Well, one incident in particular probably had an influence on that, but it all continues.
Here's an example from today's New York Times: (Also note the presence of the Council for National Policy (CNP) If you have the time, dig into the CNP. II bet you find it galvanizing. A good start would be a brief examination of the life and career of Paul Weyrich, a cofounder, and his "advisor" Lazslo Pastor.
"Let me share with you one of the worst and most important recent news stories that you’ve probably never heard about. Late last month, the Southern Baptist Convention settled a sex abuse lawsuit brought against a man named Paul Pressler for an undisclosed sum. The lawsuit was filed in 2017 and alleged that Pressler had raped a man named Duane Rollins for decades, with the rapes beginning when Rollins was only 14 years old.
The story would be terrible enough if Pressler were simply an ordinary predator. But while relatively unknown outside of evangelical circles, Pressler is one of the most important American religious figures of the 20th century. He and his friend Paige Patterson, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, are two of the key architects of the so-called conservative resurgence within the S.B.C.
The conservative resurgence was a movement conceived in the 1960s and launched in the 1970s that sought to wrest control of the S.B.C. from more theologically liberal and moderate voices. It was a remarkable success. While many established denominations were liberalizing, the S.B.C. lurched to the right and exploded in growth, ultimately becoming the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
Pressler and Patterson were heroes within the movement. Patterson led Baptist seminaries and became president of the convention. Pressler was a Texas state judge and a former president of the Council for National Policy, a powerful conservative Christian activist organization."
Here's another description of the CNP:
To go a little further, "The Council for National Policy (CNP) is a secretive, Christian Right organization of funders and activists founded in 1981 by activist Morton Blackwell, commentator Paul Weyrich, direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie, right-wing activist Phyllis Schlafly and Left Behind author Tim LaHaye. Anne Nelson's book about CNP, Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right, describes how the organization connects "the manpower and media of the Christian right with the finances of Western plutocrats and the strategy of right-wing Republican political operatives.”
Two books on the topic:
https://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Americas-Recruitment-Nazis-Effects/dp/1555841066
https://www.amazon.com/Old-Nazis-Right-Republican-Party/dp/0896084183
and here's a briefer overview article specifically about the CNP:
https://newrepublic.com/article/167002/council-national-policy-documents-right-wing-conspiracy
