Former SBC seminary president settles defamation case for $0.

The bold assertions of a former president at a Southern Baptist Convention seminary that the institution disparagingly made statements about financial mismanagement ended with an anticlimactic, $0 legal settlement following new revelations that emerged in discovery.

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas and its former president, Adam Greenway, announced the conclusion to a civil case in the U.S. District Court of Northern Texas on Monday. Southwestern, along with five other seminaries and five other agencies affiliated with the SBC, receives funding from the Nashville-based denomination’s Cooperative Program budget, a collective ministry fund that receives support from church giving.

The new settlement puts to rest Greenway’s legal argument that the seminary and its board chair, Danny Roberts, mischaracterized financial issues during Greenway’s tenure between 2019-2022. But the resolution to this court case doesn’t mean the end of all legal battles for Southwestern, which is dealing with the most court battles among the 12 major SBC-affiliated agencies.

The Fort Worth seminary is a key player in a U.S. Department of Justice inquiry into former Southwestern administrators’ handling of a sexual abuse report. Also, it’s still engaged in a legal battle over allegations that former Southwestern President Paige Patterson defamed a former female student who reported being raped.

In concluding the case with Greenway, both Southwestern and Greenway said in a joint statement both parties are “looking forward to putting this matter behind us.”

Greenway said in an interview with The Tennessean the timing of the settlement is unrelated to other recent developments in the case.

Specifically, the former president recently provided copies of communications with former Southwestern staff, trustees — specifically a couple trustees whom the full board reprimanded over controversial claims about seminary administration — and other SBC leaders about his dismissal and seminary finances. Greenway said in an interview any revelations from that discovery response didn’t undermine his claims against the seminary.

But Southwestern sees the outcome of the case differently. “We believe the manner of this resolution not only vindicates the seminary, it further demonstrates the allegations made in the lawsuit were without merit,” the seminary said in an additional statement it independently issued in an email to The Tennessean.

Greenway resigned from Southwestern in September 2022 and five months later, the two parties reached a separation agreement. Among the terms of that agreement, Southwestern agreed to pay Greenway a lump sum of $229,500 as severance and the two sides agreed not to disparage one another.

But around that same time, Southwestern’s trustees were wrestling with the findings of a board committee’s inquiry into expenditures under Greenway’s leadership, and the seminary published details from those findings. Some of those details, such as a claim that Greenway spent $11,000 of the seminary’s money on an espresso machine for his house, quickly became a source of sensation and outrage throughout the SBC.

In response, Greenway sent a demand letter and later sued his former employer in March about those statements on seminary expenditures, alleging the statements were defamatory and breached the earlier separation agreement. Greenway sought at least $75,000 in damages.

Greenway said in an interview his $0 legal settlement “in no way is a concession” of his original grievance. Greenway also provided The Tennessean a statement he independently issued in response to Southwestern’s independent statement about the resolution in the case.

“I disagree strongly with the Seminary’s characterizations of the motivations behind or the meaning of the settlement,” Greenway said in the statement. “Scripture counsels us that we are to ‘if possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.’”

What to know about other high-profile cases in SBC

Southwestern Seminary and other agencies affiliated with the SBC, at a time of continued fallout within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination over a clergy sexual abuse crisis, continue to fight other, high-profile legal battles. Among them:

• The DOJ case against Matt Queen, a North Carolina pastor and former Southwestern administrator, out of the U.S. District of Southern New York is scheduled for jury trial starting Dec. 9, according to court filings. Queen, who is on leave as pastor of Friendly Avenue Baptist Church in Greensboro, continues to fight a charge of falsifying records in an attempt to cover up an abuse report. Despite additional revelations that emerged after Queen’s charging about the involvement of former Southwestern administrator Heath Woolman, now a pastor in Florida, the DOJ has not filed any additional charges.

• A former Southwestern student continues her civil case against the seminary and its former president, Paige Patterson, alleging defamation in a dispute over the former student’s report of being raped by another former seminary student. The former student, identified as Jane Roe in the court filings, is appealing the case and ahead of oral arguments on Sept. 11 before the Supreme Court of Texas, the court accidentally made a tranche of unredacted documents in the case publicly available. Those documents, eventually placed under seal by the court, reportedly included previously undisclosed details about Southwestern leadership mishandling other abuse cases.

• Former SBC president Johnny Hunt is continuing his civil case against SBC leadership and Guidepost Solutions, a third-party firm that led an inquiry into Southern Baptist leaders’ handling of sexual abuse, over revelations in a Guidepost report that Hunt allegedly sexually assaulted another pastor’s wife. In his case, based out of the U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee, Hunt has fought for Guidepost to reveal sensitive materials used in the firm’s investigation, while other filings and depositions have unearthed details about Hunt’s business empire. Hunt, who long was an influential megachurch pastor in Georgia, has sought to restore his image in the wake of the abuse allegations against him.

• David Sills, a former professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, continues his civil case against SBC leadership, Guidepost, and abuse survivor Jennifer Lyell in a well-known case in the SBC that started with Southern Baptist media and leaders mistreating Lyell, who came forward with sexual abuse allegations against Sills. An ongoing case from Sills alleging defamation, based out of the U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee, has become a centerpiece for an opposition conservative faction, which has sought to pull the SBC further to the right, in disputing the severity of the denomination’s abuse crisis. A controversial book recently published by author Megan Basham, who works for the Daily Wire, cites Sills’ defense to argue SBC leaders have leveraged abuse cases for ulterior ends, such as promoting left-wing ideological views.

Other recent SBC-related news on abuse: How a church's response to abuse allegations could be a model for the Southern Baptist Convention

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on social media @liamsadams.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Southwestern seminary: Former president settles legal case for $0