Adam Greenway, former president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, is threatening to sue the school and is demanding $5 million, according to a report released Tuesday (Oct. 17) in The Tennessean. Greenway is claiming “publicly disclosed details about spending” at the school when he was president “humiliated” has “harmed his job prospects.”
Greenway served as president from 2019 until stepping down in September 2022. Following his full resignation in February of 2023, after he and SWBTS reportedly reached a confidential agreement, a task force investigated spending during Greenway’s tenure with the results being published in June 2023.
RELATED: Check out more coverage related to Greenway and SWBTS here.
The task force concluded that Greenway “engaged in a pattern of spending that the task force believes did not reflect proper stewardship of seminary resources. This pattern of spending occurred without deference to financial controls and seminary financial policies.”
Among the findings, the summary noted $1.5 million spent on renovations to the president’s home and more than $500,000 for renovations and furniture in the president’s office. Greenway refuted findings in the report and the “framing” of the expenditures as “grossly inflated and false.”
“The framing of these expenditures as unauthorized and lavish personal gain undertaken by Dr. Greenway is an assertion of financial impropriety on par with embezzlement,” Greenway attorney Andrew Jones responded in the Sept. 25 letter to Southwestern, The Tennessean reported.
SWBTS responds to Greenway’s demand
Jonathan Richard, chairman of Southwestern Seminary board of trustees, released a statement in response to Greenway’s demand:
“The demand letter from Adam Greenway is baseless and incredibly disappointing, especially given his professed love for this institution. Over the past year, we have continued to pray for Dr. Greenway’s spiritual, mental, and emotional well-being as we have worked towards an amicable resolution, which we had every reason to believe had been achieved with the agreement signed in February of this year. As stewards of precious institutional resources, we cannot in good conscience capitulate to his absurd demand for $5 million. Our focus remains on confronting the financial challenges facing Southwestern, which would only be compounded by agreeing to his demand.
“In our response, we invited Dr. Greenway and his lawyer to review all receipts related to expenses on the President’s Home. That offer stands.”
The Baptist Paper is seeking to contact Greenway for a response and confirm how The Tennessean accessed the letter with Greenway’s demands.
