Paul Pressler

Paul Pressler was a Texas appellate court judge who brought a lawyer's mind to denominational politics. His partnership with Paige Patterson was complementary: Patterson provided the theological vision and the preacher's platform; Pressler provided the political mechanics. Pressler understood that the SBC's congregational polity meant everything turned on who was elected president each year, because the president appointed committee members who appointed trustees who controlled institutions. He mapped the power structure, identified the leverage points, and organized the political network that executed the resurgence year after year for more than a decade. Pressler's motivations were not purely theological. He was a politically connected Texas conservative with ties to the broader right-wing infrastructure that Weyrich and others were building. The SBC takeover fit the same pattern as other conservative institutional captures of the 1970s and 80s. In 2017 and 2018, multiple men came forward alleging that Pressler had sexually abused them — in some cases beginning when they were minors. A lawsuit was filed. Pressler settled. The man who built the SBC's machinery of male authority and female submission was himself accused of predatory abuse of younger men he had mentored.

Documented themes

• Christian Nationalism
• Patriarchy
• Political Strategy
• Gender & Patriarchy

Connections from Paul Pressler

• influenced → SBC Conservative Resurgence (1979) — Pressler provided the political mechanics of the resurgence: mapping the SBC's power structure and organizing the network that executed the annual presidential election strategy.

Connections to Paul Pressler

• Paul Weyrich influenced (1976) — Weyrich's model of coordinated conservative institutional capture — demonstrated through Heritage Foundation and other organizations — provided a template Pressler adapted for the SBC.

Sources

• Jesus and John Wayne — Kristin Kobes Du Mez (2020), pp. 144-150