(Pulpit & Pen) Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) trustees were under immense outside pressure during yesterday’s meeting to oust long-term president and bulwark of the Conservative Resurgence, Paige Patterson. Patterson, an old war-horse of conservative evangelicalism, has survived many scandals over his tenure. From protecting rapist, Darrell Gilyard to enrolling Muslims in the seminary as an evangelism strategy, Patterson’s giant footprint in Southern Baptist life has generally protected him from closer scrutiny. He could not survive, however, the current trajectory of the Southern Baptist Convention’s political correctness and fixation on social justice. …
Largely influenced by the same Baptists who have recently been promoting victimology and Cultural Marxism through Critical Race Theory, like Thom Rainer, Ed Stetzer, and Russell Moore, along with some national exposure thanks to the Washington Post and homosexual journalist, Jonathan Merritt, SWBTS trustees yesterday decided to dismiss Patterson with a “golden parachute,” a robust retirement package, permanent on-campus housing and an honorary, life-long title.
I predicted as much several weeks ago to some Southern Baptist insiders…
Southern Baptists don’t really fire their scoundrels. They give them retirement packages. As a part of the corruption of Southern Baptist Culture, some of the more notorious villains – even when caught in grievous errors – are let go with honorary titles, housing, and six-figure retirement budgets. From Bob Record – who resigned from NAMB after pilfering millions of dollars and was given a 500 thousand dollar severance package – to Ergun Caner, who was allowed to resign from Brewton Parker College after sexting, divorce and racism scandals without full disclosure regarding the reason for his dismissal, we regularly see SBC leaders given sweet back-door, red-carpeted exits.
The issue with Paige Patterson’s dismissal really isn’t one of deservedness. There are an infinite number of reasons why Patterson is unfit as SWBTS seminary president, many of them theological. Promoting the historically untenable and ridiculous idea of an Anabaptist origin of the Southern Baptist Convention, allowing a Muslim to enroll in the seminary secretly and deceptively against SWBTS bylaws, installing a stained glass window of Rick Warren in the SWBTS chapel, letting Eastern Orthodox idolaters preach on campus as though they were Christians, questionable personnel decisions and – as stated above – the most egregious support of a sexual predator, are all reasons why Patterson should have left the SBC seminary years ago. Patterson’s commitment to Scriptural Inerrancy and his role as one of the commanding generals of the Conservative Resurgence that swept the moderate-progressives from the denomination in the late eighties and early nineties, all protected him from the consequences of his problematic leadership. The issue is that it wasn’t any of these things that led to his rightful termination. The issue is that Patterson – one of the last remaining SBC entity leaders not brought to power by the overwhelming influence of Albert Mohler at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) – was largely dismissed because of external influence from the media caught up in the #MeToo Movement and by New Calvinists hell-bent on Social Justice both inside and outside the Southern Baptist Convention.