Paige Patterson—A Challenge

I sent Patterson copies of the original appendices 3-5 on the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) controversy, indicating preparation for this book, and he responded:

Thank you for including me in the copies of your letters to various people on the openness of God situation. The issue that you addressed is one that I am persuaded that you are quite mistaken. I say that not to put you down, but only to be crystal clear in my communication to you that I do not wish to be included under any circumstances among those who see the thing like you do. I am not a Calvinist and have little sympathy with Calvinism, but I am still less sympathetic with openness theology.

If the Evangelical Theological Society is to be a society where most any opinion is accepted as long as one says that in some indistinct way or another one believes in inerrancy, than I for one will have to be a part of a new organization of some kind where evangelical truths are held without compromise. I am a member of general debating societies such as the AAR and the SBL. There is a place for those, and I am happy to be a part of them, but there also ought to be a place for the evangelical family committed to the orthodox faith of 2000 years of Christian history to meet and discuss matters that do not go outside the veil of that orthodoxy. This one does, and I will be voting for the exclusion of the three from the society.

If the matter is not dealt with as I say, it surely will result in a division within the society. Those of us who wish to have an evangelical place of discussion will form a new society just as the ETS was formed new at one point for similar reasons.

Mike, I am sorry to see you on this side of the issue.[1]

[see Patterson Letter Oct. 6, 2003]

A clear and direct answer. A sad day for me. To take this stand, I burn a bridge behind as I move forward with my convictions and with a prayer for clarity.

Yet in the context of the ETS controversy on Open Theism and in the ongoing SBC struggles, Patterson’s words state a conviction of anathema common among many high-ranking religious leaders towards Open Theism in general. Though the words are not a big deal in most theological venues, certainly not even news worthy to the secular world, those three bold sentences reflect the views of many scholars to some extent. Yet in the light of the essence of the three counterpoint documents (original appendices 3-5) sent, the remains of those appendices here, the larger history of Classical Theism in general, the recent histories of the ETS, the SBC, the BGCT, the TBC, the SBTC,[2] and now Patterson’s arrival in Texas as President of the mighty Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) in Fort Worth, Texas (with his roots in Texas)—Patterson has come home at the height of his career. Herein those words, most likely spoken rather nonchalantly yet most seriously to a wee-little-former student, do give a clear indication of the direction of where his mighty influence will plow forward. There is not much room for doubt or discussion there.

I don’t like it, think he is mistaken, and shall attempt to challenge him here.

2. Patterson a Commander in the Theological Trade Winds ~ Top

Those who know Paige Patterson and where he has been in the last twenty years also know that he is a leader like few in this century. There is a larger story about the rejection and the question of the ETS, and those words certainly reflect the earthquake fears so apparent in several of the works reviewed in the appendices above.

I lost much sleep over whether or not to include this appendix here. As a commentary on a few sentences, it will be construed by some as a classic piece of defensive dribble and construed by others as making a mountain out of a mole hill (doubtlessly so for those who do not know Patterson’s influence and so for those unaware of the ETS or the ramifications of the free-will/foreknowledge struggles). Many allied with Patterson with anything close to my own adulation years ago will see this piece casting shadows on this book’s integrity and on my own integrity, sadly, because those faithful to Patterson are certainly convinced he has been a servant mightily used by God. Like David and his mighty men, without a word from Patterson, a grasshopper cannot tarnish the image of such a mighty servant.

Many times, God has used Paige Patterson. In my life to be sure.

So if Patterson is right, truly appertaining the leading of God on these issues (though his own letter indicates he has not even read well the material), and I am mistaken as he says about the appendices 3-5, then please, by God in heaven, show me my error. God cannot be leading two people in opposite directions on how He Himself has a genuine loving relationship with us. If God is truly leading Patterson and I am mistaken, then how about accepting the challenge outlined here and contribute something substantial on this issue? How about an open debate with champions? If I am led of God and it took this amount of work for Patterson to see some of the truth of this, then how about a handshake?

This book is about challenging Classical Theism, and Patterson is one to the bone.

Leighton Paige Patterson is in a league quite apart from most all of the authors in this book, including most of the 2,000 authors in the bibliography. How does Patterson stand out? Like Billy Graham and Bill Bright in evangelism, like Chuck Swindoll and Max Lucado in discipleship, like Zig Ziglar in motivation, like Chuck Colson in prison ministry, and like James Dobson in family affairs, Patterson stands out on a national scale not as a household name, yet far more subtly as a credible theological authority of the first order for many Classical Theists (especially non-Calvinists). And in the SBC, there is no one with his clout at all. Paige Patterson has been the heartbeat and tactician and in many respects the political and theological commander of the SBC’s takeover or reformation (depending on who you talk to). Though all of those nearly household names just mentioned have had influence at the highest levels of their religious denominations, the distinction of Paige Patterson is that none of them have had the ear of so many across such a broad field of the top religious leaders as Patterson, and this is doubly so in the SBC where no single person has ever had the influence he now enjoys with the majority (and likewise where no single person or SBC past president has had as large of a minority outside of his camp to whom he has as little inclination to be beholden to).

One of the reasons for Patterson’s SBC influence is his magnetism and gift for networking. Truly a leader, yet in many respects and with most all of the current hundreds of leaders throughout the SBC, Patterson has given a shepherd’s heart with the courage of a lion. Patterson has charted the way through some tumultuous waters.

Said in another way, anywhere that Paige Patterson goes the wakes of his influence wash ashore and turn over sand. The ripples of his influence permeate all of the SBC and reach many of the outer reaches of the SBC and beyond and into in the Classical Theist oceans, even heading upstream in the deltas of other denominations. For those who have been around and tuned to some of the currents, we all know that there are whales in tow as Patterson’s mighty ship of influence plies the theological trade winds of America. Patterson carries the demeanor of good pastor well, but he is also the ranking and veteran commander with proven leadership and a mighty army about him.

For many thousands, Patterson is a commander-in-chief with a shepherd’s heart, the wisdom of the ages, the strength of a lion, and the integrity of Nathaniel.

What of those words of rejection of appendices 3-5 (the originals) and the question of the ETS’s integrity? I should not take them personal, but I do. They do give me a foothold to challenge, however effective the challenge may turn out, for though the words be few in number they do come from a mighty man of God who has exhibited a level of leadership and stamina like few in the history of the church. I have no doubt as to Patterson’s sincerity—none whatsoever. Patterson sincerely believed me to be in error and believed the integrity of the ETS is folding with a toleration of Pinnock and Sanders. Moreover, as the story below unfolds, and unlike few men today in the entire country and unlike any at all in the SBC (the largest Protestant denomination in the country), as the new President of the largest seminary in the world, Patterson will continue bold rejections until persuaded otherwise.

3. Why This Challenge to Patterson ~ Top

Certainly Patterson’s rejection and my own honor, but truly a fear for the ETS as well. Patterson’s influence is too formidable to ignore his question of the ETS’s integrity, as the ETS did support Pinnock contrary to his wishes and did not move to oust Pinnock and Sanders contrary to his wishes.[3] The largest reason for this appendix is Patterson’s formidable influence on Classical Theism itself and his own lack of initiative to clarify his persuasion any better. I defend my honor here, surely I do, but I shall indicate the need for Patterson’s clarification, and challenge him too, to heave to and come about on genuineness.

It is one thing to be an formidable leader in history’s largest Protestant denomination, the SBC, and it is another thing to exert influence upon perhaps the best Christian scholarly theological society in church history—the ETS—without so much as a scintilla of theological contribution, much less open participation in that society’s discussions.

And given the history to date, wherever Patterson turns his own mighty gunship, wherever his own ship-of-the-line barkentine turns, many more in his armada will follow suite and there will be whales in tow. Perhaps no other single person in the history of the ETS has such a capacity for division (or healing contribution) within the ETS as Patterson.

Even though I severely take Roger Nicole to task in appendix 3 (even vehemently in the original), I do say it was honorable of Nicole and the ETS committee to have given the time they did to Pinnock and Sanders in the ETS. As an ETS charter member, clearly Roger Nicole has been unafraid to participate regularly in the ETS.[4] Even here I shall defend Nicole’s right challenge Pinnock and Sanders in open debate. Would that Patterson would be so honorable as well? Rather than contribute little to nothing in the debates, Patterson would foster fragmentation within the ETS from the far-flung cabin of his mighty gunship.

4. Patterson a Legend in His Own Time ~ Top

One thing is clear, there has hardly been a more influential person in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) than Leighton Paige Patterson.[5] Unlike E. Y. Mullins in SBC theological restatement and support of soul freedom and George W. Truett who was one of the most influential in unifying, Patterson has been most influential in a leadership role that has galvanized a majority of the SBC against a nearly invisible minority, and in that galvanizing has helped divide the ranks of the SBC more than any other single person in the SBC’s history (perhaps in numbers, more than in any other Christian denomination or entity in the history of the church in any given two decades in 2,000 years, perhaps even more than Luther in the reformation, except Luther was not trying to oust so many). And the galvanizing continues in Texas.

We would highlight the work of the master theologian and pacesetter E. Y. Mullins as one of the original fundamentalists, a person Harold Bloom said recently was the “Calvin or Luther or Wesley of the Southern Baptists … pragmatically he is more important than Jonathan Edwards, Horace Bushnell, and the Niebuhrs, because Mullins reformulated (perhaps first formulated) the faith of the a major denomination.”[6] Mullins was perhaps one of the most productive and original thinkers among the small and elite core of Southern Baptist seminary presidents.[7] For history’s sake, Bloom would have done well to have at least referenced the seminal history of Southern Baptists by Robert Baker, and Baker notes the history of fundamentalism when it was a good thing to be called such, when in opposition to liberal theologians:

Two wealthy laymen financed the publication of twelve small volumes or pamphlets untitled The Fundamentals: A Testimony of the Truth. These pamphlets brought the name “Fundamentalists” to those holding to such views and asserted the five basic doctrines that characterized the Fundamentalist movement: the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ and his followers, the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, and the substitutionary theory of the atonement, and the imminent, physical second coming of Christ in the millennial reign. Some of the contributors to this series were Southern Baptists, including Professors J. J. Reeve and C. B. Williams of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and E. Y. Mullins, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary…. The World’s Christian Fundamentals Association was formed in 1919 with members from Presbyterians, Methodists, Disciples, and Baptists included in their number.[8]

What is important to note here is that Patterson is clearly a leader of the SBC, very clear threats exist regarding the respectibility of Christian witness (like Bloom’s work above), and the SBC is looking to even move out of the Baptist World Alliance at the beginning of the 21st century. That is hard to bear itself. Added to that is the sloppy work by some evangelicals as noted in the appendices against others like Pinnock and Boyd who are truly believers whose integrity (even Millard Erickson recognized) is being questioned by some with very poor argumentation; such low-level humming gives credence to Bloom’s criticisms when he says of Southern Baptists:

The priesthood of the believer is being replaced by a hierarchy that will be at once more dogmatic and less intellectualized than the structure of authority in the Roman Catholic Church.[9]

Truly, reading Bloom is hard for a Christian who cherishes a living faith and walk with the living God: Bloom does not walk with God. There is much that could be said about Bloom’s work, including a lot of negative criticism with respect to Christian truth, but at least he is clear and his rhetoric is powerful. He clearly laments the Christian right and defends that,

Only a Gnostic reading of the Bible can make us into the land of Promise. The new irony of American history is that we fight now to make the world safe for Gnosticism, our sense of religion.[10]

OK—and Bloom’s books have been national best sellers and Bloom is the Sterling Professor for Humanities at Yale, the Berg Professor of English at New York University, a MacArthur Fellow, a member of the Institute of Arts and Letters, and has been acclaimed as one of America’s most distinguished literary critics. Bloom is an admitted “unbelieving Jew of strong Gnostic tendencies, and a literary critic by profession,” and his book in many ways rakes much religion as he attempts to define American Religion.[11] His powerful, experienced, critical, and erudite voice and wide audience make him somebody far more threatening to Classical Theists than Pinnock and Sanders’ works to be sure. Strange as it may seem, even Bloom recognized the importance of the priesthood of the believer to Southern Baptists, though he hardly has an accurate understanding of the dynamics of the faith as—truly—no one can who is actually not in the faith. When one looks at Bloom’s work side by side with L. Russ Bush’s The Advancement, a cry of “uncle” is appropriate or a tap on the mat, for Bush’s loose confederation of rationales gives credence to Bloom’s complaints about the substance of Christian academia.

What of the nature of our genuine relationship with God inside of Classical Theism’s settled future? Patterson would forward a division of the ETS and a parting from the Baptist World Alliance into a more myopic version of Baptist life rather than lead us with some substantial theological contributions—like Mullins did a century earlier—that clearly articulate the rationale and biblical validity beyond just the claim of such. Even Mullins’ Axioms of the Religion was helped into resurrection by Albert Mohler with the help of Timothy and Denise George in 1997 and published by Broadman.[12] Few there will be who will notice that the direction of Mohler and Patterson today is different than that of Mullins in 1908 in several subtle ways: mainly in two ways, (1) Mullins gave us the substance of his leadership, and Mohler would like to carry forth the axioms in support of his hierarchy more than the very spirit of and true essence of the axioms themselves; (2) the true respect for more differences in the body of believers vis-à-vis the priesthood of the believer and a more united front against the real threats of secularization. As I shall argue here, it would be nice if Patterson (Mohler too) would at least try to contribute something substantial today where it really matters, something in the league of Mullins’ own Freedom and Authority in Religion within the context of the SBC takeover. What about the issue of genuineness that they both claim exists inside of their view of a settled future? Some very disrespectful things have been said of Clark Pinnock (Patterson’s former teacher), and yet little substance makes print.[13]

It is good Christian honor to support one’s leadership with clear theology.

The real miracle and majesty of Patterson’s extraordinary leadership is that Patterson has led and is leading the SBC down another theological restatement without having contributed a single book justifying the direction, clarifying the real nature of the adversaries (or just who they are), or articulating the theological end game. That, my friends, is some kind of majestic leadership (and God’s blessings in some respects too, we would like to think, for that is not natural). We just cricket forward that some things have gone amiss, and that Patterson is not inerrant.

Patterson’s caucus has tried to take over the historic Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT, that he grew up in and whose father help build), and Patterson has supported a new state convention because the BGCT leadership has not followed precisely the SBC leadership, that, in spite of the BGCT’s continued financial support to the SBC with more money than most all other state conventions. Cooperation with the SBC is the issue between the two Texas state conventions, as ironic as it sounds, for the new alternative SBTC originated, exists, and subsists to support the SBC.

Patterson networked and led the takeover of the SBC, and today he sits in several elite circles as the veritable chairman of the board as the takeover continues. In many respects, he is a good person, a fine Christian man, husband, father, and son. Yet in the SBC, a takeover was what happened, a reformation for some, a correction for others, and for some a sorrowful degradation of soul freedom (the hallmark of Baptist life). It has not been easy for anyone on any side—that is, except for the incognito sycophants.

We know there are no public sycophants: some are not even aware, others just new in the faith and sincere, some truly riding the coattails, and we shall never truly be able to separate the wheat from the tares. Nothing new there. We have been warned about trying to separate the wheat from the tares, yet that is precisely what has been taking place in the takeover, where some good stocks of wheat got pulled up with the—amazingly enough—tares that were not truly tares to all; others became bruised reeds under the rubric of a “reformation” that still has little clarity for the rank and file of precisely what needs reformed. And the takeover is driven from a small and elite number of folks “who know best”—the heart of which is led by Paige Patterson.

Some rooting continues. And the rooting formula remains confidential and unwritten.

Here is my small side of the issues. I suspect even Patterson would agree that the rooting continues, though he would prefer another term, though the rooting was justified in his way by the need for reformation, a sacrifice of some good wheat that was unavoidable, or collateral damage, or merely the fallout by those whom Paterson (et al) felt just did not understand the larger issues (like maybe grasshopper here). Regardless, the takeover did in a historic fashion root out who was wheat from tares as defined by Patterson and his leadership, and that is indisputable history. And only those deemed wheat by Patterson’s elite caucus will hold the top jobs in the SBC institutions, as another historic precedent unfolds where more students and professors of the private Criswell College are moved into more positions than from any other single private institution in any other decade in the history of the Christian church. Unprecedented favoritism at least.[14] That is just one indication, as faithful service to the SBC itself is less important than faithful allegiance to the elite caucus.

5. Patterson a Father-figure & My Transference ~ Top

From the context of this book’s body and appendices and because of what follows, honor is at stake, even my own honor. This book would not be complete or a true challenge without this. Gulp! It is a scary and hard thing to do. After my father died in 1982, Patterson became even more of a father-figure of sorts for me, though it was more in my own mind to be sure. Since this book began as a defense of my Daddy, even my heavenly Abba, it’s truly ironic that the book should end with a challenge to such a father-figure.

Had someone given to me this piece between 1978-1985, I would have questioned their integrity for challenging such a hero. Surely, there are some today who follow Patterson as I did then with unqualified adulation. Clay feet were shielded all around by his children.

Shortly after the Air Force in 1975, I became a Christian. I audited courses in 1976-77 at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS), and there is a very long story that led to SWBTS in 1977. From 1978 to 1985, I became a student of Patterson at the Criswell College during those very formative years of his leadership; I earned a B.A. That was my discipleship, as I had not grown up in a church, and I loved it. I kept in touch, visiting every few years, and we had corresponded on several items over the past two decades. I have felt obliged to include him as well as try to resource him from time to time.

I went to SWBTS from 1985 to 1990 and secured an M.Div. under Russell Dilday’s leadership. Fresh from the Criswell College, I did not find any liberalism there (after 7.5 years at Criswell I was primed). Instead, I found professors just as dedicated. I was faithful to chapel (as ever) for those five years, loving it as much as returning to my first Love, and Dilday never once brought the takeover into the chapel. Shortly after 1990, Dilday was fired, and I could not see the pastoral side of that—not even these years later. I had now felt—inappropriately to be sure, in all of my transference and all—that in many respects I was the product of two fathers on the opposite sides of the political globe: not as much individually as I would have preferred, but certainly as the progeny of the two schools they led. I mean 7.5 years in one place, 5 years in the latter—I hardly lived anything else from 1977 to 1990.

From 1978 to 2004, I was attuned to both sides of the takeover and the hurt feelings that came to many in the process. But I was a grasshopper then and am not much more now.

I also became friends with David Currie, the executive director of the Texas Baptists Committed,[15] and I am pained yet again and feel a bit ashamed for my fear to include his friendship here, as Currie’s name alone will alienate me further from Patterson and others. Currie’s leadership unquestionably helped saved many Texas institutions from the takeover, including Baylor University, and Currie has become as much a pirate to Patterson as Patterson is a pirate to Currie. But a takeover is a takeover, and it is hardly pirate-like to be the resisting party, most especially when the prickliness of tares to be culled is most certainly not clear to all of the wheat in the wheat field. Patterson’s focus and leadership is clearly formidable, and there does not appear to be any resolution in sight.

Now Patterson comes to Texas as President of the SBC’s flagship seminary and largest in the world. Patterson is commander of a mighty vessel of theological influence, and there are whales in tow and mighty men on the deck. He has few defeats and a wide ocean and much more territory to be claimed, doubtlessly all to the glory of our King.[16]

Patterson has made the career of many, and in the SBC Patterson and the elite core of his fellowship has caused or been the cause of the truncation of many other careers during the SBC takeover. Not just professorships and seminaries and boards either, but throughout the nation many positions have been culled. Also, while all six SBC seminaries are bastions of biblical training, everyone must also know that they field the resumes of graduates to churches and associations throughout the country, and you must also know that that fielding is not the mere duplication of the resumes on hand for all comers alike.

We shall have to trust God there.

The takeover was and is politics simple and