“For where your treasure is, there your heart is also” — Matthew 6:21

Enrollment at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary may be at a 40 year low, but that hasn’t stopped the money from pouring in at record levels. How can this be, you ask, when the seminary has been forced to lay off dozens of employees, slash faculty retirement benefits for everyone except Paige Patterson, and is now being forced to sell off the Houston campus for less than its appraised value?

Well, that’s because the donations aren’t coming in to pay for the seminary’s operating budget or various development initiatives.

No, while Southwestern’s enrollment has taken a nosedive and the school’s finances are in shambles, contributions to Paige Patterson’s personal slush fund have been growing by leaps and bounds.  Giving to the Patmos Evangelistic Association is up a whopping 90 percent in the last seven years, while enrollment has plummeted 48 percent overall on Patterson’s watch. Enrollment in the seminary’s M.Div. program is down 52 percent.

Here’s a chart of the reported income to Patterson’s personal slush fund:

Click here to read the 2016 IRS Form 990s* for the “Patmos Evangelistic Association.”

To see how Southwestern’s enrollment compares to the other SBC seminaries, click here.

To read how Criswell College trustees addressed Patterson’s “travel” at the expense of the school’s financial and enrollment health, click here.

*According to the IRS Form 990, Paige and Dorothy Patterson spend on average a combined 16 hours a week performing their responsibilities as the President and Secretary of Patmos Evangelistic Association.  Sixteen hours a week, times 52 weeks a year, equals 832 hours devoted to the Patmos Evangelistic Association.  Assuming that a “work day” for the average Patterson is 18 hours, this means Paige and Dorothy Patterson are dedicating roughly 46 days a year focused on the work of Patmos.