Dorothy And Paige Patterson's Sexism

Big Daddy Weave had a recent post about Paige Patterson's support of the SBC's male headship doctrine, which states: "how women should graciously submit to men."

Here is an excerpt from Big Daddy Weave's post which is part of a "transcript of Patterson's answer to the question about how a battered and bruised Christian wife should respond to her violent husband:"

I had a woman who was in a church that I served, and she was being subject to some abuse, and I told her, I said, “All right, what I want you to do is, every evening I want you to get down by your bed just as he goes to sleep, get down by the bed, and when you think he’s just about asleep, you just pray and ask God to intervene, not out loud, quietly,” but I said, “You just pray there.” And I said, “Get ready because he may get a little more violent, you know, when he discovers this.”

And sure enough, he did. She came to church one morning with both eyes black. And she was angry at me and at God and the world, for that matter. And she said, “I hope you’re happy.”

And I said, “Yes ma’am, I am.” And I said, “I’m sorry about that, but I’m very happy.”

And what she didn’t know when we sat down in church that morning was that her husband had come in and was standing at the back, first time he ever came. And when I gave the invitation that morning, he was the first one down to the front. And his heart was broken, he said, “My wife’s praying for me, and I can’t believe what I did to her.” And he said, “Do you think God can forgive somebody like me?” And he’s a great husband today. And it all came about because she sought God on a regular basis.

And remember, when nobody else can help, God can. And in the meantime, you have to do what you can at home to be submissive in every way that you can and to elevate him.

Sounds a lot like Mr. Patterson is on the same page as Dr. Ware.

You may also remember Patterson's role in the "Klouda Affair." See this related post: Grace and Truth to You: I'm Both Sad and Glad Over Klouda vs. SWBTS.

In other SBC news, Dorothy Patterson wrote an article on male headship:

The Southwestern Theological Seminary news magazine devoted the entire Fall 2008 issue to the subject Modeling Biblical Womanhood. The magazine featured six articles on women, with one being a profile of Dorothy Patterson, wife of SWBTS President Paige Patterson. Another article, authored by Mrs. Patterson, is entitled "Is There a Biblical Paradigm for Womanhood?" The SWBTS news magazine used to be available online, but unless it has been moved to a location on the Internet of which I am unaware, the only way to now read the SWBTS news magazine is to subscribe to it or be an alumni of the seminary and receive it free of charge in the mail. This post is a critique of Mrs. Dorothy Patterson's article "Is There a Biblical Paradigm for Womanhood?"

---see Grace and Truth to You: A Critique of Dorothy Patterson's Article in the Fall 2008 Southwestern News: <i>"Is There a Biblical Paradigm for Womanhood?"</i> for full context.