I don’t know if Paige Patterson is a fan of poet Dylan Thomas. But he seems to be taking to heart Thomas’ admonition not to “go gentle into that good night.”

Patterson, the “theo” half of the theo-political takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s, has been fired from the presidency of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, at one time the world’s largest preacher prep academy –now shrunken to one-third of its student full time equivalent of 1979, the year the Pressler-Patterson combine achieved its goal to elect a fundamentalist SBC president.

Pressler was the “political” half of the theo-political maneuvering. A Texas judge whose membership was nominally at Second Baptist Church of Houston for purposes of identity with the SBC, Pressler teamed with Patterson in symbiosis until their names were seldom spoken in isolation one from the other. Any reference to the leaders of the internecine war they incited was always “Pressler-Patterson” or “Patterson-Pressler,” as if one was the given name and the second was the family name.

And now their names are linked again in ignominy, to which the victims of their outrageous acts can only shake their heads. Victims’ intense emotions already are burned out, leaving the ash of acknowledgement that others finally see what they’ve seen for decades.

For most of those they despoiled by casting aspersions – killing careers, plummeting godly servants into poverty, denying them their calling because they refused to use certain words to describe the Bible or because they were denominational employees and therefore suspect or because their genitalia was innie instead of outie – I suspect the rage, anger, revenge, frustration, fear and disgust that once might have roiled their guts have simply, and thankfully, dissipated over time.

And now Pressler is fighting charges in court about his long rumored and finally charged predilection for the company of young men. And Patterson has been cut loose from the seminary position he coveted even while leading a different seminary. His cronies orchestrated the departure of a fine man at Southwestern just to make a place for him. Ironically, that ousted president, Ken Hemphill, is one of two candidates being considered as the next SBC president.

Although both men are so ego centric it’s unlikely they’ll ever make this connection, dozens, if not hundreds, of people around the globe in the past few days have nodded, with maybe a hint of justifiable satisfaction, and thought, “Now they know how it feels.”

Patterson feels like he’s been done wrong, and his lawyer has issued statements that indicate Patterson is not going to go quietly into the good night of his good riddance. And he is still scheduled to bring the annual sermon at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting at 9:55 a.m. June 13.

He’s not clueless. He knows that when he steps up behind the pulpit in the grand convention hall, messengers (delegates) will shift and squirm uncomfortably in their seats as they consider whether to applaud his audacity, or whether to walk out. (Update: Citing requests from SBC president Steve Gaines and other SBC leaders, Patterson has decided not to preach the convention sermon.)

The residue of the Pressler-Patterson “battle for the Bible” continues to coat the SBC like acid rain. As predicted by those outside the shrinking circle drawn by the Pressler-Patterson coalition, all the measureable indicators of denominational health are down since their ilk waved the Bible aloft and declared that anyone who didn’t use their terms to describe it were anathema.

When questioned about that irony, current leaderships’ response is, “But think how bad it would have been if we hadn’t done it.”

How bad, indeed, as even their primary flag waver, Al Mohler, president of the oldest SBC seminary, has declared: “Judgment has now come to the house of the Southern Baptist Convention.”

There is no satisfaction here. Full disclosure, I am one of those whose motives and faith and certainly “loyalty” was questioned, who was eased out from a job and calling which I did well and for which God prepared me my entire career. In fact, I was told by a state convention administrator in the midst of my wondering why I received no cooperation from his office, “You were set up to fail.”

Instead, what remains for me is a feeling similar to that which gurgles through my veins when I drive down County B in Wisconsin past the old farm where I grew up. When I lived there, we kept the buildings painted, the grass mowed and edged, the driveway graded. The current owners do none of that and to see the pending collapse in that disrepair leaves my heart sore.

Atop the barn was a cupola with a weather vane, that swung with the wind and told us from which way a storm was approaching.

Now even that is gone.