SBCOutpost

Shelby Sharpe has apparently taken it upon himself — with no direction whatsoever from his client, Defendant Paige Patterson, who is completely truthful in his every word and honorable in his every deed — to correspond with one of our SBCOutpost.com contributors.

Shelby Sharpe letter to Benjamin Cole — March 12, 2008

And the response below:

March 14, 2008

Mr. Shelby Sharpe
Sharpe, Tillman, & Melton
6100 Western Place
Suite 1000
Fort Worth, Texas 76107

Dear Mr. Sharpe:

First, allow me to note that your letters to me (2-27-08 and 3-12-08) have both contained errors which are most evidently attributed to inadvertent secretarial oversight rather than your own carelessness. In both letters you reference a blog dated “February 27, 2007.” I’m certain that you must mean 2008 rather than 2007. I appreciate your referencing the title of the blog, “Breaking News: Patterson won’t take oath . . .,” so that I was able to discern what you meant to write.

Second, your most recent letter of March 12, 2008, represents that you intended to enclose copies of the first two pages of Paige Patterson’s deposition. Your office failed, however, to include the deposition pages. Perhaps this too is due to secretarial oversight rather than carelessness on your part. I have enclosed with this letter a self-addressed stamped envelope for you to send the deposition pages you reference. I would not want to ever fear that Cooperative Program dollars will be allocated for additional postage costs on account of your office’s error.

Third, you seem very concerned that I have accused your client of untruthfulness. Honestly, it would be better for him had he not provided assurance that his testimony in the deposition was “the truth and nothing but the truth.” In time – when the entirety of his deposition is in the public domain – I intend to demonstrate the great number of falsehoods, half-truths, inconsistencies, and feigned memory losses that your client has demonstrated in the course of this lawsuit. For now, however, I will wait to see if the case goes to trial.

Fourth, if your client has not instructed you to address these matters with me – but rather a “friend” has directed you to SBCOutpost.com – then I would encourage you to determine whether or not your client desires for you to get mired down in correspondence with me when more pressing issues of his defense are at hand. And if the pool of potential clients for Sharpe, Tillman, & Mellon has dwindled to the point that you must carve a niche practice for your firm by engaging bloggers, then by all means proceed.

So please bring whatever suit you wish. As it is, I have no desire to continue correspondence with you concerning threats of lawsuits that neither you nor your client intends to file.

Now, Mr. Sharpe, I do not make pretense to be an expert of the law. Neither can I claim to be uninformed or ill equipped to engage you in an argument concerning the law. You have an impressive resume of cases argued and won that involve basic constitutional guarantees. You have a long and distinguished career as a member of the bar. Please reconsider whether or not it is the wisest dispensation of your energies to become a pen pal to bloggers whose silly little satirical posts seem to frustrate your efforts to represent Leighton Paige Patterson.

I would only remind you of this, sir: Your client is a rather notorious public figure with decades of print and electronic media written about him. If he has not retained you to run down the authors and editors of various print and electronic media to correct perceived mischaracterizations of him, then I am at a loss to understand why you would have done just that. Nevertheless, if that is the nature of your work for Mr. Patterson, then I am confident you will have plenty of billable hours in the days ahead.

Should I receive another letter from you about this matter, I will not respond in kind. Rather, I will understand that letter to be an invitation to become pen pals, and I will begin forwarding to you monthly letters of a personal nature much like I would send my grandfather. In the meantime, let’s try to avoid fruitless banter. I’m confident your Sunday School teacher can help you locate the biblical support for such a proposal.

Sincerely,

Benjamin S. Cole

CC: Defendant Paige Patterson
Mr. Gary Richardson

**********

In related news, it seems that Shelby Sharpe likes to write letters about defamation.

Upon my return to Oklahoma this morning, I was excited to receive a certified letter from Mr. J. Shelby Sharpe, attorney for Defendant Paige Patterson, and a man who apparently reads SBCOutpost. An electronic reproduction of Mr. Sharpe’s letter to me can be accessed below:

Defendant Patterson Attorney’s Letter to Benjamin Cole — February 27, 2008

And here is my drafted response, which will be sent today via certified mail:

March 5, 2008

Sent Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested

Mr. J. Shelby Sharpe
6100 Western Place Suite 1000
Fort Worth, TX 76107

Dear Mr. Sharpe:

Please be advised that I have received your letter, dated February 27, 2008, which concerns your opinion that a post entitled “Breaking News: Patterson won’t take oath . . . ” constitutes defamation of Paige Patterson. I am not familiar with what constitutes your particular area of legal expertise, except to say that I have followed your representation of various Baptist interests in Texas since you filed articles of incorporation on behalf of the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention in 1995. I have also listened attentively to an audio recording of your chapel message delivered to the students of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on September 5, 2006. It is clear from that message that you have a sincere love for the Word of God and for its faithful exposition.

I applaud your efforts to represent your client faithfully and aggressively. It is clear that you have distinguished yourself as an honorable and resourceful advocate. Whether or not you will receive the commendation of heaven for your efforts (”Well done, good and faithful servant”) is not a matter for my judgment. Nevertheless, I will consider the best way to allow my readers a full opportunity to hear “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” If you will please provide me with a full and complete transcript of Paige Patterson’s deposition from February 25, 2008, I will be happy to reproduce it in full.

Please do not interpret this response as any fear on my part regarding the potential for a lawsuit brought against me by your client. I have the firm conviction that the Court would be most disinterested in hearing it anyway. Furthermore, I will not interpret your letter to me as a “threat,” though I can not help but interpret your letter to me as another example of hysterical paranoia on the part of your client. I know of no other Southern Baptist leader who would retain counsel to read blogs and correspond with their authors. I do hope you find a great sense of career satisfaction in the noble height to which your professional expertise has lifted you.

For the record, I am merely expressing my ecclesiastic opinion that your client struggles to tell the “whole truth,” as my biblical understanding of “whole” and “truth” guides me. Now is not the time, however, for me to encumber your immense responsibility in the Klouda lawsuit with numerous examples to support this claim. You may read my book when it is published.

Finally, I have written many things about your client during the course of the Klouda lawsuit. This is the first occasion that you have taken occasion to refute anything I have written. I must, therefore, accept your letter as tacit admission that all other posts are accurate and truthful.

May God add his blessing to your every effort that honors his Son.

Sincerely,

Benjamin S. Cole

cc: Defendant Paige Patterson
Gary Richardson

Last night curiosity struck and I decided to check out what those ever-loyal Joshua Convergers were up to. Much to my dismay, the Joshua Convergence is not maintaining an active website any longer, and it appears that they have closed up shop altogether.

Well, SBCOutpost.com is not so willing to let our younger leaders foil die the death of neglect. So in honor of those faithful convergers who descended on Orlando some eighteen months ago to reignite a Holy Ghost revival and rally the teeming masses of resurgent children to the aid of their faltering fathers, I am proud to repost the extant video clips from that momentous and prophetic meeting.

Recently the boys over at SBC Yesterday Today (just a little humor, boys. Don’t get your blood pressure up) made a proposal that when the time comes for Jerry Rankin to retire from the IMB the convention should look to a pastor to lead our great missions organization into the future. In light of that proposal I would like to suggest one of my own.

Let me first of all say that there are many things for which we can be grateful in regards to Dr. Paige Patterson. His best work may well have been in pulling Southeastern Seminary out of the miry pit and setting its feet on a solid rock. While there are things with which he and I would disagree - such as whether or not a woman can teach theology to men (and it seems to me that women regularly teach theology to men in the music and education departments at SWBTS even today - and if they do not then they should be fired) - nevertheless, he aided in the rescue of the SBC from a liberal drift and helped to set us back onto a squarely conservative path.

One of these days Dr. Patterson will retire from SWBTS. When that time comes I hope that the trustees will give full consideration to hiring a president who has no long-term educational experience. Read the rest of this entry »

On this, Convocation Day at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the school’s administration and matron have hoed new rows of academic traditions.  

Within the next hour, seminary professors will don their black stetsons and two-step in unison down the chapel aisles to mark the beginning of a new academic semester.  

As free churchmen not beholden to medieval papish holdovers, we at SBCOutpost applaud the efforts to enculturate their witness to the surrounding cowboy community of Fort Worth.We also applaud the bold vision of seminary president Paige Patterson, who has changed his honorific title from “president” to “sheriff.”  

Malcolm Yarnell will henceforth eschew the title “dean,” encumbered as it is with Roman Catholic baggage, and will now be called “Deputy of Theological Studies.”

In related news, the SWBTS homemakers have taken their first class portrait.  The school’s matron, Dr. Dorothy Patterson, a.k.a. Miss Kitty, has mandated splendid new uniforms in keeping with the seminary’s retrieved cowboy culture.