What comes from the dark corners of corruption in conservative Evangelicalism is hypocrisy.

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/06/what-comes-from-dark-corners-of.html

Paul Pressler died in Houston on June 7th. The Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana June 11th and 12th made no mention of his passing, held no vigil or memorial, and no one eulogized and lauded this man's achievements in turning the Southern Baptist Convention into a far right wing, ultra-conservative, fundamentalist denomination and right wing Republican political action committee.

How did it happen, for someone who was one of the most visible figures in the Southern Baptist Convention for over five decades, one of the men who helped push the liberals and moderates out of the denomination, helping it turn decidedly and staunchly conservative, and almost singlehandedly linked it to conservative, political Republicanism, that there was not even a mention of his death, much less any public tribute or acknowledgement for his helping bring about one of the single most celebrated movements in Southern Baptist history, the Conservative Resurgence?

During all of the time he worked as a conservative reformer, as the result of legal settlements (including one which named the SBC Executive Committee), credible accusations surfaced of his sexual abuse of boys and young men. The abuse started two years before he became one of the two architects of the Conservative Resurgence, when he was alleged to have abused and raped a 14 year old who was a member of the youth ministry he led in a large, Houston church. Though he faced no criminal charges because of statutes of limitations, he eventually settled a lawsuit brought by this accuser, Duane Rollins.

Ultimately, the list of his victims grew to include others involved in church youth ministry where he served, along with interns and male employees of his law firm who who were assigned to do their work at Pressler's office in his Houston home. The details of the law suits and the abuse that is known to have occurred is referenced in the links at the top of this article.

[RockRaven]

1. "Hypocrisy" is small potatoes compared to "sex crimes" and "fraud"

That headline is just a strange way of framing things.

Who the hell cares about the hypocrisy of the thing when there is sexual assault and stealing money going on? It's the sexual assault and theft that is the fucking problem here!

[lees1975]

2. Read the linked article, and the pieces that it references. It's hard to find words for how abominable this is.

From the Signal Press:

Until the Southern Baptist Convention effectively acknowledges the seriousness of the sexual abuse problem among their church leadership, entity leadership and in their churches, and lays out effective, workable plans to deal with it in the context of their "independent and autonomous" churches, it has no credibility as a Christian denomination. And as far as this author is concerned, this abominable hypocrisy totally and completely undermines the entire platform of Evangelical-influenced, Republican politics.

Incidents like this need to be at the forefront of the political messaging that people hear and see. Trump grabs women by the genitals, has multiple affairs on his wives, sleeps with a porn star, gets charged and convicted of 34 felonies regarding the illegal business dealings surrounding his attempt to cover that up, and he's still a candidate for the Presidency. His most vocally supportive constituency is embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal in a Christian denomination that involved it's leaders at the highest level, in both homosexuality and in sexual abuse of women.