Monday, July 02, 2018

....but not this way...

.....several major funders of SWBTS are saying that they won't be funding the seminary anymore unless "wrongs" perpetrated against Paige Patterson are rectified.  Given that the strongest evidence for firing Patterson came from Patterson himself, apparently they're demanding the trustees go back in time and put duct tape over his mouth and disconnect the keyboard from which his "break her down" email was composed.


And as much as the idea appeals to me, and as much as that would do for the cause of the Gospel, I'm sad to say that I'm pretty sure that it would violate the laws of physics.  This is the wrong way to be weird for Christ.


Seriously, I think it's simply a group of major donors who really haven't clued in to the notion that the behavior of Mr. Patterson really was abhorrent, and that SWBTS really didn't have the option to wait for full, formal hearings given the furor over Patterson's actions.  Moreover, they appear quite unable to understand that when Patterson's friends released what should have been confidential records from both SEBTS and SWBTS--those records which form the core of their own "defense" of Paige Patterson--that in itself constitutes yet another reason to fire him.  He had, really, provided confidential, sensitive records to form a "scorched earth" policy against his employer. 

4 comments:

elspeth said...

I'm not convinced that Paige Patterson wasn't railroaded by the more loud, liberal faction of the SBC.

But that's just one insignificant non SBC woman's opinion.

Bike Bubba said...

No doubt that they're glad to see him go, for sure, and just as certainly, the clamor for his firing did have a lot to do with them.

That conceded, I think the coup de grace was administered by Patterson himself and his friends when they started to selectively release private correspondence that belonged to SEBTS and SWBTS to the media to fight the issue out there. Note that they're continuing to do so.

I really think Patterson could have survived the "built" comment and the domestic violence comment if he hadn't done that. I even think he could have survived the apparent mishandling of at least two cases of sexual assault and his "break her down" email if he'd done the same. But when he started down the scorched earth path, he gave the trustees no choice.

elspeth said...

Well, when you're being beaten bloody by a mob with the full support of the WashPo, a bit of panic and reactive defense mechanism sets in. No doubt there were missteps, but the idea that SWBTS can release things that shouldn't be and act unethically while screaming at Patterson for doing the same in his defense is laughable.

http://pulpitandpen.org/2018/07/02/new-evidence-suggests-swbts-wrong-for-firing-patterson/

I am still not sure why the "built" comment was so bad. I know I'm not the only person in the South whose heard the "Whoa, man!" joke from a pulpit. I was underwhelmed.

Bike Bubba said...

Actually, I don't know that SWBTS released anything unethically. Here's their statement:

https://swbts.edu/news/releases/statement-kevin-ueckert-chairman-board-trustees/

They had permission to release the "break her down" note from the victim. Otherwise, everything was kept in that room, and there were 13 hours of discussion in the May 22 meeting. Given that, Patterson appears to be escalating the fight a lot.

And he's doing it with Title IX documents belonging to his former employers without the permission of the people involved. I predict lawyers.....