Longtime Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler, who was accused of sexual abuse, dies at 94

HOUSTON (AP) — Paul Pressler, a leading figure of the Southern Baptist Convention who was accused of sexually abusing boys and young men and later settled a lawsuit over the allegations, has died. He was 94.

Pressler’s death, which happened on June 7, was announced in an obituary posted online by Geo. H. Lewis and Sons Funeral Home in Houston. A funeral service for Pressler was held on Saturday. A cause of death was not disclosed.

The news of Pressler’s death was first reported by Baptist News Global.

Pressler was one of the co-architects of the Southern Baptist Convention’s “conservative resurgence,” an effort in the 1980s that reshaped the direction of America’s largest Protestant denomination. Pressler and others pushed out more liberal leaders, helped forge an alliance between white evangelicals and Republican conservatism and focused on electing GOP candidates to public office.

The Southern Baptist Convention has over 47,000 churches, with a total membership of nearly 13 million people, according to its website. As many as 200 are counted as “mega-churches” but the vast majority have less than 200 people in weekly worship. Most of its churches are located in the southern U.S. The denomination’s executive committee is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.

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