March 29, 2024
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Baptist pastor’s therapy controversial Female congregants describe purported repressed memories of sexual abuse

NORTH YARMOUTH – The arrest of a former Sunday school teacher on a sex abuse charge has focused attention on Faith Baptist Church and its pastor’s practice of a controversial therapy based on recovery of repressed memories.

During some of his 90-minute sermons, Pastor Wesley Harris has stood beside female church members while he described incidents of sexual abuse they allegedly suffered, former church members said.

The former members said two families have broken up and other family relationships have been severed because, in the women’s recovered memories, the alleged abuse was inflicted by the victims’ husbands or fathers.

Harris, who claims to receive instructions directly from God, became pastor of Faith Baptist 18 years ago. While church membership has declined from around 145 to 60, there is evidence that Harris’ control has grown.

Last month, former church member Thomas Wright was arrested and charged with sexually abusing a 7-year-old boy. The boy, a church member, is now 11.

Police say three women who belong to the church have also told them that Wright sexually assaulted them. Although the boy’s claims do not involve repressed memories, the women’s claims do, police say.

Denying any guilt, Wright said he is fighting not only to prove his innocence, but also to free his wife and two younger children from Harris’ control.

“I’ve got two kids and a wife in there,” he told a reporter. “I am not going to let them be destroyed by this monster.”

Harris, 57, refused two requests for an interview. Initially, he said God had told him not to speak. In response to a second request, he said the sheriff’s deputies had told him the same.

“We make a principle of not defending ourselves against such slanderous accusations,” Harris said. “Each of the issues being raised can be clarified and explained.”

After he was hired in 1984, Harris began enforcing a dress code and dealing harshly with critics, former church members said. In 1988 he expelled a woman he claimed had been gossiping about him and maligning him. About half the membership left the church after the expulsion.

According to former members, the climate at the church changed significantly in 1998, after Harris attended a training seminar in Kentucky at the Theophostic Ministries. Theophostic counseling combines recovered memory therapy with techniques for “demon deliverance,” along with elements of the inner healing movement, such as guided imagery, visualization and hypnosis.

Harris began to use the new therapy when counseling church members. Many members, including nearly all of the women, received the counseling, said Betty Bendixon, and nearly every one was found to have repressed a memory of sexual abuse.

Among those women was Kate Wright, 21, whose father, Thomas Wright, was arrested last month. She said the therapy typically lasts three to three and a half hours. When she was counseled, she said, she kept her eyes shut the entire time, while Harris guided her as she explored her thoughts. She said Harris told her that whenever she spoke, her voice was either God’s voice or Satan’s voice.

One time, she told Harris she remembered that a relative had sexually abused her. But she now says the memory was false. She told Harris about the abuse, she said, because most of the other women had uncovered repressed abuse and she felt pressure to conform.

During Sunday evening services, according to former members, Harris told the congregation about the uncovered memories of sexual abuse in graphic detail. Typically, the counseled woman stood next to him at the pulpit, sobbing, while Harris described the assault.

Thomas Wright, whose family joined the church three months before Harris’ arrival, said he was an enthusiastic member before he began to question Harris’ authoritarian style.

In January 2000, he left the congregation, along with his four children, and began attending a church in Freeport. His wife, Susan, remained at Faith Baptist.

According to Wright, Harris told Susan Wright to avoid “having fellowship” with him. In May 2001, Wright said, he told his wife that she needed to leave the church. Within a few weeks, he said, a young woman in the congregation claimed that he and his daughter, Kate Wright, had sexually assaulted her when she was 12 years old.

Susan Wright declined to be interviewed.

Thomas Wright, who is free on $15,000 cash bail, said he never learned about the accusation of the 11-year-old boy until after his arrest last month.

Although three women have told police that Wright had abused them, Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion said detectives are focusing on the 11-year-old boy’s accusation because that one appears to be the strongest case.

The Wright case has proven to be a complicated one for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. Three detectives have conducted 55 interviews, and they are getting more letters and phone calls daily. The district attorney will decide if there is enough evidence to prosecute.

All of the current church members, including Wright’s estranged wife, are supporting the boy, Dion said.

He said it would be up to a jury to determine whether the church is a cult, as some contend, and whether that should have any impact on the case. In the meantime, he’s telling detectives to stay focused on their job, which is to gather evidence.


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