GEORGETOWN—For thousands of Southern Baptists, many of the international missionaries who were fired or resigned last week are more than just names on a missionary prayer list.

Here in Kentucky, prime examples are Don and Angie Finley, who were appointed in 1988 by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board. Serving most of their missionary career in Brazil, the couple worked closely with hundreds of Kentucky Baptist mission volunteers in the early 1990s during the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s partnership with Baptists in Espirito Santo, Brazil.

The Finleys, who submitted their resignation in an April 28 letter to their regional leader, are among 43 veteran missionaries who resigned, took early retirement or were terminated last week by IMB trustees. Their decision came in response to an ultimatum issued last month by IMB President Jerry Rankin to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, resign or be dismissed.

In addition to their connection with Kentucky Baptists through partnership missions, the Finleys were missionaries-in-residence at Georgetown College during the 1992-93 school year; they plan to return to Georgetown this summer to serve a second time as missionaries-in-residence. They also were actively involved at Calvary Baptist Church in Lexington during their 1997-98 stateside assignment when they lived in Calvary’s missionary house.

Eric Fruge, Georgetown’s director of church relations, said school officials look forward to the Finleys returning to campus.

“We know them and love them and are excited about them coming,” Fruge said. “We want them to use this year with us to find God’s future direction for their lives.”

Why would a couple with 15 years’ experience in international missions choose to resign their IMB positions rather than endorse the SBC’s revised faith statement?

In a response a year ago to Rankin’s initial directive, the Finleys explained that “our clearest point of difference with the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message is not in the text of the doctrinal statement itself, but in the preamble’s assertion that this document is to serve as ‘an instrument of doctrinal accountability.’”

Noting that they are “in basic agreement with the majority of the statement’s text,” the Finleys wrote that “as far as we know, we have never given occasion for anyone to make an issue over the integrity of our teaching, lives or doctrine.”

They emphasized, however, that “our authoritative rule of faith and practice always has been, and always must be, the Bible alone.”

In their April 28 letter of resignation to Robin Hadaway, the IMB’s regional leader for Eastern South America, the Finleys explained they were “not resigning because we have a problem with grassroots Southern Baptists” or “because we have done anything wrong” or “because of a change in our sense of call.”

“There is only one reason we are resigning,” they wrote. “Put simply, we no longer believe that the IMB offers us viable conditions for effective missionary service. When a Baptist missionary-sending agency demands doctrinal accountability on the basis of a manmade document rather than on the basis of Scripture, something is wrong. … When board leadership resorts to untrue accusations to justify the threat to terminate us, something is wrong.”

In an e-mail interview with the Western Recorder, the Finleys said affirming the 2000 faith statement “and the way it is being used would, in our view, compromise biblical authority and be a denial of our heritage as Baptists.”

Acknowledging that the process “has taken a toll on us,” they wrote, “One of the hardest things is that when we left for the field, Southern Baptists promised to ‘hold the ropes’ and support us while we were overseas. Now it feels like our leadership has taken that rope and tried to hang us with it.”

Though their decision to resign “has been very painful,” the Finleys added, “Our call did not come from the SBC or the IMB. It came from God and it hasn’t changed. … They can close one door; God can open any number of doors.”