I’m the one guy who contributes here who sits on the board at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I’m the one guy who contributes here who has had nothing whatsoever to say about recent controversies at the seminary.
At the end of this post, those two things will still be true.
But I aspire someday to be a full-fledged SBC polity wonk, and it seems to me that this is an opportune moment for us to think together about the way that our polity works. Why haven’t I put to writing my thoughts about these important matters? A superficial answer would be this: I wish to end my term as a trustee with integrity. When I began to serve, I affirmed a code of conduct for trustees that required me to refrain from public discussion about matters before the board. I’m just keeping my word. And yet, even though this answer is sufficiently dispositive, let’s scratch a little deeper. I adhere to some policies that I think are unwarranted. This is not one of them. I think it is a GOOD thing for trustees to refrain from public comment about matters pending before their board. I’d briefly like to suggest some reasons why.
First, refraining from public discussion preserves a trustee’s freedom to be persuaded. Boards of trustees are deliberative bodies. When they meet, the trustees air their opinions and present evidence. They attempt to persuade one another. I believe that every trustee ought to participate in this process in good faith and with an open mind. Having previously taken a public stand makes it harder for a trustee to do that. In addition to weighing the evidence and considering the arguments on all sides, now the trustee also has to consider how to unsay what has already been said if a contrary case proves to be persuasive.
Second, refraining from public discussion helps to minimize conflict among trustees. This is particularly true if more than one trustee is articulating more than one point of view. Will one blogger-trustee misrepresent another blogger-trustee’s views? Will they get caught up in a contest for traffic or likes? Any of these scenarios can undermine one of the most important possibilities in trustee governance—the possibility of discovering collaborative solutions.
Finally, refraining from public discussion helps to clarify who governs the institution. I am a trustee at SWBTS. I do not govern the institution. A TRUSTEE does not govern SWBTS; THE TRUSTEES govern SWBTS. Not until twenty-one trustees have cast a ballot in one direction or another has a decision been made. It is best and least confusing if the first and loudest proclamation that people hear about institutional decisions is the proclamation that actually matters.
Conclusion
For all of these reasons, trustees should be very averse to public discussion about matters before their board. They should be slow to speak. This does not mean, however, that they shouldn’t be quick to listen. I’m thankful for everyone who emails or messages me about SWBTS. That these conversations are one-sided, with you talking while I listen, does not mean that they are not valuable. I’m thankful that you are engaging in rather than disengaging from our polity as a convention. It matters when you speak. I hope you’ll understand that it also matters when I don’t.
Bart, thanks for explaining the role of the seminary’s trustees in this matter. Your stance shows your wisdom in refraining from comment. We all need to pray for you and the other trustees as you meet next week.
Thank you, Bart. There is great wisdom here and I’m thankful you serve as a Trustee. Looking forward to the day you allow yourself to be nominated for office.
We could simply lure him away from the convention hall during the presidential vote and have him nominated without his consent. If elected, his sense of duty will compel him to serve.
Announce the presence of Moo-llennium Crunch out in the hallway during nominations. Bart will go to investigate, and by the time he’s back, it’s over.
Tell him Yadier Molina is in the parking lot giving batting lessons.
Bart, regardless of what you are voting on and how you vote, I trust you. Thank you for your service to SWBTS and Southern Baptists.
I think this is a very needed discussion and I agree with what you have to say. What troubles me is that after decisions are made, the average Baptist cannot get info about what happened, where the records are, what an audit said, etc. –Like with the sale/give away of Glorieta – records are sealed or are private, trustees don’t talk. Can you understand the frustration? THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR CONSIDERING!
Bart,
I know that you and the other trustees bear a heavy responsibility. I’m praying for all of you.
Bart,
I admire any man who lives by principle. Just a quick question, Bart. Do you believe, on the basis of principle, it is wise to have current students, paid employees, or family members of the administration and/or faculty serving as trustees of the institution in question? I think we disagree on this issue. And, with respect, I point out that via bylaws of our Convention, institutional trustees of the SBC work for the Southern Baptist Convention, not the institution itself. That’s why only messengers to the SBC can appoint or remove trustees, not the board itself. Trustees are held “in trust” by members of the SBC, not administrators of the SBC institution or even their fellow trustees. If at any time the problems within the institution rise to violations of the SBC constitution, trustees are obligated to make the Convention aware or violate their inviolable responsibilities as trustees to the Southern Baptist Convention. Thanks for your service to the SBC.
Thanks for your faithfulness to serve. I know that you will do the right thing and repudiate this hit job on Dr. Patterson on the eve of his retirement. We know all the players involved and the motives. Do the right thing and have a prayer for Dr. Patterson, encourage him and move on to the next item on the agenda.
Amen!
I am a current student at SWBTS. I beg you please stop this pattern of the seminary being embarrassed and meaningless apologies being issued. Please vote to restore integrity and honor to our seminary. If this means Dr. Patterson should go, so be it. I have not written to you or other trustees personally because I did not think a student could get involved at that level.
If you read Bart’s post it is about NOT talking about Trustee business on blogs.
I did not mean this to be under your comment alone.
I hope that my comment is not misunderstood as trying to get Dr. Barber involved in a discussion about the trustee meeting next week. I have been praying for Dr. Patterson and my school ever since this whole controversy erupted. I have an opinion about it, but neither God nor Dr. Patterson require my opinion on the matter. I just feel that the needs of my school should be more important than any individual. I love my days here at SWBTS. I love my professors. I love the privilege of being a student here. I love what I am learning. I do not want to see SWBTS disparaged the way it has been. I pray that God will have His way in the trustee meeting. I trust them. They have done what is right for the seminary so far and I believe they will do the same next week.
No, again, I meant to post at the bottom- my comment was general, not directed at you
Dave Miller, thanks for making that clear. I follow your posts weekly. You have helped me understand many things through the last six months I have been reading what you say. Thank you and you also have been in my prayers. I hope you get to feeling better.
Bart you are corrects in stating that trustees should refrain from publicly discussing trustee business. I would add except in cases where there has been a conflict of interest or actions taken that violate the trust placed in our trustees. Wade Burleson’s blogging of IMB actions by trustees slandering our missionaries and trying to fire Jerry Rankin is a case in point.
There also needs to be accountability on the part of the trustees and that cannot be hidden behind a claim of confidentiality. The only real reporting time for the trustees is at the convention where they answer two or three questions from the floor in a very short amount of allotted time. In some cases for other boards, I have seen those to be planted soft ball questions to use up their allotted time.
I think we need to hear a clear explanation of why when SWBTS has announced there will be a reduction in staff because of financial problems there is money to build an auditorium with stained glass windows venerating leaders of the political movement known as the conservative resurgence that is in such poor taste. I would think the cost of the windows alone could have saved at least one job. Who approved and requested this.
I would also ask the board to clearly explain if there are financial difficulties, where do they get the money to build a retirement home for the Pattersons disguised as a Heritage House for guests. What are the financial arrangements for the Pattersons use of this retirement home?
As I said, I understand why it is important to restrict individual trustees from discussing trustee business outside of trustee meetings. I remember when Paige Patterson was an IMB trustee, friends working at the board told me that they would often hear Paige in the hallways discussing with his followers on the board how they could get rid of Keith Parks as President of the IMB. This was in direct conflict with board policy for conducting business.
Why good trustees are not employees of the entity upon which they sit as a trustee.
Sounds like a huge conflict of interest to me.
It does to me, too. That’s why, when the very first mention was made of my serving as a trustee, long before it was a “done deal,” I resigned the very part-time adjunct teaching position and notified Dr. Biles, my supervisor, that I would no longer be available to serve as an adjunct. I still have the emails.
Also, I notified Wade Burleson of this when he first made mention of his objection back a decade ago. He has long known that at no time have I simultaneously been an employee and a trustee of SWBTS. I’ll not speculate about his motives for ignoring these facts. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
I enjoyed teaching. I miss it. But I, too, think it would be a conflict of interest for anyone to be an employee of an entity upon which he sits as a trustee, and therefore I have foregone this pleasure for ten years.
SWBTS publishes the class schedule every semester. Before attacking me online, did you check those records to see whether I had ever taught while serving as a trustee? Did you perform any research at all? Or do you just believe everything you read on the Internet?
And even if you do, that’s OK. We’re all a little gullible sometimes, and you don’t know me from Adam, so why wouldn’t you believe what you read? Certainly you wouldn’t be as culpable as anyone who knew full well my situation but misled people nonetheless.
Thanks for clarifying. I had not seen this stated elsewhere.
Now, I know.
Well, you’re right, and that’s my fault, I suppose. You haven’t seen it stated elsewhere because it has been years and years since I bothered to state it. A lot of us who were involved in all of this blogging back when Wade first got started—a lot of us managed to move on and find a real life with good, healthy, face-to-face relationships with real people. Prime example of that: Dave Miller’s choice to befriend me.
Dave and I were on opposite sides of a lot of this blogging warfare back in 2006-2008. God gave us a friendship. Now we’re partnering to reach unreached people groups in Africa. It’s a beautiful, healthy thing.
Wade’s still stuck back in the way things were in 2006, it appears. And that’s his choice and his life. But I prefer a life of building people up rather than tearing them down. I prefer working to make peace in our convention rather than measuring my success by the people I can take down. I prefer having friends over having enemies. There is no part of me that wants to go back to 2006.
For this reason, I try to avoid reading Wade’s blog, conversing with Wade, or clarifying Wade’s false statements. I’ve moved on and I don’t want to go back. As a result, you’ve read things about me that aren’t true, and you haven’t had any opportunity to read corrections, since I haven’t offered them. That’s a whole lot more MY fault than it is yours, because as you have rightly noted, you haven’t seen these statements anywhere else, and I never gave you the opportunity to know better.
So, I apologize for jumping down your throat in that comment to which you replied. I’m old enough and experienced enough to know better than to read a blog or write a comment at 1:30 AM. I was annoyed and it came through in my writing. I’ll strive to do better in the future.
I would correct or perhaps expound on one thing here. Even when Bart and I were on opposite sides of the blogging wars, I always respected both his insight and his integrity. There were some who were on my side whose honor and integrity I respected much less.
What I think he is doing and I am doing the same thing, is going back to 2006(which I understand why you don’t want to) and taking all that happened then and adding it to now as it should be done. These incidents are not a one time or even two time thing but goes back to 2006 and this is how it should be seen by the trustees.
I haven’t commented on VOICES for some while now. However, I think I will speak to this. It was common knowledge among those of us who were invested in SBC life and times back when Dr. Barber became a trustee of SWBTS that he had stepped down as an adjunct prior to his becoming a member of that specific board. It is rather hard for me to imagine anyone who was as deep into the fray as many of us were then not to be aware that Dr. Barber was no longer an adjunct when he became a trustee of SWBTS.
Thank you, CB.
I thought I heard a BOOM
Bart: You are wrong. Wade didn’t know.
Bart,
I have a couple of short questions. A “Yes” or “No” would be sufficient to save time, but freel free to elaborate if you desire. PRIOR to my opposing your nomination as a trustee of SWBTS from the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention:
1. Had you resigned from your adjunct position at SWBTS?
2. Did you notify me that you had resigned?
If your answer is “Yes” to both quesitons, I’d like for you to provide me with the written documentation. If produced, I will apologize for assuming that you were teaching at SWBTS at the time of your nomination. Contrary to your comment above, I had no knowledge of your resignation. Is it is possible I could have forgotten? Of course, but my memory is usually excellent and rarely fails me. I trust you that you would never intentionally mislead anyone in stating I was aware you resigned before I opposed your nomination. Obviously, you could have resigned and not informed me. If you can’t produce an email where you notified me, then possibly your resignation was due to the appearance of a “conflict of interest” and your resignation might have occurred after the Southern Baptist Convention where I opposed your nomination? I’m just asking for clarity.
Hope you have a great weekend.
Bart’s comments already answered your questions.
You seem to think you have been granted some sort of position as Grand Inquisitor.
You have been spreading falsehoods. Your questions have been answered. I intend to join Bart after this in totally ignoring your comments.
Bart stopped teaching at SWBTS before he became a trustee. You can research that. You have been publicly and falsely accusing Bart.
You can apologize. You can continue to spread false statements. What you cannot do is act like the world has to answer your questions.
I know I never will.
I am asking Bart a simple question. Did Bart resign after I brought up the possible conflict of interest to the SBC or did he resign BEFORE I addressed the SBC. Nothing personal. Just a question. I think that it should be easy to answer.
Your questions have been answered.
Feel free to contact Bart privately to ask a question or to apologize. This is done.
Have you even read Bart’s comments?
I am quite sure Bart will respond to no more insinuations.
Bart,
Thank you. You’re a man of integrity and principle. As you know, you have my utmost respect and trust.
I do have a couple of general questions that are not related to current Decisions pending before the board (that I know of anyway):
1) As a follow up to the question Above about employees serving as trustee’s… and thank you for your act of principle and integrity and resigning your position before excepting trusty appointment… Is there an actual rule or policy against employees or even current students serving as trustees on the SWBTS trustee board? How would you stand regarding a possibility of such a rule being implemented?
2) As a follow up to a question posed above Regarding another entity (Lifeway and Glorietta),
What about an idea of entity trustees releasing majority and minority opinions on major issues… When an issue of great controversy within the convention is voted on and resolved by a board – what would be wrong with releasing the vote tally and, perhaps Statements that share the boards feeling on both sides of the issue?
Two reasons question two MIGHT be a good idea.
It increases transparency and that’s usually a good thing AND this way the people to whom the board is actually accountable, the messengers, can better understand the deliberations of the trustees.
Bart, it is not so much that trustees should not be employed by the institution they serve although that is true, it is the personal and professional relationships. You have described yourself as a friend of Paige Patterson. By following your comments through the years on this site you are also a fierce defender of Patterson. When Russell Dilday was president of SWBTS, trustees were chosen specifically because they were willing to fire him. The same was true at the IMB when I served. Trustees were chosen for their willingness to force Keith Parks out and willingness to slander our missionaries. Theology was not important to those appointing trustees. The present trustees at SWBTS are chosen because they are known to be supporters of Patterson and his agenda. Can we expect the trustees to hold Patterson accountable?
Bart and Dave, do you deny that if Russell Dilday or any one not part of the CR elite, had admitted a Muslim without seeking trustee approval, he would have been fired immediately? Do you deny that if when Dilday was president it would have been shown a favorite professor was given a sweet heart deal on a seminary owned car that he would have been fired immediately? Do you deny that if Dilday had ignored the pleas of pastors and women that a protégé was assaulting women and he was still enabling him to continue his vulgar activities that he would have been fired immediately? The trustees at Criswell College tried to fire Patterson for this, but the CR elites closed ranks to protect Patterson.
In the interest of transparency, at a time of financial difficulties, would you be willing to ask the trustees to release a report on the financial arrangements and purpose of the retirement home for the Pattersons called Heritage House. Could we have a report on the reasons for the CR Shrine and the cost of its stained glass windows? Could you tell us if any of Patterson’s stuffed big game collection was paid for by SWBTS and what will happen to them when he retires? Is there any reason the answers to these questions should be kept hidden?