Who was Sam Patterson? He was a thoroughly dedicated servant of Christ. His primary concern was evangelism, but he knew that evangelism must be built on a foundation of correct doctrine; he knew that he did not have the gifts to be a seminary professor, but he also believed that knowledgeable seminary professors were necessary to ground divinity students in biblical and confessional doctrine.

Review of: Rebecca Barnes Hobbs, How Big is Your God? The Spiritual Legacy of Sam Patterson, Evangelist, 2010. The book is published jointly by Reformed Theological Seminary and French Camp Academy. I purchased my copy from the seminary campus in Oviedo, Florida (Orlando area).

My only acquaintance with the man named Sam Patterson was an occasional mention of him in my church during my high school years. Before reading this book all I knew about Rev. Patterson was that he was in some way connected with Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship (PEF). Having read Rebecca Barnes Hobbs’s book, I now know that he was important not only to PEF, but also to French Camp Academy, Reformed Theological Seminary, and to a lesser degree, African Bible Colleges. He lived a full and rich life of Presbyterian ministry, not without its eras of controversy and trials.

The book is a joint publication of Reformed Theological Seminary and French Camp Academy. The cloth binding is decorated and protected by a full color dust jacket adorned with a portrait of Rev. Patterson. Bound attractively and durably, the book is a quality publication not seen so often in our age of “on demand printing.”

The biography itself is 414 pages in length, followed by a nearly one hundred page appendix of several primary source documents transcribed by the author. Gratefully, the publishers did not succumb to the current publishing fad of little or no source documentation, but have instead provided full endnotes following the lengthy appendix section. The book concludes with both a subject and Bible passage index. I particularly enjoyed the section of photographs inserted between pages 284 and 285. One image shows an early meeting of the faculty and board of Reformed Seminary, unfortunately the only face I recognized, other than Rev. Patterson, was a very young O. Palmer Robertson.

There are several aspects of the book that could be mentioned in this review, but I will limit my emphasis to one of particular interest to me, the founding of Reformed Theological Seminary. My first acquaintance with Reformed Seminary came at my church through my youth minister who was an alumnus, Tim Fortner. He was in the first graduating class and he often mentioned his educational experience at Reformed. However, I did not know much about the seminary history until I read the material provided by Mrs. Hobbs (185-284).

Sam Patterson became particularly concerned in the early 1960s about what was being taught to students in the denominational seminaries regarding the infallibility of Scripture. The gist of their teaching was simple—an infallible Bible is not necessary; what is necessary is that the Bible be sufficiently reliable to convey the central truths of Christianity. Needless to say, Patterson, and others, had some problems with this line of thinking. Rev. Patterson believed it was time to start a seminary independent of the governance of his denomination that would base its curriculum on the infallible Word. Thus, the idea for Reformed Theological Seminary was born.

Realizing that he did not have the theological expertise necessary for setting-up a seminary and teaching its classes, he turned to an initially reluctant Morton Smith, who was a lecturer at Westminster Theological Seminary at the time, to organize the curriculum and assemble the personnel. Eventually, it was Dr. Smith who provided the impetus to establish the seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. Initially, Sam Patterson wanted to keep the institution on the remote French Camp campus, but the advantages of the move won out.

Following a brief period on the French Camp campus as the Reformed Theological Institute, the newly named Reformed Theological Seminary opened in Jackson, Mississippi in September 1966. Sam Patterson left his position as president of French Camp to become president of Reformed. When the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) was established in 1973 differences of opinions about the PCA developed at the seminary resulting in some faculty and students joining with the new denomination while others remained with the Presbyterian Church, U.S. (PCUS). For such a young seminary, it was a particularly difficult time.

The founding of Reformed in the South had followed the founding of Westminster Theological Seminary in the North by thirty seven years. Events on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line had unfolded around the doctrine of Scripture. For both institutions, the crucial issue had been the doctrine of Scripture. Where J. Gresham Machen’s main thrust for defending the infallibility of the Bible was its supernatural nature as he defended the virgin birth and other miracles, Sam Patterson was concerned for the infallibility of Scripture because the entire Bible is necessary. In the North, the impetus came from a seminary professor in the midst of Presbyterian academia; in the South, the motivating force was a Presbyterian pastor/evangelist laboring in an academy for children from troubled homes.

The book enjoys the benefit of near flawless copy and none of the distractions of spell and grammar check errors. For the author, the book is an obvious labor of love that is exemplified in many rounds of editing and jot-and-tittle perfecting. A survey of the endnotes shows that Mrs. Hobbs spent many hours in archives reading correspondence, church judicatory minutes and documents, manuscript sermons, magazines, scraps of paper, and local newspapers as she pieced together the life of Sam Patterson.

I particularly like the way the book begins as it grabs the reader’s attention. The narrative commences with the subject in his thirteenth years, which causes the reader to think, “What happened to years zero through twelve,” but Mrs. Hobbs addresses those years via flashback in later pages. The details provided in the book are manifold, but I think the presentation of the book might have been enhanced by summarizing some of the details in a sentence or two or moving them to the endnotes.

So, who was Sam Patterson? According to the account provided by Rebecca Barnes Hobbs, he was a thoroughly dedicated servant of Christ. He was a churchman not only as a teaching elder participating in its courts, but a churchman concerned that the PCUS—he did not leave his denomination when the PCA was founded—have an influence among its members that proclaimed the infallible Word of God. His primary concern was evangelism, but he knew that evangelism must be built on a foundation of correct doctrine; he knew that he did not have the gifts to be a seminary professor, but he also believed that knowledgeable seminary professors were necessary to ground divinity students in biblical and confessional doctrine.

Mrs. Hobbs mentions that Rev. Patterson was always available for prayer with students at Reformed Seminary and that his life was marked by prayer and devotion to his charge. One aspect of his life that was particularly convicting to me is his total indifference to, even contempt for worldly goods. Whenever I read or hear the call to a minister in the Book of Church Order, I often think it presumptuous to say that a financial call will make a minister “free from worldly cares” (PCA Book of Church Order, 20-6). It seems that Rev. Patterson was “free from worldly cares” because he had no worldly goods and could not have cared less about having any. The monastics deny themselves the comforts of this world to earn heavenly rewards; Sam Patterson denied himself earthly pleasures to give heavenly rewards to others through the free gospel of Christ.

I would not want my minor quibbles to dissuade anyone from reading this book. I found it a well done book and an enjoyable narrative of the life of Rev. Patterson. I think that Presbyterians in Mississippi would be particularly interested in its content because most of it is set in Jackson and French Camp. A remarkable amount of work has been put into the writing of the book and there are information and lessons for all readers.

Dr. Barry Waugh is a member of Second Presbyterian Church in Greenville, S.C. (PCA). He received his MDiv and PhD from Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. He has written articles and reviews for the Westminster Theological Journal and The Confessional Presbyterian. He is the author of Westminster Lives: Eight Decades of Alumni in Ministry for the seminary’s 80th anniversary.