by Sandy » Sat Jul 09, 2011 6:04 pm
I find absolutely nothing in the "public record" related to Pressler's quest for a federal judgeship that mentions relationships with his male aids. What really happened was a letter writing campaign by some disgruntled, frumped up Baptist moderates to then President GHW Bush accusing Pressler of religious bigotry related to his activities with the SBC, and throwing in a few accusations of misuse of public funds to make the President back off of the appointment. The only thing, interestingly enough, that the FBI investigation turned up was that he'd run off some copies of some SBC related stuff on a copier belonging to Harris County. Fearing that the inuendos and leaks would torpedo the nomination in the Senate, Bush offered Pressler a seat on the drug council instead.
Gregory's book is neither accurate, nor an authoritative resource on the activities of W.A. Criswell, making your statement hearsay, or should I say, gossip, plain and simple.
There's no doubt that Paul Pressler, W.A. Criswell, Paige Patterson, and several others whose names come to the forefront of discussions of the Conservative Resurgence, used strong armed political tactics and assumed a lot of authority through influence and association that they were never given by messengers or the convention in pushing a denominational political agenda that eventually led to a shift in the leadership of the SBC. But it wold have been hard to imagine that anything else would have dragged the SBC's moribund, entrenched, liberal leaning leadership back to where the churches, and the people in the pews, wanted it to be. The hard ball, iron fisted political tactics, nepotism and influence peddling used by the SBC's moderate leaders prior to 1979 was one of the reasons Pressler and Patterson got so much support for their movement. Pressler paid a price with his career and Clinton's election prevented any further chance at a federal appointment. Criswell's church pushed him to step into a "pastor emeritus" status from which he was forced to sit on the sidelines and watch Joel Gregory ruin the church he and George Truett had pastored for 100 years.
Making inuendos about alleged, unproven actions doesn't help your cause. It calls your credibility into question.
And, BTW, even if the conservative resurgence had never happened, the SBC would still not ever have abandoned the position that homosexuality is a sin. As the largest group formed in opposition to the conservative resurgence, CBF has yet to change their position, and has actually taken action to disfellowship and defund organizations that hold the opposite view.
Last edited by Sandy on Sat Jul 09, 2011 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.