For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Jude, V. 4, NRSV
I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, a small congregation in a small town outside the deep South, but with a membership made up of transplanted Texans, Tennesseeans, Virginians, Mississippians and Alabamans who had relocated there as a result of their jobs. A nearby military base brought about half the congregation there. A Mississippi-based construction company that built high intensity, long distance power lines and the Texas-based El Paso Natural Gas company were other employers that accounted for the other half.
My parents were transplants, too, from West Virginia, and though my Dad had been raised in a Christian Church affiliated with a denomination known as the Disciples of Christ, and my Mom had grown up in a Methodist church, they were drop-outs by the time they got married and moved to this small town in Arizona. They were attracted to this particular church by the pastor at the time, who was a co-worker with my Dad at the military base. So it was that through my elementary and high school years, I found myself in Sunday School and worship service most every Sunday. As part of that experience, I made the necessary "walk down the aisle" when I was seven years old, and, in the church vernacular, "accepted Jesus in my heart," and was baptized by immersion with two or three other children.
By the time I got to college, I had more or less determined that what my Sunday School teachers had taught, and what the succession of bi-vocational pastors preached, was a combination of a literal, verse-by-verse interpretation of the Bible combined with a dose of Dixieland superstitions and cultural customs, and some Appalachian fold religion.
But the university I attended was also affiliated with the state group of Southern Baptists, and the required Bible courses in Old and New Testament history that I took completely changed my impression of Christian faith. I discovered that the Christian gospel had a very systematic theology that emphasized spiritual transformation exhibited not in some kind of nebulous intellectual assent to a set of doctrines, but in a lifestyle of principles and values intended to make a difference not only in my own life, but in the lives of those whom I was commanded to love because they were my neighbor.
So as a result of this renewed interest, along with majors in history and English, for the purpose of teaching in secondary education, I minored in Biblical studies. And it was while I was in graduate school, in a Southern Baptist-affiliated university, that I first heard the names Dr. Paige Patterson and Judge Paul Pressler.
The Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention has always been an oligarchy controlled by a small, elite group of pastors, mainly of large, influential churches. It claims to be organized on democratic principles, but the fact of the matter is that only about 10% of its churches, in any given year, elect "messengers," which is what they call delegates to the convention. And those who understand that involvement in denominational politics not only carries prestige, but power within the denomination, and opens a pathway to getting the necessary recommendations and influence needed to grab off the high dollar administrative jobs at the mission boards, seminaries and the Executive Committee agencies.
Being a denomination with the majority of its churches in the South, and 80% of them being in rural areas or small to mid-sized towns, with an attendance of less than 80 people on any given Sunday means that most of the churches are going to have that folk-religion, supersition and verse by verse, word for word literal interpretation of the Bible. There's an anti-education bias in most churches, who do not trust their seminaries and consider them to be liberal because that kind of systematic study of the Bible emerges with a different result than the hard line literalist, legalistic fundamentalism that prevails.
The anti-education bias combined with the blending of right wing politics with conservative Evangelicalism during Reagan's campaign for President. There were those within the Southern Baptist Convention looking for a way to influence seminary trustee boards to introduce a more fundamentalist theology and doctrine, at the same time there were those looking for ways to hook the nation's largest Evangelical denomination up with the Republican Party.
Enter Patterson and Pressler. Patterson was a protege of Dr. W. A. Criswell, the influential and long time Fundamentalist pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, the SBC's largest church at the time. He was President of the broken down Criswell College, the Bible college owned by the church. Pressler, a member of First Baptist Church of Houston at the time, another large, influential congregation, was a Texas Appeals Court Justice and a Republican party operative.
These two men set out to organize a political campaign within the denomination that had two purposes. On the surface, it was to appear as an attack on liberalism in the seminaries, using the flawed Fundamentalist doctrine of the Inerrancy and Infallibility of the Bible as a means of convincing churches to send messengers to the convention meetings to elect trustees who would be willing to dismiss professors who didn't sign doctrinal statements claiming to believe this flawed doctrine.
However, Pressler's job in this movement, was to connect the Southern Baptist Convention, through its board and executive leadership, with the Republican Party, initially to help get Reagan elected. As a result of their political activity, both of these men secured positions in leadership in the SBC, Patterson as President of two of its six seminaries, Pressler, rotating from committee to committee, trustee board to trustee board and eventually the Executive Committee. Over a ten year period, Patterson succeeded in pushing out the previous leadership, labelled as "moderates," but considered to be "liberals" in the classic sense of the definition of that term, in all six seminaries and on all of the trustee boards, while Pressler helped the SBC become a major influence and supporter of the GOP, and of white, Christian nationalist views.
A Haughty Spirit
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18
As can be discerned from the Texas Monthly article referenced at the top, the allegations against Pressler involved alleged homosexual activity. Initially, there was just one individual whose name was associated with these allegations but apparently, there are allegations involving cases that were settled out of court, involving individuals who came into contact with Pressler in at least two churches, including an independent Presbyterian church in Houston where he had been on staff as a youth pastor.
I would suggest that every person who is concerned about the threat of white Christian nationalism, and the threat to American constitutional democracy posed by the Trump Administration and his fundamentalist, Evangelical allies, including the well-funded Heritage Foundation, read this piece in Texas Monthly. The author of this piece, Robert Downen, worked alongside reporters at the Houston Chronicle on their expose of the sex abuse scandal in the Southern Baptist Convention, called Abuse of Faith, which came out in 2022.
I'm one who insists that the integration of conservative Evangelicalism and Trump extremist right wing politics is a clear indication that most Evangelicalism in this country is a pseudo-Christian cult which has obviously abandoned the core principles of the Christian gospel, which is the lifestyle that is a testimony to authentic faith. And their actions are rooted in a straight, up front, visible denial of what Jesus revealed to us as the first and greatest commandment. And under the new covenant, which Christians believe was revealed in its fullness by Christ himself, leaders are expected to be moral examples.
The fact that this is a heretical intrusion into the church that is leading it into complete apostasy is evidenced by the lack of moral character in its leadership. Pressler is still revered by conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention who once hailed him as one of the "architects of the Conservative Resurgence." There is evidence, including a letter from the deacons of the church where he was a member, indicating that his homosexual lifestyle was known, and he was asked to resign from the positions he held in that church. But aside from a warning that such activity could damage the cause for which he was working, they chose to keep it hidden. The power he wielded, and the "cause" he was promoting were more important to them than the Christian gospel, or their own church and its testimony.
We Need to Know This
No one is perfect.
But, this kind of moral bankruptcy, corruption, secrecy and hypocrisy is characteristic of both the religious right, and its Evangelical supporters, as well as the political right. It needs to be understood, called out, properly and accurately discredited, in order to help people understand that this is not patriotic, it is un-American, and it is anti-Christian.
This all had the effect of completely undermining my trust in almost any pastor or religious leader in the Southern Baptist Convention. I have a few close friends who are still pastors in that denomination, and there are times when I'm not really sure that their motives are pure. I can't trust what I hear from the pulpit, knowing the influence that had to be traded, and the favors that had to be paid in order for that pastor to get into that pulpit. And in spite of everything that has been revealed about both of the men who are still called "the architects of the Conservative Resurgence," there has not been anything that looks like repentance or repudiation of this "intrusion of licentiousness" that has infected the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Even as its membership and attendance rapidly dwindles, there are still those who have been engaged in back slapping, glad handing, good-ole-boy influence peddling to try to get themselves into a prestigious pulpit, and a position of dwindling power on a committee, trustee board or the executive committee. So they are silenced by their own pursuit of power.
And in right wing extremism, it's a trademark.
Where are the Real Christians?
I must admit, it took me a long time to process all of this, and to try and recover some kind of trust in the practice of my Christian faith. I realize that who they are and what they do does not have to affect who I am or what I believe. But it is the bigger part of my own Christian experience, and coming to grips with the fact that I had to step away, leave it behind and find my way back to something I could believe in and trust was not easy. As I look at my own values, principles and beliefs, when asked, I self-identify for others as a Quaker, though I am not able, at the present time, to fellowship with a specific Quaker meeting.
I look with a totally different perspective upon those Christians who are part of the patchwork of denominations and fellowships that make up American Christianity, and realize that those values and principles that we hold in common is a bond that binds us together. Churches that I was once taught were not "Bible believing" or "of like-minded faith and order" I now consider as fellow Christians. And even in those congregations, churches and denominations there is this temptation to power, that seems to be the biggest obstacle to the practice of Christian faith regardless of the label that is worn.
And one of the biggest blessings and gifts we have been given as Americans is Constitutional freedom of conscience in the first amendment. Christian faith is a matter of individual conscience. And when Jefferson and Madison determined that the only way the Christian church could be authentic and free was to be separated from the coercion of the state, they gave the Christian church the ability to be true to the gospel that was revealed by Jesus Christ.
The bulk of Evangelicalism in this country, in its fundamentalist, Pentecostal or Charismatic form, has taken the side of politics with the expectation of using its power to enforce its beliefs, rather than on using the power of God's Holy Spirit and separating itself from the conscience of the state. The article in Texas Monthly is a long one, but I encourage reading all the way through, because it will give those who are committed to resisting the anti-American Trump Administration, and the white, Christian nationalism of the Heritage Foundation, information they need to understand and motivate their actions.
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