents with teenagers.

“For example, a family considering serving long-term in an isolated African village may be different than a family considering a one-year term in London,” says the FAQ.

The changes in rules on baptism and speaking in tongues will likely get the most attention. They made national headlines when first adopted.

IMB leaders said the baptism and tongues rules, adopted in 2005, were needed to safeguard the Baptist identity of missionaries at a time when charismatic and Pentecostal practices were growing.

Tom Hatley, former IMB board chair, told CT in 2006 that some missionary candidates who spoke in tongues—a practice also known by the New Testament term glossolalia—claimed to be getting direct revelation from God.

“That’s one reason that Southern Baptists have been suspicious of glossolalia,” Hatley told CT in 2006. “If somebody believes they’re getting direct divine revelation from God, obviously that’s claiming an equality with Scripture that we would not allow.”

Read More