Bishop Earl Paulk, an influential evangelical preacher who helped build a Georgia megachurch but who was humbled by accusations of adultery and sexual misconduct, died March 29 in Atlanta. He was 81 and lived in Decatur, Ga.

The cause was cancer, said Brandi Paulk, who is married to D.E. Paulk, senior pastor of the Cathedral at Chapel Hill, as the church, founded in 1960 by Earl Paulk and his brother, Don, is now known.

Under Paulk’s leadership, the Cathedral at Chapel Hill was considered progressive and inclusive; it was racially integrated in the 1960s, long before many other white churches in the South welcomed black congregants. More recently, it has been accepting of gay men and lesbians.

But Paulk’s influence and popularity waned — church membership is now about 1,000 — in large part because of his sullied reputation. At least as far back as 1992, numerous published accounts told of church women who had testified to his marital infidelity and accused him of using his position to manipulate them into sexual affairs.

In 2005, one woman, Mona Brewer, a church singer, sued him, and Paulk subsequently admitted to the affair. In a sworn affidavit, he later said that she was the only woman he had had sex with outside his marriage.

But in October 2007, a court-ordered paternity test revealed that he was the biological father of D.E. Paulk, by then in his 30s, who had always been told that Earl Paulk was his uncle and that Don Paulk, Earl’s brother, was his father.

In January 2008, Earl Paulk pleaded guilty to lying under oath. He was fined $1,000 and sentenced to 10 years’ probation.