Officials at Vienna Presbyterian Church recently decided that it was best to acknowledge certain situations that happened with a youth director who was involved with the church. The church’s insurance company, GuideOne Insurance, strongly advised church officials against making statements that could imply that the church was at fault. Clearly, the values of the church, and the values of the insurance company, are mismatched.
The story starts five years ago. Vienna Presbyterian Church officials learned that the man they had hired as a student ministries director, Eric DeVries, behaved very inappropriately with some of his female students. It has been said that he “crossed a boundary of emotional and physical propriety” with these students.
Eric DeVries was hired in 2001, and resigned in 2005, after the abuse allegations came to light. The church officials did the right thing, and reported him to authorities. He eventually received a 12 month suspended jail sentence, after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Sometime in 2009, the church started re-examining the situation, trying to discover what went wrong, (perhaps to prevent it from happening again). Church officials decided that they wanted to acknowledge their part in failing to respond to the abuse after becoming aware of it, and also to apologize to the victims. One could interpret this to mean that the church, like many other churches, placed value on honesty, openness, truth, and forgiveness.
The church’s insurance company, on the other hand, had different values. GuideOne hired a lawyer to warn the church officials against making any kind of statement, whether verbally, in writing, or in any other manner, that could be taken as acknowledgement of, or an apology for, anything that could suggest that Vienna Presbyterian Church caused or contributed to any damages arising from the actions of their former youth director.
Doing so could cause the church to lose their insurance coverage. If they lose their insurance, they also will lose the legal assistance that may have been attached to the insurance policy.
This could be taken to mean that the insurance company, like many insurance companies, placed value on avoiding liability, and potential lawsuits. The insurance company could be trying to protect it’s customer, the church, from saying something that could cause the church to be legally held responsible for something that was not actually the fault of the church.
It is also possible that the insurance company could be trying to protect itself from having to pay out court judgements in cases that may have been avoided. If the church speaks out today about events that took place five years ago, this could, potentially, result in lawsuits filed by the victims against the church.
Image by Robert Simmons on Flickr