Paige Patterson

Leighton Paige Patterson (born October 19, 1942) is a Baptist former administrator from the United States. He served as president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, from 1992 to 2003, as president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from 1998 to 2000, and as the eighth president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, from 2003 until his firing in 2018 over mishandling of a rape allegation.

He played a major role in the Southern Baptist "conservative resurgence". He has been alternately described as a fundamentalist and a conservative evangelical. He would later be implicated for reportedly covering up sex abuse committed by his prominent career colleague Paul Pressler.

Education B.A. – Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene, Texas Th.M. – New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Th.D. – New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

Career Patterson started preaching while still in his teens. He held several pastorates before becoming president of the Criswell Center for Biblical Studies (now Criswell College) in Dallas, Texas, a position from which he was eventually fired. In 1967, Patterson and Houston politician Paul Pressler met in New Orleans, Louisiana and expressed a desire to make the then-largely moderate Southern Baptist Convention more conservative-minded. Patterson formed a strong connection with W.A. Criswell of the First Baptist Church of Dallas while in this position. After 17 years as head of what is now Criswell College, he became president of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina (1992–2003). Patterson was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in both 1998 and 1999. He has lectured and preached extensively and authored and edited many books and journals. In 2003, he became the 8th president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He was removed as president in May 2018 over his past advice to women concerning marital abuse and rape, then stripped of his positions of emeritus president and theologian-in-residence for his handling of several rape investigations.

Proponent of expository preaching

Patterson began preaching as a teenager, and continues to preach in churches and seminaries around the world. He is a strong proponent of expository preaching, once saying, "There is no genuinely good preaching except exposition". He has written on the topic of preaching, including the introduction to the 2010 publication Text-Driven Preaching: God’s Word at the Heart of Every Sermon.

Role in the SBC conservative resurgence

Patterson is best known for his prominent role in the Southern Baptist Convention conservative resurgence starting in 1979 with the election of Adrian Rogers as Convention President. Believing SBC seminaries and other SBC institutions had drifted away from their conservative Biblical roots, Patterson joined with Pressler, who was now a Houston-based judge, to carry out a plan that included exposing the theology taught and practiced by the leadership in SBC institutions, which Patterson and Pressler described as liberal theology. The main issue that divided the SBC was the nature of scripture, particularly, whether or not it is inerrant. Patterson, Pressler, and a host of self-described conservative pastors and laymen began to spread the word that the teaching of SBC leadership was not reflective of their constituents, who were paying their salaries. Patterson and the conservatives won the support of hundreds of like-minded churches, and as many as 40,000 messengers (church members willing to travel to the annual Southern Baptist Convention to vote) by using the inerrancy argument as the issue to gather support.

In 1998, Patterson was elected as president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Patterson's influence has been felt at all levels of Southern Baptist life. The seminaries have for the most part become conservative institutions. Local churches have been hiring pastors educated at schools led by conservatives. Missionaries have also been influenced by Patterson's leadership. By the time Patterson was appointed president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2003, the conservative leadership required that all faculty sign documents stating their allegiance to Southern Baptist doctrine, most notably, the Baptist Faith and Message.

Patterson has been associated with the Council for National Policy, an umbrella organization and networking group for social conservative activists in the United States.

Seminary president Patterson served as the president of Criswell College in Dallas, Texas from 1975 to 1992.

Following his time at Criswell College, Patterson became president of two prominent Southern Baptist seminaries: first Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) in Wake Forest, N.C., from 1992 to 2003, and then Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) from 2003 to 2018.

Views on women Patterson has attracted interest because of his stance on the role of women in church and his opposition to ordaining women as ministers. According to Patterson, the "highest and noblest calling of God" for women is that of "mother and grandmother". Additionally, Patterson's interpretation of the Bible includes "an assignment from God, in this case that a woman not be involved in a teaching or ruling capacity over men".

In an interview taped in 2000, Patterson recounted how he counseled a woman, who told him about being abused by her husband, that she should pray for God's intervention. When the woman "came to him later with two black eyes" and said "I hope you're happy", Patterson said he was "very happy" because the next day the husband had come to church for the first time.

Patterson explains a wife's submission to her husband as voluntary rather than coerced: "It means voluntarily to line up in the right order that God has given, and the husband is loving his wife sacrificially as much as Jesus Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, so that all the husband can think of is, 'Honey, what can I do for you? What can I do to serve you? How can I make your life better?' And all the time she is submitting herself to her husband and saying, 'You just lead and, honey, I'll follow.'"

Alleged cover up of sex abuse

Patterson was a defendant in a 2018 suit which alleged he assisted in covering up sexual abuse by fellow Southern Baptist Paul Pressler. The claims against Patterson were dismissed as they exceeded the statute of limitations. However, on April 6, 2021, in reaction to the abuse cover up allegations, Officials at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas would remove Patterson's stained glass image, as well as the image of numerous other SBC conservative resurgence leaders, from the MacGorman Chapel, a $30 million building which opened in 2011. In July 2026, the parties in the lawsuit reached a confidential settlement, days before the case was set for trial.

Removal as president of SWBTS and firing From president to president emeritus and theologian-in-residence On May 22, 2018, the board of trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) met to discuss "new leadership for the benefit of the future mission of the Seminary". They removed Patterson as President

Patterson was terminated "effective immediately" in response to mishandling the investigation of the alleged rape of a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2003, based on their internal review reported to SWBTS.

The SWBTS Executive Committee removed "all the benefits, rights and privileges provided by the May 22–23 board meeting, including the title of President Emeritus, the invitation to reside at the Baptist Heritage Center as theologian-in-residence and ongoing compensation". At that same meeting, trustees voted by a similar margin to fire an SWBTS faculty member, apparently for voicing opposition to Patterson's firing.

The firing also led to the termination of Dorothy Patterson's pet project of installing over 60 stained glass windows on the SWBTS campus to honor leaders in the conservative resurgence. The project was begun in 2013 as a 12-year project, and some 32 windows had been installed by April 2019, at which time the trustees decided to remove the windows in the best interests of the seminary. Two of the windows depicted Paige and Dorothy Patterson.

Impact beyond SWBTS Patterson's firing affected his standing in Baptist circles more broadly. Since 2003, Patterson had served on the board of trustees of Cedarville University, a Baptist institution. On May 30, 2018, Cedarville's president, Thomas White, who had worked with Patterson at both SEBTS and SWBTS, issued a statement that emphasized Cedarville's policies for reporting abuse and his uncertainty as to whether Patterson would continue to serve on the board. Patterson said his decision came from his desires "to protect my family as much as I can", "to contribute to harmony within the Southern Baptist Convention", and "to respond to the request that has come especially from you and other Southern Baptist leadership".

Patterson is still revered in some Baptist circles. During a chapel service on March 12, 2019, Truett McConnell University (TMU), an SBC school in Georgia, the school's dean and president presented Dr. and Mrs. Patterson with a plaque that renamed TMU's annual spring lecture series after them and claimed that they "provide an exemplary role model of Christian living."

Backlash to Patterson's firing About two dozen SBC donors attempted to return Patterson to his positions of president emeritus and theologian-in-residence at SWBTS and to punish those who fired him. At the SBC's annual meeting in June 2018, they brought a resolution to the floor to fire all the trustees of SWBTS who voted to fire Patterson; that resolution was "soundly defeated". Then in early July 2018, several donors to SWBTS signed a public letter threatening to withhold funding from the seminary unless the SWBTS board reconsidered Patterson's firing. His second sermon referenced the biblical story of Joseph, who was falsely accused by a woman of sexual abuse, to criticize some women in the Me Too movement.

In mid-October 2018, Patterson accepted the opportunity to co-teach an ethics course at Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES). His co-teacher for the course was Richard Land, the former head of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and presently the president of SES. Richard Mouw, president emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary, noted that Patterson was an odd choice to teach the class because he was not a specialist in ethics and suggested that Patterson's hire was "a political statement" by the very conservative SES that "He's one of us. We want to keep his voice strong."

Since 2018, Patterson has regularly filled the pulpit at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. He has declined invitations to participate in the church's protests. Dorothy Patterson regularly accompanies her husband on his visits to the Kansas church.

In October 2021, Patterson was elected to a three-year term on the board of trustees of Yellowstone Christian College in Kalispell, Montana.

Lawsuit for handling of rape allegations In May 2019, a former SWBTS student, named "Jane Roe" in legal papers, filed a lawsuit against Paige Patterson for threatening, intimidating, and humiliating her when she told him that she had been repeatedly raped at gunpoint in 2014 and 2015 by another seminary student, named "John Doe". According to the lawsuit, Patterson told Roe to recount "lurid and graphic details" of her rape before a group of men, told her that the rape was a "good thing", and "seemed to enjoy making Roe even more uncomfortable with his questions". Patterson also reportedly said he was "too busy" to deal with the allegations, "callously rejected" her requests for prayers and financial assistance, and told seminary faculty members about the alleged rape without her consent. Doe was expelled after Fort Worth police searched his room and found nine firearms, which violated the seminary's weapon's policy.

The suit claims Roe is the same student about whom Patterson had promised to "break her down". Patterson allegedly later met with Roe and said that Doe has supplied him with nude photos that proved they had a consensual sexual relationship; Roe said the photos were taken while Doe was raping her at gunpoint. When Roe's mother asked Patterson how Doe had been allowed to attend SWBTS with his violent criminal past, Patterson reportedly "lunged across the table, firmly pointed his finger in her face and threatened to 'unleash' lawyers on her if she dared question his leadership".