MESQUITE—Josiah Presley, one of the abortion survivors featured in a 30-second ad that Fox Sports chose not to run during the Super Bowl, is a Criswell College graduate and a youth pastor at Galloway Avenue Baptist Church in Mesquite, Texas. 

“Can you look me in the eye and tell me that I shouldn’t be alive?” Presley asks in the ad made by Faces of Choice. The group’s founder said she repeatedly met additional terms set forth by Fox and in the end was not given a suitable reason why the ad was rejected. 

“We are the survivors of choice. We are the faces of choice,” abortion survivors say in the ad. 

When she was two months pregnant, Presley’s mother in South Korea had a curettage abortion, which “is the type of abortion where a doctor goes into a mother’s womb and rips the baby apart and brings him out in pieces,” Presley told the TEXAN. 

The woman was sent home, but a few months later she realized the abortion “had actually failed and I was still very much alive,” he said. Presley was born in 1995 and placed with a foster home in South Korea. At 13 months, Randy and Kathy Presley of Norman, Oklahoma, adopted him and raised him along with nine other adopted children and two biological children. 

Presley has a deformed arm, which is believed to have been caused by the type of abortion attempted. Throughout his childhood, he struggled secretly with low self-esteem, thinking he was less than others because of his deformity. “I thought I wouldn’t go anywhere in life,” he said.

When he was 13 years old, Presley’s parents told him he had survived an abortion. Though he was grateful to know his story, the news sent him deeper into darkness. 

“It became apparent to me at that time that my life actually was worthless because the people who should have loved me the most thought my life was so unvaluable they tried to take it,” Presley said. 

As a young teenager, Presley developed hatred toward anyone who was pro-choice, including abortion doctors, post-abortive women and Planned Parenthood workers. “I thought they were the scum of the earth because it was people like them who made me the way I was, so broken,” he said.

All the while, he continued projecting a good church kid façade at Trinity Baptist Church in Norman, where his father was a worship pastor. The summer after his sophomore year of high school, God got Presley’s attention at Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center in Oklahoma. The camp pastor that week talked about the Greek word dunamis and how God imparts in the believer the power to overcome the trials of the world. 

“I remember thinking I didn’t have that in my life,” Presley said. 

He accepted Christ as his Savior that week and started seeing changes in his outlook. He realized his value was not in what he did but in the fact that he was created in the image of a God who had a purpose for his life, he said. 

“He has proven his love to me by dying on a cross for the punishment of my sins when I was far from him,” Presley said. 

As God worked in his heart, Presley was convicted of the hatred he had toward his birth parents for the choices they made. “He has forgiven me of so much, the least I can do is forgive them for the wrongs they committed against me,” he said. “I found forgiveness there, and I found healing there.”

Presley graduated from Criswell College with a psychology degree in 2018, is married to Bethany and works as a student success manager at Criswell while serving as a youth pastor. 

He lamented the 60 million lives lost to abortion in the United States since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. 

“We live in a culture that tells women, ‘If you want to get ahead in life, if you want to go anywhere in life, you have to take a life,’” Presley said. “We live in a culture that tells men, ‘Fulfill the passions of your flesh, and you are not held responsible for your actions.’ 

“We live in a world that applauds evil as seen by its support of the taking of the most innocent of human beings’ lives. That’s a culture of death.”

The only light strong enough to overcome that kind of darkness, he said, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

“If you’re a follower of Christ, that light has been placed within you, and it is your calling and your duty to take that light into the world,” Presley said, pointing to Matthew 5. 

The task starts with loving neighbors, those who are born “so that the world believes it when we say we love our unborn neighbor,” he said. 

It also means caring for and loving the abortion doctor, the Planned Parenthood worker, the abortion-minded woman and the post-abortive woman, Presley said. 

“Why? Because they’re people created in the image of God.”

Though he was disappointed, Presley said he wasn’t surprised Fox Sports chose not to air the Super Bowl ad that Faces of Choice submitted. He hopes the chatter that has followed the decision will still get the message into American homes, especially as pro-life people direct others to the various abortion survivor videos at facesofchoice.org. 

“Our prayer is that it still has an impact and it still shows people the truth of what abortion is,” he said. 

Though some people may want to boycott the Super Bowl because Fox chose to run a Sabra hummus ad featuring drag queens and not one with a pro-life message, Presley said an additional response could be to watch the game with unchurched friends or family and use what happened to the Faces of Choice ad as a springboard to talk about the value of every human life. 

“They might not go to church with you, but they might watch the Super Bowl with you, and you might just in that moment have that opportunity to start a conversation about life,” he said. 

People inspired by the ad’s message can get involved in the pro-life movement by looking for crisis pregnancy centers in their cities where they can get involved or by joining pregnancy help or adoption support ministries in their local churches, Presley said. 

“Get involved in those ways. If there aren’t those ministries in your church, maybe God would call you to start those,” he said. 

“Love your neighbor in a tangible way so that as we speak for truth, as we affirm the value of human life, the world knows it by the way we value the lives of the born.”

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary since 1993, will be nominated for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention when it gathers June 9-10, 2020, in Orlando. Mohler, who served on the committee that drafted the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, recently spoke with the TEXAN about his nomination and his view and vision of the SBC. 

TEXAN: How would you define a successful presidential term, should you be elected?

Mohler: I think we’re at an interesting and strategic moment for Southern Baptists, and I would define success as helping Southern Baptists to move in unity and in theological health towards a future that will be even more faithful, even more evangelistic, even more committed to missions. At this particular moment I think there’s a tremendous need for the affirmation of Southern Baptists and for affirmation by Southern Baptists of the convictions that shape us, and I think this is a moment of generational transition in the SBC where we’re in a season of enormous cultural challenge and I think Southern Baptists need to think and talk very openly and honestly about these issues, and to do so in the right spirit. So, I would consider that to be success if I could help to facilitate those conversations and help Southern Baptists move forward.

TEXAN: What other challenges or opportunities do you see facing the convention today?

Mohler: We’re looking at an unprecedented cultural challenge to the SBC. The SBC is accustomed, as a fellowship of churches, to being rather at the center of our own culture. And candidly, we are now in a situation in which all of the major cultural forces now present a significant challenge to us. Southern Baptists face challenges to our faithfulness that no previous generation has had to consider. When you just take into account the moral revolution pressing so many issues on us, there is a great need for Southern Baptists to have a united front and a united heart, but there are challenges to that unity. There are issues that have arisen over the course of the last several years that have probably sown seeds of unnecessary disunity, in one sense because Southern Baptists evidently have forgotten how to talk to one another and even how to discuss issues. So, I’m just hopeful that Southern Baptists are up to this kind of conversation. And what I hear from Southern Baptist pastors and denominational leaders and lay people is that they want this kind of conversation, and that they don’t want it to take place on Twitter. They want it to take place face to face.

TEXAN: Could you give an example of what you see are some of the greatest opportunities facing the convention?

Mohler: I think of the generational transition that Southern Baptists are now experiencing as itself a great opportunity. Let me give you the best news I can think of about that transition. Virtually every other denomination has had an effective loss of biblical fidelity in the current generation of young adults. The statistics, denomination by denomination, are catastrophic. Here’s the great good news: we have six seminaries populated by some of the most conservative, convictional and gospel-minded young pastors and preachers you could imagine. We have a rising generation just as committed to the Great Commission as their forefathers and foremothers, and in one sense even more so, given the opposition they will face. I just want to tell Southern Baptists, look, we have one shot at this generational transition and we’re starting out with an enormous blessing when you look at the generation of pastors now serving the SBC.

TEXAN: You mentioned unnecessary disagreement on Twitter. In the face of these and other serious disagreements, how do you plan to lead us as a convention toward unity?

Mohler: Well, I do think Southern Baptists are far more united than divided right now. I don’t think we’re suffering a crisis of disunity. But, there are issues that clearly have come up again and again on the floor of the SBC. All you have to do is listen to the denomination conversation after our meeting in Birmingham to know there are some real issues that Southern Baptists want to talk about. And look, just to be candid, the only reason we’re able to have this conversation is because Southern Baptists experienced a great theological reformation in the period of the late 70s, the 1980s and the 90s and beyond. We are the inheritors of that reformation. And we dare not lose it. When you look at every other denomination that has been in precipitous decline, generally accompanied by theological apostasy, we just need to be really thankful for what unites Southern Baptists. And I don’t have a doubt about that, by the way. I don’t doubt that if these major issues were to come up on the floor of the SBC that the Southern Baptist Convention would be enormously united, on the integrity of the gospel, on the inerrancy of Scripture, on the exclusivity of the gospel of Christ, you go down the list—that’s unprecedented in any major American denomination. And not only am I unspeakably thankful for that, I’m determined to perpetuate that. 

TEXAN: Why you? Why should Southern Baptists select you in 2020 at the Convention? 

Mohler: The folks who have come to me over the course of the last several years and asked me to do this, and in the last several months more pointedly, have convinced me to do it because they have been looking for someone they know who loves the Southern Baptist Convention and is committed to it with a lifelong commitment, someone who has lived through the last several decades of Southern Baptist life and knows what must not be lost, and someone who loves Southern Baptists at every level and will give Southern Baptists and the state conventions and our denominational entities encouragement. And I mean convictional encouragement and encouragement for leadership and understanding of how the SBC works. I will simply say that I don’t have anything to stand on but three decades of service to the Southern Baptist Convention and people by now have pretty much figured out who I am.

TEXAN: We’re meeting in the same city, 20 years after the BF&M 2000 was adopted. Is the current version of the Baptist Faith & Message sufficient for the challenges facing the convention today?

Mohler: I’m an enthusiastic proponent of the 2000 edition of the Baptist Faith & Message and I would not encourage the revision of that confession at this time. I think what you see in the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message is a very powerful statement of Southern Baptist conviction. My job is to be a theologian, and as a theologian and as a confessionalist I’m very worried about revisiting the confession too often. That just does not represent theological health. I’m not saying that Southern Baptists should never revisit the Baptist Faith & Message, but there will be the temptation on the part of some to revisit it at every meeting of the convention, and that’s not how a confession of faith operates. Theological health is having an ongoing conversation about Southern Baptist convictions, but I think right now—and here’s another piece of really good news—the Baptist Faith & Message really does represent what Southern Baptists believe, what is taught in our seminaries, and what is affirmed by our state conventions. And when you consider the denominational landscape around us, that’s just incredibly good news. 

TEXAN: Highlighting the areas in which we are unified and agree—is that going to be a major theme as you lead us as president?

Mohler: Well, if the Lord gives me that opportunity, I think that’s the most important thing I can do. The Southern Baptist denomination is not a hierarchical denomination. The president of the SBC doesn’t have much control, but he does have some influence, and I hope to use that influence to help Southern Baptists to move into this new decade with convictions intact, with Great Commission passion, enthusiastic, and with honest hope. And honest hope means it’s not a hope based on avoiding some hard conversations, but actually having those hard conversations. And I’ve been at this for a very long time—I know Southern Baptists are capable of having real conversations, but we have made it very difficult to do so in our current denominational climate. 

In the first sense, we’ve cut our meeting time down so that there’s very little time for either formal or informal conversation at Southern Baptist meetings. And I know this was all done in the name of efficiency, but it’s kind of like a family reunion right now where everyone flies in, has a meal, and leaves without talking to one another. We need to have those conversations, so I’m concerned about the fact that we’ve lost the formal conversations that we used to have, but also the informal conversations. We just have lost a lot of the connective tissue in the SBC where state convention executives and pastors and Southern Baptist leaders and lay people were together even just to have a meal and to have a coffee after a meeting. The SBC is built on relationships, and we have weakened that tissue of relationships. That’s not healthy.

The second thing is the rise of social media means that some people are trying to have ongoing conversation and debate 280 characters at a time. No denomination, in fact no church, of course, could exist trying to move its conversation onto the combat of Twitter. Now, that’s not say that real issues do not arise there and it’s not to say that nothing good could be said there, but it is to say Twitter is a very bad place to go to the Southern Baptist Convention. You actually need to go to the convention. We need Southern Baptists to be actively involved.

TEXAN: What are some of the serious issues that you believe we should learn to talk more healthily about?

Mohler: The good news is those issues [of the Conservative Resurgence]—such as the inerrancy of Scripture at the very center of that debate—they’re not up for question in the SBC, nor, I think, is a basic commitment to complementarianism. But there are new issues that have arisen in relationship to the appropriate roles for men and women in the church and in the Christian life that really were not a part of the picture even in 2000 when the Baptist Faith & Message was revised. They really weren’t very much a part of the picture when the Danvers Statement was adopted. So, I don’t fear those conversations. I don’t worry that Southern Baptists are tempted to go liberal on these issues, but I do think Southern Baptists have a basic commitment to complementarianism and are going to need to figure out what constitutes an adequate basis for our cooperation. There’s something going on in the SBC right now, or at least in some public conversation about the SBC, and that’s the assumption that the Southern Baptist Convention is to take a position on every theological question. That is not, and never has been, true. The Southern Baptist Convention is not a monolithic denomination. It’s got different traditions, it’s got churches with different worship styles, and it has from the beginning. And so what the Baptist Faith & Message has represented is an adequate basis of our theological cooperation. We are, as a denomination, centered in those common beliefs, but the SBC has never been monochromatic.

TEXAN: Some seem inclined to divide the SBC over issues about which the BF&M 2000 would indicate no need for division. Can we move on without settling such issues?

Mohler: I do not believe that health and integrity is ever found in avoiding a conversation. So, I am quite convinced that Southern Baptists are up to having a good, honest conversation about any of the issues that might be brought forward. And, we should not see the fact that those issues are brought forward as a threat or as an assault upon the SBC. But, at the same time, Southern Baptists don’t have a position on any number of issues that some people would like the denomination to speak to. There, I just count on the great wisdom and the conviction of grassroots Southern Baptists. 

TEXAN: Specifically, Critical Race Theory and women preaching have become flash points in some quarters. Are these among the serious conversations you envision?  

Mohler: I have spoken to these issues as clearly as I know how and Southern Baptists know exactly how to find out what I think about anything because you can Google and for good or ill find what I have said and thought about anything, and I certainly hope for good. My life has been committed to trying to help the Southern Baptist Convention and to serve the SBC in this way. So, just to take that one issue [women preaching in SBC churches]: I do not believe that the vast majority of Southern Baptist churches are open to having a woman to preach in the worship service, and I do not believe that they are wrong. I believe that’s an appropriate and right reading of Scripture. I believe that’s an instinct and an intuition that’s driven deeply into the Southern Baptist Convention by conviction. It’s not, however, an issue to which the Baptist Faith & Message directly speaks. Now this is complicated, because I would argue that when the Baptist Faith & Message says “pastor,” it means both office and function. But there are Southern Baptists who argue that it means office and not function. I think Southern Baptists should not be reluctant to have this conversation. I don’t worry that Southern Baptists are going to fracture over this question. I think that there will be some Southern Baptists who will hold a position different than my own, and I do not sense that the Southern Baptist Convention has the will to define these issues differently or beyond what is in the Baptist Faith & Message.

TEXAN: What will be your guiding criteria when you make appointments to the Committee on Committees?

Mohler: I would pledge to make appointments by the very same criteria used by faithful Southern Baptist Convention presidents ever since the election of Adrian Rogers in 1979. I will seek to find the most judicious Southern Baptists and responsible Southern Baptists to fulfill that responsibility and I will do so, I can pledge to you, in a way that Southern Baptists will feel confident when they would see such a list.

TEXAN: Imagine a small town church in East Texas running about 50 people on an average Sunday morning. What’s your case for why a church like that should be a part of the SBC?

Mohler: Well, from my heart, that’s the easiest case to make. Cooperating with Southern Baptists is the way a church like that can reach to Zimbabwe and Zaire and Miami and San Francisco and, for that matter, within their own association and their neighboring associations, with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every single church in the Southern Baptist Convention, by the miracle of the Cooperative Program and our cooperative work, is at work right now for the gospel of Christ, taking the gospel to the nations. And no one of our churches, no matter how large, can do that alone. But we’re able to do that together. And, that church can have the assurance that the missionaries being sent by our International Mission Board are committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to the sufficiency of Scripture. And they can be assured that when they are training missionaries through six seminaries, they know what’s being taught at those seminaries and that it’s consistent with the Baptist Faith & Message. They know that when the North American Mission Board is planting churches, it’s doing so on behalf of not only that church in East Texas, but almost 40,000 other Southern Baptist churches. Making the case for the Southern Baptist Convention or for our state conventions is just about the easiest case I know how to make.

TEXAN: Is there anything else you would like to say?

Mohler: I think this is an issue of importance, too, when you consider the sex abuse crisis and the issues that confront the SBC. I just want to say that that crisis is real and is going to call out the very best of Southern Baptist conviction and compassion and honesty, and that Southern Baptists are going to have to figure out, as the world is watching, how we’re going to respond to this challenge in ways that befit the gospel of Jesus Christ, what we know the Bible to teach about the protection of the vulnerable, what we know the Scriptures to teach about the integrity of ministry, and what we believe about Baptist polity. If resolving these issues were easy it would have been done long ago. But, under the leadership of President J.D. Greear, the Southern Baptist Convention has begun the process of responding to these issues, and this is going to take a lot of work by the Executive Committee, and a lot of investment by Southern Baptists. But we have one opportunity to show the world, based upon the gospel of Jesus Christ, how this denomination will respond to this challenge. 

Editor’s Note: On Jan. 14, a group of pastors announced their intention to nominate Randy Adams, executive director of the Northwest Baptist Convention, as SBC president. The TEXAN will include coverage of Adams’ nomination in a future issue of the paper.

The theme for the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Orlando has been announced, and for the first time ever the theme will be a repeat from the previous year. “The Gospel Above All” is worthy of a second year. Actually, this should be our continual focus.

The SBTC Empower Conference is Feb. 24 and 25 in the Irving Convention Center. It is the largest state convention gathering for evangelism in the SBC. Great worship music, anointed preaching, training workshops and fellowship meals are all on the schedule. It is a highlight of the year for church staff and laypersons. This event should be the catalyst to propel us into another year of sharing the gospel.

“Who’s Your One?” was successful in 2019. The challenge was to find one person you would pray for and witness to. Many stories were told about people coming to know Jesus. People will respond if we will tell them about our Lord and Savior. It is just a tool, but it works. We have to work to make it work. Stay focused on the gospel.

The apostle Paul told the Corinthians the gospel was about Jesus’ death according to the Scriptures, his burial and his resurrection according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1, 3-4). Through repentance and faith a person receive eternal life that is in Christ. It takes place at a moment in time, then lasts forever.

Recently, some important topics have surfaced that needed our attention as a group of churches. We have formed task forces, appointed committees and passed resolutions. Some of these topics have been described as “gospel issues.” The gospel is about the transforming power of God to move a person for death to life. While we have moral and biblical matters that relate to the gospel we must remember that it is The Gospel Above All.

The political and cultural climate clamors for us to trade the best for the good. While we are to be involved, informed citizens we are to remember it is The Gospel Above All. Let us never surrender biblical convictions. In doing so, may we always remember Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). 

There are 29 million people in Texas, and some say there are 19 million Texans without a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. There are over 3,000 people groups and 4-5 billion people in the world who are lost without our Savior. We need to be engaged on many levels, but there is one place imperative for us to focus: The Gospel Above All.

We need each other. We need a confessional fellowship of churches. We need a fresh breath from the Spirit of God. Join me at the Irving Convention Center to be encouraged, challenged and equipped to live a life that puts The Gospel Above All.