Paige Patterson, a leader of the SBC’s so-called Conservative Resurgence and fired as the head of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for mishandling sexual misconduct complaints, now faces fire for a letter written upon the election of the denomination’s first black president.
Oh hai Paige. Can you help us understand what you meant in 2012 when you said SBC Pres @FredLuter caused you to “quake” and that “ethnic” leaders don’t “understand the issues” like white men do? Do black men have a greater propensity for “backsliding”? Tell Dottie hi for us. Thx. pic.twitter.com/qSIvMkS43k
— The Baptist Blogger (@BaptistBlogger) November 13, 2019
There are a great many reasons to dislike Paige Patterson, and he deserved to be fired, but I’m not certain this letter is so awful as it is being construed. After all, according to the letter, the first black president is charged with appointing minorities to other positions of responsibility within the denomination — and religious beliefs are not informed by only theology (a dubious branch of ‘knowledge’ to begin with) but also culture. The Resurgence was, certainly, a southern conservative and white project, and I suspect that what the letter really points to is the uneasy relationship between theology and culture, and Patterson’s difficulty keeping them separate.