Matt Queen's Return to the Pulpit Sends a Message
Matt Queen was a seminary professor and administrator at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Southwestern is one of six theological schools affiliated with the nation's largest Protestant and Evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. He was the L.R. Scarborough Chair of Fire theology professor, occupying an endowed chair named after the school's most revered President, and also served as one of the school's provosts.
He is one of many in a long line of suck-up sycophants who haunt the hallways of the denomination's seminaries, mission boards, publishing house and executive committee, trying to hitch their wagons to the small, elite group of insiders who run the denomination. Queen's connections to the theological leader of the "Conservative Resurgence," Paige Patterson, the denominational political movement aimed at making the SBC more fundamentalist and conservative, and thus more Republican right wing, apparently came about while he was a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, during Patterson's tenure there as President.
Southwestern's recent history has been one of having been plagued by Patterson's mishandling and attempted cover-up of allegations of sexual abuse occurring on campus at both seminaries under his leadership at the time. According to the Baptist News Global piece linked above, Queen's involvement included "falsifying records, providing false information to law enforcement and trying to mislead investigators" who were looking into allegations of sexual abuse made by female students. He pled guilty, and was sentenced to a year of probation, six months at home with an ankle monitor. The trustees at Southwestern seminary fired him.
But, there are those among Southern Baptists who don't see sexual abuse as all that much of a problem in their "worldview," where women are to keep silent in the church, and wait until they get home to ask their husbands if they have a question. They have been drowning in multiple accusations of sexual abuse, mostly by male clergy and male denominational employees, including appointed missionaries, since an expose was published by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express News in 2019, detailing over 700 cases in an investigation that was quite limited in scope.
While delegates, known as "messengers," from the 45,000 local churches that are affiliated with the denomination dealt with the news of the horrific scope of abuse that was happening right under their noses, most of it unreported and brushed off, there were those who minimized the problem, dismissed it altogether, and moved heaven and earth to try and prevent the denomination from holding abusers accountable, and preventing victims from opening a pathway to justice, based on how much they thought this would wind up costing them. They were much more concerned about the money they would lose in lawsuits than they were concerned over the emotional and physical trauma of the thousands of victims.
"Protecting A Man's Ministry Career is Far More Important to the Southern Baptist Convention Than the Suffering of the Victims"
Queen had a job waiting for him when his sentence was up. Not working in a funeral home, or selling insurance or real estate, or cars at a dealer, like most fallen pastors wind up doing when they are no longer spiritually qualified and eligible for a ministry role. No, the job waiting for Queen was a high dollar associate pastorate at a large, well-known Dallas area congregation, being associate pastor of Plymouth Park Baptist Church.
The pastor of Plymouth Park, Matt Henslee, had been one of those voices consistently asking for leniency when it came to Queen. In fact, Henslee downplayed the whole issue with regard to Queen, calling what he did a "mistake," and going so far as to ask the judge for lenency so that Queen could continue to serve as a minister. When that didn't happen, and Southwestern showed some integrity by dismissing Queen, Henslee apparently convinced his congregation to bring him on staff at Plymouth Park.
The judge, expressing the view of a secular state, was pretty clear.
"It wasn't a 'mistake,' it was a plan. And you carried it out until it became clear to you that it simply wasn't going to fly."
Nothing New Among Southern Baptists or Conservative Evangelicals
Lying to hold on to a bureacratic leadership post in the Southern Baptist denomination is nothing new. Prior to the "Conservative Resurgence," those who were in positions of denominational leadership, most of whom got to those high dollar, big salary positions, did so because they helped powerful friends with lots of influence make it to the trustee boards that do the hiring, and were the recipients of favor granting, not because they are competent at the job of ministry. Sexual abuse is running rampant, not just among the church clergy, but among many of the denomination's executives, one of whom recently resigned because of an extra-marital affair.
And this mentality, exhibited by the manner in which one of those caught lying to help cover up the scandal at Southwestern wasa helped to a prominent church ministry position by another influential pastor, is what we have seen all along when it comes to the Southern Baptist Convention and sexual abuse. It's not a high priority in this denomination to either admit there is a problem and deal with it, or to provide any kind of care, sympathy, or support for the hundreds upon hundreds of victims, almost all of whom are members of Southern Baptist churches.
Those who hold power in the denomination use it to reinforce their own prejudices and psh their own agenda. And when it came down to it, and Queen had to be let go, his defenders, including Matt Henslee, used their power to do whatever they could to keep him from being held accountable. Henslee, the pastor at Plymouth Park, is also on the Southwestern trustee board. No integrity lost there, huh, good ole boys?
It's not a good look, from a Christian perspective, for a denomination that was founded as the result of one very grave theological and doctrinal error, which was support for and endorsement of slavery, to continue to operate in the same provincial, backward manner when it comes to the subject of sexual abuse of women and young girls in their churches.
And these are the Heritage Foundation boosters who want to run the United States government because they believe their righteousness will usher in the second coming of Christ.
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