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Tell me about your current ministry and church. How long have you been in this ministry? 

I was ordained at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., by Adrian Rogers and have been in the ministry for 42 years. This includes six years as a senior pastor, 18 years as an IMB missionary, and 18 years as a professor of missions. I now serve as the senior professor of missions at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (Kansas City, Mo.). After an 18-year residential career as their residential professor of missions, I now teach online masters courses and on-campus doctoral seminars.  

One year ago, my wife and I moved to Oceanside, Calif., (North San Diego County) where we joined New Song Community Church, a multi-ethnic, multi-racial Southern Baptist congregation. I preach once a month at my first pastorate, First Southern Baptist Church of Monterey Park, Calif., (Los Angeles County) and teach Bible classes at my local church. I teach missiology to masters students 45 weeks a year. 

Why are you willing to be SBC president this year? 

Remember the mission.

After graduating from Southwestern Seminary, Kathy and I left for the pioneer West where I spent six years as a senior pastor. We then spent 18 years as missionaries with the IMB in Africa and Brazil. Due to our fourth child’s disability, we returned from the mission field to become the professor of missions at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. For 18 years I trained students to love and appreciate Southern Baptist cooperative missions. I have been employed by Southern Baptists as a missionary and missions professor for over 36 years. I have a nationwide and global view of the Southern Baptist Convention and her people and mission outreach. 

As the IMB Regional Leader for Eastern South America, I supervised over 300 missionaries and their families from a budget derived from the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. I attended three IMB trustee meetings annually and implemented IMB policies on the field. While interim president of Midwestern Seminary, I guided the institution through a financial crisis. For the next five years, I served on the MBTS president’s cabinet and attended every SBC Executive Committee meeting. Additionally, I served on the 2000 SBC Committee on Committees and the 2006 and 2007 SBC Resolutions Committee. I know how the SBC works and more importantly, how it does not work. In agreeing to be nominated for SBC president, I am offering my experience, wisdom, and vision to the messengers at the SBC annual meeting in Anaheim this June. 

My vision is to see 500 new churches started in North America; to see 2,000 new churches planted overseas; to see thousands sent out as home and foreign missionaries; to see 1,000 new WMU (Woman’s Missionary Union) chapters started nationwide to support our missionaries; to “call out the called;” and see thousands of Southern Baptist men and women appointed as home and foreign missionaries. 

What do you consider to be the significant challenges Southern Baptists face as we endeavor to cooperate for worldwide missions? 

There are always challenges in any era of missions. The year Adoniram and Anne Judson, the first Baptist missionaries, departed America for India and Burma in 1812, the British burned Washington, D.C. Southern Baptist missions survived the American Civil War of the 1860s, World War I, the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II, the civil unrest of the 1960s, and the Cold War. A number of our missionaries were martyred in the service of Christ and on behalf of Southern Baptists. Brazilian Baptist missionaries took secular jobs on the field because the Foreign Mission Board could not pay them during the Great Depression. 

The last chapter of my recent book, “A Survey of World Missions” (B&H Academic, 2020, p. 281-283) attempts to envision the challenges of the church in the first part of this century: 

Although nuclear bombs were last detonated in 1945, there is no assurance this could not happen again. Furthermore, globalization has increased the possibility of another great plague sweeping the earth. The earth’s interdependency could spawn an economic crisis to rival the Great Depression of the 1930s. The rise of cryptocurrencies might spell disaster for financial markets… Despite its unlikeliness, a direct hit on the planet by a large meteor might occur… Into this bleak narrative, Christ offers hope. Missions and missionaries both overseas and in North America will always be needed.

I do not know what the future holds, but whatever Satan throws at us, with Jesus’ help Southern Baptists can overcome the world. As I John 5:4-5 says, “because whatever has been born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world; our faith. And who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

Are important doctrinal issues dividing our Southern Baptist fellowship?
During the 1980s all our seminaries had problems with neo-orthodox, moderate, and some liberal professors. The Christian Life Commission (precursor to the ERLC) supported abortion. Although there were conservatives serving with our mission entities, many within those agencies followed a “look the other way” policy when it came to theological drift within SBC institutions. Very, very slowly what came to be known as the Conservative Resurgence installed conservative trustees in every SBC entity. Each SBC agency, as openings occurred, began to choose conservative presidents who would, in turn, employ conservative staff, missionaries, professors. 

This process took about 20 years. In some ways it never ends. I only spent eight months as the head of an SBC entity (2012), but during that time I personally scrutinized every prospective adjunct MBTS professor to ensure they adhered to the BF&M 2000, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, and the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (the Nashville Statement on Biblical Sexuality did not yet exist). 

The doctrinal issues of the 80s and 90s included, but are not limited to, the historicity of the Old Testament, the reality of the miracles of Jesus, and the inerrancy of Scripture. The issues of today, however, are less about orthodoxy and more about orthopraxy. The latter involves the implementation of one’s interpretation of Bible doctrine. 

At the 2000 SBC Annual Meeting, the messengers approved an updated Baptist Faith and Message. The members of this committee, chaired by my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, carefully constructed a document that Southern Baptists could affirm that was biblical, conservative, and evangelistic. I believe the BF&M should be the document that guides our faith, doctrine, and practice. 

Of course, the BF&M 2000 does not cover every base regarding faith and practice. For instance, abstinence from alcoholic beverages, illicit drugs, and gambling are not mentioned. Baptist seminaries and colleges are advised as follows in the BF&M 2000: “In Christian education there should be a proper balance between academic freedom and academic responsibility. Freedom in any orderly relationship of human life is always limited and never absolute.” Entity staff, professors, and missionaries have the right to express their opinions but are accountable to their agency’s administration and trustees. 

Furthermore, the BF&M 2000 states:

Christ’s people should, as occasion requires, organize such associations and conventions as may best secure cooperation for the great objects of the Kingdom of God. Such organizations have no authority over one another or over the churches. They are voluntary and advisory bodies designed to elicit, combine, and direct the energies of our people in the most effective manner. Members of New Testament churches should cooperate with one another in carrying forward the missionary, educational, and benevolent ministries for the extension of Christ’s Kingdom.

The BF&M 2000 was never intended to cross every “t” and dot every “i” regarding every matter of faith and practice. Rather, it was written by those holding differing views on many topics, but the committee members found places of agreement where Southern Baptists could cooperate in missions, education, and benevolent ministries. 

Cultural, political, and theological flashpoints will continue to arise. They are important in our day. Past generations of Southern Baptists dealt with women receiving the right to vote (1920), as well as “mixed bathing” and dancing in the 1950s and 1960s. Yes, today’s cultural issues are much more challenging, but Southern Baptists will overcome as the they cooperate together. 

How would you use the prominence of the SBC presidency to address the challenges you see? 

The SBC president has no power, no pay, and only a fraction of Southern Baptists even know who he is. The prominent person in the SBC is the local pastor of each independent cooperating Southern Baptist church—and that’s as it should be. 

But the SBC president does have some influence. He starts the committee process in the SBC by appointing the Committee on Committees. This committee fills the members of the Committee on Nominations which recommends new members for the various trustee boards for the many SBC entities. Also, the SBC president sets the tone and emphasis for the annual meetings of his presidency and in the SBC Executive Committee meetings where he speaks. I would use my presidency to remind Southern Baptists to “Remember the mission” as described in Acts 1:6-11:

So when they had come together, they asked Him, “Lord, at this time are You restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After He had said this, He was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. While He was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen Him going into heaven.” 

Why should a church affiliate or remain with Southern Baptists?

My church, New Song Community Church, was planted by another Baptist denomination 29 years ago. Our pastor, Hal Seed, tells me that New Song joined Southern Baptists 10 years ago because they were head and shoulders above anyone else in church planting and evangelism. Churches in the USA should affiliate and/or remain Southern Baptist because our denomination excels in home and foreign missions. What’s good about our fellowship? Our mission boards are filled with outstanding missionaries who start strong, biblical churches. My wife and I served as missionaries, and I have trained many of them since becoming a mission professor. Furthermore, our seminaries are filled with godly professors who believe the Bible and teach according to the BF&M 2000. These professors are my colleagues and friends. 

Any final comment? 

I heard Adrian Rogers say once, “Southern Baptists, we are many, but we’re not much.” Indeed, in 2020, Southern Baptists numbered about 14 million persons worshipping in a little over 47,500 churches. It took all of us to send and maintain a little less than 4,000 missionaries overseas. Interestingly, when a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier leaves port they carry just a few more sailors on board than that to accomplish their mission. In other words, it takes 14 million of us to send enough people to almost fill one aircraft carrier. We need to do better. I plan to herald the need for more Southern Baptists to drop what they are doing, listen to God’s call on their lives and surrender to a career in home missions, foreign missions and church planting. Remember the mission. 

Tell me about your current ministry and church. How long have you been in this ministry?

I have served at First Baptist Church of Farmersville since 1999—23 years. We had 323 in Sunday School last Sunday, and that’s a pretty exciting day for us! First Baptist Church has ministered to the Farmersville area since 1865.

Why are you willing to be SBC president this year?

The messengers to our annual meetings set our vision long ago. We’re providing the best theological education available in the world. We’re sending missionaries all around the world and planting churches all around the country. We have one of the greatest disaster relief organizations around. Those things are just the highlights. The messengers from our churches and the people who serve them have already given us a wonderful vision. We really don’t need any elected official, in my opinion, to come in for two years and expect the whole apparatus to fall in line with his temporary emphases. The actual constitutional duties of the president of the SBC are important, but modest in a convention structure that rightfully decentralizes power.

I believe that it is time to decrease partisanship and bring Southern Baptists together, as many of them as are willing to cooperate with one another. There have been concerted efforts, I think on more than one side, to undermine trust in the convention. The actual constitutional duties of the president make important contributions to this effort [to decrease partisanship]. 

First, the president moderates the annual meeting. I will make it my top priority to moderate the meeting fairly, safeguarding the rights of every messenger. Fairness will help to bring us together. 

Second, the president appoints several key committees. Among those are the Committee on Committees, which is the first step in the process by which our messenger body appoints the trustees who govern our entities. I believe that our trustees need better and more independent training. Although it does not lie within the authority of the president to set policies for trustee orientation, it does lie within the president’s authority, where he makes appointments, to appoint people who understand the need—always present, but acute right now—for transparency and accountability in the manner of operation of our entities. Transparency and accountability will help to bring us together.

Third, the president serves often as a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, and he therefore has the chance to affect the tone of discourse within our convention. While we maintain our commitment to the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, we ought not to lose sight of those passages the teach us about the fruit of the Spirit, the command to avoid foolish quarrels, or the obligation, as much as it lies within us, to live at peace with all men. Civility will help to bring us together.

What do you consider to be the significant challenges Southern Baptists face as we endeavor to cooperate for worldwide missions?

Challenges? We are the spiritual descendants of martyrs. The idea that God is bigger than all our challenges is not mere theory; our present challenges pale in comparison to those that we have seen God overcome for us already. I believe that the cultural changes brought on by the internet pose substantial challenges for us. Whether by corralling us into opposing factions on social media, permeating every aspect of our society with a caustic brew of pornography, or even by causing more and more of us to pursue our theological education alone in a living room with a screen rather than building lifelong relationships with classmates, the internet is making fundamental changes to our society, the depth and breadth of which we may not realize for decades. Against this challenge stands the work of the Holy Spirit to sanctify us and to fit us together, stone by stone, into a living temple.

The report of the Sex Abuse Task Force is going to pose substantial challenges for us as a convention. As someone who has demonstrated both an earnest commitment to doing the right thing about sex abuse and an earnest commitment to Baptist polity, I believe I am well equipped to lead us during this time. Sex abuse in Baptist churches looks different than it does in Roman Catholic parishes because of our unique theological and ecclesiological attributes. The way we address sex abuse must also be adapted to our polity. I believe that the decentralized nature of Baptist ecclesiology will prove to be an asset for us as we face this challenge.

Against this challenge stands a God who hears the cry of Abel’s blood from the ground while also showing compassion to murderous Cain even as He administered justice against him. He is the God who called to mourning a Corinthian church who, while themselves not guilty of the infamous incestuous relationship among them, arrogantly disregarded the unholiness in their midst.

The largest challenge we face is the growing hostility in American culture toward anyone who affirms biblical truth on any number of topics, but especially with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity. People are going to compromise all around us, but Southern Baptists must hold the ground of biblical truth at all costs. This is actually a good reason for us to avoid foolish quarrels now. We are going to need one another more and more as time passes.

But again, it has never been a profitable move to bet against the church of Jesus Christ. Against this challenge stands a God who brought Sodom to ruins while delivering Abraham and Lot. I am not afraid of our challenges.

Are important doctrinal issues dividing our Southern Baptist fellowship?

Yes. I believe that a number of the core distinctive beliefs that make us Baptist have been attenuated in recent decades. Tom Ascol and I have both expressed concern and have taken action to try to shore up our commitment to meaningful regenerate church membership. Our commitment to congregational church polity is as weak as it has been since our inception as a convention. Frightening cracks are appearing in our commitment to the biblical doctrine of religious liberty. An open approach to receiving infant baptism, once all-but-absent among Southern Baptists, is sometimes now found among us. 

Our commitment to (and understanding of) the priesthood of all believers is sometimes eroded by a celebrity culture that fixes a wide gulf between the pulpit and the pew. Our embrace of local church autonomy has faced new tests as we have experimented with multi-site churches. The rise of Internet remote worship calls into question the meaning of having a “gathered church.” The addition of more and more staff positions has caused us to lack clarity about how the biblical offices of pastor/elder/overseer and deacon fit in to the growing category of “staff members.” Our commitment to associationalism and the doctrine of cooperation have waned as our churches have grown more isolated. We are losing sight of what it means to be Southern Baptists. In almost every one of these doctrines, the Southern Baptist position has been a range on the continuum rather than a single, fixed point. There are a lot of ways to practice congregationalism that all are legitimately congregationalism, for example. But sometimes our flirtations at the boundaries seem to denude a weakening attraction toward the center of Southern Baptist theology. 

One might read this list of doctrinal concerns and expect to find an angry man behind them. Not at all. Quite the opposite. I care very much when the churches I love so much are struggling to know who they are. I am not angry because I cannot help but love us. Also, I am not angry because I believe it is good strategy to live in the fruit of the Spirit—these spiritual attributes are profitable. Love and kindness are rare, powerful, and persuasive. For example, I think we’ve seen great improvement in the past 30 years among Southern Baptists in the areas of congregationalism, the understanding of biblical offices, and regenerate church membership. Much of the credit for that goes to one man, Mark Dever, who with a conspicuous absence of belligerence has winsomely led Southern Baptists (among others) back toward our biblical heritage in these areas. I believe that historians will call IX Marks the most successful theological movement of the turn of the 21st century, and none of it is built upon insult and slander.

In a similar way, we are going to have to find the center of complementarianism that pulls us together toward a continuum of practice that is closely and tightly centered upon biblical truth. But that work is going to need to be done with love and kindness. I think we cannot wander off over the edges and pretend that we are embarrassed of this doctrinal commitment or that it is unimportant. As I wrote in my chapter, “A Denomination of Churches: Biblical and Useful” in the book “Upon This Rock: A Baptist Understanding of the Church,” I believe that denominations are, essentially, families of churches that freely exchange members and pastors without much in the way of barriers, and that this lack of barriers is indispensable. Profound differences about pastoral qualifications always eventually split families of churches. We cannot pretend that this question is unimportant, and we cannot square egalitarianism with our commitment to biblical inerrancy. But the way I have chosen is one that can take issue with early indications of Beth Moore’s movement away from that complementarian center without losing all sight of what it means to be a Christian gentleman. I am not ashamed of being a strict complementarian. I am not ashamed of telling people who move away from complementarianism that I think they are wandering away from biblical truth. I am also not ashamed to call Beth Moore a friend. We disagree about complementarianism, but she’s never deliberately tweeted a dishonest half-snippet of something I’ve said to suggest fraudulently that I hate democracy and prefer totalitarianism.

I think loving people in such a manner even while taking firm doctrinal stands is the way of Jesus, much more so than is the conjuring up of shock-jock phraseology to throw red meat to a (paying) mob. This is the double-tragedy of the way that secular political questions have invaded our discourse of late. They commit us to the losing strategy of anger and slanderous false accusation. Even if you win with that strategy, you lose. Those salacious questions also take all the oxygen out of the room and leave us very little room to discuss looming problems in what have for centuries been the core doctrines of our churches. Who wants to talk about the autonomy of the local church when you can have a good fight about wokeness instead?

How would you use the prominence of the SBC presidency to address the challenges you see?

I believe that our family of churches contains an army of peacemakers who are steadfastly committed to cooperation on the basis of the Baptist Faith & Message and the Cooperative Program. Some of them are just afraid to stick their heads out of their doors while shooting is taking place in the streets. I want to stand up first and give them courage and resolve to do it themselves. If we can do that, they will solve these problems for us.

To be frank, I have long suspected that this could better be accomplished without my being encumbered with official denominational office. If Southern Baptists elect someone else, I will be content to continue this mission in that way and will take it as divine validation of that theory. Nevertheless, contrary to my previous expectation, I believe that God may be leading me to call out to those peacemakers from the podium of our convention, and I will undertake that task if Southern Baptists entrust it to me. 

But mark my words, no matter who is elected, no elective office will ever be powerful enough to overcome that army of peacemakers once they have stepped out of their trenches and begun to march.

Why should a church affiliate or remain with Southern Baptists? 

You can’t love the Bible without loving efforts to fulfill the Great Commission. You can’t love efforts to fulfill the Great Commission without loving what God has used the Southern Baptist Convention to do. The Baptist Faith & Message is a wise and helpful statement of faith. The Cooperative Program is a work of genius that has helped us to accomplish so much more together than we could accomplish on our own.

Do we debate issues? Every year. But the topics we are debating in 2022 are completely different than the ones that we were debating in 2014. Our system for making decisions really works to help us resolve differences and move on. I believe that will continue to be true into the future.

What’s more, even in our times of division, our God who works all things together for good for us is using those seasons to bring us closer together. Some of my closest friendships in this convention were forged during times of denominational conflict. Whatever you think the climate may be today, the Southern Baptist Convention remains a great place to combat lostness and loneliness, and I commend it to everyone who will stand still long enough to listen to me.

Any final comment?

Dear Southern Baptists, I may never again have as prominent a place to say it. You funded half of my seminary education. You sent out church planters long before I was born to plant the churches who taught me about Jesus, won me to faith, and sent me out into ministry. You connected my church with missionary opportunities that have changed my life. You created a disaster relief ministry through which my wife has enjoyed years of fulfilling service. You have been a place where my children have made friends and built memories that they will keep forever. Thank you.