Paul Pressler, the Texas judge whose grassroots strategy redirected the Southern Baptist Convention, died June 7, 2024, in Houston, Texas, three days after his 94th birthday and less than six months after the settlement of a lawsuit alleging decades-long sexual assault by Pressler against multiple victims.
For decades in the SBC, Pressler was venerated as an almost mythical hero of Southern Baptists for his coordination and leadership of what is known as the Conservative Resurgence.
However, when Pressler was 87, his legacy was forever stained when a lawsuit was filed alleging that he had sexually molested the plaintiff, Gareld Duane Rollins, from the late 1970s when Rollins was 14, and enrolled in a Pressler-led Bible study, through 2004.
This was the first time most Southern Baptists became aware of such accusations against Pressler, though he had confidentially settled a different lawsuit in 2004 from Rollins alleging assault. Evidence in the 2017 case included affidavits by multiple men who claimed Pressler engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with them beginning in the 1970s.
A Texas district court judge dismissed the molestation allegation in 2018, ruling that it was filed beyond the state’s five-year statute of limitations. But slander and libel claims by Rollins were not dismissed, nor a breach of contract claim related to a 2004 lawsuit Rollins settled over an alleged assault by Pressler. In February 2021, a state appeals court reversed the district court, allowing the statute of limitations to proceed, affirming Rollins’ reported realization of the abuse through psychiatric counseling in 2015.
Prior to the lawsuit and sexual abuse allegations, Pressler would have been considered one of the most influential Southern Baptists of the 20th century.
Art Toalston is a writer based in Nashville and a former editor of Baptist Press.