The rotten fruit of Paige Patterson’s loins

Progeny is a gift.

In the Hebrew Bible, more than 20 distinct words describe children in various senses, such as “lad,” “boy,” “youngling,” “child,” “offspring” and more. They appear in some form or another more than 1,500 times throughout the Old Testament text. The Bible also employs highly metaphorical language for describing children, often in lurid and rich detail: “fruit of the womb” for females (see Hosea 9:16 and Exodus 21:22), “fruit of the loins” for males (Acts 2:30), and “fruit of the body” (Micah 6:7).

For the barren and those experiencing the pain of infertility, God also offers hope: not every child must be your physical offspring (see Isaiah 56:3-5). This theme is recapitulated in the New Testament by the Lord Jesus, who taught us to envision ourselves as children of a loving Heavenly Father and to reimagine traditional boundaries of family, of blood relation (Matthew 6:9; 12:46-50).

So too did the Apostle Paul teach us that we may come to have fathers and children in multiple senses, writing to the Corinthians: “In Christ Jesus I became your father through the Gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15). This is one reason among many why presbyters/priests in the Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican Communions bear the title of “Father” or “Mother.”

The promise and hope of children are predominant themes throughout the text, rivaled only by terms such as “Land” and “Covenant.” God promises the faithful fruitful lives in several senses: prosperity, safety, flourishing, legacy and progeny who will act as agents of renewal in God’s kingdom — new fruit for a coming renewed Garden Paradise in the image of the King.

Yet, as many of our readers know, not every child is a blessing. Indeed, while good parents offer unconditional love to their children, some children bring dishonor and shame to their family name and end up being more of a burden than a blessing. A brief survey of Proverbs and Jesus’ own parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates this.

Not every fruit from a man’s loins (both physical and spiritual) is good fruit. Indeed, the Scriptures contain numerous metaphors in both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament writings for the rotten fruit that comes from a man’s loins (see Psalm 58:3, Isaiah 48:8, Hosea 9:16, Matthew 7:19, Luke 3:9, John 15:6).

As time has passed and the nation’s largest Protestant (or simply “non-Catholic” depending on who you ask) denomination continues to lose members that number more than other denominations, one man appears to have produced more rotten fruit from his spiritual and ideological loins than anyone else: Leighton Paige Patterson.

Recent upheaval at a prominent Southern Baptist university in Georgia over an egregious abuse crisis is but one of many illustrations. Emir Caner, president of Truett McConnell University in Cleveland, Ga., had been notified by members of his own cabinet that one of his associate vice presidents had a longstanding, abusive and inappropriate relationship with a student who played on the women’s soccer team.

In an explosive and heart-breaking podcast, the survivor, who is a remarkably forgiving young woman who still somehow inexplicably believes in God and has not walked away from the faith from this awful abuse, detailed the assaults and post-facto spiritual justification the alleged perpetrator, Bradley Reynolds, gave for this unacceptable behavior. The most damning piece of evidence was an email from the perpetrator telling the victim that Caner had assured him that any “gossip” about their relationship from university personnel would result in termination.

Caner apparently kept that promise, dismissing employees who pointed out the problematic relationship. He also is accused of ignoring a petition signed by more than 50 women calling for Reynolds’ dismissal. Most alarmingly, other journalists and I have independently verified that a presently serving member of the faculty also is accused of an inappropriate relationship with a student. As of the date of this publication, he is still employed.

Where did Caner learn such dismissive, misogynistic and bullying behavior? His spiritual father was Paige Patterson, who served as his college professor.

Such is to be expected of the fruit of the loins of a man who bragged about “breaking down” sexual assault victims, rejoiced over a woman having been abused by her husband because he ended up “getting saved,” and is currently facing a lawsuit for millions over allegedly defaming a woman who claims to have been raped by a now-deceased seminary employee during Patterson’s tenure at my alma mater, Southwestern Seminary.

But this is not the only rotten fruit from Patterson’s loins.

The perpetrator, Brad Reynolds, also was an associate of Paige Patterson’s during his days at Criswell College. After arguably running Criswell into the ground, Patterson left for Wake Forest, N.C., to take on the presidency of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he would mistreat yet another survivor.

There is more.

Remember Darrell Gilyard, whom Patterson called his son in the ministry but who turned out to be a serial sexual abuser enabled by Patterson and others?

Gilyard rose to fame in the SBC in the late 1980s under the mentorship of Jerry Vines and Paige Patterson. Jerry Falwell Sr.’s pulpit gave Gilyard a platform to share on national television his dramatic testimony of growing up a homeless orphan who lived under a bridge, a story that was later discredited.

Patterson’s right-hand man and hand-picked evangelism expert from Southwestern, Matt Queen, was recently convicted of a federal felony for lying to the FBI amid its investigation into sexual abuse in the SBC.

A former vice president who served with Patterson in Fort Worth, Thomas White, president of Cedarville University, faces his own accusations of mishandling abuse.

Former Southwestern preaching professor and Patterson protégé Steven Smith was forced to resign his pastorate at a flagship, historic and tall-steeple church in Little Rock after failing to disclose that one of his ministers had sexually assaulted children.

Yet another son of Patterson is Jerry Falwell Jr., the disgraced former president of Liberty University who was entangled in a legal battle (now settled) with his former employer after he was forced to resign for, among other things, being a passive and willing participant in cuckoldry.

Notably, in 2019, Falwell took in stained glass from Patterson and his associates in the so-called “conservative resurgence” that had once adorned Southwestern’s MacGorman Chapel in Fort Worth.

“We will continue to honor the conservative leaders who reformed the Southern Baptist Convention, and we place our hope in your generation to be the ones to step up and provide better leadership for the future,” Falwell said at the unveiling ceremony, because nothing is more conservative than sexual deviancy and abuse.

It is no accident that most of the stained glass rogue’s gallery has either fallen into obscurity or immorality:

Jerry Vines: accused of covering up sexual abuse committed against the recently passed Duane Rollins by the late Paul Pressler.

Frank Page: abruptly resigned from the SBC Executive Committee over a “morally inappropriate relationship, and, for reasons still unknown, also recently resigned from a church that had called him as a pastor after the scandal.

Johnny Hunt: Infamous subject of the Guidepost Report and an alleged fleecer of the flock.

Barry McCarty: Longtime parliamentarian of the SBC known for being more prone to follow “Barry’s Common Law” than Robert’s Rules of Order. Also, a wannabe gangster.

Need I go on?

As did the Lord Jesus, it is time to lay the axe to the root of the trees and chop up and burn this diseased line of fruit from the “Red Bishop.”

Or, as I shall now call him: The Rotten Bishop.

 

David Bumgardner is a writer, theologian and educator living in Columbus, Ohio. He is a former BNG Clemons Fellow and a graduate of Texas Baptist College at Southwestern Seminary. He is a licensed commissioned pastor and holds an evangelism license through the Anglican Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Diocese of Boga, and Missio Mosaic, an ecumenical missional society and religious order. He is awaiting the conferral of his master of arts in practical theology degree from Winebrenner Theological Seminary. He is currently conducting postgraduate theological research (MTh) at the University of Aberdeen in New Testament and Early Christianity.

 

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