SWBTS Trustees Are Each Accountable to the SBC

An Open Letter to Members of the Southern Baptist Convention,

I have been writing for years that the patriarchal, authoritarian, unscriptural, anti-Christian view that many Southern Baptist power brokers have toward women will one day be the undoing of the Southern Baptist Convention.

That day has arrived.

One Southern Baptist leader told a woman to go back to her abusive husband and submit. The world at large is in an uproar over Dr. Paige Patterson's comments.

Now Paige Patterson loyalists are "circling the wagons" defending their hero from "public attacks and false accusations." 

Listen carefully, Southern Baptists. I'm issuing a final warning.

If we - the people who call ourselves Southern Baptists -  allow the trustees of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas to excuse Paige Patterson's own words and behavior, then we are guilty of the crime of abuse.

Silence is a sin when the person ultimately responsible says nothing to stop the crime. Each trustee of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is ultimately accountable to us, the members of the Southern Baptist Convention.

We must make our voice known to the trustees of Southwestern. We have one month. The Southern Baptist Convention's Annual Meeting will start in Dallas, Texas, on Tuesday, June 12, 2018.

Paige Patterson is scheduled to represent the Southern Baptist Convention to the world by preaching the Annual Convention Sermon on Wednesday morning at 9:55 am.

The trustees of Southwestern Theological Seminary should have requested the resignation of Dr. Paige Patterson for his words and conduct over the past two decades,  or they should have voted to remove him from service by termination.

If the trustees can't do this, then it's up to the messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention. I am not unfamiliar with the cronyism of the trustee system in the SBC. An old Latin proverb says,  "Never ask the wolf to guard the sheep gate." We in America know it as "Don't let the fox guard the henhouse." 

A fox is a wonderful animal. So is a wolf. But a fox loves to eat hens, and a wolve loves to eat sheep. You don't put these delightful animals in charge of a sheep pen or a hen house.

Unfortunately, we Southern Baptists have often set foxes and the wolves as the trustees of our Southern Baptists institutions. We have e paid little attention to any "conflict of interest" in trustee appointments.

But entity heads like Paige Patterson pay very close attention to SBC trustee appointments. I've known this for a very long time. 

Let me illustrate with the roster of current Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary trustees:


 Kevin M. Ueckert, Chairman of the Board, 1333 W. University Ave., Georgetown, TX 78628. Kevin is in the final stages of his doctoral work at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is Pastor of FBC Georgetown, Texas.  Knowing that a Ph.D. student at SWBTS was fired from his job as a pastry chef and Riley Cafeteria work this week for simply linking to Ed Stetzer's article on social media, how confident do you think Kevin Ueckert is in speaking out against Dr. Paige Patterson?

Calvin R. Wittman, 11200 W. 32nd Ave., Wheat Ridge. CO,  80033 partnered with Paige and Dorothy Patterson for a ministry in Spain. Calvin has served as a trustee of Criswell College and has spoken in the chapel at SWBTS at the invitation of Paige Patterson. He is pastor of Applewood Baptist Church in Colorado.

Michael Mings, P. O. Box 82, Valliant 74764, is pastor of FBC Valliant, Oklahoma.


Mark S. Mucklow, 10250 N. 59th Ave., Glendale, AZ 85302, received his D.Min from Southwestern Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas in 2000.