Southern Baptists Lead the Way: An Interview with SBC Committee Member Dorothy Kelley Patterson
David Wegener
This summer, the Southern Baptist Convention took an historic step by adding to their confessional statement, the Baptist Faith and Message, an article on the biblical standards for family life. In this issue of JBMW, we highlight several aspects of this decision and provide our readers with insights into this decision, which was the subject of many mainstream news stories this summer. Dorothy Patterson, longtime Council member and a member of the committee that drafted this statement, provided JBMW with this interview.
How did this statement come about?
A gentleman from the state of Maryland made a motion at the 1997 convention. He asked the sitting president, Dr. Tom Elliff, to appoint a committee to draft an article on the family. This was to be added to the Baptist Faith and Message Statement of Faith, which had been adopted in 1925 and amended in 1963. The assignment of the committee was to produce a concise, clear statement on the family as found in Scripture. The motion was passed by the convention, and then President Elliff appointed the committee.
How did your committee go about doing its work?
Before our first meeting, the chairman of the committee sent us the motion outlining what we were supposed to do. He asked us to bring together our own research on the family and to compile a comprehensive list of Scripture texts addressing this subject. We met in Nashville for a full day on April 3, 1998. We began with prayer and then divided up into our subgroups. Each subgroup was assigned a certain portion of the statement: one on the definition of the family as found in Scripture, one on the relationships of wives and husbands as found in Scripture, one addressing parents and children as found in Scripture.
Since we knew that we only had a very brief paragraph to present our work, we were told to set forth in a clear, brief and understandable way what the Bible says about the family and relationships therein. We weren't trying to adapt our statement to today's culture. We were simply trying to state clearly what the Bible says about the family.
My subcommittee was the one concerning relationships between husbands and wives. We just turned in our Bibles to passage after passage and began to list what the Bible says on this topic. And when we came to the end of that research, then we set out to articulate as clearly and concisely as we could what the Scriptures are saying.
And that, David, is one of the most important things for anyone to realize who's looking in from the outside, whether it be one of our fellow Southern Baptists or another evangelical or someone who doesn't even claim to be an evangelical. They need to understand that we were not trying to come up with something that everybody could endorse and with which everybody would agree and feel comfortable. We were simply trying to come up with what the Bible says about the makeup of the family as the most basic unit of society.
How did things proceed from there?
We released a preliminary statement after the Nashville meeting. This allowed us to receive some feedback. We communicated back and forth within the committee, attempting to fine tune our work. We met again on June 7, 1998, and made a few adjustments and added several Scripture references. The statement was then released offi- cially in the convention daily bulletin so that everyone could read it for himself. By the end of this whole process, the committee was completely unanimous and we felt we had addressed every major concern that had come to us. Now that doesn't mean that we made every change suggested to us. But we did feel that we had talked through and prayed through all of the suggestions that were in hand.
Other than the Scriptures, were there any resources that you found particularly helpful in putting the statement together?
I read through some of the research I had done earlier in preparing similar documents. For example, I did an article on the family for the Criswell Study Bible, and then I revised it for the Believer's Study Bible. Then I did a great deal on the texts relating to the family in the Woman's Study Bible. So all of that research was readily available to me and was a matter of pulling together a lot of different sources from a lot of good commentators and godly theologians who had commented on these various issues over the years.
One source that was prominent for all of us is the volume produced by the Council, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. I consider that to be one of the primary academic sources on these issues.
Did the committee examine materials that give a different perspective on the family and marriage roles than the one adopted in the article?
Yes, other viewpoints were considered. For example, we discussed thoroughly the understanding of mutual submission that would cancel out any unique submission on the part of the wife.
Which part of the statement was the most difficult to write?
I would say that we probably struggled more on trying to be sure we gave the balance and reciprocity in the role relationship between husbands and wives. We gave more attention to husbands and their responsibilities than we did to wives. We wanted to make clear that the husband is called to servant leadership instead of just leadership. We said not once but twice that women are equal in essence to men and equal before the Father, though with a difference in responsibility.
We added the word "graciously" to underscore that the submission of the wife is a voluntary choice and not something that can be forced. So if a husband decides he is going to shape up his wife and make her do what he says, then that would be coercion, not Biblical submission on her part and his actions could be a form of physical or emotional abuse.
We did everything we could to try to be sure we kept the spirit of the New Testament directives and the balance God gave between privilege and responsibility. For example, it is much easier to submit graciously to a loving servant- leader, thanto an autocratic tyrant. On the other hand it's much easier to be a loving, servant-leader, if the person you're leading submits graciously to that leadership.
We tried to get across that each partner has a role assignment, and that neither one has an easy job. It is not easy to lead as a servant. It is not easy to submit graciously. As Ephesians 5 teaches, Jesus is the pattern for husbands. He gave Himself for the church. In the same way, the husband is to lay down his life for his wife. Jesus is also the pattern for wives. He submitted to the will of His Father as Philippians 2 makes clear. He is the model of how a wife should put aside her own personal agenda, her desires and whims, and obey, because God says this is the way it's to be done.
What does the statement mean when it speaks of marriage as a covenant commitment?
I think the committee was trying very hard to bring out what we find in Genesis 2:24, which expresses God's principle for marriage in its briefest form. Marriage involves leaving father and mother, joining yourselves to one another and becoming one flesh. By using the terms "covenant commitment" we were trying to express the idea that not only is marriage a total commitment, but it is also a permanent commitment.
When the Pharisees tried to get Jesus to take sides in the rabbinical debate over divorce, Jesus went back to this covenantal understanding of marriage found in Genesis. It is one man for one woman, permanently. This understanding of marriage has fallen by the wayside to a considerable degree, not just in the world, but also among evangelicals. A covenant commitment is not dependent on circumstances. It is not dependent on whether the husband does what he's supposed to do, or whether the wife does what she's supposed to do. A covenant commitment is one that is unconditional. We make this commitment and say, "I commit myself to this person," and then, no matter what the other party does, we follow through on our commitment.
In what ways are the husband and wife equal before God?
This equality is found, first and foremost, in that God created the man and the woman in His image. Secondly, it is taught very clearly in passages like 1 Peter 3:7 which describes men and women as joint heirs of the grace of life. That is, we both come before God on the same level ground. It doesn't matter how great a theologian Paige Patterson is, how fantastic a gospel preacher he is, how many people he's won to Christ; when I come to the Lord, I come in exactly the same way that he does. And I may not have all of these kingdom accomplishments to bring to the Lord, but when I accept Him as my Savior and commit my life to Him, then He accepts me just as He does Paige. Both of us have an equal standing before God, through faith in Christ alone. In Christ there is no difference. We all come to Christ in the very same way. All those who trust Him are His children. He loves us equally.
Thirdly, I think there is also the aspect of equality that has to do with spiritual gifts and the opportunity to minister. We must be careful here that we don't try to say we all have the same gifts, or we all have the same ministry assignments. Rather, we all have the capacity to serve the Lord. As a homemaker and one who teaches the Bible to women, I know that many people think that the home does not really have the stature or the importance that the church or the missionary society or the Christian counseling service or the Baptist hospital down the corner has. It is almost as if what we do in the home has no importance. But Scripture teaches the exact opposite. God established the home before there was ever a church or a synagogue or any agency of government. The home is the basic unit of society. And for that reason all ministry emanates from the home. Ultimately that is the source.
I teach my student wives here at Southeastern Seminary that what they do in their homes is ministry, and they must do it "as unto the Lord." It's not just service to a child or service to a husband or service to your parents. It is ministry unto the Lord in the truest sense, because the home is His first and most precious institution.
Equality, then, does not mean everyone does the same thing. It means each of us has the opportunity to serve the Lord. In other words, I have the same opportunity to serve the Lord that Paige Patterson does. However, I do not have the same avenues of service open to me. In God's scheme of things, He brought together men and women, masculinity and femininity, to accomplish His purpose. And if He had not thought that the contribution of these two natures was necessary in order to accomplish His kingdom purposes, then He wouldn't have gone to the trouble to create us differently.
That leads right into my next question. Is the husband's orientation in life different than the orientation of his wife and, if so, in what ways?
I think it very definitely is different and this comes right out of Genesis 2. Before the woman is even present or there's even mention of the woman, God gives to the man an assignment for providing, protecting and leading. Then He gives the man the commandment concerning the tree in the garden. So you have all of that done before the woman was even made. Then, when He created the woman, there is a difference even in the very language He used to describe that creative process. He changes the word for "create." Instead of bara' which he uses for the man, he uses banah, which means "to build."
So, from the very beginning of creation, there is the idea that God built the woman and prepared her to fulfill the function He had for her. And then when He presents her to the man, she is presented as a "helper." This word means, "to come to, to assist, to undergird, to lift up, to work together." It describes the kind of relationship they are to have together. So this basic difference in orientation goes back to the creation narrative. And it is significant for me, that when Paul and Peter address the relationships of husbands and wives, and the roles men and women are to play in the church, that they do not talk about the culture of the time, but they go back to this creation order.
Some people say that Ephesians 5 teaches mutual submission, that is, that the husband is supposed to submit to his wife in the same way that she submits to him. Is that correct?
The most logical way to understand Ephesians 5:21-6:9 would be like this. We are called on to submit to one another. Here is how that should work out: wives submit to their own husbands, children submit to their parents , slaves submit to their masters. We can't operate without some type of hierarchy (and I don't think that's a bad word).
How does this work out practically, say with regard to decision-making?
If Paige and I are talking about a decision we have to make, whether it's where we're going on vacation, or where we're going to spend Christmas, or what class I'm going to teach or whatever it is, when we come to these decisions, we talk about them, and most of the time, 99% of the time, when we finish discussing the matter we've come to a mutual decision. We agree. And nobody's giving up anything in the sense of saying, "Oh it's going to be your way instead of mine." We've made a joint decision based on all the factors that we bring to the table in the discussion.
But, there are those times, those few times, when we come to the table and discuss the pros and cons, and we get to the end of the discussion and I say: "I'm sorry, I'm not convinced. I really just don't see that. If I'm being honest with you, Paige, I have to say I just don't think that's right." Well, he has considered everything very carefully. He says, "Dorothy, I'm sorry, I just cannot see your viewpoint. So I'm going to have to make a decision." Now I think he agonizes over those decisions even though they're few and far between. Maybe that's why there are so few.
We don't go through that agony often, but when he makes a decision-if you hear the dog barking in the background that's an actual example. I did not want that dog! I don't like that "squealer" and I begged Paige not to bring that dog here. All I need is a dog in a public house serving four to six functions a week and with our traveling all the time. And this is a big hunting dog; it isn't a little poodle or cocker spaniel. He requires a lot of exercise and a lot of care. I'm sure he's upset right now because somebody's in the house. So I said, "No, there's no way this is right." But he made a decision that he wanted that dog and he felt we ought to get that dog. And so he got it. And it wasn't but a year or two after he got that dog, that we lost our granddog, who was so precious, we just adored him. And I have to say now, in retrospect, that this "squealer," as obnoxious as he is, helped all of us, our son and us, to get through a very difficult time of giving up a dog that died an untimely death because of a very rare disease. We gave him the very best care that we could and we lost him. He was the same kind of dog as this "squealer," but he was completely different. He was obedient. He was sweet. He was wonderful. And it just tore us apart to give that dog up. We just went through anguish. So how do I know that God didn't put the idea in Paige's heart to get this other dog, because He knew what we were going to face and that this was just one way of making it a little easier? You see? That's just a downto- earth illustration of how this works out in practice.
Oh, it's a great illustration.
There are not very many times in life where those kinds of things happen, but they have occurred, not just with the dog. Once I was speaking in Longview, Texas and after it was over I was talking with my husband on the phone. He told me, "I don't want you to drive back from that engagement tonight. I want you to spend the night and come tomorrow." And I said, "But I'm so close and it's a big four lane highway. And I want to do it. I just don't want to stay overnight. I want to come home." Finally I said, "okay I'll spend the night." The next morning I'm going towards Dallas all of the speed limit, which was 70, 75 mph back then, and I had a blow out. I barely stopped my car. I barely could get it pulled off the road. If I had driven home the previous night, there would have been no way I could have stopped that car. And then within minutes, a deacon from the church where I had spoken was tapping on my window, saying, "Mrs. Patterson, can I help you?" He wouldn't have been on the road the night before. It gives me chills still to think about it. I wanted to go home; I thought I had good reasons to go home; I gave them all to my husband, and he wanted me home too; but he didn't want me driving at night. And he made a decision and probably saved my life in making it.
Does Galatians 3:28-29 teach not only the equality of persons before God, but also the sameness of roles in marriage, the home and the church?
Scripture speaks with a unified voice on the relationship between husbands and wives. You find the same teaching in Ephesians and Colossians and 1 Peter and Titus and all the way back in Genesis, where the whole pattern is established. There is absolutely no doctrine in Scripture, of a practical nature, where there is any more consistency.
And so, when you come to Galatians 3:28 and you take that one verse, I guess I can see how you could make that into some kind of Magna Carta for the liberation of everyone. (Of course, liberation theologians love that verse.) But why should we take one particular understanding of that passage, an understanding which goes against the consistent teaching of the rest of Scripture, and then force that interpretation to govern our understanding of all the other verses? Even if you set aside the context of the Galatians passage for a moment, remember, we must always interpret what is not so clear in light of what is clear.
But the context of Galatians clears up any confusion we might have on this. There is absolutely no way to read that whole section of Galatians and come to the conclusion that it's doing away with all authority or with all uniqueness. The passage makes clear that we are equal in Christ. However, I don't think there are many people who are in the prison down the street, who'd say they are just the same as I am sitting here in air conditioning at Magnolia Hill, sipping tea. Obviously, we are not in the same circumstances. But if that prisoner, in that dirty prison, with no air conditioning, who sits there sweating, with nothing to drink, if that prisoner has accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior, then in Christ we are the same. But it doesn't change who we are. It doesn't change the circumstances we're in. It simply means that once we accept Christ, we come equally under His care and direction.
So I do think Galatians 3:28 is a pivotal text. And as a woman, I love that verse, because it reminds me that I don't have to be a Jew to be precious to the Lord. In Christ I am on level ground. And so I do feel like that's a pivotal passage, but one that has been greatly misused.
Why is it the husband's responsibility to protect, provide for and lead his family?
As I said before, because God gave him these responsibilities. Before the woman was even on the scene, God gave these responsibilities to the man. They all go together. Whoever is doing the providing is going to be doing the leading. Whoever is doing the protecting is going to be doing the leading. I pray God will give us some courageous men and not some cowardly wimps. My own wonderful husband is anything but a wimp, but I hate for him to say to me, "Well Dorothy, I'd rather you not do this." To me, that's a cop out. I want him to say, "Okay, I want you to do this or I don't want you to do this." I want him to be clear. Now that's not to say I don't know exactly what he means when he says, "I'd rather you not do this." I know what's he's saying, but I like the strength of his coming straight out and saying, "No. I don't want you to do this."
I think husbands need to take the initiative in their families. They need to be spiritual leaders. Strangely enough, the criticism of preachers I get more than any other from my students is, they're not the spiritual leaders in their homes. And I imagine that carries over to the deacons too. I think our men do not realize the tremendous responsibility of headship. It is an awesome task that needs to be put on a spiritual foundation. Even if you're the pastor of the largest church in the world, the most important pastorate you hold is in your own family and you need to be the spiritual leader, the pastor, of that family. You need to pray with your wife, even if you don't have any children. You need to lead in family worship, if you do have children. I really feel that this is a critical matter and something that would alleviate a lot of the problems we have in getting women to submit to their husbands. They need spiritual leadership to which they can submit.
Please address the issue of women working outside the home
Let me tell you how it has worked out in my life. I did receive an education. I do have training and skills, and we could have had a dual income all along. But, my husband and I decided a long time ago, that I should make our home and family my primary commitment. And if I do this, it was clear that I could not take an outside job and do it the way I would want to do a job. I found that it took the first fruits of my time and energy to meet the needs of my family as a wife and mother.
Now I hasten to add that I've always done a lot of volunteer projects and a lot of ministry things. But when my children were in high school, I withdrew from all teaching and traveling, because there was no way I could keep that kind of schedule of commitments and be available to the children, who were in athletics and having the kind of pressures most teenagers have. So, with my husband's permission, I simply canceled everything. For five years, I absolutely cut off even the volunteer ministries and that type of thing and I just devoted my energies to keeping up with the children. I did a lot of volunteer work with their schools in connection with their activities. I didn't even travel with my husband much, except in the summer when we all went and did things together.
So it's not that I think that women should never leave their homes, that they should never use their skills. My children are now young adults. And one of the ways my husband wants me to help him is in various ministries. I have more time to do that now than I did when the children were young. But my primary commitment continues to be our family. Classes begin next week and I will be going full-time into the classroom with our women's studies program. But I am not accepting a salary from the seminary because I don't want that kind of pressure. If we should get into the semester and something should happen and I can't balance things, the fact that I am not taking a salary gives me the freedom to go to the dean and say, "You know I'm sorry, but this isn't going to work. Please find someone to replace me." I don't consider this flippant irresponsibility, but consistent priorities.
My husband and I were in Africa for a month. I had been back for two days when I left to help my daughter and her husband and baby move to Louisville. I came back for two nights and then left with my husband for an engagement in the Caribbean. He wanted me to accompany him. I did that. We came back. My son is here for maybe two or three more days, before he's moving to a job in the West. This desk is a disaster and I don't have a syllabus yet, but I will have one when classes begin. I think the Lord wants me to do this and Paige wants me to do it, so I'm going to get it done, but it has not been my top priority. Not because I don't think the classes are important, not because I don't feel a spiritual responsibility to teach the assignment I've accepted, but because I have to live by priorities. I try to keep them always before me.
There are other professors at this school, but there's not another wife for Paige Patterson. There are other teachers of women, but there's not another mother for Carmen and Mark and Armour. And there is certainly no other maternal grandmother for little Abigail except me. So I'm going to expend my primary energy there. I'm going to keep on using the gifts God has given me, the training he's made available to me at every opportunity and I'll do that with joy. To spend and be spent for the Lord. I love that. But I have made a choice to give my primary time and energy to my home and family. And I make this choice without any apologies.
In this article, you have taken stands on a number of issues, some by explicit statement, some by implication, issues such as divorce, homosexuality, sex within and outside of marriage, abortion, parental discipline and submission. For which of these positions did you receive the most flak? Was it the last one?
The last one, strangely enough. You would think promiscuity or homosexuality or some of these other things would catch the eye of people more and maybe would cause a little more of a stir, because they are more blatant. But the fact that we received the most criticism for our stand on submission didn't really surprise anyone on the committee. Though it didn't surprise me, it really bothered me. Is there any more important Christian virtue in terms of our relating to God than submission?
How was the statement received by the secular press?
I must say that with some of the secular press, we received more objective coverage than we did within some areas of our own denomination and some parts of the evangelical world. Some of the mainstream media picked up on the idea that all we were trying to do was say, "This is what the Bible says and this is the position of the Southern Baptist Convention in its 1998 annual session." They affirmed that we have every right to believe what we want and to set forth our views in the public forum. They may think we're crazy and that they're not sure what century we think we're living in, but they've allowed us to state our views and have respected us for it. I found this perspective encouraging.
How was the statement received by the evangelical church as a whole? Did you see the ad in World magazine of various evangelicals affirming the position you took and standing with you?
I did and I appreciated that greatly. I really feel as evangelicals there are some non-negotiables and I think we've got to pull together on those and we've got to give it all we have. At the beginning, we wondered if we were going to be like the Lone Ranger, and have to stand alone. Though we did what we had to do for conscience's sake, it was so very encouraging to Dr. Patterson and me and to Southern Baptists as a whole, to see that there are others who are willing to band together, and say to us, "we understand what you are saying, and we will definitely stand with you on it."
How significant do you think this article will be in shaping the beliefs and practices of Southern Baptists?
I'm hoping the article will do for Southern Baptists what it did for me: it drove me back to Scripture to see what God is saying. And once I see what God is saying, I have to make a choice. I could respond like Eve did in the garden when she said, "did God really say that?" He couldn't mean that for now, because, after all, we have all these changes, we have all this education, we have all this wonderful life. He wouldn't have said the same thing now as He did then. Or I could respond by saying, "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." And though I can't obey this perfectly, certainly not in my own strength, what I do have before me is a goal. I have asked my secretary to laminate the article on the family for me and I'm going to put it in my Bible. And from time to time, when I'm having my quiet time with the Lord and I'm examining my own heart, my own priorities, I can go back and read this, and ask the Lord to bring me closer to His design for my own home.
