Claims of Sexual Abuse at Victory Church, of Preacher Who Sexually Molested Church Members and Was Into Wife Swapping
h/t SCCL Facebook group, which is where I first saw this story.
If I am understanding this page correctly, it was not just the one preacher who was acting out, but a few other church members in staff positions, and one former church member – one or more are married.
One former pastor, who was 40 and married to a woman, performed oral sex on a 15 year old boy.
And what the hell kind of preacher sticks a 21 year old kid’s hands on the side of his wife’s naked boob, shows the kid video of him boinking his own wife (or would even film himself having sex in the first place)?
Christians often teach you will stay single unless you clean yourself up and become a worthy catch… they teach God has to whip you into shape before you merit a spouse.
That is pure nonsense. Look at the pervert preacher in this story – if I understand right, not only did he hit on teen girls while married, he had two wives – TWO – and he told someone he was a “swinger” with Wife No. 1 (he screwed around on her). Not only did this degenerate get one wife, he got TWO.
If it were true that self professing Christians have to be holier than Jesus to merit a spouse, as Christians teach, how did this pervert get TWO spouses? He obviously was not holy or pure or mature.
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- By Brent Brookhouse
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- May 14 2014
The upcoming documentary Fight Church focuses on mixed martial arts in the Christian community and centers on the stories of four different pastors who are also fighters. Pastor Paul Burress of Victory Church in Rochester, New York is one of these men. Sporting a shaved head, goatee and tattoos, he doesn’t look like the typical pastor even before it’s revealed that he runs a “Fight Ministry” in the church.
“I get all the time I don’t look like the typical pastor. And that’s okay. There’s actually a cool verse in the bible that says ‘be wary when all men speak well of you.’ If everybody loves you, you’re doing something wrong,” Burress says in Fight Church.
That page goes on to explain that a former church member wrote staff at the church to explain why he left the church.
The folks who run the site copied the content of his letter to his former church on their site. Here are parts of the letter:
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- To the Deacons at Victory:
…it concerns me that you were all told to NOT tell your wives because “it might cause them to stumble.”
Where is keeping secrets from your wife found in scriptures? My wife and I are ONE flesh and anything that’s said is always relayed back to her.
I see both of these statements made by Al Ogden as attempts to cover the devastating reality of the nature of Paul’s [Burress] sin.
I believe fully that I was the victim of sexual abuse, that my wife’s sisters were the victims of sexual abuse, and that clear attempts were made by Paul Burress to seduce them as recently as this past summer.
…In 2009, I was at Paul Burress’s house, where I was asked to perform a back-rub on Jill Burress, who had removed her shirt and bra.
Paul made sure that my hand made contact with the side of a breast by moving it there with his own hand.
Paul also made sure that I touched her bare bottom. This happened on 2 occasions that year.
Also in 2009, Paul showed me fully nude photos of his wife, and also showed me a pornographic video of him having sex with his wife.
This occurred on several occasions that year.
I was a single, 21 year-old at the time. This weighed on me for years, until I couldn’t take it anymore and eventually left Victory because of it.
…In 2012, after Paul had become Senior Pastor of Victory, on separate occasions, two young women came to Paul’s house, alone, where they were going to have their “backs worked on.” Paul’s grandmother was in the attached apartment, but Jill was not home.
These women were also not underage, they were in their twenties.
The girls were asked to remove their shirts and bras because the straps got in the way.
They both left Victory, and won’t return, because they were frightened and disturbed by the sexual advances of the pastor.
… Paul later met with at least one of them at a coffee shop where he shared with her that he had been a swinger before, in his first marriage. She thought he was trying to seduce her into a sexual relationship.
The thing that concerns me the most is the pattern in Paul’s life.
In Missouri he was a swinger and participated in wife swaps.
He moves to Rochester and starts Fusion, and soon afterwards gets a divorce that he claimed was not his fault.
It was later discovered that he had been committing adultery with a woman in his Fusion ministry at Victory.
It is later discovered that he had brought other men into his marriage bed in his first marriage Then the aforementioned happened in 2009 which raised a lot of questions in my head as to Paul’s motives in showing me pictures of Jill naked.
Farther down the page:
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- According to two victims who discussed abuse in their time at the church this was not the first time sexual assault was covered up at Victory.
“I went to Victory from the time I was born until my early 20s and was sexually molested at age of 3-8 years old by a man who attended, as well. At the time, the pastor’s name was Joe Burress,” explained one victim who spoke to Bloody Elbow.
Joe Burress was not the alleged abuser, but is the father of Paul Burress.
… There was also a case in 2004 where a 40-year-old pastor was sentenced to five years for sexually abusing a teenage boy:
You can read the rest (Link): here
Follow up (July 2021):
(Link): ‘Fight Church’ Founding Pastor Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse 3 Years After Son Owned Abuse Charge by L. Blair
Related:
(Link): Marriage Does Not Make People More Loving Mature Godly Ethical Caring or Responsible (One Stop Thread)
(Link): New ‘Christian Swingers’ Dating Site Offers Faithful Couples Chance to ‘Hookup’
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