More than 10,000 pages of highly confidential and legally protected information from a sexual abuse victim’s case against Paige Patterson and Southwestern Seminary were published publicly online for about three days this weekend. The apparent clerical error occurred as case…
The day they tried to trap my father
It’s not even occurred to me to tell this story for maybe 30 years, but Father’s Day just happened and the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting just took place, and somebody just died a few days before that happened, and…
Pressler’s death brings overwhelming sadness
The formal death notice of Herman Paul Pressler III, a former Texas state appellate judge and the chief strategist behind a now 45-year rightward shift in the 14 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, hit me like a brick. For months, I…
Jane Roe’s case against Patterson and SWBTS stays alive for now with query sent to Texas Supreme Court
What remains of a defamation suit brought by a former student against Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Paige Patterson now comes down to two questions sent from the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to the Texas Supreme Court. The…
Greenway files suit against Southwestern Seminary and former trustee chairman, claims Pattersons left president’s home in disrepair
Paige and Dorothy Patterson stripped the president’s home at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary upon their departure and left the 10,000-square-foot home in a state of disrepair, according to a new lawsuit filed against the seminary by former President Adam Greenway….
What the SBC should do about its most famous accused sexual abuser
Thank God, Paul Pressler has lived to the ripe old age of 93. That’s long enough to expose the Southern Baptist Convention’s most malevolent hypocrite to the shame of his reported double life. Just before the end of the year,…
On Al Mohler, Paige Patterson, Bill Clinton, Immanuel Baptist Church and Baptist polity and politics
“Local church autonomy” is a Baptist distinctive selectively used. As evidence, consider Al Mohler’s position on Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark., 25 years ago when then-President Bill Clinton was a member there. Mohler, relatively new as president of…
Why did Paige Patterson write a book on ‘biblical’ counseling?
Why did Paige Patterson write a book about biblical counseling? Without rehashing events already thoroughly chronicled by the media and covered extensively in Baptist News Global, we are talking about the former president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, who counseled…
As seminary enrollment dropped and expenses rose, trustees gave Patterson a $25,000 ‘vacation fund’
In 2008, as enrollment was declining and expenses were skyrocketing, trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary gave Paige Patterson a gift for his fifth anniversary as president. That gift was a $25,000 “vacation fund” to be used at the discretion…
One name that muddles the debate over women in ministry in the SBC
Debate over the role of women in ministry in Southern Baptist life has resurrected the dead. One of the names most often tossed about this spring and summer as the SBC moved toward expelling churches that allow women to preach…
Seminary trustee who called for forensic audit resigns, history of financial dysfunction goes back years
The layers of historical dysfunction in the financial management of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary continue to be peeled back as current trustees and administrators have pledged more transparency — as evidenced by the release of 21 years of audited financial…
Southwestern trustees release 20 years of financials that show devastating decline began under Patterson
Trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary have released 20 years of audited financial records — more than any Southern Baptist Convention entity has done — documenting a devastating pattern of overspending while enrollment plummeted. The spending spree began with former…