The Pug’s motto in Latin is “multum en parvo.” This means “a lot in a little.” Tulip filled up our house with attitude and curiosity. We will miss her.

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Yesterday was a difficult day for me. We knew something was terribly wrong with Tulip, one of our rescue pugs who was almost 13. She hadn’t eaten for four days. The labs came back, and we knew that she would not survive with any quality of life. So, my excellent veterinarians helped us to escort her out of this life. She was our prettiest pug with a spunky attitude. I tried to carry her into the animal hospital, but she fussed and, with great dignity, walked in on her own steam. I am grateful God created her because she was one of a kind. I decided to post her picture because she deserves more recognition than Jared Woodfill or Paul Pressler.

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If you already know their stories, skip to the end. I ask some difficult questions about them and their activities. I hope you can answer them.

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Let me start this post by saying that the word alleged belongs in front of all that I say or quote. However, I believe that Paul Pressler did sexually abuse individuals and that Jared Woodfill covered for or even helped him acquire potential victims. This is based on the following quotes from an investigation by various media sources. Some people would sue at the drop of a hat when it involves wealthy or influential people.

Jared Woodfill appears to have lost his election bid, and I temporarily remove my ban on discussing politics since it involves accusations of sex abuse coverup.

I think the post speaks for itself. The Texas Tribune reported that Houston Rep. Lacey Hull defeated Paxton-backed Jared Woodfill in the GOP primary. Perhaps the subtitle will help.

Woodfill’s endorsement by Paxton was decried by some Republicans because of his close ties to Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler, who has been accused multiple times of sexual abuse.

The following quote from the post says it all.

Woodfill entered the race while still involved in a high-profile lawsuit that accused his former law partner, Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler, of decades of rape. Woodfill was also accused of enabling Pressler’s behavior and, in a deposition last year, acknowledged that he continued to pay young men to work out of Pressler’s home for years despite being told in 2004 that Pressler had sexually abused a child. Before the lawsuit was settled late last year, a 2017 email was also unearthed in which one of Pressler’s aides — who was being paid by Woodfill — warned that the religious leader was a pedophile.

At this point, Dee thanked God that sometimes the people get the vote right (in her eyes.) Let’s take a closer look at the relationship between Woodfill and Pressler. When Dee first moved to the South, she was excited to be among many professed Christians and see many churches. When I became a Christian, I knew no other Protestant Christians among my friends and family. My Dad was nominally a member of the  Russian Orthodox Church. There were many Catholics, but the ones in my area were not interested in evangelical pursuits then. It was a relief when I finally found a large group of evangelical Christians. We weren’t beholden to a particular denomination.

So Dee, ill-informed, was taken by all of the Southern churches, mostly SBC, of course. As time went on, I began to see the reality that claiming a faith is not the same as living out one’s faith. In other words, I was bamboozled. I learned that:

Many SBC Churches+Many “Saved” Christians ≠ A Vibrant Christian Faith

The dilemma: Are Paul Pressler and Jared Woodfill’s activities indicative of the Christian faith?

I know that all Christians struggle with sin. I also know that Christians are trained to associate “Being a Leader” with “Being a Role Model” Christian. How do we, as Christians, deal with the “leadership” of Paul Pressler and Jared Woodfill?

On the one hand, there is Paul Pressler. Christianity Today wrote Paul Pressler’s Case Haunts Southern Baptist Abuse Reform.

As one of the architects of the Conservative Resurgence that reshaped the largest US Protestant denomination beginning in the 1970s, he has been hailed for decades as a hero who helped rid SBC churches of a creeping liberalism.

But recently, Gene Besen, a lawyer for the SBC, called Pressler, 93, a “monster” and “a dangerous predator” who leveraged his “power and false piety” to sexually abuse young men even as he was building his reputation as a conservative reformer.

“The man’s actions are of the devil,” Besen said, clarifying that he spoke in his personal capacity and not as a representative of the denomination. “That is clear.”

…What makes Pressler’s case so enraging to many Southern Baptists, however, is that his abuse has been detailed for year

…In 2004, the year Pressler was first elected vice president, his home church warned in a letter about his habit of naked hot-tubbing with young men after a college student complained that Pressler had allegedly groped him, according to the Texas Tribune. That same year, Pressler agreed to pay $450,000 to settle Rollins’ earlier claim that Pressler had assaulted him in a hotel room.

According to Danny Akin, the conservative resurgence is still valid, as is the reality of the accusations against Pressler. But is the resurgence about theology or something else?

After the Rollins lawsuit was settled in December, Danny Akin, the longtime president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, told RNS, “We can’t deny the reality of the accusations. You’ve got too many people stacked up that were ready to testify.”

But Akin said he still believes in the ideals of the resurgence. He said that Southern Baptists will need to acknowledge their sins and abuse when teaching about the Conservative Resurgence.

Karen Swallow Prior says the resurgence is about power. She is correct. Wasn’t Paul Pressler’s sexual abuse really about the abuse of power?

Karen Swallow Prior, a professor of English who has taught in evangelical Christian schools for decades, said the SBC can’t escape the failings of the Conservative Resurgence. She said she became a Southern Baptist because she believed the resurgence was about the Bible. Now she suspects that it was about power.

“It’s the convenient myth that the SBC has told us for the past several decades,” she said.

What was the extent of Pressler’s alleged sexual abuse?

According to Wikipedia:

In April 2018, the Houston Chronicle reported that Paul Pressler was accused by Toby Twining and Brooks Schott of sexual misconduct in separate court affidavits.^[7] Both men said Pressler molested or solicited them for sex. The accusations were filed as part of a lawsuit filed in 2017 by Gareld Duane Rollins Jr. claiming he was regularly raped by the conservative leader. Rollins met Pressler in high school and was part of a Bible study Pressler led. Rollins claims he was raped two to three times a month while at Pressler’s home.^[8] According to the Chronicle, Pressler agreed in 2004 to pay $450,000 to Rollins for physical assault.^[9] Southern Baptist leader Paige Patterson is also named in the suit, for helping Pressler cover up the abuse.^[10] The SBC settled the Rollins case out of court for an undisclosed sum and the case was dismissed with prejudice on December 28, 2023.^[11]

In the 2018 Chronicle report, Toby Twining was a teenager in 1977 when Pressler grabbed his penis in a sauna at Houston’s River Oaks Country Club. Pressler was a youth pastor at Bethel Church in Houston but was ousted in 1978 after church officials received information about “an alleged incident.”

…n May 2022, Guidepost Solutions released an independent report stating that Pressler was the defendant in a civil lawsuit alleging that he repeatedly abused the plaintiff beginning when the plaintiff was 14. Two other men submitted affidavits accusing Pressler of sexual misconduct.^[13]

According to the Texas Tribune, Pressler’s abuse went on for 40 years!

Rollins’ lawsuit also uncovered a 40-year pattern of alleged abuses by Pressler. As part of the suit, a former member of Pressler’s youth group said in a sworn affidavit that Pressler molested him in 1977 while the two were in a sauna at the country club in Houston’s tony River Oaks neighborhood.

In other words, if the allegations are true, and I believe they are, the amount of abuse perpetrated by one man is overwhelming. This comes as no surprise to many. The stories are out there, and there is little value in ignoring them. Pressler has allegedly harmed many.

Jared Woodfill is credibly accused, in my opinion, of enabling Paul Pressler’s prolific abuse history, but he denies that he did so.

As you read the following, ask yourself if Woodfill participated in an effort to procure “young men” for Pressler. According to the Texas Tribune as reported in Email sheds new light on Texas House candidate Jared Woodfill’s role in Southern Baptist leader’s sex abuse scandal, testimony from Woodfiil, Pressler did almost no work for the firm.

In March, The Texas Tribune reported that Woodfill had recently testified under oath that he was made aware of child sexual abuse claims against Pressler in 2004, when the two of them were law partners. Despite that, Woodfill continued to lean on the political connections of Pressler — who did almost no work for their firm but was compensated via a string of young, male personal assistants who worked out of his home. Three have accused Pressler of sexual assault or misconduct.

The newly-unearthed email shows that Woodfill continued to furnish Pressler with young aides until at least 2017 — 13 years after he was first warned that Pressler was a sexual predator, and less than a year after he was made aware of new sexual misconduct allegations.

In 2004, Woodfill admits he received an email procured by the Texas Tribune,  which discussed Pressler’s abuse. The Tribune documented this in Houston GOP activist knew for years of child sex abuse claims against Southern Baptist leader, law partner.

In 2016, former Harris County GOP chair Jared Woodfill received an urgent warning about Paul Pressler, his longtime law partner and a Southern Baptist leader. In an email, a 25-year-old attorney from Woodfill’s Houston firm said he’d recently gone to lunch with Pressler, who told him “lewd stories about being naked on beaches with young men” and then invited him to skinny-dip at his ranch.

Initially, Woodfill claimed he knew nothing, saw nothing, etc. He even responded with indignation!

He responded to the young man’s request for help with shock and indignation. “This 85-year-old man has never made any inappropriate comments or actions toward me or any one I know of,” he wrote of Pressler at the time.

Well, not exactly…

In recent sworn testimony, Woodfill said he’d known since 2004 of an allegation that Pressler had sexually abused a child. Woodfill learned of those claims, he said, during mediation of an assault lawsuit filed against Pressler that he helped quietly settle for nearly a half-million dollars at the time.

Woodfill apparently continued to provide young men to be aides to Pressler. These young men had to work for Pressler in his home…

Despite his knowledge of the accusation, Woodfill continued to work with Pressler for nearly a decade — leaning on Pressler’s name and reputation to bolster their firm, Woodfill & Pressler LLP.

Rather than pay him a salary, Woodfill testified, the firm provided Pressler a string of employees to serve as personal assistants, most of them young men who typically worked out of his River Oaks mansion. Two have accused Pressler of sexual assault or misconduct.

In a TWW post, we noted that Pressler allegedly brought scantily clad men to the offices, having them parade around in view of others.

Woodfill similarly downplayed sexual misconduct allegations in 2016, after a 25-year-old lawyer at his firm alerted Woodfill that Pressler had told him “lewd stories about being naked on beaches with young men” and then invited him to skinny-dip at his ranch, court records show. The attorney said he addressed the incident with a longtime employee of Woodfill’s law firm, who made it clear that this was not the first time he’d heard such allegations.

“I discovered that this was not unusual behavior for Pressler, and that he had a long history of lecherous behavior towards young men. Even going as far as bringing scantily clad men and parading them through the office,” the attorney wrote in an affidavit that was filed as part of Rollins’ lawsuit.

Pressler continued to work with Woodfill despite procuring few cases. Pressler seemed to only want these young men to help him.

Despite his knowledge of the accusation, Woodfill continued to work with Pressler for nearly a decade — leaning on Pressler’s name and reputation to bolster their firm, Woodfill & Pressler LLP.

Rather than pay him a salary, Woodfill testified, the firm provided Pressler a string of employees to serve as personal assistants, most of them young men who typically worked out of his River Oaks mansion. Two have accused Pressler of sexual assault or misconduct.

Pressler was once ousted from a Houston Church due to his ‘activities.”

Released over the last few weeks, the thousands of pages of new court records show how Woodfill leaned on his Pressler connections to bolster his political and legal career — despite warnings about his law partner’s behavior. And they shed new light on how Pressler, a former Texas Court of Appeals judge and one-time White House nominee under George H.W. Bush, allegedly used his prestige and influence to evade responsibility amid repeated accusations of sexual misconduct and assault dating back to at least 1978, when he was forced out of a Houston church for allegedly molesting a teenager in a sauna.

Recently, TWW posted Stunned and Disgusted: SBC Executive Committee Settles Lawsuit, Allegedly Covering Up the Alleged Despicable Abuse by Paul Pressler. #ThisistheSBC.

What did First Baptist Houston and a ‘Presbyterian’ know?

In 2004, court records show that a small group of leaders at the massive First Baptist Church of Houston were made aware of allegations that Pressler, a powerful deacon at the megachurch, had undressed and groped a young man at his home. In a letter to Pressler that was unearthed as part of Rollins’ lawsuit, the church leaders condemned Pressler’s “morally and spiritually” inappropriate behavior. They also feared that publicizing the allegations would damage Pressler’s reputation in their church and the Southern Baptist Convention.

…Pressler, meanwhile, was a youth pastor at a Presbyterian church in Houston. He was ousted from that position in 1978 after church officials received information about “an alleged incident,” according to a letter introduced into the court file.

Paul Pressler versus Jared Woodfill: Who should bear the blame?

Paul Pressler.

• There are credible claims and lawsuits against Pressler.
• There have been accusations of abusive behavior going back to the 1970s.
• Seven men claim that Pressler abused them.
• First Baptist Houston leaders were made aware that he groped and undressed young men, and he eventually had to leave the church.
• Pressler was an influential lawyer and a powerful leader in the SBC conservative power play known as the resurgence.

Jared Woodfill

• He was informed as early as 2004 that Pressler was involved in, at the minimum, highly inappropriate behavior with young men.
• Woodfill was involved in business/lawyer activities with Pressler, who brought only two cases into the business.
• Woodfill kept on Pressler, even supplying him with young make assistants.
• Woodfill is an intelligent man who needs to do due diligence on backgrounds when taking cases. He certainly had enough information to investigate Pressler and, at the minimum, to not assign young men to work alone with Pressler in his home.

Tougher questions

Paul Pressler

Paul Pressler has been involved in abusive behavior for much of his adult life. It is possible he is still involved in such activities since lifelong abuse indicates a profound psychiatric illness. I wonder if he has ever sought help.

In some respects, his alleged activities remind me of Ravi Zacharias, who was allegedly still involved with women as he lay dying of cancer. Pressler is 93 and has never confessed to his predilections, as far as we know. Neither did Zacharias. Both Pressler and Zacharias were befriended and defended by well-known Christians. Both Pressler and Zacharias claimed to be Christians. They appeared to show no fear as death approached. Most believers have a healthy fear of standing before the Lord, one day. Confession and repentance are part and parcel of living out one’s Christian life.

Could it be that Pressler is not a Christian and has merely used the Christian faith to get power over leaders so he could continue his despicable activities with impunity?

Jared Woodfill

Woodfill allegedly knew of Pressler’s activities. He appeared to have hired Pressler due to his influence since Pressler did not seem to have offered much in the way of cases for the business. Could this have been a quid pro quo arrangement? Pressler gave the firm prestige, and Woodfill gave him young men who were preyed upon. Is this any different than the dealer in cocaine selling an illegal substance to a client?

However, it seems to go deeper than that. How was this alleged activity different than sex trafficking? Did Woodfill approve of Pressler’s activities? If so, how does he justify it from a Christian perspective? Is he involved in a church? He allegedly attends Second Baptist, the same church Pressler started attending when he left First Baptist. I wonder if Ed Young Sr. has sat down with his parishioners and urged them to repent. Have they repented?

Woodfill has been a prominent outspoken opponent of LGBTQ+ advocacy. Does he believe that procuring young men to work with Pressler was a more godly activity? Does Woodfill regret his activities? If so, has he reached out to those men and offered them counseling along with his repentance?

I am glad that Woodfill lost his election bid. Hopefully, it was due to voters who had educated themselves as to the issues surrounding Woodfill and his relationship with Pressler. If Woodfill is a true Christian as opposed to a person who uses Christianity to increase his power base, then there should be some statements of remorse coming in the near future.

Finally

As I have often said, there are no ghostwriters in the Book of Life. That is handled by the One who holds a much higher pay grade than all of mankind. I trust Him to make the right decisions. In the meantime, I know He is willing to let us wrestle with questions.

“What say youse guys?” Or should we say y’all?