If I Were King of the SBC…

Well, we'd all be in a lot of trouble, but here's what I would do:

1. I would make distance-participation in the SBC annual meeting possible, so that it doesn't require a bucket of cash to participate in convention decisions.
2. I would give more money to the seminaries and require them to bring professors' salaries up to a point where our seminary professors were not making less than virtually every other seminary professor in ATS and virtually every Baptist minister in the convention.
3. I would inaugurate a repeating evaluation to take place every ten years to strip out all of the "extras" that we tend to add to our plate and retain our focus upon missions, theological education, and some limited role for the ERLC. Simpler is better. More focused is better.
4. Finally, I would wonder why on earth a 36-year-old is in charge of the SBC when so many capable, older men are out there? At some point we've really got to distance ourselves from this youth-oriented culture that is so clearly contrary to what the Bible teaches. I've known more people than I can count who want to plant a new church for 20s or 30s, but I've never met anyone saying, "God has called me to plant a church for retirees in rural Texas." Hmm. I guess God doesn't like old, poor people.

I offer all of this as my final response to the Memphis Declaration, because it is probably incumbent upon me, having critiqued their work, to offer some positive contribution myself.