Baptist News Global: Pressler's Death Brings Overwhelming Sadness
Baptist News Global: Paul Pressler Died and the SBC Said Nothing
Baptist News Global: What the SBC Should Do About its Most Famous Accused Sexual Abuser
One of the single most effective influences in the entire history of the Southern Baptist Convention, dating back to its origins in 1845, is Paul Pressler. Pressler was an attorney, a former Texas Appeals Court judge, a Republican party influencer, mover and shaker, a Sunday school teacher and at different times, member of two of the largest Southern Baptist churches in Houston, Texas. He is one of the two men known as the "architects of the Conservative Resurgence," a movement which started in 1979, and which aimed to gain complete control of every committee and board seat in the denomination, in order to effectively fend off a "liberal drift" in the denomination, particularly in its six seminaries, and enforce more conservative, fundamentalist-friendly interpretations of the Bible.
Though outside of the Southern Baptist denomination, Pressler's name is not all that well known, he was probably one of the most influential figures in the movement to align Evangelical Christians with Republican party politics. His role in the Conservative Resurgence included getting the Southern Baptist Convention out of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and completely revamping its public affairs commission, turning it into the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and securing the appointment of Richard Land, a Bush political ally, as its executive director.
Pressler, along with fellow resurgence "architect" Dr. Paige Patterson, who was a protege of Dallas pastor and SBC power broker W. A. Criswell, and the President of Criswell College in Dallas, made the claim that "liberalism" had taken over the seminaries of the denomination, and needed to be purged by making sure the trustee boards were made up of theological conservatives who would fire those not aligned with the approved doctrine, even though Southern Baptists had never demanded strict doctrinal accountability in ministry cooperation. Acccording to Marv Knox, former editor of the Texas Baptist Standard, the work of these two men "split the Southern Baptist Convention and decimated the ministries of countless seminary professors, denominational workers, and pastors." In the history of the Southern Baptist Convention, Paul Pressler will go down as one the most polarizing figures in the denomination.
A Strange and Very Dark Turn of Events
Pressler died in Houston on June 7th. The Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana June 11th and 12th made no mention of his passing, held no vigil or memorial, and no one eulogized and lauded this man's achievements in turning the Southern Baptist Convention into a far right wing, ultra-conservative, fundamentalist denomination and right wing Republican political action committee.
How did it happen, for someone who was one of the most visible figures in the Southern Baptist Convention for over five decades, one of the men who helped push the liberals and moderates out of the denomination, helping it turn decidedly and staunchly conservative, and almost singlehandedly linked it to conservative, political Republicanism, that there was not even a mention of his death, much less any public tribute or acknowledgement for his helping bring about one of the single most celebrated movements in Southern Baptist history, the Conservative Resurgence?
During all of the time he worked as a conservative reformer, as the result of legal settlements (including one which named the SBC Executive Committee), credible accusations surfaced of his sexual abuse of boys and young men. The abuse started two years before he became one of the two architects of the Conservative Resurgence, when he was alleged to have abused and raped a 14 year old who was a member of the youth ministry he led in a large, Houston church. Though he faced no criminal charges because of statutes of limitations, he eventually settled a lawsuit brought by this accuser, Duane Rollins.
Ultimately, the list of his victims grew to include others involved in church youth ministry where he served, along with interns and male employees of his law firm who who were assigned to do their work at Pressler's office in his Houston home. The details of the law suits and the abuse that is known to have occurred is referenced in the links at the top of this article.
One of the two Southern Baptist Churches in which he held membership, First Baptist Church of Houston, actually sent a letter to him asking him to resign from all of his church offices and positions, based on allegations from a victim within the church which they had verified. The letter also warned him that if such accusations became public knowledge, it could discredit the cause which he was promoting, namely the Conservative Resurgence. There's no explanation of why the church leadership, which was, at the time, deeply involved in and supportive of the Resurgence, did not take the step of informing Southern Baptist leadership of these allegations which were credible enough to cause them to ask him to step out of all of his church leadership positions.
But then, who among the Southern Baptist's leaders would have been able to challenge Pressler's power?
Clergy Sexual Abuse is the Southern Baptist Denomination's Modern Sin
About six years ago, the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express News published an expose based on information they had received, mostly from victims, that there were a number of sexual abuse cases that had been adjudicated against pastors and other church leaders in Southern Baptist churches. What the investigation uncovered was that pastors or other church leaders, such as youth directors or worship leaders, had committed abuse in one church, and had simply left there to go serve in another church that was unaware of the abuse.
Subsequently, an internal investigation, conducted by an outside investigating firm, was demanded by the delegates, known as "messengers," attending one of the annual meetings. That investigation uncovered the fact that multiple abuse cases, reported by victims, including directly to the excutive committee itself, were simply filed away and nothing was done. There was no system in place to handle such cases, because of the denomination's polity in which each church is independent and autonomous and no denominational authority exists which could force perpetrators out of the church positions they hold. That's a dark cloud that's been hanging over the Southern Baptist Convention for at least six years now.
This puts their religious and political conservativism into perspective, doesn't it?
What is tragic about this whole thing, which drips with arrogant hypocrisy, is that both of the "architects of the Conservative Resurgence in the SBC" have been stained and discredited by the sexual abuse scandal. Paige Patterson failed to properly handle and report cases of sexual abuse at both of the seminaries where he served as president, Southeastern in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and Southwestern in Fort Worth, Texas. And Pressler, as it turns out, was himself an abuser of male victims. In all fairness, one of his friends who wrote one of the linked articles above, pointed out that before his death, restitution was made to all of his victims. For whatever that's worth.
So the two most revered leaders of the conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention, whose current leaders cannot yet bring themselves to completely disavow either of them, and whose response is not anger over their misconduct, or even an attempt to undo the damage that has been done, turn out to be purveyors of the denomination's ongoing failure to deal with sin in its camp. Their response is silence, to protect their resources and reputation, and silence so as not to lose the votes of conservative Evangelicals for Trump, who has been convicted on 34 felony counts involving another grievous sexual sin.
What It Will Take To Restore Credibility
Until the Southern Baptist Convention effectively acknowledges the seriousness of the sexual abuse problem among their church leadership, entity leadership and in their churches, and lays out effective, workable plans to deal with it in the context of their "independent and autonomous" churches, it has no credibility as a Christian denomination. And as far as this author is concerned, this abominable hypocrisy totally and completely undermines the entire platform of Evangelical-influenced, Republican politics.
Incidents like this need to be at the forefront of the political messaging that people hear and see. Trump grabs women by the genitals, has multiple affairs on his wives, sleeps with a porn star, gets charged and convicted of 34 felonies regarding the illegal business dealings surrounding his attempt to cover that up, and he's still a candidate for the Presidency. His most vocally supportive constituency is embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal in a Christian denomination that involved it's leaders at the highest level, in both homosexuality and in sexual abuse of women.
Southern Baptists must own up to the damage that was done by its "architects of the Conservative Resurgence," and be honest about their failures. There will be a cost attached to that, in that those within the denominational leadership and on its committees and boards who supported the resurgence leaders and enabled their lack of accountability will have to step away from denominational politics.
As far as the Republican party goes, the only absolution they should receive will occur when they force Trump out and nominate someone else for the Presidency.
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