Published Aug. 22, 2019

For decades, Paige Patterson has been a towering figure in the Southern Baptist Convention, having led the nation’s second-largest faith group toward a literal interpretation of the Bible and limits on the role of women in churches.

And for much of that time, the former SBC president has rebuffed criticism of his role in a scandal that victims’ rights advocates say is emblematic of the SBC’s broader failure to oust prolific sexual predators from the pulpit: the case of Darrell Gilyard, a dynamic young preacher who was mentored and assisted by Patterson amid allegations of sexual misconduct at churches in Texas and Oklahoma.

Now, a newly unearthed trove of documents and videotape shows that Patterson personally investigated and downplayed numerous sexual misconduct allegations against Gilyard during his meteoric rise in the SBC. In 1991, four years after the first allegations surfaced, Patterson oversaw Gilyard’s resignation from a Dallas-area church after Gilyard confessed to some of the allegations.

The two men eventually cut ties, and Gilyard later moved to Jacksonville, Fla., to pastor a non-SBC church. He was convicted of sex crimes in 2008.

The Houston Chronicle obtained nearly five hours of videotapes outlining allegations against Gilyard from his time in Texas and Oklahoma, reviewed letters sent by Patterson, and interviewed people who knew Gilyard, Patterson and Jerry Vines — another former Southern Baptist Convention president who supported Gilyard.

Patterson continued to downplay the claims even after his protégé confessed and resigned from Victory Baptist Church, near Dallas, in July 1991. Speaking to the congregation that night, Patterson called many of the accusations untrue. Others he described as “sins” committed by women who were “not innocent either” and Gilyard, whom Patterson then hailed as a “spokesman of God” and “one of the most brilliant men who has ever stepped into the pulpit.”

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Patterson also suggested that Victory members refrain from discussing the allegations publicly so that Gilyard could be rehabilitated — a suggestion he also had offered four years before, when Gilyard was forced out of a different Dallas-area church amid similar allegations, the new information reveals.

Two years after Gilyard’s 1991 ouster, he began pastoring a non-SBC congregation a few blocks away from Vines’ megachurch in Jacksonville, Fla. While there, he was convicted of sex crimes involving two teens. He faced multiple civil suits, including one, eventually settled, from a grieving widow who alleged that she was raped and impregnated by him during counseling sessions, according to Florida and federal court records.

One of the early prosecutors in Gilyard's criminal case said the newly revealed videotapes could have been valuable but were never provided to her. The tapes were in the possession of Patterson confidantes until a few months ago, when they were provided to the Chronicle.

ABUSE OF FAITH: Exclusive videos show confrontation of Baptist pastor accused of sexual misconduct

More Information An investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News revealed in February that more than 700 people, most of them children, had been sexually abused by Southern Baptist pastors, church employees or volunteers during the past two decades. The newspapers also published a database of about 220 Southern Baptist church pastors, leaders, employees and volunteers who pleaded guilty or were convicted of sex crimes. That database has now been expanded to more than 260 with the help of tips from victims and others who read the stories. The series, “Abuse of Faith,” sparked a national outcry. More than 350 readers contacted the newspapers to offer tips or share their own stories of abuse. In response to the series, the Southern Baptist Convention has taken steps that leaders believe will help prevent sexual abuse.

The release of the tapes comes as the Southern Baptist Convention confronts a sexual abuse crisis revealed in an investigation by the Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News. That series, Abuse of Faith, found that more than 400 church leaders and volunteers had been credibly accused of sexual misconduct in the past 20 years. They left behind more than 700 victims, most of them children.

In many of those cases, church leaders opted for internal investigations that victims say demeaned or intimidated them from seeking criminal charges against their attackers, who were allowed to resign and sometimes find new jobs at other churches. Such was the case with Gilyard.

Neither Patterson, Vines nor Gilyard responded to repeated requests for comment. Patterson’s longtime personal attorney, J. Shelby Sharpe of Fort Worth, declined to make Patterson available for an interview.

“I do know from my representation of him for many years that he did handle the matters concerning Gilyard that came to his attention timely and effectively,” Sharpe wrote in an email. “Those who claim otherwise, simply do not know the facts or are willing to believe unsubstantiated accusations.”

Patterson did write a letter in February in response to the newspapers’ investigation into Southern Baptist sexual abuse in which he took issue with reporters’ brief mention of his handling of the Gilyard case.

In the letter, Patterson said that he forced Gilyard to resign his church and subsequently warned other SBC congregations about him. A review of the video confirms that he played a central role in Gilyard’s resignation.

Patterson previously has faced criticism about his handling of allegations of sexual abuse. Last year, he was ousted as the longtime president of a Fort Worth seminary for his handling of reports of sexual abuse. One of those women sued earlier this year, claiming that Patterson threatened and humiliated her after she reported being repeatedly raped at gunpoint by another student.

‘No longer a problem’

Gilyard’s talent was undeniable. He captivated crowds with his fiery sermons, seamlessly weaving together jokes, scripture and his story of childhood poverty and racism. “The uniqueness of Darrell Gilyard was unsurpassed,” one couple wrote to Vines in 1989. “What a delight to have heard him!”

Vines knew. They met when Gilyard — whose legal name at the time was Darrol Louis Gillard — was a young man and member of Vines’ megachurch in Jacksonville. Though Gilyard had no ministerial training, former members say Vines was enthralled by his charisma and heartwrenching story of growing up orphaned, a tale that was later questioned by reporters.

“Darrell was considered at one time to be the black Dr. Vines,” said Kenny St. John, who worked at Vines’ church. “Dr. Vines has a strong style. … Darrell kind of used the same approach.”

St. John was a young, recovering heroin addict when he began leading the church’s youth group in the mid-1970s, using his story to steer teens away from drugs and to salvation. He said he later became concerned by what he saw as Gilyard’s aggressive flirtations with multiple young women.

ABUSE OF FAITH: 20 years, 700 victims: Southern Baptist sexual abuse spreads as leaders resist reforms

St. John said he objected when church leaders asked if Gilyard could accompany the youth choir on its annual out-of-state tour. They didn’t force the issue, St. John said, and no further action was taken because the concerns weren’t criminal. But St. John said it was clear to him that Gilyard was not suitable for ministry.

“He never really stopped his behavior,” St. John told the Chronicle. “He kind of went under the radar.”

Around 1985, Gilyard moved to Dallas to study at Criswell College on a scholarship that Vines secured for him through Patterson, who was at the time the college’s president and a growing national evangelical figure for having orchestrated a takeover of the SBC by its conservative members. Gilyard’s emergence in Southern Baptist circles came during that time and, because of his youth and race, he was a valuable ally for conservative leaders such as Patterson when they were still trying to shore up support from local churches around the nation.

Multiple Criswell students raised concerns about Gilyard’s behavior, according to the Dallas Morning News, which extensively covered the allegations he faced. In a deposition in an unrelated 2008 lawsuit, Patterson said he did not recall conversations with students, but he said a handful of women from Gilyard’s churches had approached him over the years about “consensual relationships.”

Why, he was then asked, would they approach him if they had consented?

“You would have to ask them,” Patterson responded. “I think they were sincerely concerned about Mr. Gilyard continuing in the ministry, which I was also.”

Gilyard’s star only rose. While enrolled at Criswell, he co-pastored Concord Missionary Baptist Church near Dallas. He resigned in 1987 after at least 20 women accused him of sexual impropriety at a meeting of the congregation, according to interviews, news reports and the 1991 tapes. A few more said they were seduced by him and admitted to affairs in front of the church.

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Patterson was at that meeting, documents reflect, but later challenged the reported number of women and the nature of their allegations. He later excoriated Concord’s pastor, E.K. Bailey, for making Gilyard’s resignation public. “You were, at least partially, aware of my love for Gilyard,” Patterson wrote in a 1987 letter to Bailey. “If there were a problem, why was I not called?”

Patterson wrote that Gilyard was not guilty of the allegations or “morally culpable.” He said Bailey “must forget the past” and should refrain from making public statements while Patterson worked to “rehabilitate the gifted young preacher” from his “mistakes,” “sorrow and humiliation.”

“He is no longer a problem to you,” Patterson wrote. “He is worth salvage. Will you agree not to disparage him any further, thus giving me the chance to help Darrell count for God and for good?”

Gilyard had a new pulpit in weeks. By the fall of 1987, he was co-pastoring Hilltop Baptist Church in Norman, Okla.

In an interview, former Hilltop pastor Dan Maxwell said that Patterson recommended Gilyard. Maxwell was severely ill both before and during Gilyard's tenure, but said that Patterson had told him the Concord allegations could not be substantiated.

"If he had absolute proof, he would have told me," Maxwell said.

Gilyard soon was accused of misconduct or affairs by several women, and of threatening them by saying he had Vines and Patterson in his “hip pocket,” according to the 1991 tapes. One woman apparently wrote Gilyard a letter that he shared with Patterson, and a counselor also notified Patterson about phone recordings of Gilyard and one of her patients.

Gilyard denied the allegations and responded by shaming the women. One was “emotionally bruised, battered, beat,” he said. Another was unhappy with her marriage to her “drug addict and alcoholic” husband, he said, and had made allegations against Gilyard after Gilyard refused to help her pay for an abortion.

Patterson investigated with Gilyard at his side, Gilyard said in the 1991 tapes.

“We had a six-hour meeting,” Gilyard said. “It was inconclusive. As far as I’m concerned, I was vindicated. … We dismissed it. And any time it’s come up, I’ve just referred people to Dr. Patterson. We just kind of left that alone.”

Maxwell recalled that at least one of the women was too embarrassed to make the accusations public.

In a 2016 sermon on sexual morality, Patterson recalled his visit to Oklahoma, where he said he met with a man who often saw Gilyard enter a married woman’s home late at night.

“But then I asked him one question before I left,” Patterson said. “I said, ‘You don’t happen to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan, do you?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I am.’ His testimony mattered nothing. It was true, but it was useless. We could do nothing about it until finally the day came when it was obvious.”

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'Unwise' to promote him

Gilyard returned to the Dallas area around 1988.

Don Simpkins was a counselor in the area; he recently told the Chronicle that he was called to a meeting with Patterson, Gilyard and eight women bringing allegations that Simpkins said included sex crimes. He said Patterson grilled the women on their pasts rather than the accusations — and that they were too terrified to press criminal charges afterward.

Patterson appears to reference a similar meeting in a March 1989 letter to Maxwell, the pastor of Hilltop. In it, he wrote that he and others had been “unwise” to promote Gilyard before he had learned “lessons of life that are important.” But Patterson also wrote that he did not want to believe any of the allegations until they could be substantiated by two or more witnesses — a reference to a biblical principle — and that anyone who came forward alone would be unreliable because they were also guilty of impropriety.

Gilyard was told to meet with an adviser — which Simpkins says meant counseling sessions with him — and Patterson vowed to monitor his protégé for one year to decide if “sufficient spiritual growth has come,” according to the 1989 letter. Simpkins said Gilyard was immediately noncompliant and called Simpkins a “peon” and “nobody.”

“It was a dog and pony show,” Simpkins said. “I called Paige and told him Gilyard needed to be removed from ministry, and after that I got cut off. Paige never returned my phone call — ever.”

The allegations did not hinder Gilyard’s rise on the Southern Baptist preaching circuit. By then, he had drawn the attention of famed evangelist Jerry Falwell, who produced a mini-documentary about him. Gilyard also was promoted by Vines, whom Gilyard later described as a “blessing, inspiration and encouragement.”

“From time to time, some pastor will call me and say that you recommended me to him,” Gilyard wrote to Vines in 1989. “You will never know what this means to me. My prayer is to always walk cleanly and humbly before the Lord. I pray that I will be a son in the faith that you will be proud of.”

In June 1989 — and as Simpkins says his phone calls were being ignored by Patterson — Gilyard preached at the SBC’s pastors’ conference, which precedes the group’s annual meeting each year. Vines was elected days later to his second term as SBC president.

The allegations continued at Victory Baptist Church, the Dallas-area congregation that Gilyard pastored until his 1991 resignation. Martha Dixius, a social worker at the church, said in the tapes that one woman seemed close to suicide. Others displayed “tremendous depths of trauma” and “scars” that Dixius said would require ongoing therapy.

“The women are hurting,” she said in the 1991 tapes. “It is not a casual situation for them. … There is a lot of depression. … It is eating them alive.”

She said Gilyard called her after learning one woman had made allegations — Gilyard said “he’d go after her jugular, that he would expose her before the whole church and … do what’s necessary to defend himself.”

Dixius later left Victory. “It was just too hard to hear the women crying,” she said in the 1991 tapes. She has since died.

‘The red flags went off’

The allegations continued to mount at both Victory and at Vines’ church in Jacksonville, where Gilyard occasionally preached. By early 1991, Kenny St. John had left Jacksonville, so he couldn’t object when Gilyard was allowed access to the youth there.

Tiffany Thigpen was a deeply religious teenager and, like many others, she was enthralled by Gilyard, who she said preached at First Baptist Jacksonville “whenever he was in town, which was quite often.” Gilyard soon began grooming her with late-night phone calls and promises of a summer job in Texas, she said.

She said an adult from the church later approached her about Gilyard’s motives, a warning that Thigpen believes spared her the worst when Gilyard allegedly attacked her days after her 18th birthday.

“All the red flags went off, and that probably kicked in my adrenaline to try and fight him,” she said.

Tiffany Thigpen

Thigpen provided diary entries that corroborate the timeline of her grooming and alleged attack. She says she told Vines soon after, and that he responded by saying it would be would be “embarrassing” for her to discuss publicly and that “these things have a way of blowing over.”

In his 2014 autobiography, Vines briefly discussed his relationship with Gilyard and wrote that he was once approached by a “young” member of his church about what he said was an “impropriety” and “flirtation” between two single people. Gilyard was married and nearing 30; Thigpen was barely 18. She later reached out to the book’s publisher, which retracted the section after finding that Vines hadn’t “accurately” described what happened, according to news reports.

Weeks after Thigpen says she told Vines about the alleged attack, Vines, Gilyard and Patterson each preached again at the SBC’s 1991 pastors’ conference. Soon after, Gilyard was called to a meeting near his Dallas church, where Simpkins, Dixius and others confronted him with a half-decade of allegations. His mentors were not there, and Gilyard appeared nervous as he was told why there was a video camera pointed toward him.

“The tape is being done because Dr. Vines would like to be in on this meeting, and Dr. Patterson would like to be in on this meeting, I’m sure,” said Keith Eitel, a Criswell professor at the time who worked for Patterson until recently. “I haven’t spoken with (Patterson) regarding that, but I know Dr. Vines would like to see the tape and he told me he would appreciate having one sent to him.”

As the meeting continued, Gilyard repeatedly said that none of the allegations are new.

“Every single incident that was discussed today has been discussed before,” he said at one point. “For every one of these women, I could show you 12 more” women who pursued him sexually, he said at another.

The tape also indicates that Gilyard had planned to resign long before he was confronted. Months earlier, he had said as much to Victory members, and on the tapes he defended that decision by saying that preaching was never his calling — he much preferred traveling the country, establishing churches on behalf of the SBC and then leaving for a new city every few months, he said.

Forgived in Florida

A month after that confrontation, Gilyard resigned with Patterson at his side. Gilyard promised to stay out of the pulpit while he sought professional help.

He started a new church not affiliated with the SBC near Dallas days later. Gilyard remained there until 1993, when he abruptly left for Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church, a non-SBC congregation that’s near Vines’ church in Jacksonville. There, he was active in the singles ministry and conducted monthly meetings with teenage girls from the youth group while his wife met with the boys, according to archives of Shiloh’s website.

Darrell Gilyard

Court records show that, in 1996, the church’s insurer paid $300,000 to a “person or persons” accusing Gilyard of sexual misconduct. And in 2008, he was named in a civil lawsuit by a woman who alleged that he raped and impregnated her during counseling after the sudden death of her husband. Gilyard denied the claims in the lawsuit, which was settled and voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff after mediation. He was confirmed as the father of the woman’s child in a separate paternity case.

Vines kept a distance from Gilyard until around 2003, when Gilyard admitted to his “moral failings,” according to Vines’ autobiography. “He assured me he had been clean since coming back to Jacksonville,” Vines wrote. “I had no other option but to forgive him.”

Despite writing that Gilyard should be barred from ministry, Vines soon rekindled his relationship with his former protégé: He preached at least twice at Shiloh, and Vines’ son, Jon, was also married at Gilyard’s church in a 2005 ceremony that Gilyard officiated, according to their marriage certificate.

Gilyard also served with leaders of First Baptist on a community police task force that worked with children, preached at a national evangelism conference that featured former SBC President James Merritt and Ergun Caner, a close Patterson ally, and was invited to speak at Liberty University, which was headed by Falwell, Vines’ close friend.

Then, in 2008, Vines wrote that he received “the first sign that I had been misled” when Gilyard called him. Soon after, Gilyard was charged with molesting one teenage girl and sending lewd texts to another.

Julie Schlax was one of the early prosecutors on Gilyard’s case, though she left before its completion. She said in an interview she was never told about the 1991 videotapes.

Even if the claims from 1991 weren’t criminal, Schlax said, any piece of evidence that showed a pattern of aggressive behavior from Gilyard could have been valuable. It might have persuaded more victims to come forward and could have affected the willingness of prosecutors to have his two teenage victims — who Schlax said were terrified — testify in the case.

Gilyard ultimately received a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to both charges. After his release in 2012, he was able to serve as pastor of an SBC church in Jacksonville because a judge altered his probation terms. The local Southern Baptist association eventually disassociated with the church after it was reported that children were barred from attending services there so that Gilyard would not be in violation of his parole terms.

Thigpen, meanwhile, says her faith in God has never wavered, but she is less trusting of church leaders such as Vines, whom she blames for worsening her trauma.

“There may not have been as many victims if I hadn’t allowed (Vines) to silence me,” she said.

In February, after the Chronicle’s first report, she received what she says was the first real show of support from her former church when its new pastor, Heath Lambert, called her and her family.

Thigpen said Vines has yet to reach out. After 28 years of near-silence, she’s lost faith that he ever will.

HAVE INFORMATION? Help us investigate Southern Baptist sexual abuse

READ THE SERIES:

Part 1: Southern Baptist sexual abuse spreads as leaders reject reforms

Part 2: Southern Baptist churches hired ministers accused of past sex offenses

Part 3: All too often, Southern Baptist youth pastors take advantage of children

Part 4: Missionaries left trail of abuse, but leaders stayed quiet

Part 5: Southern Baptist churches harbored sex offenders

Part 6: Survivors of Baptist sexual abuse come forward to help others

Robert Downen covers City Hall for the Houston Chronicle's metro desk. Prior to that, he worked as a business reporter in Albany, New York, and as the managing editor of a group of six newspapers in Illinois. He is a 2014 graduate of Eastern Illinois University. Follow him on Twitter @RobDownenChron and reach him by email at robert.downen@chron.com.

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