February 25, 2024
Dear Editor:
Ken Chafin was a friend of mine. I could not believe what the Baptist pope, Al Mohler, said about my dead friend. It says something about his lack of character to belittle a dead man.
The Metro Minister’s meeting is an annual gathering of pastors from large churches. The focus of the meetings is to share with other ministers on subjects that enrich the church and to learn from each other. There was a time when all kinds of Baptists attended these meetings, but Adrian Rogers decided conservatives needed their separate meeting, so the one group became two.
I attended those meetings for more than 20 years. At almost every meeting the subject of Paul Pressler’s sexual preferences surfaced. Ken Chafin participated in those discussions. Every one of us had heard the rumors, but no one had any proof. Christians do not go to the press with slanderous rumors. There must be proof.
Paul Pressler came to Knoxville in the early 1980s and met with a group of more than 100 pastors. I was pastor of Central Baptist Church of Bearden in Knoxville at the time and attended the meeting. Pressler made the statement that “the only thing wrong with the SBC was that the denominational executives would not meet with the conservatives.”
I stood up and said, “Judge, if you were in a court of law, you would be tried for perjury. You and I have been in those meetings, with you and your friends down one side of the table, me and my friends down the other side of the table and the denominational executives on each end of the table willing to listen to all points of view.”
A reporter for the Knoxville News Sentinel was present at the meeting. The headline in the paper the next day was, “Local Pastor Calls the Judge a Liar.”
Fast forward a decade. President George H.W. Bush nominated Pressler to be in charge of ethics for the U.S. government. I was pastor of First Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas, and an FBI agent showed up in my office. He announced that he was vetting Paul Pressler on behalf of the president of the United States.
I asked, “Why are you talking to me?” He replied that the FBI had found the article in the Knoxville News Sentinel where I had called the judge a liar. He asked, “Why did you call him a liar?” I responded, “Because he lies.”
He asked if I could prove it. I responded that I could give him a list of conservatives and a list of moderates who were in some of those meetings of denominational executives and he could contact them and ask if Pressler had been at any of those meetings. He asked me several other questions and then a final question: “Do you know anything about the judge’s sexual preferences?”
I replied, “I know nothing about his sexual preferences but I have heard the same rumors you have heard, or you would not be asking me the question.”
The FBI evidently discovered enough evidence that Pressler did not get the job. So the rumors were there for years. I am surprised Al Mohler, a journalist for the Georgia Baptist Christian Index, did not hear the rumors everyone else was hearing.
I would hope he would quit talking negatively about my dead friends who cannot defend themselves.
Bill Bruster, Dallas