Editor's Note: The following is the full text of Dr. Vestal's June 1999 "open letter" to Roger Moran. Please note that Dr. Vestal ignores Gary Taylor's recommendation that Vestal should go to Moran personally. Dr. Vestal also failed to answer any of the 15 questions asked by Moran pertaining to CBF/CBF-related leaders. Bold print emphasis added.

An Open Letter to Roger Moran

            I am writing this letter with a sense of grief and conviction.  My grief is related to the damage and harm you have caused by your relentless and unwarranted attacks on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship which you have perpetuated through videos, mailouts, and other publications.  As profound as my grief, however, is my conviction that it is necessary to respond openly to your accusations and criticisms.  Since your material, much of it under the name of the Missouri Baptist Laymen’s Association, has been distributed widely in several states, reproduced by others and used to try to discredit the Fellowship, I feel it is necessary to respond openly and publicly.

            Mr. Moran, you and others have spent a lot of time and money in your anti-CBF crusade.  Candidly, I do not understand why such energy and resources have been devoted to doing harm to your fellow Christians and fellow Baptists.  You go to great lengths to create distrust in the minds of people about the motives and leadership of a Fellowship that has the fulfillment of the Great Commission as its purpose.  For reasons I cannot comprehend, you consider yourself worthy to judge us, measure us and condemn us, not in light of our Mission Statement and our shared convictions and beliefs, but by statements made by particular individuals or by various “associations” with other individuals or groups.

            In you materials you cite at least 30 individuals with whom you obviously disagree on some theological, social, or ethical issue.  You consistently suggest that these folks are characteristic of the Fellowship.  What you fail to recognize is that our Fellowship includes thousands of churches and individuals whose views and perspectives vary on many, many subjects.  You make the bold statement that liberalism has found a place within CBF.  That simply is not true.  What is true is that there are Baptist Christians who have found a place of ministry and fellowship in CBF whom you would call liberal.  There are many others who have embraced our mission and joined our efforts for the sake of Christ whom you would call conservative.  And still many others have found a home in CBF who fit somewhere else in the spectrum of political and theological labels.  For you, this kind of diversity around a common mission is seen as a weakness.  I see it as a God-given strength.

            Beyond our diversity, and the freedom in Christ that both creates and guides it, we have a unity.  What unites us as a Fellowship is a passion for the Great Commission of Jesus Christ and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice.  In our Mission Statement, for example, we declare our shared commitment to biblically-based global missions.  We openly declare that we believe that:

·        God is the one triune God, Creator of all people in God’s own image.

·        All people are separated from God by sin.

·        Christ is the Savior and Redeemer for all peoples.

·        The Holy Spirit convicts and converts all who believe in Christ, teaches the church in the voice of the Living Christ, and empowers the church and all believers for the mission of Christ in the world.

·        Every believer and every church is responsible for sharing the Gospel with all people.

These and other foundational commitments are what bind us together.  To be sure, there are many areas in which we may disagree, just as in a local church.  But we gladly cooperate together, across our differences, in a spirit of Christian love in order to minister redemptively in a broken and sinful world.

            There are other commitments that shape the foundation for our fellowship, unity and mission:

·        We believe in the priesthood of all believers and the freedom and responsibility of every person to relate directly to God without the imposition of creed or the control of clergy or government.

·        We believe in the authority of Scripture.  We believe the Bible under the Lordship of Christ is central to the life of the individual and church.  We affirm the freedom and right of every Christian to interpret and apply Scripture under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

·        We believe in the autonomy of every local church.  We believe Baptist churches are free, under the Lordship of Christ, to determine their membership and leadership, to order their worship and work, to ordain whomever they perceive as gifted for ministry, and to participate as they deem appropriate in the larger Body of Christ.

·        We believe in religious freedom, not only for Baptists, but for all people, which means that the “nerve center” for this Fellowship is found in the individual and the local church

These foundational principles are what give us a unity and encourage us to partner with others for the sake of the Gospel.  The purpose of every partnership is “to network, empower and mobilize Baptist Christians and churches for effective missions and ministry in the name of Christ.”  That is our mission.  That is our “agenda” – nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

            The repeated insinuation and insult contained in your materials is that the real mission of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is to promote the gay-lesbian lifestyle, abortion on demand, and even child pornography.  You constantly suggest that CBF has ulterior motives and hidden agendas of all kinds, rather than the one we boldly declare in our Mission Statement.  These tactics are misguided, harmful, and wrong.  I appeal to you now, as I have done previously in private, to stop.  I urge you to put an end to these attacks, to apologize publicly for the harm you have done, and to seek reconciliation with these Christian brothers and sisters.

            Several years ago, writer Elizabeth O’Connor suggested contrasting images for two ways of understanding the Christian witness.  One image is that of a conformist.  This image sees people as an army on the march, walking in lockstep to an appointed destination, following identical orders issued from the supreme command and passed unquestioningly through the ranks.  The second image is very different.  It is of a band of pilgrims on a journey.  Everyone is moving, but at different speeds.  The people sometimes scatter as they walk.  Periodically, a group of three or four pauses to discuss, or even argue passionately, about a matter.  But after a few minutes, they move on together, sometimes laughing about their disagreement.  One stops to feed a hungry child.  Another stoops to pick up an aged traveler.  In this band of pilgrims, no one forces anyone to march.  God is the One urging them onward, and the only thing they seem to have in common is that single identifying mark.  It is the mark of a Cross, and each wears it.  It identifies them and binds them together.

            As Coordinator of CBF, it is this image that I see for the Fellowship.  We do have diversity, and I’m glad to embrace it as a gift of God.  But we have a deeper unity based on an unashamed love for Jesus Christ and a desire for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as it is in Heaven.  Hear me:  we are not your enemy, and I hope you will stop seeing us in this way.  Rather, my prayer is that you will begin to see us as fellow pilgrims on a spiritual journey.  Instead of criticizing us and accusing us of secret agendas and hidden motives with no theological integrity, moral compass or biblical conviction, see us for who and what we are:  “a Fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission of Jesus Christ and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice.”

                                                                        Grace and Peace,

                                                                        Daniel Vestal, Coordinator