Life-threatening: Ex-pastor collides with stopped truck

I am very sorry this happened and hope he recovers, but why are some of the commenters implying that this man somehow deserves more sympathy than anyone else involved an automobile accident, or that he gets extra gold stars for "turning his life around"? He committed more than one crime and betrayed his counseling clients and parishioners. Child pornography? Come on, people! Men like that do not change. He should not be "mentoring" anyone.

It's especially sad when someone who is trying hard to fix old wrongs, is injured and is fighting for his life like this. Life is short, and it's hard. Terrible things can,and do happen on a dime. Best wishes to this man and his family. The rest of us should make sure everyone we care about knows this, and that our affairs are in order.

He has been called Home.

Old Timer, I must disagree. Knowing Greg personally, he has turned his life around. Who Greg is today is a much better representation of God's work through his life. This is not some karmic event, it is only another opportunity for Greg to express a clearer testimony of a renewed life.

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At least he can't hurt anyone where he is now.

David D. you are correct He should have considered a new direction.

Wow, Greg got busted in 06, and 4 years later he's healed and whole, mentoring and counseling again. Wow. That is record breaking pedophile turning around recovery time. I am simply amazed. Have some questions for those that know Greg or specifically to Ruth who has reached out here:

How much jail time did he serve?

What was his terms of probation?

Is he a registered sex offender?

How much restitution has Greg paid to his victims? What has he done to assist them in their healing, therapy, provision of services, etc....What did the court require versus what Greg did for his own conscience for his victims?

What program was/is Greg in that has helped him to turn his life around? This would be very very helpful info for those who need this sort of treatment. Ruth, would you please be so kind as to share this?

Is Greg required to be supervised around children and young adults?

How has God worked this miracle U-turn in Greg's life so quickly? In 4 short years, Greg truly has done whats thought of as impossible so I think this warrants a further look into how he's managed to do this so well and fast with God and with treatment. Please to any who know of how he did this, would you tell us? It would help those of us who are struggling to believe that in fact Greg has turned his life around.

Is Greg assisting others in either healing from being abused in this way or helping other perps?

Ruth, since you have shared this with us and for the most part we all appreciate the extra info, would you please answer these questions for those of us who are still concerned yet want the best for both sides. Thank you.

@ whateva!
your point is vaguely valid regarding "where do we draw the line" for tolerance and crime. but you first mentioned compassion, and i don't know if you meant that you and your daughter were briehl's victims, but with them is where MY compassion lies. sex offenders, child predators do not change. their behavior earns their persecution and deserves no compassion - at least in my book.

Dear Whateva, first I apologize for thinking that you considered sexual abuse to be a lightweight issue. I was wrong and so sorry you too suffered at the hands of EVIL. I too am glad for you that depression and PTSD is a choice, that you are able to exert a measure of control and consciousness to your situation, I mean this. What I would give to not have to fight to get out of bed each day and not want to crawl under the covers at the hint of difficulty. The internet has made it easier for people like me to 'be' depressed and somewhat function in life by being engaged online. But I am marginally functional, having a wonderful family that loves and supports me. As I write this the Oprah show is on featuring abuse survivors with multiple personality disorder from extreme trauma. I recognize I am one of the fortunate survivors, very much so in spite of it all.

I was not always ruled by depression and flashbacks. I had a very successful career and 'life' of 'fun and leisure'. It wasn't until I got older and began to explore reoccuring themes and the death of my perp that it became overwhelming. I don't necessarily think my diagnosis is written in stone and I think the psych docs 'mean' degrees of.......well we'll see. I am finally getting angry which I've never been able to access, so who knows maybe getting the anger out will help the depression. Therapy and making sure the monies are there have been critical for me as they typically are for every survivor.

I wonder if this so called 'pastor' is paying for his victim's therapies and treatments? That would be vastly more significant than him 'counseling'. Who's he counseling? Other sex offenders? I'd believe this to be helpful, or that he's healed and whole, only after Ruth puts hidden cameras all through her house and his car and tap his phones for several years before I believe what she says is so. I do NOT trust that these people change. I saw my father who had massive cancer that had spread everywhere, who had only a few months to live go after his 5 year old grand daughter when he had a rare opportunity. My mother as she did with me 'pretended' not to see, hear, notice, care, whatever, as usual. Unfortunately he did hurt her, my niece, once-not my daughter. This people are not trustworthy and they are extremely silently dangerous imho. The damage they do is insidious and runs deep, dark and is typically so carefully crafted that the victim is never believed. The amount of deception involved in molesting a child is part of the EVIL they do. It is careful, complex, intelligent, and imo, sociopathically manipulative. If they can have done this before and the acts of this EVIL have been done, their problem runs much deeper than perverted physical sexual acts. I truly believe my sperm donor 'got' off on his planning to photograph and abuse me, the places, the timing, the others involved, the lies that had to be told to get a hold of me away from others, as much as the sexual aspect. It is a complete and total betrayal of trust on so many levels that it is disgraceful. Add to this that someone is a minister or priest, it becomes doubly shameful as this person has also used God as a partner in crime. The child is left abandoned and alone, with a God that resembles her perp.

This violence against children and women really has to be exposed and revealed and brought into the light for something to finally be done about it. If we minimize it, discount it, trivialize it, then we are participating to a degree in it. Frankly the only person that can legitimately say he is free of his paraphilas and perversions is not his wife, or his neighbor, another pastor, friend, etc...their testimony rings false and desperate to me, imo. The so called pastor is the only one that can claim his innocence and even then I personally wouldn't trust or believe him nor leave my child alone in a room with him.

My so called joke of a 'father' was Ivy educated, witty, charming, funny, at the top of his professional game, country clubs, vacation homes and well traveled. No one, and I mean no one would ever have believed me. He had a carefully manufactured persona and facade and reveled in it. But I saw his inner demons and he was in reality a devil, a weak pathetic man who really thought he was pulling one over on everyone. He got to my cousins as well and God knows who else. He thought he was so smart and clever. He played god.

I know I am going on and on, but please allow me------for any who care, with what making a child participate in porn does and involves. It is severely humiliating. I literally burned with shame as they made me pose. I didn't understand what was occurring but instinctively knew it was bad and wrong. It robbed me of my own sense of self, of being able to have boundaries and know where I began and ended, which set me up later in life to be raped by my professor in college----I literally froze, left my body and found myself defenseless with no voice, no will. Some may disagree, but this is what I did and never turned him in because I thought it was my fault somehow. I hated myself for not fighting back-I charged myself with the guilt thinking that only a guilty person would do nothing. I knew nothing then of PTSD etc... Child porn is an act of violence. It is more than exploitation and betrayal. It is another form of rape imo. It put my body on paper forever and left me with the worry of what if my mom found it? At this point I didn't know my mother was dancing with the devil, turning a blind eye to me and my pain. On some level she knew she was married to a perp, deviant. Then all the things my father said would happen, would. I'd lose my family and home, my gran, my friends. I'd be sent to the orphanage in midtown that he'd drive me past to point out my potential 'new' home at any time.

Child porn puts the child in the 'public', exposed, vunerable, naked, naked in so many vulgar, immoral ways. To this day I try never to have my photo taken of me in any way-never understood why until I worked on it in therapy. There is no way out in the being forced to pose nakedly. You are there forever on film, to be used however to any one with no control. At least when I was abused afterwards I could repress or block it or go out and play and forget. Child porn does not allow the child that luxury. I became frozen in time, in the most exposed, humiliating ways possible. For other's pleasure? amusement, profit, gain in some way? To a sane person it makes no sense.

Child porn is not simply 2 words. It is a lifetime of fear and dread. Of hatred of one's body and the beauty of God's creation. It is shaming to a degree that even typing these words my skin crawls. I remember the excitement in my fathers and the other man's voice as they posed me, laughed, critiqued each photo-the instant camera had just come out--a pedophile's dream come true. He was stealing my soul while having the time of his life-how does one reconcile this, esp. a child? Children's brains aren't fully form, developed until they are in their mid twenties. The magnitude of this abuse is not fully known now, yet. To me, it feels as if it is in my DNA. What wise words Ruth, can you give us who've been on the receiving end, that won't sound empty and hollow?

Ruth says her husband has changed. I don't believe her, which doesn't matter as what is true for her is simply that. IMO, true foundational change is slow, tedious, brutal and is done in stages, over time. He got busted only a few years ago. I'd be maybe more likely to consider him reworked-to a degree- after 20 years, but not a few. To make this claim imo is premature. Are the kids he abused going to believe this? Would the majority here leave their kids alone with him? How and why would they and on what basis? This is only my opinion and not necessarily true for others; just what I've seen to be true for me and the dozens of others I've been with in incest survivor groups and treatment and in the books I've read. I learned from my so called father words mean NOTHING. He was a master of deception and facade.

To end: sometimes I wish my father had just taken a gun and killed me. Seemingly to me it would have been cleaner, kinder, quicker. He managed to kill a piece of me, my soul and will, and I've fought hard to regain them. It has taken a lifetime of work and a mountain of money to accomplish this. I miss my career and freedom of not remembering and dealing with the abuse, but he stole that choice from me. He had no right, yet somehow he felt he did and did it with abandon and relish and involved other pedophiles in it. He might as well have murdered me. Truly it wouldn't have given me his nightmarish task of overcoming his secret EVIL and betrayal.

How blessed I am to have a God that came to us, to me, in a manner I can intimately relate to. He came to walk with me-and us--alongside: misunderstood, betrayed, abandoned, abused, exploited.... How impossibly great God is to show me his complete solidarity of what I work with and try to accomplish in healing. He didn't come as a Prince or King, or some super powerful intellect to 'teach' us and show his power over us. This is a Loving and Good God I can trust. They killed him in his innocence, even God couldn't--or chose not to---escape from the wickedness of what man can be and do to another. It is his resurrection that I hold onto while I do my work, and find another depressed cycle beginning. I can do this- I can with his holy hands heal from the basest ugliest evil man can do to another-to a child. This is the ONLY reason I choose to be here now, to work towards his Kingdom and not mans. This is my sermon to any abusive ministers and their apologists.

Sorry this is so long and involved. TIA to any who care and understand. God bless any and all survivors of this particular EVIL and to you Whateva....so very glad you are in your life happy and healed, the very best to you. : )

@worried in C - I feel your pain...your rage....your "everything"...I too have bee on the receiving end of such abuse. I, sometimes, too want to go to the perp and strip him of every part of dignity, self-confidence, oh such a list of things I could not BEGIN to list. What these perps do is considered vile, vicious, cold, here's another list that could not be completed, I could join in with vigilantes that would hunt them all down and do whatever...HOWEVER, I choose not to. I choose instead, to go forward and not "suffer from some form of PTSD and depression my entire life". This would allow him to win. Something I choose NOT to let happen. To me or my daughter. I wish, hope and pray for you to find the peace and love in your mind to heal yourself. It's seems to be the only way out of the nightmare.

Amen to the posters above telling their truths! AMEN AMEN AMEN.

One good thing about being the survivor of a child predator or pedophile nowadays, and the only good thing I can think of that has a bit of empowerment in it is that WE, who were abused by men like these, can now TELL THE TRUTH AND BE BELIEVED and WE CAN TELL ON THE VULGAR MONSTERS THAT DID THESE TERRIBLE THINGS TO US. WE CAN OUT THEM AND SHAME THEM. This has nothing whatsoever about forgiveness or whether or not God forgave these b******s or not. This is about telling the truth and uncovering one of humanity's most horrendous sins. To think that pastors and priests use God to abuse children has got to be one of the worst sins known to mankind. If there is a loving God then there must be a special place in hell for these types. AMEN to all my brothers and sisters who suffer with the sins of the wicked. Know you were innocent and pure and it was never ever your fault in any way.

Ruth,

I forgave Greg a long time ago, but I won't forget. As a result of his behavior there are people that are changed forever; unnecessarily, horribly and intentionally at his hand. Don't you dare preach to anyone on how to behave in their quest for normalcy or offer opinion on how one's relationship with God should occur. Greg ought to be in jail. If he had any decency about him he would have moved far, far away, so his innocent victims wouldn't have to be reminded of him so often. No sympathy here. Look somewhere else.

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As I read the comments above my first reaction is anger and defensiveness but what then takes over is a sense of pity that some fail to understand the power of God's love, mercy and forgiveness. God allows U-turns for any and all. People can change by the power of God. And Greg is one of God's children who knows the horror of his sin, the sting of repentance, the sweetness of forgiveness and the process of restoration.
I ask that people give us grace and pray for us.

I'm getting really fed up with crap falling/blowing out of the back of trucks and into the road. The drivers of these vehicles with unsecured cargo need some attention from teh Popo.

jim r,

What I really wonder is if friend of the the fam and Dino ever reached out to Greg's victim to help them as quickly as they try and defend Greg now that he has been caught and is in the public eye.

Did his church try and envelop them in their arms as quickly as they try and cover him up, or did they just try and hide it like the RC Church has over the priests?

Friend of Fam, Dino,

Whilest I agree some of the comments are distasteful, I also can agree with the sentiment of disgust and frustration many express here. Much compassion can be had for the first wife and the children, as the father has opened them up to public speculation, but the families of far more have suffered at this man's hands. What about their public humiliation as true victims of someone who abused a very important place of trust?

A penitent man does not go back to doing effectively what he did before - mentoring is just another form of counseling - he does something perhaps less pleasing to himself and more humbling.

I often find in this day and age that people seem to think saying 'sorry' makes it all better, and you can just get back to business. Sorry doesn't heal the wounds of all the victims. You are only truly sorry when you refrain from what you were doing, and find another way to contribute to your community.

I hope all those that have suffered in this can find some healing and a way to move forward in a positive way in their lives.

Whateva! - sure everyone makes mistakes - but it's a special kind of MISTAKE when a child is involved, don't you think?

I have re-read all these comments. For the ones of you that suffered at the hands of this man, my heart breaks for you also. I can tell you one thing, God can forgive him, but Greg will never forget what he has done and that in it's self is punishment. For if he really has ask God to forgive him, he will be a most miserible person! When you back slide on God, you suffer daily for doing it. It sounds like a lot of you had wished he had died, what is that going to do. The memories are still going to be there even if he's not! You have to remember, even though God can for give him, he will still go through some tuff times, especially I believe for putting a precious child through what he did. I guess Ruth Graham must be a very strong woman to have married him with having grand children herself. I hope her children keep a watchful eye on this situation..... My prayer's are still with all of you, I am sure Greg has had a very hard time dealing with all that he has done and think about his own children. What kind of life do they have now, are they made fun of, do they even have a life. People Satan is strong and he is on a rampage to devour even the strongest christian he can. We are not strong enough to fight against him, but we have one that can and will fight our battles for us, His name is God. Praying for Gregs soul to be healed and then his body from this accident. Remember when we are ugly and if it was you or someone in your family that this happened to with him, you have a right to be angry. But hating the man is a sin, lift him up to God and let God deal with him. If it was me or my child, I honestly can not tell you what I would have done, other than been in prison, and it sounds like he will probably do some time in prison and it will not be a pretty site from what I have read what the other inmates do to people that have hurt children. God has all of this in His big hands, let him take care of all this as hard as it might seem to do. Again praying for all of you...

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These comments are hard to read. I know this family - both wives and the kids. It has been a very tough 4 years - esp. for the kids and their Mom. Now this. God works in strange ways, and I know He's in control. But, it has been one thing after another. Please be sensitive, as you never know who might be reading this. Both wives are wonderful women...godly ladies of great faith, and who are both hurting right now. And those kids are some of the best you'll ever meet...and they love their Dad just like most kids do...to them, he's just a Dad. They have been through too much already, and then had to deal with this shock. No matter what has happened before...these 5 people are innocent souls who just happen to love a "sinner"...like all the rest of us - either are one, or we love one...let's remember that. "No one is worthy of God's mercy, lest we should boast." So, please be sensitive in what you say; for the familys' sakes. You do not know these people...and how would you feel as a young person to have private information about YOUR life splashed all over the papers - through no fault of yours -- and to have to hear and read nasty comments about someone you love, no matter what their crime? Especially when they are in a hospital in ICU? Have your opinion, but please realize that right now a father - wheter saint or sinner - is fighting for his life, a wife is praying for supernatural healing, and an ex-wife is comforting 3 kids, and dealing with her own set of unique emotions. Let's remember the hidden victims of all sin...the families who are affected by bad choices. And let's use our energy to pray for healing for them all. Thanks.

In response to:

Rockersville October 1st, 2010 | 3:36 pm
I’m getting really fed up with crap falling/blowing out of the back of trucks and into the road. The drivers of these vehicles with unsecured cargo need some attention from teh Popo.

We agree one million percent with you!

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actually not even a link, merely a suggestion... ??

Wow!!! I just read all these comments and I am reminded how judgmental we can be. As far as I can tell, no one on this thread has more than a sliver of the facts, a sliver of knowledge about the whole of Greg's life, the specific actions, his impact on others. What you seem to know a lot about is your own life, the pain you carry, and your willingness to pass judgment on Mr. Briehl. My request is that you find compassion for yourself without it being at anyone else's expense. Please use your words to build up,not to tear down. I am self-righteously confident that you'll have to tear my words apart because I didn't agree with you. If you called Ruth Graham condescending, then I must be a pig. I have erred by putting you down, too, but I'm really saying, "Please stop the violence towards each other, including the perceived perpetrators." We all carry a lot of pain and grief in our hearts and we can use Greg Briehl's injuries as an opportunity to re-commit to our own healing.

@ listening: "perceived" perpetrators maybe do deserve a pass, but briehl is a CONVICTED perpetrator against CHILDREN. that is more than i want or need to know about him.

@ worried in C; I have not been able to get your pain off my heart since reading your post last week. The lasting damage done by sexual abuse is of a different kind than other sins done against us. Maybe this is so, b-c God designed sexual intimacy to be one of His most beautiful gifts, embodying relational closeness and pleasure. When abused, it damages us in an exquisite way, which I believe grieves the Lord deeply. Although ALL sin is odious to a holy God, it is my opinion this one does hold special wrath, especially when children are involved.
The past four years songs have come to me as part of my/our healing, and the first one on a CD I made is dedicated to women who have been abused and come out of sexual trafficking. It is called "Arise", and I'd like to send you one if you would like. Please post a comment on asweetvoice.wordpress.com where I could reach you... my prayers are with you and your family. My children are doing well through all this, thanks to many good people, and God's unending grace. :)