Pastor resigns amid scandal
‘Poor judgment resulted in pain and broken trust’ across the community
MlNLO PARK >> A Bay Area megachurch pastor has resigned amid growing fallout over his handling of a volunteer’s professed sexual attraction to minors — and the recent public revelation that the volunteer was his son. Christian author John Ortberg no longer will serve as pastor of the 4,000-member Menlo Church, the church said Wednesday, a decision that came after mounting calls for his resignation and a secondary investigation into the volunteer’s behavior with children.
“In recent days and after a process of mutual discernment with John and in consultation with the Presbytery, it is with a heavy heart that the board unanimously concluded that John should resign as Senior Pastor of our church,” the church’s Elder Board wrote in a
letter posted to the church website. “He agreed and tendered his resignation last week.”
Board members felt that Ortberg’s “poor judgment … resulted in pain and broken trust” across the church community and worried that a lengthy investigation would sow further ill will among members, the letter explained.
The scandal began unfolding in July 2018, when a church volunteer disclosed to Ortberg that he had struggled with an unwanted attraction to children — but had never acted on the impulse, Board Chair Beth Seabolt told parishioners in a January email.
According to the board,
Ortberg did not tell other church leaders about the volunteer’s statements and “failed to take the required steps to prevent the person from volunteering with minors at the Menlo Park campus.” About 18 months later, the volunteer made the same disclosure to someone else — this time to Ortberg’s other son, the author and Slate columnist Danny Lavery.
Lavery did not identify the volunteer publicly at the time but said that he reported the disclosure to Menlo Church elders within days. Ortberg was placed on leave in November and returned to the pulpit in late January.
A few months later, on June 28th, Lavery re- vealed in a series of tweets that the volunteer was his brother and called for his father’s resignation from
the church. In a July 6 letter to the congregation, Ortberg himself confirmed that the volunteer was one of his own children.
“When my son first spoke to me, I should have immediately asked our church Elders for counsel and I should have exerted my full influence to ensure that he did not volunteer again at any event with kids and youth,” Ortberg wrote.
The volunteer has not been charged with any crimes. An initial investigation by the church revealed no allegations of wrongdoing, Menlo spokesperson Heather Holliday said.
Lavery and numerous church members have raised doubts about the thoroughness and transparency surrounding that investigation, however, given the unique relationship of the volunteer to the
pastor. A handful of parishioners told this news organization in early July that the revelations caused them to leave the church.
Ruth Hutchins, 33, a former 10-year church member who since has stopped attending services and tracked the timeline of events in her personal blog, said Ortberg’s resignation is an “important and necessary” step but that church leadership still needs to more further examine possible wrongdoing, as well as its institutional response.
“It’s easy to get distracted maybe because of this big celebrity pastor doing a big celebrity resignation, but there have been a lot of other problems that have come up and have not been addressed, and I would still like to see them addressed,” Hutchins said.
The board admitted in
a July 11 letter that it “did not provide the transparency that our community deserves” and promised to conduct a supplemental investigation into the volunteer’s interactions at the church. A five-person committee of staffers, parents, elders and volunteers that will oversee the second investigation is nearly finalized, elders said Wednesday. Menlo also plans to hire an outside organization to audit church policies related to child and youth safety.
Ortberg looms large in Presbyterian circles, particularly as Menlo has grown to one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the state. Since 2014 — when Menlo switched denominations from the mainstream Presbyterian Church USA to A Covenant Order of Evangelical Pres
byterians, which is known for its conservative stance on LGBTQ+ issues — it has expanded to six satellite campuses in the Bay Area, including in Saratoga and San Jose.
In the letter announcing his resignation, church elders credited Ortberg for the church’s broad reach and thanked him for pushing parishioners to embrace “the life of the Christian mind in the midst of an increasingly secular world.”
“As we look to the future, we fully believe in the redemptive testimony and witness God has planned for him, his family, his ministry, and our church,” the elders wrote. “We have spent years praying for and loving the Ortberg family and ask that you continue to keep them in your prayers in the days ahead.”