Nathan Montgomery is the SWBTS seminary student & former employee who was fired this week for tweeting Ed Stetzer’s article critical of Paige Patterson. According to media reports, Montgomery will lose $40,000 in salary and $7,000 in tuition benefits per year as a result of not longer being employed as catering manager. Sarah Pulliam Bailey at the Washington Post has the background and latest.
One of the points of Stetzer’s article was that the slightest expression of criticism of Patterson brings a huge backlash. Irony noted. Montgomery says he he plans to appeal his termination to the SWBTS trustee board.
A former co-worker of Montgomery has set up a GoFundMe page for those who would like to support Nathan while he searches for new employment and continues his Ph.D. studies at Southwestern. The crowdfunding campaign “seeks to raise enough money for six weeks of expenses (in which time he can hopefully find a job) and one semester of tuition.”
Disgraceful-there is a better way through disagreements.
He should have been fired because what he did was not in the best interest of SWBTS. He has all the right to do so but must be willing to pay the cost of his actions.
Yes, perhaps. That’s one perspective.
He’s taking his lumps….his friends are starting a gofundme Page to help him. There’s nothing wrong with that. Those who have sympathy for his plight can and probably will contribute… Those of you who do not have sympathy for his plight do not have to.
I can see a case made that what he did was not in the “best interest” of Paige Patterson… But I’m not so sure that what he did in and of itself hurt Southwestern … I personally think that it’s Paige’s overreaction here that has hurt PP and SWBTS.
Like I’ve said – absent his firing we’d have no hoopla – and no one, outside a few people, would know that an employee retweeted Stetzer’s post.
Also – One of the long time issues concerning Paige Patterson is that he is alleged to be bit of a bully to his employees… That disagreement or “disloyalty” is not tolerated. This action certainly seems to have illuminated that alleged tendency of his.
Could it be that this action accomplished not only firing an employee deemed disloyal – but also to send an unmistakeable message to other employees and staff?
“Thou shalt not criticize PP and live.”
(Of course the word lives there is a metaphorical in the sense of… Live to tell about it as an SBC employee… Keep your job.)
All about perspective….it actually could have been in the best interest of SWBTS.
It’s true that he must risk the cost for his conscience, but the administration likewise will have to think about the cost of their actions in firing a guy for a tweet.
Again, it’s all about perspective.
It seems like the ones making the most ardent defense of Patterson are, largely, the same group that provided cover for Ergun Caner and Donald Trump.
I was beginning to notice the same thing. That was scary to me as I saw the pattern emerge. I didn’t want to make that observation for fear of being misunderstood. I concur with your assessment though, as I look @ who & the verbiage used in his defense. I yet support Patterson preaching @ the convention. But to hear his reporters classify those who want accountability for his unwise counsel as “social justice warriors” was disheartening.
Wow, I was somewhat on the fence about Patterson until this. But now I think he has absolutely got to go. This whole situation is an utter disgrace to the SBC.
Something needs to be done, as this is getting out of control.
No individual in any organization should have the power to dismiss someone because they’ve expressed their opinion, and no Christian denomination should ever allow someone to wield the kind of personal power that a few individuals have always been able to have in the SBC. It reflects poorly on the denomination and its spiritual atmosphere. Many of the problems the SBC is now experiencing, including churches jumping ship and a declining membership that is making the mainline denominations look stable, can be traced to the backwardness of the way denominational leadership is allowed to squelch dissent. If you look within the SBC, churches are separating out into fellowships and groups centered around leaders they choose to associate with, and dropping their participation in the SBC. Groups like 9 Marks, the Willow Creek Association, and others are serving SBC churches, and many of them are getting involved with independent ministries and missions providers because they are tired of the backward way the SBC does things.
I think some are being a little hypocritical here.
Suppose there was a campaign to force you to either retire or be fired. Suppose they brought up, and condemned you for, bits and pieces of things you had said and done over the last 20 years.
Now suppose your manager, associate pastor, youth director, worship leader, cook, etc., publicly jumped on the bandwagon saying he agreed with all this and you should be fired. He puts it on social media for all to see.
Something tells me most, or all, of you would have a major problem with that. How well would you lead when your manager, employee, is telling everyone you should be fired. Wouldn’t you prefer having employees with a positive attitude about you and your organization? If you couldn’t fire them, you would rejoice when they left.
To interject politics, I think President Trump or Obama would gladly fire the person under them with that kind of public attitude.
Don’t agree? Then go to a local business and tell the owner he should resign or be fired – but you want him to hire you and give you a good paying job. Let me know what happens.
David R. Brumbelow
Any corporate employer would have fired Patterson long ago for a 15 year decline by over a 1/3 in his customer base (Full Time Enrolled students from 2000 to 1300 today) and by 1/2 in his core clients (889 MDiv FTE students to 403 today). Firing a student employee for a simple tweet in the midst of a PR crisis currently covered by the national media centering on the credibility of the leadership of the “CEO” is ruthless and foolish by anyone’s standards, much less one at a Southern Baptist seminary. My guess is it was a signal to other employees.
Could someone explain FTE student to me? I’m a little slow on the uptake. One online explanation is “number of students enrolled if all students are full time.” Does this mean FTE counts only those taking at least 9 hours at an MDiv level?
I’ve been taking online classes at SWBTS for years, usually just one a semester. However sometimes I’ve taken 9 or 10. Does this make me an FTE student despite not being physically on campus?
According to the Association of Theological Schools, accreditation agency of all 6 SBC seminaries and 100s of others, FTE Enrollment is the number of students who would be enrolled if all students were attending full time. Here is a link to their reports since 2003: http://ats.edu/resources/institutional-data/annual-data-tables
So…does that mean I’m an FTE student?
Sorry – not being deliberately dense. I’m just not grasping the concept.
Ethan, there are two ways to calculate FTE. The first is to divide the total number of credit hours in a semester by the total number of students enrolled. This is a lazy man’s way of calculating and doesn’t (in my opinion) actually give an accurate count. The second, and better way, is to count the number of students who are enrolled fulltime (and each school defines what fulltime is for them) and then divide the number of credit hours of part-time students by the number of parttime students.
In the first scenario, if the fulltime limit is 12 hours and you have a high percentage of students taking 18 hours, the FTE will be skewed high because of the formula. If you use the second method, the number will be lower but more accurate.
Your location (i.e., online) does not determine whether you are an FTE or not. Only the number of credits you take. In your case, you are not an FTE by yourself but are a partial FTE if you take less than the number of credits SWBTS says is necessary to be a full-time student. Higher education knows that those taking full-time loads are much more likely to complete a degree than those taking only a part-time schedule. This is a bit different for seminary students as opposed to a secular undergrad program, but FTE is still essential to calculate as it helps project for budgets and schools are charged for certain things (read: subscriptions to journals and online databases) based on FTE.
I hope this is helpful. It comes from 5 years experience as Assistant Registrar and Registrar of multiple colleges.
Thanks! That’s pretty clear.
Seminary programs do seem to attract a disproportionate number of part-time students, so I would bet the numbers get a little skewed.
There is a dimension to this that is missing. SWBTS’ historical FTE statistics were in the past enhanced by the perception before the Conservative Resurgence had cemented its gains that it was the “safe” seminary (I can assure you from personal experience that while it may have been somewhat safer, it wasn’t really all that “safe”).
Now that confidence has been restored in some of the other seminaries, it is unnecessary for many theological students to inconvenience themselves with relocating to Texas for a “safe” education.
Furthermore, while SWBTS is still a hugely great value, it is now much more expensive than it used to be. That means more bivocational students have to take distance classes and attend at a slower pace.
I’m not suggesting this as a comprehensive explanation of the enrollment issues, but these are factors which should not be ignored.
Or, to check enrollment at the SBC seminaries, see the new post:
https://sbcvoices.com/the-demise-of-the-sbc-not-according-to-our-seminaries/
David R. Brumbelow
While I don’t agree with it there is an unwritten policy at Southwestern against criticizing any entity heads of the Southern Baptist convention. I first heard of this when a professor at Southwestern in his own words “suffered the consequences” for criticizing Russell Moore and was contrite for his actions. He had written something that was posted at the other Southern Baptist blog criticizing a tweet of Russell Moore. This took place back in early 2016 I think.
Again, I don’t agree with this unwritten policy. But if someone works at Southwestern those are the “rules of the game” they’re signing onto.
Mr. Montgomery hopefully is learning a valuable lesson here. He certainly has a First Amendment right to attack the boss of an organization he works for in public. And he did so in a way plainly calculated to bring scurrilous disapprobation upon both the boss and his employer. But the long-standing legal doctrine of employment at-will does not insulate him from the obvious and foreseeable consequences of his improvidence and poor judgement.
Had Mr. Montgomery properly addressed his apparent conflicts that he had with the leader of his former employer, he would have done it privately and in accordance with the principles of New Testament Church Discipline. Joining a Twiterverse lynch mob is a horrible move for one’s long-term employment prospects.
As to the merits of Mr. Montgomery’s tweet, Stetzer’s article grotesquely distorts what few facts it contains. It is materially misleading if not recklessly negligent in its comments about the frivolous Rollins v. Pressler, case (Dist. Ct. Harris Co, Tex, Case No 2017-69277)). Stetzer’s comments about the case are so incomplete, misleading, and inaccurate, one wonders whether or not Stetzer has even read any of the pleadings in the case . . . or understood any of what he read.
Stetzer completely ignores the ridiculous real theory of the Rollins case asserted against Dr. Patterson and SWBTS. Rollins claims that the Conservative Resurgence was really a “Trojan Horse” motivated by secret, closeted Calvinism– yes, Calvinism — all for the “joint enterprise” of gaining “money” and “power” over, inter alia, alleged molestation victim Rollins (who blames a lifetime of crime and substance abuse on a 2015 “recovered memory” of alleged abuse by Paul Pressler from decades earlier). Instead of accurately reporting on the frivolous litigation, Stetzer uncritically throws in with the anti-Patterson mob by implying that Dr. Patterson had actual knowledge of the alleged — and still wholly unproven — Rollins abuse story. This sort of recklessness is only a couple of steps short of unadulterated rumor-mongering. One suspects that even the infamous Salem witch trials had higher standards for accuracy and evidence than does the Stetzer unfair hit piece.
The bottom line is that Mr. Montgomery acted rashly and was justifiably terminated. And the Stetzer article is highly suspect.