Disgraced Baptist Leader Allegedly Stole Artwork and Donor Lists from Seminary

Paige Patterson is even worse than we thought.

You remember Paige Patterson. He’s the former Southern Baptist Convention leader and garbage human being who came to national attention for all the wrong reasons a few years ago. In April of 2018, we learned he once offered “advice” to women trapped in abusive marriages by telling them to stay and pray. In a separate sermon, he made creepy sexual remarks about an underage girl.

As president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, he once told an alleged rape victim to not talk to the police and forgive the rapist. In September of 2018, he body-shamed a woman during a sermon while also condemning those who make false accusations against men (as if that routinely happens). And in June of 2019, a lawsuit alleged that a former seminary student told him that someone at the school had raped her at gunpoint and taken pictures of her for blackmail purposes… and Patterson responded by shaming and shunning her.

Patterson was fired from the seminary in mid-2018, amidst these scandals, but a new report has evidence he basically sought revenge against his former employer.

Next month, the Southern Baptist Convention is planning a massive in-person Annual Meeting. And in advance of that meeting, the SBC just released a “Book of Reports” — a compilation of how their various entities are doing. It’s a 251-page document, and it gets very interesting on page 176.

It calls on the trustees of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to recover a whole bunch of stuff “that may have been removed” after Patterson was fired.

Among other things, the report says that Patterson stole a confidential list of donors to the seminary… in order to get those donors to give to his personal non-profit instead. It worked, too. One $5 million donation to the school was revoked and sent to Patterson’s group instead. An elderly donor who promised to give a lot of money to the school upon her death was visited by Patterson, who tried to get her to change her mind and give that money to his non-profit. There was also a fundraising mailer for Patterson’s “Sandy Creek Foundation” that was sent to the school’s donors.

There was also this:

… In at least one instance, the Pattersons told a donor that the Seminary had wrongfully terminated the Pattersons and that they had been “kicked out into the cold” by the Seminary…

They’re not “kicked out into the cold at all.” In fact, they’re living in a million-dollar home “purchased by the Sandy Creek Foundation.” The only way that purchase was possible, the report suggests, is because of that $5 million gift.

The website Word&Way looked at the non-profit’s financial records and found confirmation of that cash:

Word&Way examined financial reports from Sandy Creek Foundation, which match SWBTS’s allegations. The foundation started the 2018 with just $82,292 in net assets. But it ended the year with $5,295,210 in net assets.

In summary, the report continues, “The Pattersons’s actions have caused (and will continue to cause) significant harm to the Seminary, as it has lost out on a substantial amount of donations that it would have likely received, absent the Pattersons’s adversarial actions.”

But that’s not all! There’s also missing artwork at the school! Lots of it! They can’t find it! It just disappeared after Patterson was fired… and then it magically showed up in an unexpected place:

Through pictures posted to social media, the Seminary learned that at least one of the missing paintings is hanging in the Pattersons’ new home in Parker, Texas. On multiple occasions, legal counsel for the Seminary has contacted the Pattersons’ legal counsel to request the items be returned. As of the time of this response, the missing items have yet to be returned to the Seminary.

Un-freaking-believable. What a sleazebag.

And in case you need any more proof he’s an awful person, he’ll be preaching tomorrow at the church of MAGA Cultist preacher Robert Jeffress:

So much for Patterson getting “canceled.” He seemed to be doing just fine by taking advantage of those who trusted him. That’s been the case throughout his career.

(via Word&Way)