Paul Pressler, the monumental Southern Baptist leader and Republican activist at the center of a massive sex abuse scandal, died on June 7. He was 94.
It’s unclear what Pressler’s cause of death was, but a funeral service was held for him Saturday in Houston. Pressler was one of the most influential, if lesser-known, evangelical figures of the last half-century, having co-led a movement in the Southern Baptist Convention that pushed the nation’s second-largest faith group to adopt literal interpretations of the Bible, strongly condemn homosexuality and more closely align with the Republican Party.
