- #VIENNA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH VIENNA VIRGINIA HOW TO#
- #VIENNA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH VIENNA VIRGINIA FULL#
The victims now say church officials failed them by asking few questions when trouble arose six years ago, ignoring at least one of them when she tried to come forward and making it difficult for the others to report what had happened. “I didn’t tell anyone because I thought people would look down on me.” The Washington Post generally does not identify victims of sex abuse, but Verley and another victim agreed to speak openly. “He was fulfilling the idea of my ideal and was validating that it was real,” said Rebecca Verley, now 23, who said she was abused during her teen years. He was forced to resign, pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor and then left the area in late 2005. Now in therapy, several of the women said they have persistent trouble with relationships, seeking to re-create a fantasy that came to an end only when DeVries was publicly accused of abusing one girl.
The girls - now young women - said one of the most damaging aspects was that DeVries made them think the relationships were real, bolstering his declarations of love with Scripture that he said made everything okay. Instances of abuse took place in a girl’s home, in the church’s minivan and in DeVries’s church office, according to the women and their families. He took them to concerts, community service events, mission trips and camps out of state and out of the country, stealing private moments after chaperons had gone to sleep or when he thought no one was looking. They said he drew them in as a trusted mentor, friend and Christian role model before professing his love, saying that he wanted to marry them, imploring them to keep the relationship secret and then progressively increasing sexual contact as they approached adulthood.ĭeVries, then in his early 30s, maintained simultaneous relationships with several girls, some of them sets of sisters and best friends, according to the interviews with the women.
But Vienna Presbyterian leaders hope that shining light on their failings will lead to redemption, education and healing.Ĭoncerned church elders approached The Washington Post recently as details of abuse began to emerge privately, and they have cooperated with a two-month Post investigation.įive women and their families said in separate interviews that former youth director Eric DeVries infiltrated their lives and manipulated the girls into what they thought were mutual romantic relationships.
#VIENNA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH VIENNA VIRGINIA HOW TO#
It is the kind of tragedy that has affected churches across the country, and there’s no formula for how to deal with it.
#VIENNA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH VIENNA VIRGINIA FULL#
The breadth of the accusations and the nature of them have shocked the relatively staid congregation and laid bare the kind of damage that can result from a combination of secretive predation, blind trust and a desire to move on without a full exploration of what really happened. James’s sermon - and a letter detailing the situation for the congregation’s more than 2,500 members in Northern Virginia’s affluent suburbs - comes as the church reels from the recent discovery that as many as a dozen teenage girls may have suffered sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse at the hands of a youth director who worked there from 2001 to 2005. “Some of you felt uncared for, neglected and even blamed for this abuse. “We failed as leaders to extend the compassion and mercy that you needed,” James said, publicly acknowledging the church’s failings for the first time. A row of young women sat in a back pew as James apologized for just recently learning that their ordeal was “far more devastating and horrific than we had imagined.” Pastor Peter James stood before his congregation at Vienna Presbyterian Church last Sunday and paused before giving one of the most difficult sermons of his life.įramed by the light coming through the sanctuary’s huge windows, James spoke of sexual abuse by a youth director, of the church’s shortcomings and of the tormenting darkness that has been eating away at the church for nearly six years. Patsy Durham on The Church, the Bible and…īy Josh White, Saturday, April, 10:04 PM Globalfreearctictern on Liberal Christianity: Don…Īnonymous on Morning music: Beauty, Hope an… Persecution: An open letter to Evangelical Christians.Power and authority: A bit of biblical theology.Aunt Ricki: The last of three Berry sisters.Morning music: Beauty, Hope and Meaning.
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