{"id":558,"date":"2018-05-14T11:37:46","date_gmt":"2018-05-14T15:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/?p=558"},"modified":"2021-04-19T16:01:05","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T20:01:05","slug":"southern-baptist-leaders-apology-falls-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/southern-baptist-leaders-apology-falls-short\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Baptist Leader\u2019s Apology Falls Short"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and influential leader in the Southern Baptist Convention, has been in the news lately for his views on biblical commands for wives who are victims of domestic violence, and other comments he has made about women over the last twenty years.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, he issued a statement of apology; here\u2019s the heart of it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/news\/2018\/may\/southern-baptist-paige-patterson-apology-swbts.html\">(click here for the full text):<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;I wish to apologize to every woman who has been wounded by anything I have said that was inappropriate or that lacked clarity. We live in a world of hurt and sorrow, and the last thing that I need to do is add to anyone\u2019s heartache. Please forgive the failure to be as thoughtful and careful in my extemporaneous expression as I should have been.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s no wonder that, as one Baptist woman commented,\u00a0the apology <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/nation-now\/2018\/05\/10\/top-southern-baptist-leader-apologizes-women\/600933002\/\">\u201cfelt incomplete.\u201d<\/a> Recognizing that it\u2019s difficult to do public apologies well, and that we all need help crafting effective apologies, it\u2019s worth analyzing why this one doesn\u2019t do the job. A couple of word choices stand out:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cby anything I have said\u201d \u2013 Either Dr. Patterson is unaware of what he said that was offensive, or he disagrees, but in either case, the vagueness of this phrase leaves his audience wondering whether he \u201cgets it.\u201d One of the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/pm.training\/peacemakerministrieslegacyresourcesarchive\/?submissionGuid=0d79596b-d918-401f-be02-167a27be3c71\">7 A\u2019s of Confession\u201d<\/a> of Peacemaker Ministries is to \u201cAdmit specifically\u201d \u2013 the apology needs to express specifically the harmful action done. This apology does not do that.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cmy extemporaneous expression\u201d \u2013 This sounds like an excuse; the implication is that he shouldn\u2019t be held too responsible for comments that he made on the fly, that he didn\u2019t have time to reflect on. What the speaker intends as an explanation, is heard as an excuse. Excuses do not belong in apologies, and serve to undercut them. A good apology invites the listener to ask questions, and only then\u00a0may the speaker offer an explanation. This observation goes to his comment about translating a Hebrew term as well &#8212; almost sounds like he&#8217;s blaming the listener for not understanding his goal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A couple of other things make this an ineffective apology:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>His apology is to \u201cevery woman,\u201d but\u00a0men were also hurt by his actions, as indicated by the<a href=\"https:\/\/swbtsletter-men.com\/\"> letter sent to the Seminary board<\/a> regarding Dr. Patterson. Another of the \u201c7 A\u2019s of Confession\u201d is to \u201cAddress everyone involved;\u201d\u00a0he missed half the audience.<\/li>\n<li>Where are the consequences? A good apology includes some indication of how the speaker will rectify the wrong. He promises to pray, but\u00a0that\u2019s not enough to make this apology work. Elsewhere it&#8217;s been announced that he is calling for a special meeting of the board of trustees of his institution, which may result in more follow-up, but it would have been good to include in the apology any plans to, as the &#8220;7 A&#8217;s of confession&#8221; call it, &#8220;Alter behavior.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It takes courage and effort to\u00a0make a good apology, the kind that brings healing (see James 5:16). Dr. Patterson made the effort, and we can all learn from it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and influential leader in the Southern Baptist Convention, has been in the news lately for his views on biblical commands for wives who are victims of domestic violence, and other comments he has made about women over the last twenty years. Last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":565,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions\/565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}