by Sandy » Wed May 15, 2019 10:56 am
HIs analysis of it may be correct, though it was promoted that way when the chapel was being built and the money was being raised. Patterson's position in the resurgence movement and his connections to people who had money to give ran deep. I'm sure he was willing to give up a few window panes in exchange for big checks.
As a Southwestern alum, I am glad to see the windows gone. Genesis 20:4-6 can be interpreted in various ways, but it seems inconsistent for someone who claims to be an inerrantist, literalist, verbal, plenary inspiration theorist to place windows in a building dedicated to Christian worship honoring human achievements. And while you might scratch your head over the actual involvement of some of the people who were included in the windows, in the provincial backwardness of the SBC there are the highly visible elites and prominents and there are a lot of wannabees (like David Brumbelow) who no one knows and whose names have never been heard but have money to buy a window and get to put a graven image in it of anyone they admire. There are a lot of Southern Baptists who think Jerry Falwell was one of the main characters in the conservative resurgence and facts won't convince them otherwise. Rick Warren's success means that his name has to be included as well, since the conservative resurgence is a synonym for success in ministry and since he made himself a rich man by writing the best-selling Christian book ever, that the people in the pew absolutely love, someone had to claim him as one of the resurgence leaders as well. Frank Page the peacemaker was, perhaps, the most popular individual to serve as SBC President since 1979, he was the "guy they got from the other side", his personal career ambitions within the SBC notwithstanding, and since he succeeded the ubiquitous Morris Chapman, also had to be numbered among the resurgence brethren. Barber, himself an insider who, like most every other trustee of Southwestern Seminary currently on the board, knows all of this because he wouldn't have been on the trustee board had he not been hand-picked and approved in advance by Patterson himself. He was one of many sycophants on that board. As the old saying goes, "Methinks thou dost protest too much."
Where was he when Southwestern's enrollment was tanking, the bills were mounting and the incompetence ruining the school?