A series of stained-glass windows commemorating the Baptists’ Conservative Resurgence has been removed from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) immediately after Adam Greenway was made president… after being talent-scouted by the people who gave his predecessor Paige Patterson the #MeToo treatment.
SOUTHWESTERN SEMINARY REMOVES STAINED GLASS WINDOWS DEPICTING PATTERSON, OTHER SBC LEADERS
Southwestern Seminary removes stained glass windows depicting Patterson, other SBC leaders
By Carrie Brown McWhorter, 11 April 2019
The stained glass windows in the MacGorman Chapel of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) have been removed.
The windows featured Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders who figured prominently in the denomination’s conservative resurgence movement, including former SWBTS president Paige Patterson; Paul Pressler, considered one of the architects of the conservative resurgence; and several past presidents of the SBC.
In an April 11 email to The Alabama Baptist, SWBTS spokesperson Colby Adams confirmed what had been circulating on social media for several days: .The stained glass windows have been removed from MacGorman Chapel and we are working with donors to finalize plans for relocating the windows..
No reason for the removal of the windows was provided.
A letter dated April 3 sent to “ministry partners” and signed by Kevin Ueckert, chairman of the SWBTS board of trustees, stated in part:
.After much prayerful consideration and discussion, we have concluded that it is in the best interest of the institution to remove and relocate the stained-glass windows installed in our J.W. MacGorman Chapel and Performing Arts Center. Expenses to remove the windows are minimal and will be covered by the seminary. . The seminary will safety store the windows until we have a chance to discuss with you the next steps..
Where have we heard that before?
https://gunnerq.androsphere.net/2018/09/08/silent-sams-silent-witness/
https://gunnerq.androsphere.net/2018/09/24/me-tear-down-statues-too/
The first of several stained glass windows were installed in the chapel in 2013, according to an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The Star-Telegram reported then that the windows were the dream of Patterson’s wife, Dorothy.
.My dream was to portray the 20-year history of the conservative resurgence of the Southern Baptist church,. Dorothy Patterson was quoted as saying.
An Oct. 19, 2015, SWBTS press release stated a similar purpose of the windows:
.In order to pass along the story of the SBC.s Conservative Resurgence, Southwestern has dedicated stained-glass windows in MacGorman Chapel to those who played a major role in turning the convention back to a high view of Scripture..
That establishes the motive for removing the windows. Erasing ungood history!
The seminary fired Paige Patterson May 30, 2018, following weeks of news reports about the “handling of an allegation of sexual abuse against a student during Dr. Patterson’s presidency at another institution and resulting issues connected with statements to the board of trustees that are inconsistent with SWBTS.s biblically informed core values,. according to a statement by the executive committee of SWBTS trustees.
The windows became a topic of controversy on social media during that time and in the weeks that followed Patterson’s firing, with many calling for their removal.
Patterson’s firing was for charges trumped up by Trustee Chairman Kevin Ueckert. An excellent review of the charges is available here:
Kevin. A remarkably triangular face shape in addition to the stress lines about his eyes.
Thomas Wright, executive director of missions for the Mobile Baptist Association and president of the SWBTS Alabama Alumni Association, noted that observers can only speculate about the reasons for the decision to remove the windows.
.Southwestern has not commented specifically why the McGorman chapel memorial windows are being removed,. Wright said. .It is appropriate for history to document the impact that individuals made during the crucial conservative resurgence transition. Perhaps some of the window subjects illustrate why institutions tend to memorialize those whom history has confirmed finished well. Some would contend we are best served remaining focused on biblical heroes of faith and practice..
Oh, we can do more than speculate, Mr. Wright. This sort of vandalism could not be done without the approval of SWBTS’ leadership. I checked for recent leadership changes and guess what? On 27 February, Adam W. Greenway was seated as SWBTS President after being selected by a search committee including Kevin Ueckert. On 6 April, five weeks later, give or take a day, the murals of Kevin’s enemies came off the seminary’s walls.
Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence.
Greenway elected 9th president of Southwestern Seminary
https://swbts.edu/news/releases/greenway-elected-9th-president-southwestern-seminary/
By Alex Sibley on 27 February 2019
Adam W. Greenway has been elected the ninth president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The election occurred during a special called meeting of the seminary’s board of trustees on the Southwestern campus, Feb. 26-27.
Greenway, 41, comes to Southwestern from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., where he served as dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Ministry. Greenway’s election signifies a return to Southwestern, as he completed his Master of Divinity on the Fort Worth campus in 2002.
2002? Paige Patterson was installed as President in 2003. Curious timing.
Greenway was selected as a candidate by Southwestern’s Presidential Search Committee, which was chaired by trustee Danny Roberts. Other members were Denise Ewing (IL), Jamie Green (At Large, search committee secretary), Guy Grimes (CA), Todd Houston (NC), Tom James (KY), Philip Levant (At Large), Andre Palmer (NY), and Calvin Wittman (CO, search committee vice chair). Trustee chair Kevin Ueckert and vice chair Connie Hancock served on the committee ex officio.
Connie is the male pastor of Springboro Baptist Church. However, Denise is female so I doubt Greenway is a Bible-thumper. Philip Levant and Jamie Green were rewarded with an appointments to the seminary’s board of trustees upon Greenway’s installation. (I think that’s right. There’s a lot of “trustees” in SBC land.)
During the special called meeting, Roberts recommended to the board that Greenway be elected president as well as professor of evangelism and apologetics. The board affirmed the search committee’s selection, electing Greenway the seminary’s ninth president.
Trustee Bart Barber, speaking on behalf of the Academic Administration Committee, then recommended that Randy L. Stinson become the provost and vice president for academic administration of Southwestern. The board then elected him to this position.
…The meeting concluded with the board gathering around Greenway and Stinson for a time of prayer. Danny Roberts voiced the prayer on behalf of the board, asking for the Lord’s blessing upon Greenway and Stinson’s families and ministries, the Lord’s guidance through the coming months, and a bright future of Great Commission fulfillment by the Southwestern family.
So, who is Adam Greenway? He’s a former professor of applied apologetics yet hasn’t written anything for me to review. What I have found is standard Churchian fare… he’s a cloistered, professional bureaucrat with a license from God… hmm, he’s a licensed parliamentarian. That means he’s an expert in Robert’s Rules of Order As Amended, perhaps the best non-chemical sleep aid ever. It also means he’s an extraordinarily manipulative bureaucrat.
Here’s an article on his first actions as SWBTS President:
TRUSTEES: SWBTS to ‘recalibrate,’ ‘strengthen core’
http://bpnews.net/52717/trustees–swbts-to-recalibrate-strengthen-core
By Alex Sibley, 11 April 2019
FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) — Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is looking to “recalibrate and to reposition” itself in “every way to strengthen the core of what we do,” SWBTS President Adam W. Greenway told trustees during their spring meeting, April 8-10.
Business included approving the budget for the 2019-2020 academic year, approving a change to Scarborough College’s degree offerings, electing a new vice president, and approving a change in the administration of the seminary’s endowment.
Addressing Southwestern Seminary’s full board for his first-ever president’s report, Greenway stressed the importance of recalibrating the seminary in order to return the institution to its core priorities — chief among them residential theological education.
“At the end of the day,” Greenway said, “our core of strength is what we do right here on Seminary Hill. It is the experience that happens here in the classroom and on this campus. Theological education in the context of a vibrant, worshiping, learning, living together community — that is of first importance.”
Greenway personally committed “to do everything I can to make sure that we have the resources and are making the investments to strengthen our residential theological education and to reprioritize our core degree programs of strength,” which he identified as the master of divinity, the master of arts in Christian education and master of music.
Very vague and bureaucratic. Education & music degrees are ways to slip women into church authority so I have suspicions but no proof.
“In a time where we must be extraordinarily judicious in conserving the resources entrusted to us by our Southern Baptist Convention of churches, by the donors and friends who believe in our work and are willing to invest in us, [and] by the tuition dollars we receive from our students, we must make sure that we steward and shepherd every dime in a way that is going to enable our seminary to flourish and thrive in an increasingly challenging environment and world,” he said.
Also boilerplate but hold on, let’s combine it with this:
The board approved the recommendation that funds managed by the Southwestern Seminary Foundation be moved to GuideStone Financial Resources for management as soon as feasibly possible, and that once said action is completed, the Southwestern Seminary Foundation be dissolved.
Originally known as the Harold E. Riley Southwestern Foundation, it was a gift from a banker type (Harold) to support Baylor and Southwestern Seminaries.
Seminary delays movement of $90M to management firm
http://www.bpnews.net/24232/seminary-delays-movement-of-90m-to-management-firm
By Staff, 23 October 2006
FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)–Trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, delayed the transfer of $90 million away from the Baptist Foundation of Texas to the seminary’s own foundation during their semiannual meeting Oct. 16-17 after questions surfaced about the investment strategy of the company that would manage the money.
The Southwestern Seminary Foundation had retained the services of The Investment Fund for Foundations (TIFF) -. a Charlottesville, Va., company .- as a primary fund manager, but several Internet blogs posted information about TIFF.s management of the seminary’s endowment funds shortly before the trustee meeting had begun. Bloggers claimed that the use of TIFF by the seminary foundation would violate the Southern Baptist Convention’s recent resolution calling for Southern Baptists to oppose the production and sale of alcohol.
TIFF, which also manages endowment funds of the American Bible Society, Baptist Community Ministries of Louisiana and the Virginia Baptist Homes, invests in thousands of stocks and bonds to reduce risks. But among its investment holdings are multiple “sin stocks,. or stocks in alcohol and tobacco companies including Coors, Heineken, Kirin Brewing Co., Tsingtao Brewing Co., Foster’s Group, Carlsberg Brewery of Malaysia, British-American Tobacco of Asia and Japan Tobacco.
In Greensboro, N.C., last June, messengers at the SBC annual meeting went on record as expressing their “total opposition to the manufacturing, advertising, distributing, and consuming of alcoholic beverages..
Note it was the SBC itself that had investment concerns, not the seminary.
How Internet bloggers were leaked information about the use of TIFF — information meant only for the seminary’s trustees -. is uncertain, but Marty Duren, moderator of the SBC Outpost blog, posted information about the company Oct. 15, the day before the trustee meeting was scheduled to begin. Duren said he wondered if the members of the trustee board had been “made aware of the specifics of this situation..
Heehee. They’ve stopped asking themselves how we get the info and proceeded with shadowbanning and deplatforming. It’s a poor age to have secrets, eh? Marty Duren sounds like he’d be right at home in the Manosphere.
Duren claimed that the use of the company, in addition to violating the alcohol resolution messengers adopted in Greensboro, also would run counter to a statement issued by the participants of the Joshua Convergence, which said they opposed “the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Throughout its history, our Convention has stood against the evils of alcohol. The present generation can in good conscience do no other..
…Instead of proceeding with the transfer of the funds, Southwestern trustees adopted a recommendation from at-large board member Geoffrey Kolander during the meeting. That statement read:
.Southwestern Seminary Foundation shall make a conscientious effort to steward investments which are consistent with the biblical, moral, and ethical standards embraced by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and its parent organization, the Southern Baptist Convention..
The Foundation operators respected the wishes of the SBC over potentially lucrative investment opportunities even though they didn’t have to. That is a good sign. Adopting this recommendation probably obligated the Foundation to respect the SBC’s wishes in perpetuity.
…In many cases, Baptist schools, organizations and churches look to GuideStone Financial Resources, formerly the SBC Annuity Board, for the management of retirement funds. The group also has an endowment fund for needy annuitants. Blogger Art Rogers asked on Duren’s blog why GuideStone could not manage the seminary’s funds in order to better facilitate the ministry of the seminary.
How interesting! The news article just happens to name-drop GuideStone Financial out of nowhere. Thirteen years later, the new seminary president moves quickly to shift funds from the Foundation to GuideStone. Yes, it’s a former department of the SBC but surely there are alternative financial service providers for wealthy colleges and denominations?
In response to questions Baptist Press posed to the seminary, Paige Patterson, Southwestern’s president, wrote that investing with GuideStone is an option and that the decision to delay would give trustees more time to consider all options.
Patterson said the initial move to transfer funds was not due to dissatisfaction with the Baptist Foundation of Texas but added that the seminary would “eventually do better in our yield.” He said the seminary was “given a foundation and need[ed] effectively to use it..
Patterson added that Southwestern’s primary concern is to limit exposure to so-called sin stocks and noted the difficulty in avoiding them in equity markets. .Southwestern wishes to expend every effort to honor God in investments as well as ministry,. he said.
Well said, Mr. Patterson.
Duren concluded that Southwestern Seminary’s decision to postpone the transfer of its funds to its own foundation and the management of TIFF was the result of “the openness and accountability that is being provided in the blogosphere,. which he claimed was working for the benefit of Southern Baptists.
Duren wrote that in the past, investment transactions like this transpired “without second thought,. stating that bloggers raised questions that had to be considered, showing the importance of conducting SBC business in the open. “Closed door sessions, except in extreme circumstances, tend toward trouble,. he said.
Patterson & friends voided the transfer to respect SBC morality… and when he was slandered out of office, his replacement swiftly transferred the money to GuideStone which is independent of SBC per its website.
GuideStone provides general financial services to many Christian organizations, specifically retirement investment/planning, and sponsors a charity, Mission: Dignity, which provides living incomes for retired yet impoverished clergy. GuideStone should be called GoldenParachute. Hmm, it was started up with a $1M John D. Rockefeller check but I digress.
What happened here is that with Patterson out of the way, Adam Greenway & Friends are maneuvering to become financially independent of the SBC by shifting assets outside the SBC’s control. Starting with their retirements. I’ve seen this happen before with the Ruth Soper fund:
https://gunnerq.androsphere.net/2018/02/04/expose-on-the-d-c-episcopals/
Notice that Patterson himself didn’t pursue the GuideStone option when he had the chance. Despite his diplomatic words, he apparently didn’t believe it was the right path. But his enemies do, badly enough to immediately go for it.
That’s their idea of “conserving the resources entrusted to us by our Southern Baptist Convention of churches”.
I smell war.
Greenway says “core” in a way that sounds like Patterson was trying to grow an empire. I wonder what Patterson was doing that wasn’t core. Do you run across anything that said what Greenway was reacting against?
Nothing specific. There is this quote:
“Furthermore, he said, Southwesterners recognize that .there is a beautiful level of diversity on the nonessential matters that is a reflection and a reminder of what it.s going to look like one day when we stand in the very presence of God in heaven and we sing that new song together . believers from every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every language, every people group singing, .Worthy is the Lamb that was slain…
That suggests he wants to focus on student body diversity. But the initial,actual business was elections, shifting money around, renaming a couple degree programs and removing the windows.
I can’t believe the quote you posted in your comment Gunner. He said the diversity drivel!? If that is where the Baptist seminary is at then we know where the pastors and future of baptists churches lay. Too bad they’ll hang on for at least 50 years before becoming irrelevant.