“I’ve known about them for years,” said Rachael Denhollander, of Louisville, Ky., a Baptist who was the first woman to speak out publicly against Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar, the former Michigan State University physician convicted of molesting members of the Olympics gymnastics team. “But it took this new climate and this kind of public pressure to make something happen, which is in itself disturbing.”

Mr. Patterson is credited with orchestrating a takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, from its centrist leadership in the 1980s, and pushing it to the right. Key elements of his platform were banning ordination for women and re-establishing traditional gender roles, including the teaching that wives should submit to their husbands.

In an audio recording that was circulated in recent weeks, Mr. Patterson recounts a story about a female congregant who had sought his counsel about domestic abuse. Having advised her to go home and pray, he saw her return the next Sunday with two black eyes. When she asked if he was happy, he said yes, because the abuse had inspired her husband to feel guilty enough to appear at the back of the church, attending for the first time.

In late April, Mr. Patterson said in a statement that he regretted that the way he expressed his conviction that abused women should avoid divorce “has brought hurt,” but declined to apologize for the stance.

He did apologize for an anecdote he told in a 2014 sermon, cited in the open letter that called for his removal. Mr. Patterson recalls a moment when “a very attractive coed walked by. She wasn’t more than about 16 but let me just say, ‘She was nice.’” When a young man nearby is chastised by an older woman for exclaiming, “Man, is she built!” Mr. Patterson tells the woman to leave him alone, saying, “he’s just being biblical.”

“I wish to apologize to every woman who has been wounded by anything I have said that was inappropriate or that lacked clarity,” Mr. Patterson said in that statement.

About 15 million people are part of the Southern Baptist Convention; proceeds from its 46,000 churches help finance six seminaries, including the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Scholars of conservative Christianity cautioned against reading Mr. Patterson’s abrupt retirement as a signal of a broader progressive shift.