Pistol Whipped at Southwestern Seminary

How SWBTS’ Campus Security Ruined my Graduation

Now that I am long gone from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, I have something I need to get off my chest. I wrote Dr. Paige Patterson and two SWBTS dean’s about this, but not one person got back to me. I did not want to display any bitterness and waited and waited before I went public with this, but today is the day I will mention how the campus security of SWBTS ruined my graduation.

Graduating from the College at Southwestern was a major achievement in my life. I worked hard to land on the dean’s academic list, earn academic scholarships and graduate with a grade point average close to 4.0. I also worked hard as the President of the Southwestern Apologetics Group (SWAG) and was a teaching assistant my last full year at SWBTS.

Despite earning a few merit based scholarships, I had to work many part time jobs to get myself through school, often working full time at nights to go to school full time during the day. I scrimped, saved, sacrificed and did everything humanly possible to do my best at the College of Southwestern. It took me six years to graduate, but I finally did.

Another thing that made my time at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was the insufferable and culturally backward fundamentalism on full display at the school. I also was greatly appalled at Dr. Patterson’s constant negative comments against Calvinists and Calvinism. Being from a Calvinist Baptist background, I felt my faith was under siege at SWBTS. I was personally offended by the constant anti-Calvinist rhetoric generated by Dr. Patterson and some of the faculty at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Despite my many misgivings about the culture and strange southern style fundamentalism at SWBTS, I tried to keep my head down and get the heck out of there. I was set to graduate on May 9^th of this year.

I was so excited when that day finally came. I was on the verge of finally being set free from the minimum security like fundamentalist prison I had been in for six years. My plan was to get my diploma and never ever look back.

However, something tragic happened while I was graduating from SWBTS. Two of my invited guests were escorted outside of the auditorium and roughed up pretty bad by campus security. I was stunned and fuming when I heard about it and here is the letter I sent to Dr. Patterson later that evening:

Dear Dr. Patterson,

I am writing you today in order to express my deep concern over what happened to two
of my friends during the graduation service this past Friday.

Two of my invited guests feel they were roughed up pretty bad by campus security during the service and are very upset about how they were treated. Evidently they were asked out of the service for some reason, by a couple campus security officers and subjected to an aggressive line of questioning that my friends feel was both intense and inappropriate.

I have know these two guys for many years and are kind of like the working men you minister to at the sports outreaches every year. Both of these men are solid Christians with large families. One of these guys is even a Southern Baptist minister in a local SBC association.  They feel they were wrongly targeted because of their "duck dynasty" type appearance.  I was wondering if you could look into this for me and give us an explanation of why they were pulled out of the service? I was also wondering if it is standard procedure to rough up invited guests?

As a recent graduate of SWBTS, I am very disappointed that this happened to my long time friends. Instead of my graduation and my upcoming enrollment at grad school this fall being the main topic, the topic of conversation at my graduation party was how two of my buddies were roughed up by SWBTS security.

Can you please look into this for me?

Sincerely in Christ,

Lee Edward Enochs