Baptist Leader Doesn't Regret Telling Students to Rush Gunmen | Christianpost.com

Baptist Leader Doesn't Regret Telling Students to Rush Gunmen


The head of a Southern Baptist seminary told male students they should charge an attacker if confronted with a situation like last week's Virginia Tech shootings.

Wed, Apr. 25, 2007 Posted: 07:43:56 AM EST
DALLAS (AP) - The head of a Southern Baptist seminary told male students they should charge an attacker if confronted with a situation like last week's Virginia Tech shootings.Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, made the comments at a chapel service April 18, two days after Seung-Hui Cho fatally shot 32 people before killing himself.

"All you had to do was have six or eight (students) rush him right at that time and 32 people wouldn't have died," Patterson said. "You don't let things like that happen, guys. We just don't do it."Patterson, who helped lead the 1979 conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he doesn't regret the remarks. He said he wasn't criticizing actions taken at Virginia Tech, though he said his comments were characterized that way by some "for less than noble reasons."



"None of us were there, and when the bullets are flying no one can predict the way anyone can respond, including myself," he said.The seminary leader said part of his role includes building character among his students, some of whom will become missionaries and suffer for their faith. He said he is concerned by "the softness of our nation which allows and encourages acts like this.""When a man takes a bomb or when he takes a gun and he goes out and he just begins to kill innocent people, that only happens in most cases because he thinks he can somehow get by with it, he won't be stopped," Patterson said.

Patterson's remarks were saved on the seminary's Web site.Patterson put a statement on the site Monday stating that he sympathizes not only with families who suffered losses, but also the Virginia Tech president and security force, who he said are being maligned. Some observers have criticized the campus leadership for not responding to the gunman threat early enough."As the old military axiom notes, 'You plan for battle; but as soon the first shot is fired, the plan is pretty much over,'" he wrote. "Assigning blame to anyone in this situation is futile and hurtful."He also said in the statement: "I am still just old-fashioned enough to believe that men are responsible to protect women and children."

Sgt. Allan Baron of Texas A&M University police told The Dallas Morning News, which first reported the remarks on its Web site Tuesday, that he would not recommend someone without training to charge an armed assailant."The best advice you could probably give to somebody in those type of situations is to look for a way to escape and get help immediately," he said.


Patterson became president of Southwestern in 2003. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the country, claiming 16.4 million members.