Patterson Won’t Address Meeting as Southern Baptists Gather amid Scandals

With Southern Baptists already comparing the state of their denomination to a natural disaster, another dramatic turn has come in the sexual abuse and misconduct scandal swirling around Paige Patterson, a revered institutional leader.

Patterson, fired recently from his post at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, announced Friday (June 8) that he won’t deliver the sermon at the convention’s annual meeting in Dallas next week, while denying that the events that led to his dismissal have been accurately portrayed.

“I have now respectfully requested to be released from this high privilege because I do not want my role as a preacher to detract in any way from the important business of our convention and because my desire is to work toward biblical harmony at our annual meeting,” Patterson said in a Friday (June 8) statement.

“Recently, I have been accused, publicly and privately, of a number of things — none of which I acknowledge as having done in the way portrayed, and others that I am confident I absolutely did not do,” he said.

Patterson’s firing in May followed reports that he had mishandled rape allegations by students who shared the information with him. Those reports came on the heels of allegations he demeaned women and Patterson’s own account, in a recording dating to 2000, of counseling one woman not to leave…