Matt Queen, the former interim provost at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, is now an associate pastor at a Southern Baptist church 30 miles away.
Now listed as associate pastor of Plymouth Park Baptist Church in Irving, Queen, 50, is responsible for ministry to shut-ins and developing evangelism strategies.
Queen pleaded guilty as part of a federal investigation into a 2022 case where a student at Southwestern’s four-year undergraduate Texas Baptist College was accused of sexual assault.
It later emerged that Teri Stovall, dean of women at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS), had prepared a document recounting the allegation. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which investigated sexual abuse throughout the SBC, alleged Heath Woolman, then-SWBTS chief of staff, told Stovall in January 2023 to make her document “go away.”
Queen was accused of falsifying records and providing false information to law enforcement. Federal officials said Queen had first said he did not hear Woolman tell Stovall to make the document disappear, then changed his story. They alleged Queen created fake documentation to support his claims, as TRR previously reported, but without naming Stovall and Woolman.
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Matt Queen preaches at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo Courtesy of Baptist Press)
In alleging the document fakery, federal officials said Queen tried to mislead investigators.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at the time, “As alleged, Matthew Queen attempted to interfere with a federal grand jury investigation by creating false notes in an attempt to corroborate his own lies. The criminal obstruction charge announced today should exemplify the seriousness of attempts by any individual to manipulate or interfere with a federal investigation.”
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge James Smith added: “Matthew Queen, an interim Provost, allegedly failed to inform the FBI of a conspiracy to destroy evidence related to the ongoing investigation of sexual misconduct and instead produced falsified notes to investigators. Queen’s alleged actions deliberately violated a court order and delayed justice for the sexual abuse victims.”
Queen was charged with obstruction of justice in the matter, though that was later dropped. He admitted to lying to the FBI about dates related to the case.
Matt Henslee (Photo: Facebook)
Apart from a one-time sermon during the hiring process, Queen is not on the preaching schedule, senior pastor Matt Henslee told The Roys Report (TRR). He said Queen is still on a path of “restoration” for his crime of lying, which the senior pastor said was also a sin.
“I don’t really have a timetable for when he would preach or teach,” Henslee said in a telephone interview. “I’m kind of selfish when it comes to that, to be honest, but I would not anticipate him preaching or teaching before all of those aforementioned parties (in congregational leadership) would agree he is ready, that he is emotionally ready, he’s spiritually ready, that he’s been restored, that he sought reconciliation and so forth.”
Henslee said that while he recommended Queen to congregational leaders, he removed himself from the hiring process. He said Queen was a mentor during his (Henslee’s) doctoral program and helped him during a suicide attempt “about 10 years ago.”
Plymouth Park trustees and legal counsel, Henslee said, “perused every single page of those court documents” as part of the process. They also interviewed Queen via Zoom for two and one-half hours about the matter.
He said all the questions leaders had were satisfied and the congregation ultimately decided to move ahead with the hiring.
Despite a rather subdued role at the 400-member church, Queen’s hiring has sparked a backlash in some quarters, and silence in others.
David Baumgardner, a graduate of Texas Baptist College who said he knew Queen from the school, told TRR that Queen’s guilty plea and conviction on the lying charge was not just a matter of mixing up dates related to a document.
“Even though Matt Queen, some would say, was convicted on a technicality . . . the context in which his charge occurred is such that he should not be trusted at an academic institution or in local church ministry,” Baumgardner said. “You’re going to knowingly hire someone who is admitted to lying to the FBI while they were in the middle of a probe over sexual abuse. I certainly wouldn’t want a guy like that on my pastoral staff, and it really is as simple as that.”
Plymouth Park Baptist Church in Irving, Texas. (Photo via social media)
The judge who sentenced Queen in the case appears to have agreed. Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, excoriated the Baptist educator during sentencing.
“This is a crime in which you falsified evidence, you lied about the evidence, you lied about facts other than the creation of the phony evidence, and you did it over a period of months, and you did one or the other of these things several times,” said Kaplan.
“It wasn’t a mistake. It was a plan. And you carried it out until it became clear to you that it was simply not going to fly,” Kaplan added. “Far be it for me to invoke the Ten Commandments, but you know which one I’m talking about.”
Queen served six months of home confinement, which ended in September before he was formally hired by Plymouth Park. Baumgardner said Queen had to get court permission to go to the church for the preaching appointment.
Henslee, for his part, says Plymouth Park is a church that believes in helping those seeking renewal after personal failure.
“We regularly preach at our church a message of restoration; a message of reconciliation that we serve of a God, not of second chances, but of another chance,” he said. “We believe that in this case, Matt (Queen) is in need of another chance, because he’s repented, he’s shown remorse, and he’s ready to fulfill his calling as an evangelist and an equipper of the saints and so God is kind of giving us a chance to live out what we’ve been preaching.”
Mark A. Kellner is a reporter based in Mesquite, Nevada. He most recently covered statewide elections for the New York Post and was for three years the Faith & Family Reporter for The Washington Times. Mark is a graduate of the University of the Cumberlands and also attended Boston University’s College of Communication.