What do you know? Claiming to have received new information about the alleged cover-up of a rape in 2003, the Board of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary decided yesterday to fire Paige Patterson.
During the May 30, 2018, Executive Committee meeting of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) Board of Trustees, new information confirmed this morning was presented regarding the handling of an allegation of sexual abuse against a student during Dr. Paige Patterson’s presidency at another institution and resulting issues connected with statements to the Board of Trustees that are inconsistent with SWBTS’s biblically informed core values.
Deeming the information demanded immediate action and could not be deferred to a regular meeting of the Board, based on the details presented, the Executive Committee unanimously resolved to terminate Dr. Paige Patterson, effective immediately, removing all the benefits, rights and privileges provided by the May 22-23 board meeting, including the title of President Emeritus, the invitation to reside at the Baptist Heritage Center as theologian-in-residence and ongoing compensation.
Under the leadership of Interim President Dr. Jeffrey Bingham, SWBTS remains committed to its calling to assist the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention by biblically educating God-called men and women for ministries that fulfill the Great Commission and glorify God.
Further, the Seminary stands against all forms of abuse and grieves for individuals wounded by abuse. Today, Dr. Bingham made it clear that SWBTS denounces all abusive behavior, any behavior that enables abuse, any failure to protect the abused and any failure to safeguard those who are vulnerable to abuse. Additionally, Dr. Bingham called for the SWBTS community to join the Body of Christ in praying for healing for all individuals affected by abuse.
So: the two chief architects of the so-called Conservative Resurgence — Paul Pressler, now facing multiple charges of pederasty, and Paige Patterson, now unemployed because he covered-up a rape — are going to spend their waning years as figures of disdain and ignominy.
It couldn’t happen to two more deserving men.
The Resurgence was still recent history when we moved to Wake Forest, North Carolina (the home of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary), and feelings were still strong; the careers of many decent, well-educated and –intended academics were gratuitously ruined in order to cleanse the denomination of every last scintilla of modernity. Jerry Falwell gave a sermon at Patterson’s installation as the new president of SEBTS, and complained that the school had “soiled the land for so long” and rejoiced that Patterson was now in charge.
Over the years, then, I acquired a good-sized library of books about that trauma, including all 6-volumes of the now-rare The Truth in Crisis. Even that set, written by an author sympathetic to the aims of the Resurgence, can mount no stronger defense of the Tammany-style tactics that Patterson and Pressler employed than “it had to be done.” For Jesus, et cetera, et cetera.
So there is something poetic about those lionized leaders being laid low within months of each other. It doesn’t give back the lives, careers, and marriages destroyed by their thuggish grasping after power, but I don’t blame their victims for enjoying a PING of schadenfreude.