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FORT WORTH?Dorothy Patterson couldn’t appear more at home than when she stands before women teaching truths of Scripture. Whether in a classroom at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary preparing women for ministry, traveling to overseas mission fields to encourage former students or speaking to a ladies session of the upcoming Empower Evangelism Conference, she remains focused on helping women discover their God-given roles.
Her own theological training began in a room full of men, the only female in the school of theology at the time when she and her husband Paige were pursuing master of theology degrees at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. At the time of her graduation, the women’s liberation movement was in full swing across America, encouraging women to find fulfillment beyond traditional homemaking.
While her seminary training and additional doctoral studies would serve her well in defending what was later tagged a complementarian view of gender roles, it was in the more practical laboratory of parenting preschoolers that Patterson began to apply her studies.
“My theological training seemed a waste for the task of motherhood before me,” she recounted in the book “Where’s Mom?” “In the midst of this frustrating time, I turned to the Lord.” She began reading through the Bible systematically, determined to find God’s message for her as a woman, wife and mother. That experience became the catalyst for her life and ministry. “My life, goals, and perspective were forever changed.”
When her husband served as president of Criswell Bible Institute (now Criswell College), Dorothy Patterson found new opportunities to encourage women to rediscover “the genuine freedom they enjoyed for centuries to oversee the home, rear the children, and pursue personal creativity.”
Kristi Sberna, a pastor’s wife from Houston, shared that her life was transformed while observing Patterson in relation to her family and ministry. Sberna served as Patterson’s intern while a student at Criswell College, observing, “the focus of her work and passion always seemed to be dedicated to complementing and enhancing the ministry and life of Paige Patterson, her husband, using her energy, time and talents cooperatively with him.”
“It was as if she was a direct extension of him, sharing the same vision and passion in ministry, yet never nullifying her own individuality and personality,” Sberna recalled. “Their marriage and ministry together was appointed with love, respect, excellence, cooperation, friendship and trust.” As a young woman engaged to a ministerial student at the time, Sberna said the Pattersons modeled the kind of marriage and ministry she desired.
It was during those years at Criswell that Dorothy Patterson began fashioning a curriculum of academically challenging studies with a focus on woman-to-woman ministries in keeping with the pattern of Titus 2.
Patterson was swimming against the tide of feminism that had begun to influence some Southern Baptist seminaries where women who professed a call to the pastorate were not only accommodated, but encouraged. In June of 1988 she presented a paper at the request of the Southern Baptist Convention Historical Commission when asked to respond to proponents of women’s ordination. She placed her focus on the lack of scriptural support for women holding teaching/ruling offices within the local church, making the case for ordination of women holding such offices a moot point.
“When a woman ‘feels called’ to do a work that on scriptural grounds is both beyond God’s design in creation and in violation of his written Word, that work must be judged by the church,” she argued.
The egalitarianism of the 1970s and ’80s, which rejected any distinction in gender roles, was rejected by the Conservative Resurgence in the decade that followed. In 1998 Southern Baptists embraced a new article of faith in stating that both men and women have equal worth before God, are created in God’s image with distinct, yet complementary roles.
Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land served with Patterson and five other members on the committee tasked with drafting that statement. Referring to her contribution as “one of the guiding lights,” he said it was a time “to speak to that issue and speak definitively.”
Patterson later shared in an interview with the journal of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: “We were told to set forth in a clear, brief and understandable way what the Bible says about the family and relationships therein. We weren’t trying to adapt our statement to today’s culture. We were simply trying to state clearly what the Bible says about the family.”
That same year she earned her doctorate in theology from the University of South Africa, writing her dissertation on “Aspects of a Biblical Theology of Womanhood.”
“Just because the world determines that women in the home are in confinement does not make it so. A far more important concern for each of us is what the Bible says about one’s respective position and duties,” she wrote in a journal article for Southeastern that outlined the proposed women’s studies track she had developed.
From Titus 2:3-5, Patterson related Paul’s admonition for “the older or spiritually mature women to teach the younger women, those fresh or new in the faith, a specific curriculum that is centered around the home and family, including such assignments as that they are to be ‘lovers of their husbands,’ ‘lovers of their children,’ and ‘homemakers.’ Such explicit language certainly leaves no room for misunderstanding what is important in a woman’s life from God’s view.”
The preparation of women for ministry was embraced early in the history of Southwestern Seminary. The school’s second president related during his inaugural address, “Our purpose is to do for women in their work what we are doing for men in theirs?give them trained workers, thus reaching the fields opening to Christian womanhood for service. Our aim is not to turn out women preachers, but to give the world trained women in all the teaching, missionary, and soul-winning activities of Christ’s coming kingdom.”
Nearly a century after L.R. Scarborough voiced that priority, Southwestern has its most committed advocate for giving women biblically grounded training with the presence of Dorothy Patterson in the school of theology.
As the eighth president, Paige Patterson drew upon his wife’s experience to develop M.Div., D.Min., and Ph.D. degrees in theology with a concentration in women’s studies. Similar to the other Southern Baptist seminaries, the school also continues to offer certificate programs for women and wives of ministers.
Lauren Johnson, a pastor’s wife in Ozona, remembers Patterson using her skills of persuasion to convince her to be fully prepared for ministry by completing the M.Div. in women’s studies. “Her love for the Word of God further encouraged my love for the Bible and showed me that more than anything, women need the truth of the Word of God taught and exemplified.
“Mrs. Patterson helped me to see that being a wife and mother is a noble calling and not one of which to be ashamed or devalued,” added Johnson, noting her gratefulness for Patterson’s example, leadership and sound guidance. “She showed me what it is to live and breathe hospitality.”
In addition to serving as editor of the “Woman’s Study Bible” published by Thomas Nelson, and co-editor of “Women’s Evangelical Commentary,” Patterson addresses the scriptural roles and responsibilities of Christian women in numerous publications, including: “Where’s Mom? The High Calling of Wife and Mother in Biblical Perspective,” “A Woman Seeking God,” “A Handbook for Minister’s Wives,” “A Handbook for Parents in the Ministry,” “The Family: Unchanging Principles for Changing Times,
