Fired Leader Won't Speak At Southern Baptist Convention
DALLAS (AP) — A former seminary president dismissed over his response to two rape allegations made by students says he won't give the featured sermon at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting next week in Dallas.
The convention's official news service, Baptist Press, says Paige Patterson announced the decision Friday.
Patterson was dismissed last month from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, because of his response to the two rape allegations. A seminary official says in one case, Patterson wanted to meet with a student who'd told him she'd been raped in order to "break her down."
Patterson also was accused of saying abused women should almost always stay with their husbands.
In a letter Friday, Patterson says none of the allegations are being accurately portrayed and some are false.