Baptist News Global
Sections
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Curated
  • Storytelling
    • Faith & Justice >
      • Charleston: Metanoia with Bill Stanfield
      • Charlotte: QC Family Tree with Greg and Helms Jarrell
      • Little Rock: Judge Wendell Griffen
      • North Carolina: Conetoe
    • Welcoming the Stranger >
      • Lost Boys of Sudan: St. John’s Baptist Charlotte
      • Awakening to Immigrant Justice: Myers Park Baptist Church
      • Hospitality on the corner: Gaston Christian Center
    • Signature Ministries >
      • Jake Hall: Gospel Gothic, Music and Radio
    • Singing Our Faith >
      • Hymns for a Lifetime: Ken Wilson and Knollwood Baptist Church
      • Norfolk Street Choir
    • Resilient Rural America >
      • Alabama: Perry County
      • Texas: Hidalgo County
      • Arkansas Delta
      • Southeast Kentucky
  • More
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donate
    • Associated Baptist Press Foundation
    • Planned Giving
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Advertising
    • Ministry Jobs and More
    • Transitions
    • Subscribe
    • Submissions and Permissions
Donate Subscribe
Search Search this site

Paige Patterson out at Southwestern Seminary

NewsBob Allen  |  May 31, 2018

After a week of intense criticism, leaders of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s board of trustees reversed a vote by the full board to remove Paige Patterson as president but allow him to live on campus with pay and the honorary title president emeritus.

The trustee executive committee voted May 30 to remove all benefits provided to Patterson at a specially called board meeting May 22-23, including his new title, the invitation to reside as the first theologian-in-residence in a newly established Baptist Heritage Center, and “ongoing compensation.”

A statement on the seminary website attributed the turnabout to new information confirmed earlier in the day regarding the handling of the alleged sexual abuse of a student before Patterson became president of the seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

The statement did not say what the earlier case was about or how the new information came to light, but last week the Washington Post broke a story about a woman claiming leaders of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., mishandled her report of a rape during Patterson’s term as president there in 2003.

Patterson, 75, came under criticism a month ago when audio from an old sermon surfaced of him saying he once sent a woman complaining about an abusive spouse to return to the home and pray for her husband. When she came back with two black eyes, he told her he was “happy” not because of her bruises but because her husband felt guilty after beating her and as a result accepted Christ.

Since that revelation a number of women have come forward with allegations of misogyny by Patterson both while he was president at Southeastern Seminary from 1992 until 2003 and since he replaced ousted president Ken Hemphill 15 years ago at Southwestern.

Last week’s vote by a majority of trustees appeared to be a compromise between Southern Baptists who wanted Patterson to be fired and those who honor him for his role in the “conservative resurgence,” a movement he started with Houston layman Paul Pressler to halt a perceived liberal drift in the Southern Baptist Convention beginning in the 1970s. The solution satisfied neither side.

Wednesday’s vote by the trustee executive committee raises new questions, including whether Patterson will voluntarily withdraw from his invitation to preach the convention sermon at the upcoming annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas or risk action from the floor to have him removed.

Other questions include what will happen to stained-glass windows depicting Patterson and Pressler, co-defendants in a pending lawsuit alleging sexual abuse and cover up, installed in a pantheon of heroes of the conservative resurgence at the 3,500-seat J.W. MacGorman Chapel, which opened at Southwestern in 2011.

The controversy also renews attention to the SBC’s stance on women. One of the first acts by the Patterson-Pressler coalition was to stem an increasing openness to women serving as local church pastors in the convention’s six seminaries during the 1980s.

A 1998 amendment to the Baptist Faith and Message, the convention’s official confession of faith, assigned separate and complementary roles to men and women in marriage. The husband has the “God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family,” the article says, while the wife should “submit herself graciously” to his “servant leadership.”

That is the same year Patterson was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention. During his customary second one-year term of office, he appointed a committee to do a thorough revision of the Baptist Faith and Message version adopted in 1963.

Changes to the document approved in 2000 removed assertions that confessions of faith “are only guides in interpretation, having no authority over the conscience” and “the sole authority for faith and practice among Baptists is Jesus Christ whose will is revealed in the Holy Scriptures.”

The new version also for the first time made clear that, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

Thousands of women signed an open letter earlier this month claiming to “affirm the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, including its statements on the roles of men and women in the family and in the church” while charging Patterson “with an unbiblical view of authority, womanhood and sexuality.”

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said in an essay May 23 that “complementarianism” is not the problem.

“The same Bible that reveals the complementarian pattern of male leadership in the home and the church also reveals God’s steadfast and unyielding concern for the abused, the threatened, the suffering, and the fearful,” Mohler wrote. “There is no excuse whatsoever for abuse of any form, verbal, emotional, physical, spiritual or sexual.”

Wade Burleson, a Southern Baptist blogger often critical of Patterson, disagrees. He said he actively supported the conservative resurgence until the mid-1990s, when male Southern Baptist leaders “began espousing the unbiblical teaching that males have an inherent ‘spiritual authority’ over women” and that pastors “have the greatest spiritual authority of all.”

This stained glass window depicting Paul and Nancy Pressler is among a series of artwork immortalizing leaders of the Southern Baptist Conservative Resurgence in a 3,500-seat chapel at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary dedicated in 2011. (Photo/Don Young Glass Studio)

A lawsuit pending in the 127th Judicial District Court in Harris County, Texas, claims male privilege lies at the root of the conservative resurgence. “It is, among other things, about power, a key ingredient in the abuse of children and women, the property of males of the species,” argues Houston attorney Daniel Shea, who in 2008 won settlement in an abuse lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Galveston and Houston.

The lawsuit presents both Patterson and Pressler as “individuals whose lives revolve around power, money and sex.” Citing Pressler’s own words from his 2002 memoir, A Hill on Which to Die, Shea argues that the SBC by the late 1980s “had become the creature of Pressler and Patterson through its president, whose election ins controlled by Pressler and Patterson.”

The Southern Baptist Convention is one of nine defendants named in the lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages for a Houston man who claims Pressler sexually abused him for years beginning when he was a teenager.

It accuses Patterson and other parties of engaging in “joint enterprise” to allow Pressler access to victims and conceal criminal acts, all the while upholding the retired judge as “a Godlike, sexually safe, moral and great person” who “as a magistrate, worked God’s wisdom and thus would not be sexually dangerous to minors.”

The next court hearing, scheduled July 10, is about a motion filed by Southern Baptist Convention lawyers claiming the lawsuit is barred by statute of limitations. Shea claims the statute of limitations should not apply, because according to a psychiatrist his client has “unsound mind and repressed memory” resulting from childhood sexual abuse.

Patterson, who a week ago said he was “hurt” by his demotion but “did not compromise,” has not commented on his firing. He is reportedly preaching in Germany and out of the country until June 3.

Previous stories:

#MeToo controversy takes down Southern Baptist patriarch

Paige Patterson unrepentant after seminary trustee action

#AlMohlerToo: Did a Southern Baptist power broker just get woke?

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
Tags:Paige PattersonSexual AssaultSouthern Baptist ConventionabuserapeSouthwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
More by
Bob Allen
  • Get BNG headlines in your inbox

  • Featured

    • Eight months later, there’s renewed interest in Adam Hamilton’s video on why he’ll remain a United Methodist

      News

    • Bob Banks, longtime SBC missions leader, dies at 91

      News

    • What I learned from meeting Martin Luther King in Louisville and Josie in Hopkinsville

      Opinion

    • For every critic of Jesus and John Wayne there are many more positive responses Du Mez says

      News


    Curated

    • ‘He Gets Us’ organizers hope to spend $1 billion to promote Jesus. Will anyone care?

      ‘He Gets Us’ organizers hope to spend $1 billion to promote Jesus. Will anyone care?

    • National Prayer Breakfast breaks from ‘The Family’ with new organization

      National Prayer Breakfast breaks from ‘The Family’ with new organization

    • The Rise of Spirit Warriors on the Christian Right

      The Rise of Spirit Warriors on the Christian Right

    • Twitter reinstated white nationalist Nick Fuentes. He lasted 24 hours.

      Twitter reinstated white nationalist Nick Fuentes. He lasted 24 hours.

    Read Next:

    Life post-Roe: Is there middle ground between religious liberty and medical freedom?

    AnalysisMallory Challis

    More Articles

    • All
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Curated
    • Faith groups must fight online hate, Interfaith Alliance urges

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Of church cemeteries, pulpit committees, crafts and sweet potato casserole

      OpinionChris Ayers

    • Colorado cake maker back in court, this time for refusing service to a transgender woman

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Of Margie, mountains and ‘El Shaddai’

      OpinionBert Montgomery

    • For every critic of Jesus and John Wayne there are many more positive responses Du Mez says

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • What I learned from meeting Martin Luther King in Louisville and Josie in Hopkinsville

      OpinionBill Thurman

    • Bob Banks, longtime SBC missions leader, dies at 91

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • On the baptism of our firstborn

      OpinionEmily Hull McGee

    • Members of Florida church required to sign ‘biblical sexuality’ statement or be removed from membership

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Eight months later, there’s renewed interest in Adam Hamilton’s video on why he’ll remain a United Methodist

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Life post-Roe: Is there middle ground between religious liberty and medical freedom?

      AnalysisMallory Challis

    • Has virtual worship actually harmed Christianity?

      OpinionSara Robb-Scott

    • 165 religious leaders plead with White House to abandon immigrant travel ban

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Boebert babbles about God, Satan and the Second Coming

      AnalysisRodney Kennedy

    • ‘What can we forgive?’: An interview with Matthew Ichihashi Potts on Forgiveness

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Knowing a church’s history on slavery can be a nudge toward redemption, historians say

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Los Angeles faces a homeless ‘emergency’ as global warming changes the equation

      AnalysisMallory Challis

    • My father’s faith

      OpinionBrett Younger

    • Sandra and Andy Stanley: ‘We’re not perfect parents, but we’ve learned some things along the way’

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • As more Americans delay health care they can’t afford, it’s time for the church to be a light once again

      AnalysisRick Pidcock

    • The apology that never came at Bubba-Doo’s

      OpinionCharles Qualls

    • United Methodists on alert for dissidents ‘poaching’ members and pastors

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Trump and his allegedly disloyal white evangelical supporters

      OpinionRobert P. Jones

    • The other speech Martin Luther King gave at Southern Seminary in 1961

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Faith groups must fight online hate, Interfaith Alliance urges

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Colorado cake maker back in court, this time for refusing service to a transgender woman

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • For every critic of Jesus and John Wayne there are many more positive responses Du Mez says

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Bob Banks, longtime SBC missions leader, dies at 91

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Members of Florida church required to sign ‘biblical sexuality’ statement or be removed from membership

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Eight months later, there’s renewed interest in Adam Hamilton’s video on why he’ll remain a United Methodist

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • 165 religious leaders plead with White House to abandon immigrant travel ban

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Knowing a church’s history on slavery can be a nudge toward redemption, historians say

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Sandra and Andy Stanley: ‘We’re not perfect parents, but we’ve learned some things along the way’

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • United Methodists on alert for dissidents ‘poaching’ members and pastors

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • The other speech Martin Luther King gave at Southern Seminary in 1961

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Faith-based leaders discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of Biden’s proposed border policies

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • U.S. churches more likely to have adult and youth education programs than interfaith or ecumenical work

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Here’s Johnny! Embattled SBC pastor back in the pulpit and will headline a men’s conference

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Dan Hobbs, early leader of ABP and CBF, dies at 95

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • ‘Public safety ecosystems’ could help replace nation’s broken criminal justice system, evangelical leaders say

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Reparations should begin with recognition of human dignity, Delbanco says in 50th annual Jefferson Lecture

      NewsMallory Challis

    • Church of England won’t allow same-sex marriage but may allow a liturgical blessing of civil unions

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Transitions for the week of 1-20-23

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Class-action suit against Department of Education alleging discrimination in Title IX exemptions dismissed

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Supreme Court will hear former postal employee’s appeal that he shouldn’t have to work on Sundays because he’s a Christian

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • New survey: Republicans and white evangelicals are outliers in fear of immigrants invading U.S.

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Religious liberty advocates applaud Biden administration rollback of Trump policies allowing faith-based discrimination

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • ‘Religicide’ a growing threat worldwide, authors warn

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Of church cemeteries, pulpit committees, crafts and sweet potato casserole

      OpinionChris Ayers

    • Of Margie, mountains and ‘El Shaddai’

      OpinionBert Montgomery

    • What I learned from meeting Martin Luther King in Louisville and Josie in Hopkinsville

      OpinionBill Thurman

    • On the baptism of our firstborn

      OpinionEmily Hull McGee

    • Has virtual worship actually harmed Christianity?

      OpinionSara Robb-Scott

    • ‘What can we forgive?’: An interview with Matthew Ichihashi Potts on Forgiveness

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • My father’s faith

      OpinionBrett Younger

    • The apology that never came at Bubba-Doo’s

      OpinionCharles Qualls

    • Trump and his allegedly disloyal white evangelical supporters

      OpinionRobert P. Jones

    • Doom-scrolling, sourdough starter and three kinds of kin

      OpinionJustin Cox

    • Putin needs to be taken down

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • How my eyes were opened to America’s broken immigration system

      OpinionChristian Vaughn

    • Meditating with Buddhists and other Asian lessons

      OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist

    • The Black resistance tradition and its fight for U.S. democracy

      OpinionDavid Gushee, Senior Columnist

    • Five book recommendations on creation stewardship for 2023

      OpinionDon Gordon

    • Queen Elizabeth was a role model for women in faith and leadership

      OpinionChrystal Cowan

    • Two football coaches went up to pray …

      OpinionPatrick Wilson

    • ‘Grief brain’: The three big deficits of grief

      OpinionLaurie Taylor

    • Prayer might not be enough

      OpinionTerry Austin

    • Mending broken pieces and broken lives with kintsugi

      OpinionPhawnda Moore

    • When my church and I let Jesus down: Jesus in the distressing disguise of the homeless

      OpinionChris Ayers

    • What I’m learning as a Maston Scholar: ‘Don’t forget!’

      OpinionAlfa Orellana

    • A world inside a world, spinning around

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • Faith and civil rights went together for Martin Luther King

      OpinionRussell Waldrop

    • My love-hate relationship with football

      OpinionSusan M. Shaw, Senior Columnist

    • ‘He Gets Us’ organizers hope to spend $1 billion to promote Jesus. Will anyone care?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • National Prayer Breakfast breaks from ‘The Family’ with new organization

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • The Rise of Spirit Warriors on the Christian Right

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Twitter reinstated white nationalist Nick Fuentes. He lasted 24 hours.

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • In Rare Rebuke, Elaine Chao Calls Out Trump’s Anti-Asian Attacks

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • How Southern California helped birth white Christian nationalism

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Extreme Israeli group takes root in US with fundraising bid

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Review: Decolonizing Christianity

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Two Leaders Of The New US House Could Put Baptist Diversity In The News Spotlight

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Making Sweat Feel Spiritual Didn’t Start With SoulCycle

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • White Christian nationalism isn’t pro-life. It’s pro-order.

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Stop Using the Bible to Dehumanize Transgender People | Opinion

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Martin Luther King Jr. Was A Saint, But Also Just A Man — That’s The Glory Of It

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • A Houston synagogue is tightening security after a woman broke in twice, damaged a Torah and harassed children

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Islamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad are an important piece of history – here’s why art historians teach them

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Lutherans ordain first Palestinian woman pastor in Holy Land

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • 2 States Introduce Radical Bills To Prosecute Pregnant People For Abortions

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Flyers coach Tortorella defends Provorov’s Pride boycott

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • ‘Dream bigger’: How weekend marches keep advocates’ fight for Roe v. Wade alive on 50th anniversary

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Rinse, Repeat: Should Believers Be Dunked Again?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Meet the real Jewish Republican of color being floated to replace George Santos, the fake one

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Florida Gov. DeSantis leads the GOP’s national charge against public education that includes lessons on race and sexual orientation

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians Unite in Support for Apache Fight to Save Oak Flat

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Group of faith leaders sue challenging Missouri abortion law

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • ‘Exporting garbage to the nations’: conservative Christian rifts spreading like cracked glass

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    Conversations that Matter.

    © 2023 Baptist News Global. All rights reserved.

    Want to share a story? We hope you will! Read our republishing, terms of use and privacy policies here.

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS