Paige Patterson out as Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President

There’s no need to shut down comment threads. There is a need to not speculate on matters we know next to nothing about. This is why I never comment about the alleged facts and circumstances of any fundamentalist-evangelical scandal.

I’m happy to discuss the Bible. I just won’t discuss Patterson, Hybels or any other “scandal” of the day in public. I’m happy to discuss the concepts of accountability, leadership, reporting requirements, and lessons learned for day and days, if necessary. But, I’m not in a position to know what happened here, and it’s useless and irresponsible for me to speculate. All I can do is draw some lessons and applications for my own context, so ensure I don’t make the same mistakes. That’s all any of us can do.

You and Bert are passionate, but you talk in abstractions. Your suggestions are vague and ill-defined. I don’t think you really know what you want done, or how you want it done. You just want something done. But, you can’t or won’t delve into specifics:

• What do you want para-church ministries to do. Specifically? Concretely? What do you want?
• What do you want every local church to do? Specifically? Concretely? What do you want?

I’ve read nothing here (or in the other threads) which has substance; it’s all philosophical and abstract. It’s theoretical. I want to hear something concrete, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-sensitive. I haven’t heard anything yet but passionate outrage. That’s not good enough. That’s why I don’t yet take what you two say on this topic seriously.

…..and stop posting filings, too.

No, Tyler, it’s not about abstractions. It’s about some rather concrete premises:

1. The responsible authorities all too often do not get things done well, or at least do not release their results, when the results of their work might be embarrassing to the organization. Again, ABWE, New Tribes, BJU, SGM, SEBTS, SWBTS, MSU, USC, etc..

2. We should not be maligning entire categories of sources by saying we know “next to nothing” or calling their testimony “madness of crowds.”

3. We can indeed know quite a bit about a situation from direct testimony such as has been issued by both Paige Patterson and his detractors. See links above.

4. Outsider testimony very often achieves very real results. Historically, you’ve got the Dan Rather case, the Peter Zenger case (that gave us freedom of press), and recently, you’ve got things like #MeToo.

The real issues hanging out there in a lot of cases are not the what of what happened, but rather the why. Why, for example, does an outsider—ahem—Sharayah Colter appear to have documents from SEBTS? Her husband never appears to have worked there, and she’s not an involved party, either.

Bert and Jay:

• What do you want para-church ministries to do. Specifically? Concretely? What do you want?
• What do you want every local church to do? Specifically? Concretely? What do you want?

I want to hear something concrete, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-sensitive. Unless and until you commit to answering these questions, you’re not going to accomplish anything here.

Regarding the notion of “let the responsible authorities handle it”, again, we are discussing this precisely because a number of people tried precisely that, and felt that they were stifled. In other words, precisely because they’re claiming that the process did not work for them. This we know, like the previous information, for sure.

Tyler, the paragraph above is the whole reason I’m talking about this. You want concrete suggestions? Why don’t you answer my question from another thread? I know there’s a ton of different threads going here, but Bert and I aren’t talking about this because we love it. We’re talking about it because we want real, concrete, specific things in place to make sure that this doesn’t happen again to anyone in our ‘tribe’.

It’s hard to talk about concrete suggestions when people are discussing this as a non-story (Don), assigning it to the maddening and mob-like crowds (Aaron, David), or telling us that we’re unprofessional and speculating.

Maybe Bert and I are concerned about this because we’ve seen these kinds system fail and the rest of you haven’t. But telling us that there’s no need to discuss the problems at SEBTS and SWBTS doesn’t make the problem go away - it moves it to a different place, or hides it temporarily, as it did at MSU. You know that.

Passionate outrage is fine, but what are you going to do now? That’s what I’m challenging you to think about:

• What do you want para-church ministries to do. Specifically? Concretely? What do you want?
• What do you want every local church to do? Specifically? Concretely? What do you want?

I want to hear something concrete, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-sensitive. Unless and until you commit to answering these questions, you’re not going to accomplish anything here.

Regarding my question, which you linked to (above); you’re so close to finding a solution, Jay. So very, very close. Think about how your local church can implement something similar to an IG hotline to report a situation that a church member feels the elders have failed to handle appropriately:

• Think about congregational government,
• think about the other office of a local church,
• consider the local Baptist association
• and come up with a concrete, specific, achievable, measurable and time-sensitive solution and goal for your local church
• then start a new thread and talk about your idea

This is how you can begin to be constructive about these issues. Not by posting links for or against Patterson. Instead, be proactive and channel your passionate outrage into a practical solution.

It’s a quick list of go/no go conditions that are easily measurable, just like any other evidence of sin—and that is exactly what it is. Using these as a “Cliff’s Notes” to evaluate acceptable, and unacceptable, forms of interaction with complaints moreover has zero impact on any Biblical notion of local church autonomy, which must include the fact that the very existence of the epistles in the New Testament derives from the fact that outsiders were giving wisdom to insiders.

What list are you talking about? Are you really saying that, in the end, after all the outrage, your practical advice for local churches and para-church organizations boils down to a checklist?

[TylerR]

What list are you talking about? Are you really saying that, in the end, after all the outrage, your practical advice for local churches and para-church organizations boils down to a checklist?

Right here, and yes, it is as simple as that little checklist. It amounts, more or less, to simply getting ourselves out of the business of prejudging evidence based on its source. In this case, if we argue that nonparticipants are inherently unreliable, we are violating Leviticus 19:15 and James 2:6, among other passages. To listen is not necessarily to agree, it’s simply to not prejudge and then you can come to some conclusions.

You and Aaron are not, regrettably, at that point yet.

Your list solves nothing. It’s a list of what you perceive to be problems. You’ve still proposed no constructive solutions:

• What do you want para-church ministries to do. Specifically? Concretely? What do you want?
• What do you want every local church to do? Specifically? Concretely? What do you want?

I want to hear something concrete, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-sensitive. Unless and until you commit to answering these questions, you’re not going to accomplish anything here.

You can either continue to post comments expressing passionate outrage, or you can propose constructive solutions.

“Stop doing harmful things” is progress, Tyler. It really is. It is moreover concrete, specific, and measurable. Companies do this all the time by measuring harmful behaviors among their employees.

We might question, given the depth of opposition to the notion here and elsewhere, whether it’s realistic, but I don’t know that I ought to cop to the blame for intransigence on the part of fellow fundamentalists.

Bert, I object to your constant referencing of BJU in this incident with Patterson. The BJU Grace report has been completely discussed in the past. BJU initiated the report and publicized the report and paid for the report. Few colleges, secular and sacred, have voluntarily taken this level of action. BJU has instituted dozens of policies to prevent abuse and report abuse. In this regard, they have set a very high standard which is being followed by other colleges. This was confirmed to me by SACS when we went through the accreditation process. BJU has invested a great deal of resources and money to strengthen their counseling programs as well. If you desire to deal with the Patterson issue, that’s fine. But bringing in BJU and other groups is broad brushing at its worst. Please stop.

While a bit redundant, this conversation is nothing if not entertaining.

On one side, Tyler has established (in his own mind) that there is no value to any conversation on a theoretical level and now measures any other conversation against his new standard of results-oriented practicality. I disagree with him on that but based on his youth and limited experience outside the military where that kind of thinking is probably dominant, he can be forgiven for believing it. He is a smart guy and probably won’t still believe that in a decade or two anyway.

Bert on the other hand neatly falls into the trap of letting Tyler move the goalpost and define what meaningful conversation is. You might watch yourself on that Bert. No, your list is in no way what Tyler is looking for but on the flip side, who says Tyler gets to determine how you are going to write? You don’t have to defend the fact that you are not giving him what he has decided is beneficial.

[Mike Harding]

Bert, I object to your constant referencing of BJU in this incident with Patterson. The BJU Grace report has been completely discussed in the past. BJU initiated the report and publicized the report and paid for the report. Few colleges, secular and sacred, have voluntarily taken this level of action. BJU has instituted dozens of policies to prevent abuse and report abuse. In this regard, they have set a very high standard which is being followed by other colleges. This was confirmed to me by SACS when we went through the accreditation process. BJU has invested a great deal of resources and money to strengthen their counseling programs as well. If you desire to deal with the Patterson issue, that’s fine. But bringing in BJU and other groups is broad brushing at its worst. Please stop.

Mike, they also fired GRACE midway through the investigation, and that serves as a great example of the tendencies we need to avoid, as well as an example of what public outcry can achieve—Boz was of course rehired after a period of public outcry. Moreover, the report found that a lot of the problems were in Jim Berg’s work, and a quick look at his CV at BJU shows he’s still teaching counseling, and BJU’s response to GRACE’s position that BJU’s counseling methods were part of the problem was to review the methods and declare them Biblically sound.

So what you’ve got, really, is a school with world class policies (like a school in East Lansing), but a major contributing portion to the problems is still 100% in place—again, regrettably, like my alma mater in East Lansing, though in a different way.

Moreover, it’s also worth noting that the sins of the past—the counseling mistakes made over Jim Berg’s 40 year career—are going to be represented to a degree in the graduates of BJU—just like at New Tribes and ABWE, really, which also have greatly improved policies and have hired outside investigators.

So like it or not, the problems of the past stick around for a while. Dealing with that over time is part of repentance.