‘Fight Church’ Founding Pastor Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse 3 Years After Son Owned Abuse Charge by L. Blair

‘Fight Church’ Founding Pastor Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse 3 Years After Son Owned Abuse Charge by L. Blair

I am fairly sure I blogged about at least one of these guys a few years ago. Yep, I sure did.

(Link): ‘Fight Church’ Founding Pastor Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse 3 Years After Son Owned Abuse Charge

Excerpts:

by L. Blair
July 2021

Joe Burress, the 71-year-old founding pastor of Victory Church in Rochester, New York, also known as the “Fight Church,” has pled guilty to one of two second-degree sexual abuse charges against him three years after his son Paul Burress pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual abuse.

Court documents cited in a recent WHAM report say two teenagers accused Joe Burress of sexually abusing them in separate incidents while they were under the age of 14.

…In March 2018, Paul Burress, who was previously charged with four counts of forcible touching after allegedly groping three women in his Henrietta, New York, home, pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual abuse, a misdemeanor.

Christian MLB Star Ben Zobrist Claims Wife Had an Affair With Their Pastor and Marriage Counselor

Christian MLB Star Ben Zobrist Claims Wife Had an Affair With Their Pastor and Marriage Counselor

Assuming this guy is telling the truth, this one, lone headline manages to summarize about three or four the usual ten or so topics I regularly blog about!

Where do I even start with this one?

Okay. Many Christians – the ones who are obsessed with promoting marriage, parenthood, and The Nuclear Family – often like to claim that marriage (or being a parent) makes a person more godly, mature, loving, responsible, or ethical.
Clearly, this is false, because I have a shit load of news stories on this blog of married people (and parents) who are law breakers, selfish, or perverts.

Let’s see, what other garbage do pro-family values Christians and secular conservatives frequently teach that this story shows to be false that I’ve been covering here for literally years now?

Let’s see, oh yes:
Marriage supposedly makes Christian adults impervious to sexual sin… if Christians just get married, they will have great, regular, hot sex (with their spouse) and never have an affair on their spouse, or molest children, or use porn. All of that is false.

Other falsehoods: single (unmarried) adult women are sexual harlots and temptresses, so married men should stay away from them per the “Billy Graham Rule” (or “Mike Pence Rule”).
Well, the woman in this story is MARRIED. She is not widowed, divorced, or never-married (single), but a married chick who allegedly screwed around on her husband.

The male headship rule – Christian complementarians, and some secular sexist men in our nation – like to assume that men are specially or uniquely qualified to lead women, to lead on the job, to lead in politics.
But yet gain, we see via this news story that men commit sexual sin, some men lack self control and mores, and there is nothing special about maleness that causes men to be more virtuous or better than women.

Complementarians teach that only men “need” or “want” sex, but obviously, unless the married lady in this story was having affairs to meet emotional needs, she clearly enjoys boning men.
Women do enjoy sex, too, not just men, but this flies in the face of the sexist assumptions of many people in American culture both inside and out of the church.

And there’s just something ironic about the fact that allegedly, one of the men she had an affair with was a marriage counselor!
This is like the news story about the (Link): marriage counselor who murdered the woman he was going to marry, because she asked him to sign a pre-nup agreement.

There is nothing about marriage that makes people more worthy, ethical, happier, more godly or whatever else, than people who are single, widowed, or divorced.

(Link): Former MLB Star Ben Zobrist Accuses Pastor of Affair With His Wife and Defrauding Charity

(Link):  Retired MLB Star Accuses Pastor of Extramarital Affair with His Wife and Defrauding His Charity: Lawsuit 

Retired baseball player Ben Zobrist – the 2016 World Series MVP who led the Chicago Cubs to the franchise’s first championship in 108 years – is accusing pastor Byron Yawn of having an extramarital affair with his wife Julianna and of defrauding his charity.

In a lawsuit filed in Tennessee on May 6, Zobrist, 40, claims Yawn “usurped the ministerial-counselor role, violated and betrayed the confidence entrusted to him by [Zobrist], breached his fiduciary duty owed to [Zobrist] and deceitfully used his access as counselor to engage in an inappropriate sexual relationship with [Zobrist]’s wife,” according to NBC News, the Peoria Journal Star, and the Chicago Tribune, which obtained the lawsuit documents.

(Link): Ex-Cubs star Ben Zobrist claims wife Julianna had affair with their pastor, lawsuit says

(Link): Christian MLB Star Ben Zobrist Claims Wife Had an Affair With Their Pastor and Marriage Counselor

Excerpts:

By Jeannie Ortega Law
June 22, 2021

A recent court filing on behalf of outspoken Christian and former MLB player Ben Zobrist alleges that his wife, pop singer Julianna Zobrist, had an affair with the couple’s former Tennessee pastor, who also served as their marriage counselor.

Zobrist, who played in the MLB from 2006 to 2019, is now suing the former minister for damages, claiming he defrauded his charitable foundation.

Mark Driscoll Paid for Honeymoon with Church Funds

Mark Driscoll Paid for Honeymoon with Church Funds

Dear Al Mohler and other marriage-obsessed weenies who keep insulting the state of singleness to promote marriage:

Here’s another example of how being a married person did not make that person more ethical, mature, giving, or godly than someone who is single.

Does doofus Mark Driscoll ever pay off rent or groceries or whatever for single adults, one wonders?

Not that it would be okay to mis-use church funds on that, either.

(Link): Mark Driscoll Paid for Honeymoon with Church Funds; Uses Gift Cards to Pay Interns, Former Members Say

by Julie Roys

….When Pastor Mark Driscoll told Joey Manuele and his fiancée at a staff Christmas party that he’d pay for their honeymoon, Joey Manuele was stunned.

…A couple weeks later, the Manueles received a check for the full amount. But to their surprise, the check wasn’t from Driscoll, but from The Trinity Church.

“I was like, ‘Wait! He never said it was coming from the church!’” Joey Manuele said. “(Driscoll) said ‘me, me,’ like ‘I’m going to give it to you. I want to do this for you.’ And then we get a check from the church . . . So that was a shock.”

…Joey Manuele added that the honeymoon stay wasn’t the only unsolicited gift Driscoll gave him and his wife.

…Manuele, whose entire family was recently kicked out of the church, said he now suspects the gifts were intended to buy his loyalty.
— end article —

In light of news stories like this, and other, similar ones I’ve posted before about married people, including self professing Christians, who behave as un-ethical weasels to out right scum buckets,
I never, ever want Al Mohler or Bradford or other marriage and nuclear family promoters pushing marriage or parenthood by arguing that parenthood and marriage makes people more mature, godly, responsible, ethical, etc, when clearly, that is NOT the case.

---

Related Posts:

(Link): Placing One’s Marriage Ahead of The Church – Preacher (i.e., Mark Driscoll) Used Prioritizing and Rebuilding His Marriage as Rationale for Bullying His Church Members

(Link): More Anti-Singleness Bias From Southern Baptist Al Mohler – Despite the Bible Says It Is Better Not To Marry

(Link): The Dear Driscoll Site – Re: Mark Driscoll – Christians: Stop Supporting Driscoll, any church Driscoll runs, and Stop Supporting Guys Like Him!

(Link): Preacher Mark Driscoll Basically Says No, Single Christian Males Cannot or Should Not Serve as Preachers / in Leadership Positions – Attempts to Justify Unbiblical, Anti Singleness Christian Bias

(Link): Adult Singleness and Virginity Ridiculed by Preacher Mark Driscoll from 2000 – and anti Homosexual and Sexist Rhetoric ( Re Driscoll Rant known as Pussified Nation )

(Link): Pervy Preacher from Seattle who teaches men “to objectify women, by his over emphasis of sexualization of women and subservience” (Re Driscoll)

Church Director, Seminary Student Set to Wed in November Arrested for Child Pornography

Church Director, Seminary Student Set to Wed in November Arrested for Child Pornography

No, the “equally yoked” rule so many Christians like to cram down the throats of singles is of no import – another example further below in this post.

There are a lot of men out there, who appear to be genuine Christians (whether they are actually Christian or not is immaterial to single Christian women who find them on dating sites and so on), who are actually great big perverts.

It would be better for a single Christian woman who desires marriage to marry a loving, non-perverted atheist (or Hindu or Druid or whatever)
than to marry an abusive or perverted man who believes in, and who confesses, Jesus as his savior, and who regularly attends church and does all the other things that appear to be the marks of an actual Christian to most other believers.

Disclaimer for the annoying female Christians who like to bray on my blog when I mention all this:
“But what about all the bad atheist men out there??!! Don’t tell me that all non-Christian men are wonderful!”

I am well aware of the fact that Non-Christian men can be pigs and horrible, too.

My view does not have to contain the premise that ALL atheists and other flavors of Non-Christians are angelic and marriage-material. That is not my belief nor my point.

My point is that one limiting one’s self to any one group of men based on religious criteria (whether Mormon only, Christian only, atheist only, ‘whatever’ only) is needlessly limiting one’s dating pool.

Let this also be a lesson that contra to what so many Christians teach about dating and marriage, that one does not have to be perfect in any way to “deserve” a spouse, or to be “worthy” of a spouse.

If God is permitting deviants like the sicko in the news story below to become engaged to be married – a nasty ass pedophile of all things! – there’s absolutely no reason to adhere to a false theology that God has special, stricter rules for “permitting” a non-pedophile adult single to become engaged.

I mean, please! As though God is more lax and forgiving towards a child- diddler than a normal person? Get bent.

But so much of the Christian dating advice, the “how to get married” advice I saw and heard from Christians (in person or read in books or on blogs) is predicated on this faulty type of thinking.

There are a lot of hurtful, false, and stupid things Christians teach and believe about singleness, dating, and marriage.

(Link): NOBTS student dismissed after arrest on child pornography charges

NEW ORLEANS (BP) – A student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) was arrested today (May 13) on child pornography charges. Andrew Shiira was being held at the Orleans Parish Prison on 10 counts of pornography involving juveniles.

(Link): Church Director, Seminary Student Set to Wed in November Arrested for Child Pornography

by L. Blair,
May 2021

Andrew Shiira, once the director of worship planning at Lake Shore Church, was getting ready to graduate from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on Saturday.

A few months later in November, he was expected to move on to wedded bliss with his fiancée, but his life was upended Thursday when he was arrested on 10 counts of child pornography.

Married Father, Who Works As Church Worship Director, Solicited Nude Photos from Teen Boy

Married Father, Who Works As Church Worship Director, Solicited Nude Photos from Teen Boy

The article mentions that this guy is a “married father.”

My obligatory reminder, to rebut the oft-repeated pro-marriage, pro-Nuclear Family propaganda spread by secular and Christian conservatives: marriage, parenthood, and the nuclear family are not “fix alls” for culture, nor does being a parent, a spouse, or being in a nuclear family bestow character, ethics, compassion, or maturity in a person.

I have so (Link): many examples on this blog; this is yet another one.

(Link):  Menlo Church reveals fired worship director solicited nude photos from teenager

Excerpts:

by Leonardo Blair, April 26, 2021

One month after announcing the firing of Mountain View campus worship director Michael Bryce Jr. for “inappropriate behavior online” years ago, Menlo Church in California has confirmed that behavior was the solicitation of nude photos from a teenager.

In a recent update to the congregation on Bryce’s March 19 firing, the church’s transitional Pastor John Crosby and elder board chair David Kim said they could share further details on the circumstances surrounding Bryce’s firing because the police investigation has been completed. No criminal charges were filed.

Bride-to-Be Sparks Uproar with ‘Vile’ Wedding Date Selection: ‘A Self-Centered Monster’

Bride-to-Be Sparks Uproar with ‘Vile’ Wedding Date Selection:  ‘A Self-Centered Monster’

And many secular conservatives and Christians like to teach that marriage makes people more godly, loving, self-less, and mature – no, it sure does not. Here’s another example.

(Link): Bride-to-be sparks uproar with ‘vile’ wedding date selection: ‘A self-centered monster’

by Emerald Pellot

Fri, April 23, 2021, 2:22 PM
….A woman doesn’t understand why her friend planned her wedding on the seventh anniversary of her family’s death.

She explained why she doesn’t want to attend the wedding on Reddit’s “Am I the A******” forum. She lost her husband, daughter and mother in a car accident. Every year, she visits their graves on the anniversary of their deaths.

But this year, her good friend planned her wedding on the anniversary and forbade her from visiting her family at the cemetery instead.

Married Hillsong Church Administrator Sexually Assaulted Philadelphia Pastor’s Daughter: Report

Married Hillsong Church Administrator Sexually Assaulted Philadelphia Pastor’s Daughter: Report

Another example of how being married doesn’t make a person more godly, mature, ethical, responsible, or loving than remaining single.

Who, you may ask, teaches that marriage makes a person more loving, godly, etc, than being single (if you have to ask, you are probably married, because single adults already know)?

Why, a lot of conservative think tanks, Christian preachers, and other Christian talking heads, that’s who, such as but not limited to, “National Marriage Project,” Brad Wilcox, Al Mohler, Focus On The Family, and others. None of these marriage- idolating bozos care that the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7 that it is better to remain single, or that Jesus of Nazareth was a single and childless adult.

(Link): Hillsong Church Sure Sounds Like an Abuse-Laden, Power-Obsessed Environment

….Anna Crenshaw, a student at Hillsong College who says she was once abused by a church leader as a child, was allegedly assaulted by Jason Mays, son of the Australian church’s human resources head, in front of multiple witnesses, one of which told her not to tell anyone about it.

Mays denied the incident, but because the other witnesses were able to verify Crenshaw’s account, Mays was placed on paid leave.

He is now in an administrative role with the church. “Reporting what happened was the issue, not what happened to me,” Crenshaw said.

(Link): Married Hillsong Church Administrator Sexually Assaulted Philadelphia Pastor’s Daughter: Reporter

Excerpts:

by Leonardo Blair
Feb. 12, 2021

Around the time they received complaints about inappropriate sexual relations between staff and volunteers at Hillsong NYC, the embattled Australia-based Hillsong Church was in the throes of investigating the sexual assault of a Philadelphia pastor’s daughter at its headquarters, a new report reveals.

Wife Wakes Up and Stabs Husband After Dreaming He Cheated, Police Say

Wife Wakes Up and Stabs Husband After Dreaming He Cheated, Police Say

(Link): This Mississippi lady had a dream that her husband cheated on her. So she got up, got a knife from the kitchen, and shanked him while he slept! 😳 

(Link): Wife Wakes Up and Stabs Husband After Dreaming He Cheated, Police Say

by T. Kenney
Dec 31, 2020

A woman attacked her sleeping husband with a knife after dreaming he had been unfaithful, Mississippi authorities say.

Survey Finds Cheaters Want Covid-19 Vaccine So They Can Have ‘Responsible’ Affairs

Survey Finds Cheaters Want Covid-19 Vaccine So They Can Have ‘Responsible’ Affairs

I’m assuming that at least some of these people mentioned below are married (edit: yes, they are, just finished reading the articles).

If so, I never, ever want marriage-idolating weenies such as Al Mohler or Brad Wilcox (of “National Marriage Project”) ever, ever again releasing their insulting editorials or slanted studies that convey, that, in their view, that marriage makes adults “better,” or more mature, godly, or ethical.

(Link): Cheaters want COVID-19 vaccine so they can have ‘responsible’ affairs, survey says

(Link): Survey Finds Cheaters Want Covid-19 Vaccine So They Can Have ‘Responsible’ Affair

by C. Moore

Some cheaters are looking forward to the coronavirus vaccine.

That’s what a new survey from the affair-arrangement dating site Ashley Madison is suggesting, which says four out of 10 cheaters would like to receive a COVID-19 vaccine so they can “responsibly continue having in-person affairs.”

Hillsong’s Carl Lentz, Megachurch Pastor Who Ministered Justin Bieber, Fired and Admits Cheating on Wife

Hillsong’s Carl Lentz, Megachurch Pastor Who Ministered Justin Bieber, Fired and Admits Cheating on Wife

Many Christians claim that marriage will keep a person from sexually sinning. Many Christians claim that marriage will make a person more godly, mature, responsible, and ethical and that it is necessary to foster those qualities in a person.

But did being married, and being a parent, keep this guy from cheating on his wife? No. No it did not.

(Link): ‘He told me he wasn’t married’: Designer reveals Justin Bieber’s disgraced pastor Carl Lentz posed as an unmarried sports agent, says it was ‘love not just sex’ and they only broke up last week

(Link): Muslim woman claims she was in a relationship with Carl Lentz, unaware he was a pastor

(Link): Hillsong’s Carl Lentz, megachurch pastor who ministered Justin Bieber, fired and admits cheating on wife

Nob 6, 2020

BY LEANNE ITALIE / AP

Carl Lentz, the celebrity magnet of a pastor who brought the global megachurch Hillsong from Australia to the United States, has been fired, acknowledging on Instagram that he cheated on his wife.

The leader of HillsongNYC, who once ministered to Justin Bieber and a bevy of other celebrities and sports stars, wrote: “When you lead out of an empty place, you make choices that have real consequences. I was unfaithful in my marriage, the most important relationship in my life and held accountable for that.”

Pastor Quits Church To Become a Stripper and Now Sells X-Rated Pics and Videos Online

Pastor Quits Church To Become a Stripper and Now Sells X-Rated Pics and Videos Online

Before I get to the link about the woman pastor who left pastoring to be a sex kitten on line:

I never, ever want to hear another Christian woman complain on a blog, in a book, a podcast, or on social media that the church “values virginity or sexual abstinence too much,” nor do I need or want to hear any more women talk about how much Christian sexual abstinence pep talks comparing non-virgins to “used chewing gum” made them feel icky.

Because the times have changed.

It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly when the change happened, but sometime in the last 10 to 20 years, the Christian community stopped supporting sexual abstinence, and they’ve never truly supported adult virgins who remain single over the age of 30.

(They only gave lip service to supporting anyone who is a virgin / celibate, but in practice, they aren’t there for the sexually abstinent; they’re only there to serve the married-with-children people.)

We are living in quite the opposite age now.

The culture has changed. Most people, including Christians and churches, no longer support celibacy and virginity – but rather mock or insult these things. 

In light of the news stories like the one below, or about how, what is it, 70% of (Link): Christian American women comprise abortion seekers, or how up to half or more of the church see (Link):  nothing wrong with unmarried sex, any Christians out there (especially women – it’s usually women, seldom men) who complain that the church emphasizes virginity or sexual purity too much – are quite full of sh*t and have things totally backwards.

The church now openly supports sexual hedonism, and they shame or question adults who remain virgins until marriage.

Are there double standards, sexism, and problems within “Purity Culture” and how sexual purity is taught, or are there problems with the content of it? Yes, certainly.

But none of those issues suddenly excuse extra-marital sex as being fine and dandy.  And the Bible does not support extra-marital diddling.

You can criticize some of the excesses, sexism, or weirdness of Purity Culture and its teachings without completely tossing aside the principles of sexual propriety or without criticizing, shaming, or mocking those adults who are still virgins or celibate.

A word of warning: I am an (Link): ex-complementarian. But as someone who realized complementarianism was false and abandoned it, I did not become a liberal or embrace sexual hedonism as a result.

I disagree with this woman’s lifestyle who is mentioned below. Rejecting complementarianism does not automatically or necessarily turn a woman into a liberal, feminist, bimbo harlot.

I’m putting this warning in here, because the article mentions the woman in the article became a stripper after joining a church that was more egalitarian in regards to gender roles.

I would imagine a lot of complementarians would see that part of the article and say, or reason to themselves, “A-ha, this is what happens when a woman rejects Christian gender complementarianism!” – but alas, no, it is not.

Again, I rejected complementarianism many years ago, but I did not turn into a sexual hedonist or a bi-sexual stripper.

Another warning: If you’re a Christian, stop assuming that the reason why some leave the Christian faith is because they want to live in sexual hedonism.

Some people leave the faith not to indulge in sexual sin, which is a common and false assumption a lot of Christians have, but due to other reasons, ones having nothing to do with sexual sins, or going after some goal or dream in life that may be considered incompatible with the Bible.

People do have legitimate reasons for questioning the faith, ones that don’t have to do with wanting to be kinky. 

There may be some people for whom wanting to be lascivious is one (or a main) motive in leaving the faith, but that is not true for all.

Additional comments by me are below this:

(Link): Pastor Quits Church To Become a Stripper and Now Sells X-Rated Pics and Videos Online 

Nikole Mitchell, a mum-of-three, said she has always wanted to become an erotic dancer but she was brought up in a strict Christian family which put a damper on her dreams

by L. King

She has now come out as bisexual and carved a new career as a stripper, model and erotic dancer.

Woman Bites Husband’s Penis After He Refuses to Kill Rat in Their Home

Woman Bites Husband’s Penis After He Refuses to Kill Rat in Their Home

Does marriage make people more godly, loving, responsible, ethical, and mature as matria-mania promters such as but not limited to Southern Baptist Al Mohler and “National Marriage Project’s” Bradford Wilcox like to argue?

Why no, it does not. Here’s another example.

(Link): Woman bites husband’s penis after he refuses to kill rat in their home

By Yaron Steinbuch
September 4, 2020 | 12:17pm

A Zambian woman sank her teeth into her husband’s genitals because she was infuriated that he refused to kill a rat in their home, according to a report.