Well.
Just as decent-minded adults were coming down from the high of Paige Patterson’s dismissal, along comes the wife of his (now, former) Chief of Staff with several hundred words of Patterson apologetics assuring all right-minded Southern Baptists that ol’ Paige was grievously mistreated.
The first fact I’d like to offer in full disclosure is that I have had a front row seat to observing Paige Patterson during my time at Southwestern as a student and most recently as wife to his chief of staff, Scott Colter. I have been in his home, ridden in his car, passed him on the sidewalk, been a student in his class, sat through his chapel sermons, emailed with him and shared meals with him. I’ve observed him in large groups and small family gatherings.
Second, I want to be clear that I have compiled this account of the truth completely of my own volition. Paige and Dorothy Patterson have not asked me to write on behalf of or in defense of them, and my words are my own.
Third, the fact is, Southern Baptists deserve to know the whole story. Thus far you’ve heard one side of it, and that is because Patterson holds the conviction not to defend himself personally, following the example of Christ. However, this story has spiraled out of control to a point that demands a balanced and truthful response.
These are Southern Baptists so, as Fox Mulder used to say, “Trust nobody.”
I’ll add just two thoughts: First, the article is accompanied by images of correspondence that purport to be from some of the participants — correspondence that belongs, variously, in the student– and personnel-files at Southeastern and Southwestern Seminary. How does it happen that this non-staff spouse is able to offer selections from those files? Something is amiss here — and it is probably a selective, ex post facto reconstruction of Patterson’s offenses against ordinary decency.
Second, she says that Patterson learned he had been fired via a phone call while he was in Germany, and that his access to his e-mail — and calendar, and notes, et cetera, et cetera, leaving him unable to access even his travel itinerary — was immediately cut-off. Simultaneously, the locks were changed on his office and home. If that’s true, the Board should be summoned by irate Southern Baptists to explain why he was treated so shabbily.
The Board could have waited until his return to notify him that he’d been fired, and should not have exposed him to the humiliation of arriving at home — suitcase in one hand, housekey in the other — and being unable to get in. That goes to the character of the Board — and it’s looking unbecomingly small. Really: They shouldn’t have behaved as execrably as Patterson himself did when he was upending the SBC.