Southern Baptist ouster means little
A brewing crisis among fundamentalist Christians was mitigated when Paige Patterson, a prominent Southern Baptist leader, was removed a few days ago from his job as president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Patterson’s history of grotesque sexism and callousness toward abused women finally caught up with him in this #MeToo moment, when thousands of Southern Baptist women demanded his ouster.
Patterson lost his position after a recording surfaced of comments he made in 2000, when he counseled a woman who was physically abused not to seek divorce but, instead, to pray and “be submissive in every way you can,” according to The Washington Post. The most disturbing part of the recording is a story Patterson tells about an abused woman whom he counseled to pray for God to intervene rather than leave her marriage. She came back later with two black eyes, telling Patterson, “I hope you are happy.” He says he told her, “Yes,” because her husband had come to church the next day.
Patterson has also been accused of counseling a woman, who said she had been raped, not to report the crime to police in 2003, when he was president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, the Post reports. The woman, who was working toward a master of divinity degree, said that Patterson wanted to know every detail of the assault but told her to forgive her assailant. Disturbing. Deeply disturbing.
But hardly surprising. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, has always been a bastion of the least compassionate interpretations of biblical teachings, offering a theology that minimizes mercy and generosity, demeans women and celebrates white nationalism. It became “Southern” in 1845, when its members split with their Northern brethren who wanted to abolish slavery. The convention finally got around to apologizing for its appalling defense of that ignominious institution in 1995, 150 years later.
It’s no wonder its members are so comfortable with President Donald J. Trump, whose offenses against women are too numerous to list here. For all their claims to the moral high ground, ultraconservative Christians, both men and women, have long turned a blind eye to the sexual predations of powerful men. Just ask Roy Moore, the Alabama jurist who had a decades-long reputation for preying on teenage girls. He remained popular among conservative white churchgoers, losing a U.S. Senate race to Democrat Doug Jones only because moderate Republicans rejected him and black female voters annihilated him.
The Christian right still exerts a powerful pull with the Republican Party, but its tide of sweeping influence had already crested decades ago as younger voters, including many who grew up in fundamentalist Christian households, rejected church teachings that made pariahs of gays and lesbians. Many younger voters have been turned off, as well, by Southern Baptists’ insistence that women may not be ordained to preach. Suffice it to say that the Trump era has dimmed the last glint of halo on the conservative Christian church, and its broad cultural influence will likely continue to decline. The halfhearted effort to preserve a bit of decorum by ditching Patterson won’t change that.
(For the record, black conservative churchgoers have their own problems with sexism and homophobia. The National Baptist Convention, the black counterpart to the Southern Baptist Convention, allows its member churches to decide whether they will ordain women, and many do not. And its churches are nearly universal in their bigotry toward gays, lesbians and transgender people.)
Patterson’s punishment, if it can be called that, wasn’t harsh. The board of the seminary made no mention of Patterson’s gutwrenching “counseling,” but merely said it was moving “in the direction of new leadership.” While Patterson lost his post, he will have the title “president emeritus” and receive compensation. He will also be allowed to reside in the living quarters of a brand-new $2.5 million Baptist Heritage Library, which is slated to house his papers.
With its continuing acceptance of Patterson, the patriarchy of the Southern Baptist Convention has shown its disregard for decency and its disrespect for women. Here’s hoping its political decline speeds up.