Paul Pressler, a former Houston appeals court judge who spent decades helping conservatives take control of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, only became an embarrassment to its leaders after seven people accused him of sexual harassment. June 7 He was 94 years old.
His death was not publicly announced. This was first reported on Saturday by Christian news outlet Baptist News Global. This was confirmed by Dignity Memorial, a chain of funeral homes, which did not say where he died.
Judge Pressler died four days before the Southern Baptist Convention held its annual meeting in Indianapolis, where nothing was said about the death, Baptist News Global reported.
Judge Pressler was instrumental in building an internal grass roots movement that in recent decades has moved the denomination to a more conservative theological and social position than it held in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. These include opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, banning women from being head pastors and interpreting the Bible literally.
Shocked by the liberal theology he found in the churches during his boarding school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and later at Princeton University, Judge Pressler, as he wrote in his autobiography, spent the rest of his life trying to destroy Christian teachings that he considered the Bible to be unsupported. He uses the word liberal to describe the belief that the Bible can contain errors, while he believes that a conservative is someone who believes that the Bible was written by God, without error.
In 1967, he was introduced to Paige Patterson, a fellow Southern Baptist, and they met over hot chocolate and beignets in a New Orleans cafe, where they continued to talk past midnight. They continued to work together for years to build a coalition of conservative Baptists. Judge Pressler acted as a political operative while Mr. Patterson, a seminarian, appeared as a theologian.
From 1979 and for several years afterwards, the coalition succeeded in electing a candidate for the presidency of the convention. The president will then select other key leaders, who will nominate trustees, all with the goal of reforming the seminary and other Southern Baptist organizations.
“I have described Paul Pressler as the Steve Bannon of the Southern Baptist Convention,” said Mark Wingfield, publisher of Baptist News Global, in an interview. “The tactics used in the SBC are political tactics that work, and they work at the national level. It’s the playbook for the Republican Party.
From the 1970s to the 90s, Southern Baptists tended to split into two factions: “conservatives” and “moderates.” Conservatives describe the job as a “conservative revival,” while moderates see it as a fundamentalist takeover.
Newly elected conservatives are known to drive people to conventions to vote for their candidates. While the annual meetings of the faithful used to attract 15,000 to 20,000 “messengers”, or delegates, the one in 1985, in Dallas, attracted more than 40,000. Many moderates left the convention in 1990 to form the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Known for his influence outside the Southern Baptist Convention, Judge Pressler was a founding member of the secretive National Policy Council, a networking organization for political conservatives. The group attracts evangelical leaders and donors and often meets with Republican presidential candidates, including George W. Bush.
In 1989, Judge Pressler was President George HW Bush’s choice to head the Office of Government Ethics. But he was removed from consideration after the Federal Bureau of Investigation, conducting a routine background check, found what it described only as an “ethical issue.” (Officials did not elaborate on the FBI’s findings except to say that there were no allegations of crime or financial wrongdoing.) Mr. Pressler continues to serve on Mr. Bush’s Drug Advisory Committee.
Allegations of abuse first became public in 2004, when a man named Duane Rollins accused Judge Pressler of sexual assault. in a Dallas hotel room in 2003. Mr. Rollins said Judge Pressler had been threatened with death if he came forward, according to The Texas Tribune. Judge Pressler quietly settled the suit for $450,000 in mediation that also included a confidentiality agreement.
The 2004 settlement became public in 2017, when Mr. Rollins filed another lawsuit, this one accusing Judge Pressler of decades of rape, beginning when Mr. Rollins was a 14-year-old member of the judge’s church youth group in Houston.
The allegations are being investigated by denominational officials as part of a larger investigation into how the Southern Baptist Convention has mishandled sex abuse cases in the past. The settlement, which was also named in the 2017 lawsuit, was settled with Mr. Rollins out of court for an undisclosed amount in 2023.
As of 2024, Judge Pressler has accused at least seven people of sexual abuse or sexual misconduct, according to The Texas Tribune. He was never charged with a crime and denied any wrongdoing, but the allegations caused congressional lawyer Gene Besen to express his anger, writing on the social media site X this year that Judge Pressler is “a dangerous predator who exploits boys based on his power and false piety.” He added, “Man’s actions are of the devil.”
When the allegations surfaced, Southern Baptist leaders removed Judge Pressler, but few denounced him publicly. The muted response reflects the challenge he faces: How to express his revulsion at the accusations while finding a way to celebrate what Judge Pressler took through conservative revivalism, said Nathan Finn, a Southern Baptist historian who cataloged Judge Pressler’s papers in Southeastern Baptist Theology. Seminary in North Carolina.
“I’m not sure there would be a conservative resurgence if he wasn’t there to channel it into the movement,” said Mr. Finn, provost at North Greenville University in South Carolina. “You need at least one person in the room who is a strategic thinker who understands grassroots movements.”
But Mr. Finn said the question remains about whether the leadership of the convention understands Judge Pressler’s dark side.
“Is there a rumor? Are there any red flags?” said. “When will people find out? I was surprised.”
Herman Paul Pressler III was born in Houston on June 4, 1930, to Herman P. Pressler Jr., who was vice president of Exxon Mobil, and Elsie Pressler, who was active in community organizations and helped found her family’s Baptist church.
He went to Phillips Exeter at age 16 and earned a bachelor’s degree in government at Princeton in 1952. As a freshman, he met the dean of Princeton’s chapel, who invited him for cocktails. He wrote in his 1999 autobiography, “A Hill on Which to Die,” that he was shocked that a pastor would drink alcohol.
After graduating from Princeton, the Navy ROTC was assigned as an ensign at the Naval Academy in Bayonne, NJ. great-grandfather of Judge John C. Townes. Judge Pressler served as a Democrat in the Texas House of Representatives from 1957-1959.
In 1959, he married Nancy Avery, who had just graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts and expressed concern about the liberalism of the churches she attended.
In Houston, he was a district judge from 1970 to 1978 and served on the Texas 14th Circuit Court of Appeals from 1979 to 1992, when he retired and returned to private practice. He changed his party affiliation to Republican in 1982.
Judge Pressler’s survivors include his wife; two daughters, Jean Pressler Visy and Anne Pressler Csorba; son, Herman Paul Pressler IV; his brother, Townes Garrett Pressler; seven grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
During the 25th anniversary celebration of the conservative revival at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2004, Judge Pressler spoke about the movement’s success in the Civil War. “It’s like Gettysburg but this time, the right won,” he said with a laugh.
His views upset some, including Dwight McKissic, a Black Baptist pastor in Arlington, Texas.
“I thought he had a philosophical belief in the inerrancy of scripture,” Mr. McKissic said. “In hindsight, is it a cloak to control women, a cloak to control racial inclusion, a cloak to combine political conservatism with theological conservatism? We have a problem at the root.”
