"Fight Church" Pastor Paul Burress Accused of Sexual Abuse, Allegedly Confessed to Swinging, Wife-swapping Lifestyle

By Leonardo Blair
Christian Post
May 20, 2014

http://www.christianpost.com/news/fight-church-pastor-paul-burress-accused-of-sexual-abuse-allegedly-confessed-to-swinging-wife-swapping-lifestyle-120080/


Popular "Fight Church" pastor Paul Burress and his Victory Church in Rochester, New York, are now at the center of a report alleging a sordid pattern of sexual abuse and a past life of swinging and wife-swapping.

Burress and Victory Church have been receiving a lot of coverage in the press lately for being the focus of "Fight Church," a controversial documentary that examines the use of mixed martial arts in the Christian community.

In response to criticism that mixed martial arts had nothing to do with Christianity, Burress defended it in a CNN op-ed last month.

"Like many competitive sports, mixed martial arts can be considered violent, but it's not hateful or destructive. It teaches us how to contain and control our most violent impulses through strength, discipline and perseverance — none of which are at odds with Christianity," wrote Burress.

According to a report posted on a blog called the Bloody Elbow, however, Burress, who is senior pastor at Victory Church, has not been exercising a lot of control over his sexual urges.

In a letter sent to the leadership team of Victory Church in 2013, an unidentified source complains that he was seduced into administering sensual back-rubs on Paul's wife, Jill, and repeatedly shown explicit video of the pastor having sex with his wife.

According to the source:

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 two 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. A person should be able to trust his pastor. I could not. 1 Cor 4:2 says it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.

The source also highlighted an instance in 2012 where Burress allegedly made sexual advances to two young female church members in the absence of his wife, and later tried to seduce one of them into a relationship after confessing that he used to be a swinger.

According to the letter:

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 20s. 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.

The source, which also highlighted that instead of addressing the concerns raised in the letter, Victory Church sought to protect their image.

"I believe that Paul should resign or be asked to resign because positions of authority have caused him to sin sexually. When a pastor engages in sexual behavior with someone in his church, it is an abuse of power and authority. When a person uses a position of authority to lure those under his care into inappropriate situations, those people become victims," said the unidentified source.

The Christian Post reached out to Victory Church for comment on the allegations on Tuesday. A response was still pending at the time this story was published.