Southern Baptist leader removed after remarks
FORT WORTH, TEXAS — Prominent Southern Baptist leader Paige Patterson has been removed from his job as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary amid an evangelical #MeToo moment: a massive backlash from women upset over comments he made in the past that are newly perceived as sexist and demeaning.
Seminary leaders were vague as to the reason for the dramatic move, issuing a statement in the wee hours Wednesday morning that didn’t mention Patterson’s controversial comments. Instead, the statement said that the seminary is moving “in the direction of new leadership” due to challenges related to “enrollment, financial, leadership and institutional identity.”
The brief statement said Patterson will be president emeritus, “for the benefit of the future mission of the Seminary.” He will receive compensation and may live on campus as “theologian-in-residence” at a brand new Baptist Heritage Center, the statement said.
After 13 hours of closeddoor sessions, the seminary’s trustees appointed Jeffrey Bingham, the seminary’s dean of the school of theology, as interim president. Bingham has worked for numerous evangelical institutions, including Criswell College, Dallas Theological Seminary and Wheaton College.
The news of Patterson’s removal, announced by the board of trustee’s chairman, Kevin Ueckert, is likely to be met with some satisfaction by the thousands of women who had called for his ouster, said Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor at Liberty University who attends a Southern Baptist church.
“Misogyny and disrespecting women has nothing to do with scriptural teaching,” Prior said.
But some Southern Baptists voiced concerns that allowing Patterson to continue to live on campus might not send a strong enough message. Southern Baptist leaders “would be concerned about their own appreciation for Paige Patterson: his legacy, history and contribution to the Southern Baptist Convention, even to the trustees individually,” said Thabiti Anyabwile, an author and pastor in Washington, D.C. “They’re comrades, friends. The question that’s left is whether that signals any change in direction and tenor at the institution.”
In recent weeks, Patterson, 75, has come under fire for taped comments he made between 2000 and 2014 about women, including those remarking on a teenage girl’s figure and saying female seminarians need to work harder to look attractive. He also said women who are abused almost always should stay with their husbands. After thousands of Southern Baptist women signed a petition calling for the seminary’s board of trustees to oust him from his position, he apologized for making comments about the teenager, but he did not apologize for his comments about abused women. The comments had resurfaced on a blog this year.