The annual Steinbach Bible College (SBC) Leadership Conference, scheduled for the middle of this month, has been cancelled due to some concern about the views of the guest speaker.

The conference is put on jointly by SBC, the Evangelical Mennonite Conference (EMC), the Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference (EMMC), Manitoba Mennonite Brethren Conference (MBC) and the Christian Mennonite Conference (CMC).

Dr. Phillip Cary of Eastern University near Philadelphia was slated to speak at the conference on the theme of 'Hearing From God.'

Tim Dyck is the General Secretary of the EMC. He says issues arose after the EMC magazine, The Messenger, published an article by Dr. Cary regarding the conference theme.

"Unfortunately, Dr. Cary's article presented a very rigid view that some people found quite discouraging. And, when the article was published, we heard from a lot of people who disagreed with Dr. Cary's more rigid view. One of the main questions that people asked when they talked about the article, was whether the article represented the position of EMC. And, it does not because, as I said, there is a variety of understandings of how people hear from God."

In the article, Dr. Cary suggests the only way to hear from God is through the Bible. But Dyck says some people also feel the Holy Spirit also has a role to play among other things.

He explains why this situation caused them to cancel the conference.

"If the event was to continue, it could be perceived that this is the position of SBC and its supporting conferences. So that was perhaps one of the main problems to be dealt with. Some would suggest that we should be able to hear from people whom we disagree with. I would agree with that as well. So, there's a risk to withdrawing the invitation (to Dr. Cary) because it's demonstrating that perhaps we're intolerant of views that we disagree with. But there's also a risk of continuing with the speaker without providing the necessary context for the discussion."

Dyck says this situation developed so close to the dates of the conference (March 16-17) that they were unable to come up with a new plan and it was cancelled.

"One of the things that we hoped might be able to happen would be for the planning committee to develop another way to continue this event without Dr. Cary as the key speaker. But it was really too late in the planning cycle to do that."

Dyck says the annual SBC Leadership Conference is a very valuable event and he looks forward to seeing its return next year.