Former Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler has died at the age of 94

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers informed of the most essential Texas news.

Paul Pressler, the monumental Southern Baptist leader and Republican activist at the center of a massive sex-abuse scandal, died on June 7. He was 94 years old.

It’s unclear what the cause of Pressler’s death was, but a funeral service was held for him Saturday in Houston. Pressler was one of the most influential, if lesser-known, evangelical figures of the past half-century, co-leading a movement in the Southern Baptist Convention that pushed the nation’s second-largest faith group to adopt literal interpretations of Bible. strongly condemn homosexuality and align more closely with the Republican Party.

His death came barely six months after he confidentially settled a high-profile lawsuit with a former member of his youth group who accused him of decades of rape. As part of the lawsuit, at least six other men came forward alleging they were sexually abused or solicited by Pressler in a string of incidents dating from 1978 to 2016. Pressler denied the allegations and was never criminally charged.

As monumental as Pressler’s legacy was, his death was largely kept quiet until Saturday, when a Baptist media outlet first reported on the memorial service. Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention held its annual meeting, and it doesn’t appear that any leaders have commented on his death.

Herman Paul Pressler III was born in Houston in 1930 and attended New Hampshire’s exclusive Phillips Exeter Academy before attending Princeton University. After graduating from Princeton in 1952, he attended the University of Texas at Austin’s law school and, as a 27-year-old student, was elected to represent a Houston-based district in the Texas House. He was later appointed by Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe to a powerful seat on the Texas 14th Circuit Court of Appeals, where he served for 14 years.

While on the bench, Pressler helped plot and lead the SBC’s “conservative revival,” a 20-year power struggle in which Pressler and his allies drove more moderate Baptists from the denomination, successfully pushed for the ban of female pastors and strengthening white evangelical support for the Republican Party.

Pressler was also an early member of the Council on National Policy, a secretive network of powerful business, religious and media elites that has pushed the Democratic Party toward deregulation and to further inject their conservative Christian views into public life. In 1989, Pressler was appointed to lead the Office of Government Ethics under President George HW Bush, although his appointment was later withdrawn.

From 2000 onward—and with the battle for the SBC won—Pressler increasingly focused on Republican Party politics. In 2007, Louisiana College announced its plans for the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law, although the school never opened due to funding and accreditation issues. The school’s board of trustees included Family Research Council leader Tony Perkins and David Barton, the Texas activist who for years has maintained that church-state separation is a “myth.” The dean of the school was Mike Johnson, who was later elected speaker of the US House of Representatives.

In 2012, as U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, led the GOP presidential race, Pressler gathered some of the country’s most powerful Christians at his ranch in West Texas, rallying them for two days to support his running mate. of the gospel Rick Santorum. In 2013, the Texas House honored his service to the conservative, Christian cause in a resolution that was introduced on the floor of the chamber. A year later, Pressler served on the advisory team for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. And Pressler was an early and key supporter of Ted Cruz in his Senate campaign and as he ran for president in 2015.

As Pressler continued to wield political influence, he also allegedly raped, raped or solicited at least six men, including one who says he was 14 when he was first sexually abused while a member of Pressler’s youth group. Those allegations were outlined in a 2017 lawsuit that also accused prominent Southern Baptist leaders and churches of covering up or enabling Pressler’s conduct, which they deny.

The lawsuit was the impetus for a major 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News that found more than 400 Southern Baptist church leaders or volunteers had been accused of sex crimes since 2000. The series also prompted reforms in the SBC . as an ongoing Justice Department investigation into the denomination’s handling of sexual abuse complaints.

Pressler was a member of Houston’s First or Second Baptist Church for nearly his entire adult life.

Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a full list of them here.

Only in: Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming; Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania; and the governor of Oklahoma. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at the Texas Tribune Festival, September 5-7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!