Paul Pressler, an influential former Texas judge who led a movement to shift the Southern Baptist Convention in a conservative direction, has died at the age of 94.
In 2017, Pressler was accused in a civil lawsuit of sexually abusing boys and men, including one of his Bible study students, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. According to the Texas Tribune, the lawsuit was settled six months before his death earlier this month.
Pressler was never criminally charged, but an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express News led to revelations that top leaders ignored warnings and downplayed allegations.
Pressler died on June 7, but this apparently went unacknowledged at last week’s meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis. His funeral was Saturday.
Officials at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth did not return a message seeking comment. In 2019, a stained glass window depicting Pressler and other leaders who pushed the convention to the right was removed from the seminary’s MacGorman Chapel.
Pressler, a former Houston appeals court judge, led efforts to expel liberal members from the convention and helped elect conservative politicians.
Pressler, the son of a Houston oil company executive, was born on June 4, 1930. He graduated from the private Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and received a bachelor’s degree in government from Princeton University in 1952, according to the Texas Tribune. He served in the Texas statehouse from 1957 to 1959.
