Wallie Amos Criswell

Wally Amos Criswell, generally known as W.A. Criswell (Dec.19, 1909—Jan.10, 2002) was an influential member of the Southern Baptist Convention. He was its president in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was best known as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, at one time the largest Southern Baptist church in America.

In the 1979 U.S. presidential election he endorsed Ronald Reagan's campaign over that of the Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter. Later, in 1985, he gave a memorable sermon at the SBC Annual Meeting in Dallas (in front of the largest gathering of messengers in the SBC's history, during the height of the Conservative-Moderate battle for the SBC's future), imploring the SBC to maintain a conservative theology (which it ultimately did).