Do you ever wonder why conservative Evangelicals don't seem to be bothered by the moral bankruptcy of Trump?

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2026/05/this-is-kind-of-leadership-found-in.html

The Southern Baptist Convention has always been an oligarchy controlled by a small, elite group of pastors, mainly of large, influential churches. It claims to be organized on democratic principles, but the fact of the matter is that only about 10% of its churches, in any given year, elect "messengers," which is what they call delegates to the convention. And those who understand that involvement in denominational politics not only carries prestige, but power within the denomination, and opens a pathway to getting the necessary recommendations and influence needed to grab off the high dollar administrative jobs at the mission boards, seminaries and the Executive Committee agencies.

Being a denomination with the majority of its churches in the South, and 80% of them being in rural areas or small to mid-sized towns, with an attendance of less than 80 people on any given Sunday means that most of the churches are going to have that folk-religion, supersition and verse by verse, word for word literal interpretation of the Bible. There's an anti-education bias in most churches, who do not trust their seminaries and consider them to be liberal because that kind of systematic study of the Bible emerges with a different result than the hard line literalist, legalistic fundamentalism that prevails.

Enter Patterson and Pressler. Patterson was a protege of Dr. W. A. Criswell, the influential and long time Fundamentalist pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, the SBC's largest church at the time. He was President of the broken down Criswell College, the Bible college owned by the church. Pressler, a member of First Baptist Church of Houston at the time, another large, influential congregation, was a Texas Appeals Court Justice and a Republican party operative.

These two men set out to organize a political campaign within the denomination that had two purposes. On the surface, it was to appear as an attack on liberalism in the seminaries, using the flawed Fundamentalist doctrine of the Inerrancy and Infallibility of the Bible as a means of convincing churches to send messengers to the convention meetings to elect trustees who would be willing to dismiss professors who didn't sign doctrinal statements claiming to believe this flawed doctrine.

However, Pressler's job in this movement, was to connect the Southern Baptist Convention, through its board and executive leadership, with the Republican Party, initially to help get Reagan elected. As a result of their political activity, both of these men secured positions in leadership in the SBC, Patterson as President of two of its six seminaries, Pressler, rotating from committee to committee, trustee board to trustee board and eventually the Executive Committee. Over a ten year period, Patterson succeeded in pushing out the previous leadership, labelled as "moderates," but considered to be "liberals" in the classic sense of the definition of that term, in all six seminaries and on all of the trustee boards, while Pressler helped the SBC become a major influence and supporter of the GOP, and of white, Christian nationalist views.

As can be discerned from the Texas Monthly article referenced at the top, the allegations against Pressler involved alleged homosexual activity. Initially, there was just one individual whose name was associated with these allegations but apparently, there are allegations involving cases that were settled out of court, involving individuals who came into contact with Pressler in at least two churches, including an independent Presbyterian church in Houston where he had been on staff as a youth pastor.

I would suggest that every person who is concerned about the threat of white Christian nationalism, and the threat to American constitutional democracy posed by the Trump Administration and his fundamentalist, Evangelical allies, including the well-funded Heritage Foundation, read this piece in Texas Monthly. The author of this piece, Robert Downen, worked alongside reporters at the Houston Chronicle on their expose of the sex abuse scandal in the Southern Baptist Convention, called Abuse of Faith, which came out in 2022.

[jmbar2]

1. MAGA Mike Johnson was part of that group...

[lees1975]

2. There was a connection, though not a direct one between Mike Johnson and Pressler.

Johnson was set to become the first dean of the new law school at Louisiana Christian University, which is the Southern Baptist-affiliated university in Louisiana. The law school was to be called the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law, and its purpose was to train lawyers from a Biblical worldview.

The school never opened, due to some financial mistakes and misteps, including with donors. And they claim they were not aware of any allegations of sexual abuse by Pressler at the time.

Mike Johnson is a Southern Baptist and was a supporter of the conservative resurgence, especially the political alignment of the denomination with the republican party, but there wasn't a direct connection known between him and Pressler.

[jmbar2]

8. Pressler's preying on young men was widely known before the college

It's kind of like Epstein - egregious behavior, victims were paid off to keep quiet, but everyone knew and kept it hidden. The accusations go back to 1978, and there was a huge "settlement" in a case in 2004.

https://baptistnews.com/article/new-court-documents-show-first-baptist-houston-leaders-knew-of-allegations-against-pressler-in-2004/

Johnson sat on the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention between 2004 and 2012, after the widely publicized lawsuit. He knew of Pressler's actions, but still agreed to head up a college named after him ! His ambition seems larger than his intelligence.

It would be like agreeing to be head of the "Epstein College of Law", knowing the scope of allegations...

[RainCaster]

3. It's all about hate

Let's break it down to the simple bits. He justifies their hate of everything that isn't them.

[Picaro]

4. Southern Baptists exist due to racism

Slavery Controversy (1845): The conflict over slavery led to the creation of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845, separating from Northern Baptist groups.

Based on current events not much has changed except they’ve added other groups to hate.

One of the ironies is that the Baptists believed in absolute separation of church and state having been persecuted by the state in England and Europe.

[bmichaelh]

5. Trump demanded an apology

When a minister preaches mercy and compassion to Trump, he gets upset and demands an apology.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-demands-apology-after-bishop-asked-him-to-have-mercy-on-lgbtq-people-and-migrants

From Shakespeare:

GLOUCESTER
Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh,
And ne'er throughout the year to church thou goes
Except it be to pray against thy foes.
--Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI 1.1.41-43

[SamKnause]

6. No, because they have zero morals.

They prove this day after day with their actions.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Because The South lost the Civil War and through Trump, The South will rise again.

These officers and preachers recognize they have a pigeon in their midst.

They don't care that Trump has repeatedly broken every one of The Ten Commandments over one hundred times.

They care that he is not only giving them access to power, but actually put them in power, outside the realms of Democracy and The Constitution. (That also gives them access to taxpayer dollars, which sure beats handing around The Plate on Sundays.)