Lie cited in seminary firing

Leaders note former president’s treatment of rape accusers

In an announcement Friday night, leaders of a Southern Baptist seminary explained the reasons they decided two days earlier to fire their president, a longtime leader of the huge denomination: He lied about his treatment of a rape accuser in 2003, and in 2015 he tried to isolate from the seminary’s security chief another woman who had reported a sexual assault so he could “break her down,” according to a new statement.

Paige Patterson, who until a few weeks ago was a towering figure in the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination with about 15 million members, set off intense debate among evangelicals in recent months after recorded remarks surfaced that were viewed by many as demeaning toward women. They included advice he gave to a woman to return to her abusive husband.

On May 22, the seminary’s trustees demoted the 75-year-old Patterson from his position as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, citing vague reasons about his leadership that did not include mention of comments about or treatment of women.

Many Southern Baptists considered that decision too lenient because it allowed Patterson to remain as “president emeritus” with compensation and the ability to retire on campus.

Then in yet another twist on Wednesday night, the board’s trustees announced Patterson had been fired, removing the benefits, and vaguely citing his mishandling of an unspecified rape allegation.

The Washington Post had reported on May 22 that a woman who was a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2003 when Patterson was president there had gone to Patterson alleging she had been been raped by her boyfriend and was encouraged by Patterson not to go to police and to forgive the man she said had assaulted her.

The Post does not identify victims of sexual abuse, but last week, Megan Lively identified herself on Twitter as the person in the Post article.

Patterson, who is reportedly out of the country, did not respond to requests for an interviews made through Scott Colter, who served as his chief of staff.

The seminary had declined to confirm for two days whether the executive committee’s decision on Wednesday to unanimously fire Patterson was connected to the alleged incident at Southeastern — until Friday night.

“We confirmed this week through a student record, made available to me with permission, that an allegation of rape was indeed made by a female student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2003,” Kevin Ueckert, chairman of Southwestern’s board, said in a statement.

The information, Ueckert said, contradicts a statement previously provided by Patterson in response to a direct question by a board member regarding the incident at Southeastern.

“The 2003 rape allegation was never reported to local law enforcement,” he said.

Patterson is revered in the Southern Baptist Convention for his role in steering the denomination in a conservative direction in a fight that goes back decades.

He had been scheduled to deliver a key sermon to thousands of people at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Texas later this month, although it’s unclear whether he still will speak.

“People have always been afraid of him. Not anymore,” Lively said on Friday night.

The board’s statement released to the media when it made the decision to demote rather than fire Patterson on May 22 said, “Evidence exists that Dr. Patterson has complied with reporting laws regarding assault and abuse,” but it did not identify any specific incidents.

Ueckert said the board was referring at that time to another incident, raised in 2015 at Southwestern in Texas, not the woman’s allegations regarding Patterson’s response at Southeastern in North Carolina in 2003.

It is unclear who raised the first incident for consideration.

In his statement Friday, Ueckert said police were notified after a woman said she had been raped in 2015.

Ueckert said Patterson wrote an email to the chief of campus security at the time in which he “discussed meeting with the student alone so that he could ‘break her down’ and that he preferred no officials be present. The attitude expressed by Dr. Patterson in that email is antithetical to the core values of our faith and to [Southwestern]. Moreover, the correlation between what has been reported and also revealed in the student record regarding the 2003 allegation at Southeastern and the contents of this email are undeniable.”

“As I’ve said before, he shamed the crap out of me,” Lively said after seeing the statement.

“He tried to ‘break her down.’ My story is almost identical to this girl’s story.”

Ueckert also confirmed that documents were taken from Southeastern in North Carolina when Patterson left to become president at Southwestern.