Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has filed a $5 million claim against the estate of a recently deceased donor whose planned gift to the Fort Worth, Texas, school allegedly was redirected after interference by Paige and Dorothy Patterson.
Elizabeth Griffin
Elizabeth Griffin of Memphis was a longtime donor to conservative Southern Baptist causes, rooted in her love for her former pastor at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Adrian Rogers. Rogers was the first in a line of conservative presidents who led the so-called “conservative resurgence” in the SBC beginning in 1979.
Paige Patterson was co-architect of that plan and later became president of two SBC seminaries, Southeastern in Wake Forest, N.C., and then Southwestern in Fort Worth. Griffin and her late husband, Neil, began a relationship with Southeastern Seminary when Patterson was president there and Rogers served on the seminary’s board of trustees. They also were donors to Mid-America Baptist Seminary in Memphis, a school not officially linked to the SBC but closely related to the conservative movement within the SBC. After Patterson moved to the Southwestern presidency, the Griffins support followed there.
After Patterson was fired by Southwestern trustees in 2018 — over allegations that he had mishandled and failed to report cases of abuse against women — things quickly deteriorated between the Pattersons and Southwestern trustees, who now have accused the couple of theft and of misuse of the seminary’s confidential donor database to solicit funding for their own private foundation.
That immediately led to the redirection of another $5 million gift intended for the seminary. By his own account, Patterson said he warned the seminary trustees as they debated his ouster that the large gift would go away if they fired him. That and other related matters are aired in the seminary’s report to the SBC annual meeting published in a document known as the SBC Book of Reports.
As previously reported by BNG, a private investigator followed the Pattersons in July 2020 as they flew on a private jet from Dallas to Memphis, where they visited the elderly Griffin in an apparent attempt to change her will to benefit their Sandy Creek Foundation rather than Southwestern Seminary. The Memphis woman died in December 2020.
Details of Griffin’s will are not yet public, but there is a record of the will being processed in a Memphis probate court. That documentation shows that a Southwestern representative, Colby Adams, has filed a $5 million creditor’s claim against the estate. Seminary spokesman James A. Smith confirmed that Adams “is the seminary’s representative in this matter” but said the seminary would have no further comment while the case is being litigated in probate court.
Court documents submitted by Southwestern show a signed pledge by Griffin, dated April 12, 2018, dedicating a $5 million estate gift to the seminary for a Baptist Heritage Center at Southwestern.
Court documents submitted by Southwestern show a signed pledge by Griffin, dated April 12, 2018, dedicating a $5 million estate gift to the seminary for a Baptist Heritage Center at Southwestern.
This complex was to include a “Prophet’s House” that would serve as lodging for the president or president emeritus of the seminary, as well as quarters for visiting theologians. It also would include a special collections library to house items related to Adrian Rogers, Paul Pressler, Paige Patterson, Jerry Vines and others involved in the conservative resurgence in the SBC.
When seminary trustees first sought to remove Patterson as president, they offered a transition plan that would have made him president emeritus and provided retirement housing. That plan faced fierce backlash from Patterson’s critics, however, and was rescinded within a week of its announcement.
The earlier $5 million gift from another donor was, in fact, redirected from Southwestern to the Sandy Creek Foundation, which in turn purchased a $1.5 million property in Parker, Texas, where the Pattersons currently reside.
All this came to light after Benjamin Cole, a layperson who currently lives in Texas, made a motion at the 2019 SBC annual meeting asking Southwestern trustees to report to the convention on items that had gone missing or were deemed misappropriated after Patterson’s departure as president. The bombshell report in this year’s SBC Book of Reports came in response to that motion two years ago.
Cole, who was a personal friend of the Griffins and whose own education at Southeastern Seminary was generously underwritten by them, has become a fierce and public critic of the Pattersons. He writes online semi-anonymously as The Baptist Blogger. A June 3 post explained in more detail his connection to the Griffins.
“They might as well tell us they oppose abortion while handing out free coat hangers in the slums.”
In a statement to BNG June 4, Cole said: “The Pattersons’ pious objections to civil litigation ring empty when you realize how quickly they fly around the country on private jets to walk little old ladies into their lawyers’ offices to get a piece of their estates. They might as well tell us they oppose abortion while handing out free coat hangers in the slums.”
After initial accusations against the Pattersons were published last Friday, Paige Patterson issued a statement to Baptist Press that said: “I do not think the courtroom or the press is the place where Christians need to discuss their differences. That’s the reason why you’re the only one I have talked to. We’re responsible for working out our differences with other Christians. I’m very disappointed that we seem to be having trouble doing that.”
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