I can also say that the statement he shared yesterday is full of half-truths, lies, and exaggerations. To find out more, read our, This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. I hope to have their moral courage and clarity, if I ever need it. I don’t know that John Ortberg III had child abuse materials on the laptop whose disappearance occasioned his confession. If you want a very detailed version of the story, Menlo Church member Ruth Hutchins has compiled a thorough timeline of events here, along with a number of relevant documents and illuminating blog posts. Click the link we sent to , or click here to log in. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. In retrospect it's so obvious that a family member was the culprit. From his writings I would have expected him to do better; I wonder if "Johnny" Ortberg had been grooming and gaslighting his own parents. But yesterday, I got extra-furious about something quite serious. A church spokesperson said that church member in question was a part-time volunteer in the past and has not volunteered at church events since concerns about them were reported to the board. I feel sorry for everyone involved, but Daniel Lavery deserves a medal for best behavior in a terrible situation. I, too, have been following this very closely and am just absolutely appalled at the level of corruption - not surprised, given the state of our country - but furious that this has happened. Grace Lavery has tweeted that there is at least one other news organization preparing to run a story on this. “But the situation they had created was risky, unsafe, and unsustainable.”. Ortberg, who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, did not report this to church elders or work to prevent the volunteer from being around the community’s children unsupervised. On yesterday, Daniel Lavery, Ortberg’s estranged son, posted a message on Twitter saying he and his wife had reported the pastor. (1/2), I would like very much to talk with him about this and offer corrections, but he cut off all contact with our family in November and made it very clear that we were never to contact him again. The Ortbergs made the choice not only to “protect” Johnny in the shallowest, most self-serving way possible—by keeping his secret—but to lose Danny over it. Danny is lashing out, breaking away, as one church elder put it during a town hall. Because what the Ortbergs have done to Danny during this unprecedented time for their family is exactly what our practically and morally useless leaders have been doing to all of us during an unprecedented time for our country. After speaking to the church member, Lavery said he and his wife confronted his parents about the situation. The church’s statement did not name the third party who brought Ortberg’s actions to the church’s attention. They could have offered the same understanding and compassion to both Ortberg sons, appreciating Danny’s bravery in holding them to account while supporting Johnny in his efforts to find a way forward without harming anyone, including himself. In their statement, Menlo Church leaders say they hired an independent investigator to look into the concerns over Ortberg’s handling of the church member. Having unfortunately grown up with an evangelical extended family, dollars to donuts part of the reason Ortberg covered it up--besides the usual evangelical BS--is that he was in denial that yet another of his children could be (IN. I can't find it on the timeline, but my memory is that Lavery described a last-minute change to those chapters following what he learned; review copies and the final published version differ for that reason. It was the right thing to do, and it was one of the worst experiences of my entire life. Immersion therapy for a pedophile? Missing in Eyebrows' otherwise super solid post supra is the gradual shift of many large evangelical churches from very good, widely distributed and transparent committee-and-board based governance to something called a "staff led church.". His upbringing “shaped me and made me who I … Rejection of *people*, where acceptance of them would cost more than a vague “I love x but he is very troubled” escape. This site uses cookies. I really feel for Danny; it must be just terrible to lose your entire family in one fell swoop. “In July of 2018, a person serving in the Menlo Church community came to John and shared in confidence an unwanted thought pattern of attraction to minors,” the church’s elder said in a statement. “Nevertheless, the investigation showed John exhibited poor judgment that was inconsistent with his responsibilities as Senior Pastor.”. I used to follow and occasionally chat with Laura on Twitter, so I was disappointed to see her choice in this matter but not gutted like her friends have been. As far as I know at this writing, no one from the Ortberg family has publicly acknowledged this except Laura Turner, who tweeted yesterday (before nuking her account): There is so much I would like to address and say right now! Last November, Daniel M. Lavery -- cofounder of the Toast and Metafilter. Christians Invented Health Insurance. Each congregation is run by an elected board of "ruling elders", which is called the Session. Ortberg was suspended for some time, and church elders did perform an investigation. And did you know—I did not, before listening to the CBC’s harrowing podcast, Hunting Warhead—that the preferred term for what we used to call “child pornography” is now “child abuse materials”? Acting from fear instead of love. Like, he got the details right about your whole family conspiring to hide, at best, a powder keg of potential abuse, but you believe he fudged… something else? A footnote in the timeline stood out to me as a red flag against Menlo Church. Who gives a shit? He also did not talk to other staff or church members about the situation. When his father did not do that, Lavery said he and his wife reported their concerns to the church board. I do not understand what the older John Ortberg was thinking. In Presbyterianism, pastors are called "teaching elders", and their job is teaching, preaching, and pastoral care. And I know saying that just gave Christians who are unsure what to think about all this the license they need to dismiss everything I’ve said above. Oh my god. As a Christian, clergy even (which sometimes I almost want to apologize for given how poorly many clergy behave), I absolutely agree with your assessment here. To be excessively charitable about it, I can think of a few things that would be highly incriminating without rising to the level of a crime. Sign Up For Our Newsletter Subscribers receive full access to the archives. Rejection of truth, when acceptance of the truth would cost more than the recital of a formula. Following that conversation, Ortberg went on leave. I am an active member of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the denomination that Menlo Church left along with others to form their new denomination "ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians" in 2005. The basic details that everyone seems to agree upon are as follows: In July 2018, someone who frequently volunteered with youth at Menlo Church went to John Ortberg, senior pastor, and confessed that he felt a romantic and sexual attraction to children, primarily boys between the ages of 8 and 13. Good for him and Grace for doing the right thing and reporting to the relevant authorities what the rest of his family would not. “I have no firsthand knowledge of any criminal activity, and I have real compassion for anyone trying to treat sexual compulsions with accountability and oversight,” he wrote on Twitter. In three sentences, she turns a confession of pedophilia by a church youth leader into a brave request for help with a perfectly ordinary problem—nothing to see here, folks. I see, so this is the specific thing that caused Lavery to. (I don’t know if he’d want to split hairs about whether or how he may have “worked to prevent contact” between the volunteer and children, but he never disputed that a pedophile made this confession to him, that he did not report it to his church, and that he knew the volunteer continued to work with children.)