Former SBC seminary president ends defamation suit without financial settlement

The defamation lawsuit brought against Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary by the school’s former president, Adam M. Greenway, has come to an abrupt conclusion—with Greenway receiving none of the compensation he sought.

On September 9, seminary officials announced they had signed an agreement with Greenway, who has made repeated claims that his former employer defamed him and owes him millions of dollars. 

Part of that claim arises from his assertion that his firing from the Fort Worth, Texas, seminary left him unemployable. Since his firing, Greenway has gone from a $300,000 annual salary at Southwestern to a variety of positions where he makes less than 10 percent of his former salary, according to court documents.

Greenway, who previously served as dean of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was hired to lead Southwestern in 2019. He resigned abruptly in September 2022, and it was later revealed that the school was teetering financially and had its lowest enrollment since World War II.

Trustee leaders accused Greenway of financial mismanagement, including exorbitant expenses to renovate and furnish the president’s home on campus. His predecessor, Paige Patterson, had also been accused of lavish spending, including on a new structure that was to be his retirement home.

Southwestern’s leadership has maintained all along that Greenway has violated the terms of a separation agreement that in 2022 paid him a lump sum of $229,500 in exchange for a clause that both parties would not make any “false and disparaging” statements about the other.

Greenway alleged Southwestern trustees violated that agreement when they published summary findings of an internal financial investigation—including the revelation that he had purchased an $11,000 espresso machine for the president’s home.

Greenway was hired, in part, to clean up the mess left at Southwestern by Patterson, a hero of the “conservative resurgence” in the Southern Baptist Convention who presided over the greatest decline—in finances and enrollment—in the school’s 100-year history.

In a statement, Greenway called ending the lawsuit an “olive branch,” motivated by his desire to achieve an “amicable resolution” to an ongoing dispute.

“Scripture counsels us that we are to ‘if possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.’” he said. “I look forward to putting this chapter of my life behind me and focusing on the hope and the future that our Lord has for me and my family.”

In their own statement, seminary leaders said Greenway’s decision to drop the lawsuit with no monetary consideration in return was proof that it had been without merit.

“Grateful for the favor God has bestowed on the seminary since the fall of 2022, we are now eager to refocus our full energies and resources on carrying out the mission of Southwestern Seminary.”

The resolution of Greenway’s defamation suit against the seminary marks the end of one chapter in a series of legal dramas for the seminary. Oral arguments before the Texas Supreme Court begin Wednesday in a civil case against Southwestern and former president Patterson. An anonymous former student, known as Jane Roe in court documents, claims Patterson defamed her she reported being raped by another former student. —Baptist News Global