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Question (Mr. Richardson): Do you know of any scriptures, Dr. Patterson, that are — were in support of Dr. Klouda’s election as a professor at Southwestern? Since you found — since you have a scripture that you say specifically is against it, do you know of any that would support it?

Answer (Defendant Patterson): First, in fairness, you recall that I said there is the one passage that’s very specific, but there is also the whole tenor of the biblical narrative is very consistent in all that is said about it. And so, in specific answer to your question, I cannot think of a passage, to my knowledge, that would support it.

Q. Was Dr. Klouda involved in church governance at all as a professor?

A. Only to the degree that she would be a participant in faculty meetings of the School of Theology.

Q. Was that in violation of anything as far as the BF&M is concerned?

A. Well, it’s not the best situation by way of example.

Q. Was it in violation of any — anything in the BF&M?

A. It could be?

Q. What?

A. It could be in violation, again, of a woman serving in a position ruling and teaching men. And she is serving as a faculty member, and therefore, conceivably voting on issues with regard to the School of Theology.

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Wait a minute? Did we just read that correctly? Paige Patterson believes that women voting on issues of church governance is a violation of the BF&M and/or the Scripture?

Here’s the logic:

1. The Bible prohibits women from teaching or exercising authority over men in the church.
2. The Baptist Faith & Message reflects this biblical teaching by confessing that only men may serve as church pastors.
3. Southern Baptist seminaries are obliged to implement the BF&M guidelines in their policies and procedures.
4. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, while not a church, functions as one for purposes of legal classification and practical ministry training.
5. The professors of SWBTS who train pastors must be pastor-qualified — in other words, they must meet the biblical criteria for pastoral leadership, i.e., they must be men.
6. One of the functions of a professor of theology at SWBTS is to “vote” on matters pertaining to the seminary’s curriculum, coursework, etc.
7. Voting on such matters is a form of “exercising authority” in an ecclesial context?
8. Women professors would be allowed to vote on such matters in the school of theology, if they were tolerated on the faculty.
9. Women, therefore, should not serve on the faculties of the School of Theology because of the privilege of voting that is associated with that role.
10. Sheri Klouda is a woman.

Therefore, Sheri Klouda was usurping the authority of men by serving on the School of Theology faculty and exercising her responsibility to vote in faculty meetings.

But wait, kids, we’re left to draw certain conclusions:

1. Either Dorothy Patterson is not a woman, or she is prohibited from voting on matters as a faculty member. The first option is not something I wish to discuss, and the second would be very interesting to accreditation societies.
2. When Dorothy Patterson votes at the Southern Baptist Convention, she is usurping the authority of men.
3. When Dorothy Patterson attempted to speak at the 2006 SBC in Greensboro — hat and all — regarding the resolution on alcohol consumption, she was attempting to usurp the authority of men.
4. What does Defendant Patterson think about the women who serve on the Board of Trustees at SWBTS?

To be continued…..

Many of you are aware that SWBTS has a website of theological and historical resources available for instructing the church along with other SBC entities in Baptist principles and thought. If you need to know how to write a book review, what Malcolm Yarnell thinks of the LifeWay study on Private Prayer Language, why Bart Barber believes you should support the Southern Baptist trustee system, what Dorothy Kelley Patterson thinks about women pastors, or a number of other subjects, there are white papers for one and all.

There you can also access the Southwestern Journal of Theology and various historical resources. One such resource is a paper entitled Seven Guidelines for Church Planting Which Reflect Baptist Ecclesiology, Submitted for consideration by the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board from the Theological Studies Division, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. It is a brief two pages and proclaims itself to “detail the historical interpretation of Scripture by Baptists as embodied in articles 6, 7, and 8 of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.”

There are seven guidelines mentioned all of which are of importance in church planting both here in the states and overseas. I think it is safe to assume that following these guidelines would lead to a “true” church plant - a church reflecting all that is necessary to be considered a good Southern Baptist church filled with members who would generally be qualified for service in various capacities within the Southern Baptist Convention. However, this document guarantees no such thing.

Of particular note is point number five related to baptism. Certainly this point does, in fact, agree wholeheartedly with the Baptist Faith and Message. However, both are silent on the requirement that the administrator of a person’s baptism must believe in “eternal security” or that the candidate themselves believe such a thing, for the baptism to be “valid.” It appears that our NAMB and IMB church plants could follow the Baptist Faith and Message along with these guidelines developed by the best theologians from SWBTS and yet produce members who may well be unqualified to become missionaries sent by our own missions sending agencies.

Curiously this paper is also lacking a statement preventing a church from having members who believe, teach and/or practice a Private Prayer Language.

Further, there is a white paper at baptisttheology.org written by Dr. Thomas White entitled, What Makes Baptism Valid? In the section on The Meaning of Baptism there is no mention that a belief in eternal security is required for the baptism to be valid. Dr. White does state that, “The proper meaning is essential to proper baptism. Does the recipient have to understand everything in theology? No. However, the subject must understand that baptism is not salvific, grants no additional grace, and does not insure sinlessness. Because the subject must understand, the subject cannot be an infant. The subject should also accept that baptism is the public profession of faith, identification with Christ, and the door to the local church.” All that, but no requirement that the subject believe in eternal security? How strange. [Even more strange is his contention that it is “unwise” for baptisms to occur in a seminary. Perhaps he has not spoken with his President.]

Dr. White also discusses the proper administrator of baptism. In this section he twice states that the administrator does not determine the validity of the baptism. In fact, he argues that to say otherwise is to fall into the error of Donatism. Nevertheless, care should be taken in who administers baptism, but apparently not so much care that it is necessary to explicitly require that the person baptizing, nor the church sanctioning the baptism, believe in eternal security. This seems to be a rather odd omission in light of the policies guidelines now in force at the IMB. Apparently the quality of the theologians at SWBTS falls short of the quality of the theologians on the IMB board and at Mid America seminary.

So a Southern Baptist missionary/church planter could follow to the letter the practice outlined in the guidelines and white papers produced at SWBTS and still produce members who are not good enough for service with NAMB and/or the IMB. Are these guidelines lacking certain necessary provisions, or could it be that our mission sending agencies have made essential what our own theologians have not declared essential?

The Arkansas Baptist Convention almost garnered the 2/3rds vote necessary to roll back the Landmarkist elements of their state constitution.

Read the story in Associated Baptist Press.

Whether discussing the US Constitution or the text of Scripture we are regularly encouraged to take the “plain meaning” of statements and let them be what they appear to be. Thus, I want to apply that principle to a particular statement in the BF&M and show where one of our agencies appears to me to be in direct violation of that statement.

In the BF&M under Article XV, The Christian and the Social Order, there is this plain statement: “We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death.”

I don’t believe that statement needs to be parsed, really. But for the sake of this post let me simply and briefly point out that there is an important adjective - the word “natural.” We not only contend for the sanctity of life in the womb, but for the sanctity of life to natural death. It simply cannot be argued that public hanging, the electric chair or a lethal injection are natural forms of death. Read the rest of this entry »

As with my previous posts, if you would like to leave a comment, please do so at my personal blog here. Before you do, please read this.

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Recently, I wrote a seven-part series called “Issues Inside and Outside the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.” After I laid out my series conclusions, I received a kind comment from David Rogers, which I will cite below.

But, before doing so, I am going to reproduce the final part of the conclusions from the BFM2000 series (in which I also focused on the progression from the 1925 and 1963 versions, to the 2000 reworking):

“Where only a generation ago, the BFM was considered–at least for the most part–a ’still life picture,’ if you will, it is now anything but. Please carefully ponder the following descriptions of what the BFM2000 has become in the era of increasing Conservative Resurgence (CR) control of the SBC: Read the rest of this entry »