Patterson Completely Out, Fired, at SWBTS

[Rvaughn]

Wow, the messengers even vote on who the preacher is? You'd think something that routine would be delegated to an agenda sub committee or something. There is a point at which having a vote on everything is a hinderance to good decisions.

William can address this better than I. Who preaches the annual session is, I believe, pretty much a rubber-stamp vote of voting to accept a committee's proposed order of business. I think the point after the fact is that someone can't just come along and reset the order of business set by the last annual session. Hopefully William will help us out here.

[Sandy]

Wow, the messengers even vote on who the preacher is? You'd think something that routine would be delegated to an agenda sub committee or something. There is a point at which having a vote on everything is a hinderance to good decisions.

William can address this better than I. Who preaches the annual session is, I believe, pretty much a rubber-stamp vote of voting to accept a committee's proposed order of business. I think the point after the fact is that someone can't just come along and reset the order of business set by the last annual session. Hopefully William will help us out here.

It is a rubber stamp vote. A motion is made at the convention every year to accept a recommendation from the arrangements committee (not sure what they call it these days, used to be the "Time, Place and Preacher" committee) regarding where the convention will be held in a specific year, the dates for it, and who will preach the annual sermon. The last time I was an an SBC meeting, the messengers were voting on a convention date and location that was at least five years distant, due to the arrangements that had to be made. I think it is planned even further ahead than that, now. I can't recall that there was ever any discussion, and anything other than a vote by show of hands.

[William Thornton]

Convention votes on the report of the committee. I've never see the preacher changed although I do recall an attempt to substitute from the floor. It failed.

The issue will be whether or not enough messengers show up at the first gavel on Tuesday morning.

So far PP is silent. He should volunteer to step down.

[Stephen Fox]

Wpost say at least one woman in this mess is coming to the defense of Pagie, has blogged to that effect questioning the nuances of the most damaging accusations against him, especially the SEBTS woman story about the security guard. It's kinda like Jenny Shaver of Cherokee Co Alabama, daughter of a pca preacher whose husband is the sheriff coming to the defense of Judge Roy moore last fall when I talked to her in the presence of two local cops at the Turkey trot. Saw the same two when I voted today in the Republican Primary here in Collinsville and had a good civil war discussion.

Religion dispatches piece today is in the vein of Molly last week. Calls Mohler's theology "rotten". I tend to agree.

Had a good chat about it all over the weekend with a Furman grad at a wedding in Auburn, a recent president of the American Hymn Society and the son of a nineties pastor of FBC Greenville. People are studying all this from several vantage points.''I would love to see the SBC invite the Right Reverend Jeremiah Wright to come speak on that Verse in the Old Testament about the Chickens Coming home to Roost, since RG Lee is deceased and nobody could do Pay Day Someday like He could!!!!!!!

[Tim Bonney]

William can address this better than I. Who preaches the annual session is, I believe, pretty much a rubber-stamp vote of voting to accept a committee's proposed order of business. I think the point after the fact is that someone can't just come along and reset the order of business set by the last annual session. Hopefully William will help us out here.

Got it. At a Methodist conference meeting we vote in an order of business too. After that to change it takes another vote of the body, usually super majority.

[Tim Bonney]

Convention votes on the report of the committee. I've never see the preacher changed although I do recall an attempt to substitute from the floor. It failed.

The issue will be whether or not enough messengers show up at the first gavel on Tuesday morning.

So far PP is silent. He should volunteer to step down.

The order of business committee can’t uninvited him I before the vote? Or is that allowed?

[Sandy]

The order of business committee doesn't have the authority to undo a decision made by a majority vote at a previous convention. I suppose the order of business committee could make a motion to replace Patterson with the alternate preacher, but they would have to do it during the business session that the convention approves the order of business

[Tim Bonney]

The order of business committee doesn't have the authority to undo a decision made by a majority vote at a previous convention. I suppose the order of business committee could make a motion to replace Patterson with the alternate preacher, but they would have to do it during the business session that the convention approves the order of business

That helps Sandy. I only managed to attend one Southern Baptist Convention meeting in my life. So the rules that are followed are a bit fuzzy to me. For both American Baptists and United Methodists Convention/Conference speakers are recruited by an Agenda Committee (I served once on the ABC Agenda Sub-Committee) and are not voted on as part of the adopting the agenda by the delegates voting.

So in ABC or UMC life the agenda committee could just un-invite someone and invite someone else. It kind of seems odd for a full congregational vote on who a speaker is going to be. But, I'm not a Baptist any more and I'm less used to full body votes on some that I'm now used to leaving up to committees.

[William Thornton]

The SBC, which is made up of the registered messengers for the two days of the year the convention is in session, reserves these decisions for itself.

[Tim Bonney]

The SBC, which is made up of the registered messengers for the two days of the year the convention is in session, reserves these decisions for itself.

Sure William. They can do as they see fit. This is just the first instance I’ve come across where the whole body of a denomination votes on the speaker slate, at least as far as I know.

[William Thornton]

The SBC is unique in some ways here, ways that most SBs don't grasp. Primarily, in that the whole SBC for those two days is the group assembled. For the other 363 days of the year the SBC Executive Committee, 75 people with a paid staff HQ in Nashville, makes decisions. The SBC decision in 2017 was to have PP as the convention preacher. Only the group can reverse that decision.

It was notable that very soon after PP was fired, SBC president Steve Gaines explained the method by which he could be removed as the convention preacher: either he resigns that task or the SBC votes to remove him.

We're an odd bunch, but you already knew that.

[Tim Bonney]

The SBC is unique in some ways here, ways that most SBs don't grasp. Primarily, in that the whole SBC for those two days is the group assembled. For the other 363 days of the year the SBC Executive Committee, 75 people with a paid staff HQ in Nashville, makes decisions. The SBC decision in 2017 was to have PP as the convention preacher. Only the group can reverse that decision.

It was notable that very soon after PP was fired, SBC president Steve Gaines explained the method by which he could be removed as the convention preacher: either he resigns that task or the SBC votes to remove him.

We're an odd bunch, but you already knew that.

And every denomination has its oddities.

I'm heading to the annual conference for Iowa United Methodists tomorrow in Des Moines. Tomorrow night the clergy session (all the ordained clergy in Iowa) will vote to approve who will be ordained by the Bishop on Sunday. And a lot of Methodists are unaware that the Bishop doesn't have the authority to ordain anyone without the approval of the UMC clergy in Iowa. Also, technically, a UMC pastor can't retire without approval of the clergy session.

So Methodists vote on things you'd not think we'd vote on too.

[Sandy]

This particular issue doesn't seem to be predictable. My prediction is that Patterson won't step away from the invitation. There will be a concerted effort among SBC leadership from various quarters who also happen to be elected messengers, to make the change in the appropriate business session. You have those who look at this as a long-time conspiracy to "get" Patterson by his enemies. You also have many conservatives who never liked him, never approved of his methods or actions, thought he used the influence he built on the boards to get both seminary presidencies and will celebrate when he's out. The annual meeting is in Dallas, Patterson's home turf, but also a state where he's not popular with a good sized segment of Southern Baptists. I'd be more willing to predict the winner of the hotly contested presidency race than whether or not the messengers pull the plug on PP.

[Haruo]

I would be interested in seeing what sort of keynote sermon Patterson would give under such a cloud of hostile witnesses.

[JE Pettibone]

I would be interested in seeing what sort of keynote sermon Patterson would give under such a cloud of hostile witnesses.

Ed: Sandy just outlined the opening. Wouldn't be surprised to hear a good bit of anti CBF and anti feminism rhetoric.

If this is a large part it will be interesting to see how it floats with the Messengers to the convention Have been seeing a lot of local news in Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisianan, over the past few days and have not heard a word about the up coming SBC Convention. Although we are now in Texas our best TV reception is out of Shreveport. We are in an area referred to by the media as
ARKLATEX .

I note that I have not seen anything on this from Jon Estes.

[Rvaughn]

Although we are now in Texas our best TV reception is out of Shreveport. We are in an area referred to by the media as ARKLATEX.

Sounds as if you're in my area.

[Sandy]

I would be interested in seeing what sort of keynote sermon Patterson would give under such a cloud of hostile witnesses.

At the 2007 convention in San Antonio, during the time that was allocated for him to give the report on Southwestern Seminary, he launched into a tirade against conservatives who weren't loyal to him, including taking several swipes at David Rogers, who was nominated for FVP that year, and indirectly at Adrian, at Dwight McKissic, who had stepped off the Southwestern trustee board after a controversial sermon he delivered in chapel, and after taking a doctrinal view that Patterson didn't agree with. He did a backhanded swipe at Al Mohler stopping just short of mentioning him by name (he was next on the podium, I think).

It could be that this would be the gracious bowing out of an old warrior, a time to celebrate what was really a lifetime's work, establishing the necessity for the conservative resurgence, and acknowledgement of accomplishments along with a gracious expression of gratitude to those who helped support and sustain the movement, and an opportunity for Southern Baptists at the convention, in his hometown and home state, to show their appreciation, perhaps one last time. That might be what the committee had in mind when they offered the annual sermon to him.

Since the Conservative Resurgence, and in particular Patterson, have no particular record of this kind of graciousness, I wouldn't expect that.

[Sandy]

All of the above post is out of date, since it appears Patterson has withdrawn from any and all potential speaking engagements at the SBC, including the Evangelism Task Force report, and the Annual Sermon.

Southern Baptists leadership must be breathing a collective sigh of relief.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/ ... allas.html

[Tim Bonney]

All of the above post is out of date, since it appears Patterson has withdrawn from any and all potential speaking engagements at the SBC, including the Evangelism Task Force report, and the Annual Sermon.

Southern Baptists leadership must be breathing a collective sigh of relief.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/ ... allas.html

Really a smart decision. If he hopes for any rehabilitation of his reputation later, forcing everyone to let him preach while the issues are fresh in everyone’s mind would just look really bad. I never liked Patterson. But I never thought he was dumb.

[Rvaughn]

Bart Barber’s statement on the SWBTS Executive Committee's action against Paige Patterson

Then, after that marathon meeting of May 22-23, Dr. Patterson became the President Emeritus of the seminary. The first thing that happened in his term as President Emeritus was this: His attorney sent an email questioning the legal validity of the full board’s decisions in the meeting of May 22-23. The basis of the claim was weak. I’ve no doubt that the action of the board would stand any challenge in the courts. But that fact notwithstanding, what is one of your seminaries to do with a President Emeritus who will work to undermine the legitimacy and validity of its board of trustees?

This is the person I was most interested in hearing from.

[Haruo]

So, did the Convention extend his tenure? Or can him?

[Rvaughn]

The trustees? Extended, I guess:
https://sbcvoices.com/our-work-is-not-done-hatley-motion-to-dismiss-swbts-trustees-at-245-defeated/

[William Thornton]

The deal was that the SBC when meeting officially during the two days of each year in annual session, can summarily dismiss trustees by simple majority vote. This is what was proposed for the ten SWBTS trustees on that board's executive committee. Such a motion was properly made, scheduled for action, and debated. The move to dismiss trustees was defeated by around 98% and only 2% or so in favor.

Trustees dribbled out more reasons for their earlier action to fire PP and strip him of the emeritus status, remove him from the payroll, and not allow him to have a retirement home on campus. Reasons were generally insubordination, refusal to obey trustee instruction and orders, along with financial issues. I expect that more info will be forthcoming.

[Sandy]

Bart Barber’s statement on the SWBTS Executive Committee's action against Paige Patterson

Then, after that marathon meeting of May 22-23, Dr. Patterson became the President Emeritus of the seminary. The first thing that happened in his term as President Emeritus was this: His attorney sent an email questioning the legal validity of the full board’s decisions in the meeting of May 22-23. The basis of the claim was weak. I’ve no doubt that the action of the board would stand any challenge in the courts. But that fact notwithstanding, what is one of your seminaries to do with a President Emeritus who will work to undermine the legitimacy and validity of its board of trustees?

This is the person I was most interested in hearing from.

I was quite surprised to read that statement from Barber, made at the SBC. The SWBTS trustee board is stacked with Patterson supporters, all hand picked and placed there by his influence. This sort of thing has been the way he has operated all along. It's why Southwestern is where it is now. Yes, that took courage, and yes, somehow some integrity got going somewhere, and got passed along to the messengers, who voted down the motion by Hatley in a rather overwhelming smack down fashion. But goodness, where has this been and why did it take so long? Yes, Barber had courage, but for years he's been one of Patterson's enablers. It's too late to save the SBC from scandal, probably too late to save Southwestern from a financial collapse, and it has made the way the SBC is operated look pretty corrupt and self serving in the eyes of the secular press.

The stained glass windows at Southwestern need to be taken down. Now.

[Rvaughn]

A 7-page letter letter from some Southwestern supporters to the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4568645-Southwestern-Letter.html

You are well aware of the legal problems associated with your failure to give timely Notice for the May 30th meeting, as required by your By-laws. You are also aware that you failed to give proper Notice regarding the drastic action you intended to address and thereafter take.

Please know that until the serious wrongs against Dr. and Mrs Patterson are righted, we will be unable to continue our financial support of the Seminary.