by Sandy » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:50 pm
I'm not excusing or justifying the conservative resurgence based on how the SBC was operated by those in leadership positions prior to 1979. Pressler was part of the leadership of a group that figured out how to use the SBC's distribution of appointment power to their advantage. Issues in the denomination that came to the surface during the previous couple of decades pointed them to a means of uncovering a significantly large supportive constituency that was willing and able to sustain the messenger majority they needed to permanently alter the direction of the denomination. It was a political movement, using political tactics from within, and Pressler, the lawyer and judge, was a key figure in the mechanics of locating the weak points in the apparatus itself, and exploiting them. In the process of doing so, he made enemies, though he and his supporters were entitled to have as much of a say in who ran the SBC as those they replaced.
This is a separate accusation, not proven at this point, and unrelated to his activities involving the SBC. Whether you consider him an enemy or not, it would be wrong for that to generate an attitude of reveling in his guilt.