More From Johnny

Johnny Ortberg has shown up on Instagram, offering familiar content-free denials, and insisting that he should be allowed around children.

“your assumption that being attracted to someone makes you a risk to harm them is wildly naive.”

That’s not your choice to make, Johnny. pic.twitter.com/hv6AHvNmdK

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) August 2, 2020

Here is the text. johnnyoats is Johnny Ortberg:

John Ortberg Resigns - Updated

This sad story may have come to its end, at least publicly. Today Menlo Church announced that John Ortberg has resigned. This is the statement from the church:

DEAR MENLO CHURCH FAMILY,

We have been so grateful for your prayers as we seek to discern the Lord’s guidance on how best to uphold the mission of Menlo Church -- to lead our generation into a transforming relationship with Jesus and authentic community with each other, so that everyone in the Bay Area and beyond can flourish.

During this challenging season, we have been walking with many of you in your pain, responding to hundreds of emails and calls from volunteers, parents, students, staff and community members. Some of you have been part of Menlo for just a few months, others multiple generations, some are deeply connected in our community, others are questioning whether you can stay. You are all part of our family and your voice matters. Thank you for sharing your heart, your stories, and what our church means to you.

We acknowledge we as elders are imperfect people -- and for those who believe our investigation, decisions, or communications have been insufficient, we are sorry and humbly ask for your forgiveness. We have done our best to collectively pray, seek and act on the will of Jesus Christ, and to uphold integrity and compassion in everything we do. At every step, we have collaborated with and sought the counsel of our denomination, ECO Bluewater Presbytery. Our eyes are on God, and we are leaning into him to determine the next steps forward to build a church that has and will continue to bring him glory, and draw people to the saving grace of Christ’s love.

As leaders called by the congregation to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and his Church, the Elder Board and John take seriously Paul’s counsel in Acts 20:28 to “pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”

In this spirit, John shared with the Elder Board on several occasions his love for the church and his willingness to resign if the elders believed his presence had become a distraction from the mission of our church. 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. He agreed and tendered his resignation last week.

Our decision stems from a collective desire for healing and discernment focused on three primary areas. First, John’s poor judgment has resulted in pain and broken trust among many parents, youth, volunteers and staff. Second, the extended time period required to complete the new investigation and rebuild trust will significantly delay our ability to pursue Menlo’s mission with the unity of spirit and purpose we believe God calls us to. Third, in this coming season John needs to focus on healing and reconciliation within his own family. For these reasons, we believe Menlo Church should return our focus to our ultimate mission: helping people find and follow Jesus.

In making this decision, we also wish to gratefully acknowledge that during John’s tenure at Menlo, many have come to know Jesus, and through John’s teaching they and many others have matured in their faith and embraced the life of the Christian mind in the midst of an increasingly secular world. Our church has grown to include five additional campuses reaching from South City to Saratoga as we together labor to make the gospel known in the Bay Area. We are so grateful for John’s many contributions to Menlo and to the Christian community around the 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. 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.

We know that this announcement may raise many questions about the next steps for Menlo Church. We don’t have all the answers, but we want you to be aware of the decisions and actions we have taken to this point:

Staff Leadership. John’s last day with Menlo Church will be Sunday, August 2nd when he will be addressing our congregation. Following the recommendation of Presbytery, we will hire a Transitional Pastor to serve as interim Senior Pastor. The Transitional Pastor will provide leadership and additional support to our talented staff and ministries as we commence the work of searching for a new Senior Pastor.

Presbytery Involvement. Consistent with our accountability to our denomination, we have invited Presbytery leadership to provide guidance, moderate the Board and the Annual Congregational Meeting and have a member included on the committee leading the Supplemental Investigation. Menlo Church is not an independent church and is blessed to operate under the authority and counsel of our Presbytery.

Elder Board Composition. The Elder Board acknowledges that it is ultimately accountable for creating an environment of trust and mutual respect which has been sorely tested these last few months. We feel called to provide stability to Menlo Church in this time of significant transition but are working to add new and diverse voices on the board. To this end, board membership is refreshed annually with rolling turnover due to staggered terms with new elders elected by the congregation at annual meetings. The Transitional Pastor will serve on the board and we will continue to invite staff to speak into specific issues based on their expertise and role as need arises.

Annual Congregational Meeting. At the recommendation of Presbytery, our virtual 2020 Annual Congregational Meeting, originally scheduled for Sunday, August 9th, will be delayed until Sunday, August 30th so we can present all pertinent action items to the congregation for vote. This will include a vote to dissolve John’s call as Senior Pastor (the vote, as required by our denomination, is a formality since John has already tendered his resignation). As part of our board refresh, the congregation will vote to elect any nominated elders at this meeting. We will reserve time during the meeting for a Q&A with the congregation and invite you to submit questions in advance to governance@menlo.church.

Supplemental Investigation. We are in the final stages of confirming the members of the advisory committee that will be responsible for vetting and recommending a new, independent fact finding firm with expertise in child safety and sexual abuse to conduct a supplemental investigation of Johnny Ortberg’s involvement in Menlo Church and Church-sponsored activities. The five-person advisory committee will be composed of a staff member, a volunteer, a parent, a former elder, and a representative from our denomination for additional oversight.

Child Safety Audit. The Elder Board has directed staff to seek an external, independent audit of our existing child safety policies and procedures. We will provide an update on the expected start of the work as soon as we know more about the timing.

Communications. Many of you have expressed the importance of more detailed communication from elders about the decisions we have made and our prayerful deliberations. We have vowed to do better, and are providing more detailed responses to potential questions you may have here. Additionally, we plan to host a series of Fireside Chats over the coming months to provide important updates and more touchpoints for answering your questions. We will notify you on dates when they are finalized.

The author of Hebrews reminds the church in difficult times, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Our community has been built around a passion to follow Jesus, and we grieve that our focus on Jesus has been distracted by these events. We have been humbled and inspired by our campus pastors, staff and volunteers who have continued to faithfully minister to our congregation and community during these extraordinary times. They are a daily reminder that “church” is not a building. It is not a single person. It is the people of God, caring for the community together.

Let us move forward, unified in our greatest calling: to help others find and follow Jesus.

In service,
The Elder Board

And this is John's statement:

STATEMENT OF RESIGNATION FROM JOHN ORTBERG

Dear Menlo Church Family,

You all know this season has been wrenchingly difficult for our church, and for me and my family as well. It has involved complex issues that have required hard decisions, and I’m writing to tell you about one.

Over the last several months I have offered to resign in numerous conversations with our elders, if it would help our church. Last Thursday as we talked it became clear that I could not continue my service as your pastor, and I agree that at this time resigning is the best path forward. I feel enormous sadness in this, because I love our church and cherish dreams for our future. I have considered my seventeen years as pastor here to be the greatest joy I’ve had in ministry. But this has been a difficult time for parents, volunteers, staff, and others, and I believe that the unity needed for Menlo to flourish will be best served by my leaving.

I want to express again my regret for not having served our church with better judgement. Extensive conversations I had with my youngest son gave no evidence of risk of harm, and feedback from others about his impact was consistently positive. However, for my part, I did not balance my responsibilities as a father with my responsibilities as a leader. I am hopeful that my leaving can mark a new beginning in our church’s ministry, and will also appreciate your prayers for our family.

Although I am sad to have my time at Menlo end in this way, you should know that sadness is not the only or even main emotion in my heart. Far more than that, I will carry the memories of seventeen years of ministry and worship and learning and prayer and tears and laughter and spiritual growth that I will cherish as long as I live. I will be praying God’s healing and unity for our congregation this coming season. I will be praying that God, who placed a cross at the heart of human history, will redeem the pain of this story in all our lives as well.

For 147 years, from moments of barely surviving to seasons of astounding fruitfulness, Menlo Church has been a steward of the person and message and love of Jesus. That is what matters. I will live in the hope that, through our friend Jesus, the best is yet to come.

I look forward to speaking to you this weekend, as I talk about saying goodbye.

As I'm posting this early Wednesday afternoon, Grace and Danny have not said anything publicly. If they do I'll update this post.

Thoughts: As I've been pondering the arc of this story, trying to make sense of it all, it occurs to me that the first half of 2018 had to have been difficult for John and Nancy. Their daughter, Laura, was having a difficult pregnancy, prior to which she had had three miscarriages in a short period of time. (I know this because she tweeted about it and wrote about it in a couple of articles.) The Bill Hybels scandal became public in Spring of 2018. Danny had announced his plan to transition in the Fall of 2017 and started the transition itself in early 2018. As an imperfect and fallible human being, John had a lot on his plate.

Please note that I am not condoning or excusing what John did, I'm simply trying to understand. I'd like to believe that, perhaps, if he hadn't had so much personal and public turmoil during the first half of 2018, John may have been in a better frame of mind and made better decisions when Johnny came to him in July. Just a thought. No excuses.   

Update:

John, Nancy, and Laura Ortberg failed Johnny so very badly when he disclosed to them, counseling conspiracy and dishonesty over safety and recovery. I hope that he can begin that recovery in safety now.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 29, 2020

Our thoughts are with the community at Menlo Church, which now must rebuild without John Ortberg at the helm. Those few we have gotten to know over these painful months—Ruth Hutchins, Tiger Bachler, Mary-Ellen Lemieux and others—give us great hope.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 29, 2020

We want to thank once the team of advisors we’ve depended upon so much for the last few weeks: Nicole Cliffe, Alexis Coe, Cliff Mak, and Jacqui Shine. They are wise warriors and tenacious workers. And to those others—Liz Lin, Stephanie Tait, and others—who heard the call.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 29, 2020

Justice and healing—the two ends of the good life—rarely coincide, and too often we are forced to pursue one at the expense of the other. Here, for once, they overlap. Justice for the survivors of Menlo. Healing for the survivors of Menlo. The work continues.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 29, 2020

Grace's Letter To The Ortbergs

If I were writing it today, knowing what cruelty, misdirection, and corruption I would seen from the Ortbergs, I would not have given them the benefit of the doubt. The rot here goes deep and it will take time to uncover. Strength and courage to those seeking justice and healing. pic.twitter.com/lxsmq2bsQb

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 17, 2020

Here is the text:

(missing words) perhaps, cannot. For eighteen months, you

Protecting The Children

The RNS article from July 6 included this:

[Nicole] Cliffe later broke with the family after being interviewed by Alvarez. Cliffe said she told the investigator that her friend, [Laura Ortberg] Turner, would not allow her child to be alone with her younger brother — a choice Cliffe said Turner had confided in her. The investigator, Cliffe said, acted surprised and told her he had not known of the restriction. John Ortberg said in an email that no such restriction exists. (Read the RNS article here.) 

Now Grace has tweeted an e-mail message from Laura Turner (below) that makes clear there are restrictions around interactions between Johnny and her son. (The email wasn't from Laura to Grace; it appears to have been sent to a friend of Laura's. Grace doesn't say how she got it.) 

According to the email, she and her parents had extensive conversations about "appropriate guidelines" and only the most appropriate contexts for interactions. Laura and her husband also consulted three separate therapists to ensure they were handling the situation correctly, because protecting their son is their highest priority in this life. She feels confident in the steps they're taking. 

There's quite a contrast between this meticulous care for the safety of Laura's son and the complete disregard for the safety of the children at the church. Parents of those kids weren't given the opportunity to discuss appropriate guidelines or check with therapists.  

Frankly it's rage-inducing. I'm deeply disappointed in John Ortberg. 

An E-mail Message From Johnny - Updated

I pasted the text of Johnny's e-mail below; I'm not sure when it was sent out. Clearly this story is a long way from over. It sounds naive now but in November, when Danny first started talking about estrangement from his family, before he disclosed the specifics, I hoped that eventually he and the rest of the Ortbergs would somehow work things out. Not gonna happen now, presumably. Everyone's gone scorched-earth on each other and it's hard to see a way back.

The Ortbergs have claimed that Johnny has stopped seeking unsupervised access to children.

Here he writes: “I’m happy to speak with anyone who wishes.”

Johnny is attempting to re-establish contact with young children.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 14, 2020

Johnny also claims that the descriptions of him “are wrong.” But offers *no* sense of what specific claims he disputes, nor (of course) any evidence whatsoever. This is because Johnny knows his only move is to discredit Danny.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 14, 2020

I‘m a teacher, and no teacher I have ever met would dream of sending a letter like this. Not merely if they been outed as a pedophile. At any point. It *constitutes* “grooming” to use this language. This is the very “romantic friendship” that we have been talking about for weeks.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 14, 2020

Please, for the love of God.

✅ an independent investigation into sixteen years of Johnny’s volunteer work;
✅ John Ortberg out of Menlo, to focus on healing his own wounds and those of his son;
✅ LGBTQ competence training to ensure no more queer whistleblowers are silenced.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 14, 2020

This Johnny's e-mail message:








Update: The Huffington Post has published a deeply reported story:

The leaders of a California evangelical megachurch are under fire for bungling the church’s response to a youth ministry volunteer’s confession that he was attracted to minors.

The Menlo Church volunteer in question first told Senior Pastor John Ortberg about his feelings two years ago, though congregants weren’t officially notified about the situation until January. That the volunteer was the pastor’s younger son, John “Johnny” Ortberg III, was kept secret until a whistleblower leaked the news late last month.

The younger Ortberg denies acting inappropriately towards children and to date, no one has come forward with allegations claiming otherwise. But the revelation of his identity has heightened scrutiny of the church’s response and raised questions about whether John Ortberg ― who allowed his son to continue volunteering with children for over a year after hearing about the disordered attractions ― should remain the church’s senior pastor.

The church’s board acknowledged this week that its handling of the matter has caused “pain and distrust” in the community, and pledged to do better.

As of Tuesday, John Ortberg remained Menlo Church’s senior pastor.

Current and former members of Menlo Church told HuffPost they are upset by how the board ― and John Ortberg in particular ― handled the situation, claiming that leaders prioritized maintaining Ortberg’s reputation over building a culture that is safe for children and welcoming to any survivors of sexual abuse. Some members have also been upset over how the board’s chairwoman attempted to discredit the whistleblower, Daniel Lavery, a trans writer and Ortberg’s estranged son, who has broken from his family’s conservative evangelical faith.

Tiger Bachler, an Atherton resident who attended Menlo Church for over 20 years, told HuffPost that by keeping his son’s attraction to minors a secret for months, John Ortberg and his wife demonstrated that their priorities were skewed.

“It was more important to them to protect their reputation rather than think about the risk to the kids of the church,” said Bachler, who stopped attending services regularly about five years ago but still considers Menlo to be her home church.

Bachler said she doesn’t understand how the church can continue having Ortberg as its senior pastor.

“Given his responsibility as a pastor, the children of the church are the most vulnerable part of his flock and he did not stand up for them,” Bachler said. “He did not protect them.”

A Secret Confession

Johnny Ortberg, who is in his early 30s, first told his father about his attraction to children in July 2018. He assured his father that he had never acted on that attraction, and the pastor believed him.

The pastor failed to report his son’s confession to the top governing body at Menlo Church, a church located in an affluent Bay Area neighborhood, that draws about 6,000 weekly attendees across six campuses.

The confession remained secret for over a year, during which John Ortberg did not take steps to prevent his son from volunteering with children at Menlo Church or local student Ultimate Frisbee teams.

Clergy are mandated reporters in California, but they have an exemption from this rule if they hear about potential child abuse during a “penitential communication.” The church’s top leaders have said that the volunteer came to John Ortberg “in confidence.”

Lavery has said his brother opened up to him in November 2019 about experiencing pedophilic attractions for years, admitting that he’d tried to treat this condition by seeking out volunteer opportunities with children, which sometimes included overnight travel. Lavery claims that his father encouraged this work, citing alleged family texts from August 2019 in which John Ortberg appeared to congratulate his son for work with a local youth sports team.

A spokesperson working with the Ortberg family told HuffPost that Johnny Ortberg has “never acted inappropriately and has never been tempted to act inappropriately.” Johnny Ortberg did not seek out volunteer opportunities with children as a way to manage his condition and his parents never encouraged him to do so, the spokesperson said, adding that John Ortberg provided his son with referrals to clinical experts and Johnny Ortberg “has met regularly” with one of them.

John Ortberg told HuffPost through the spokesperson that, after learning about his son’s attractions, the pastor “conferred with clinical experts and other pastors about this situation.” John Ortberg still “believes he followed the correct course of action in protecting the confidentiality of his son from the authorities, given he never considered his son to be a risk to himself or others.” Nevertheless, he is “unreservedly sorry for not having immediately asked the church elders for counsel,” the spokesperson added.

Marci Hamilton, CEO of the child abuse prevention think tank Child USA, told HuffPost that she believes John Ortberg’s response to the confession was “woefully deficient.” She said Johnny Ortberg’s confession to his father appears to have been a “cry for help.”

“I would assume that he was struggling and was hoping that others would be able to set up some guardrails for him,” Hamilton said. “That did not happen nearly quickly enough, if at all.”

A Quiet Investigation

Concerned about John Ortberg’s silence and his brother’s unsupervised access to children for years, Lavery told Menlo Church leaders about the situation in November.

The church is governed by a board comprised of nine elected elders, as well as its senior pastor. After Lavery’s report, the board quickly removed Johnny Ortberg from volunteer opportunities and placed John Ortberg on personal leave. Congregants weren’t given an official explanation for the pastor’s absence at the time. The board said it also informed the church’s denomination, ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.

The board enlisted Fred W. Alvarez, an employment lawyer, to conduct an investigation into the pastor’s actions. According to Alvarez’s professional biography, he has experience “defending employers in trial” and “conducting sensitive internal investigations.” It does not list any experience investigating institutions dealing with sexual abuse crises.

Alvarez’s investigation had several flaws: Johnny Ortberg’s identity was kept a secret from some of the supervising staff who were interviewed, meaning Alvarez did not ask all interviewees specifically about Johnny Ortberg’s behavior, according to information first obtained by Religion News Service and confirmed to HuffPost by a Menlo Church spokeswoman.

Alvarez’s investigation also did not include interviews with some key individuals, including Johnny Ortberg himself. Alvarez didn’t speak to parents whose children had contact with the younger Ortberg or to any of his fellow volunteers.

Alvarez did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Hamilton said she found it “rather shocking” that the investigator failed to interview Johnny Ortberg and parents whose children had been with the volunteer. She also found it surprising that Johnny Ortberg wasn’t identified by name to the congregation and his sports team.

Adults sexually attracted to children often operate in ways that are under the radar, Hamilton said, which means the interview process needed to be expanded. The investigator needed to learn if Johnny Ortberg was allowed to be alone with children, if he engaged in grooming behavior, and if his computer was searched for child sex abuse images and direct contact with children. Investigators also need to examine the extent to which children at the church are taught to “obey” adults, which could contribute to kids’ hesitation to report abuse, Hamilton said.

“The ‘investigation’ fell so far below the minimum efforts needed to ensure children haven’t been abused that I wouldn’t call it an investigation,” Hamilton wrote in an email.

Menlo Church didn’t inform its membership about the investigation until January, when it was already over. The church announced in an email, without disclosing Johnny Ortberg’s identity, that “a person serving in the Menlo Church community came to John [Ortberg] and shared in confidence an unwanted thought pattern of attraction to minors.” An “independent investigator” hadn’t uncovered any misconduct or allegations of misconduct, the email said, without providing any information about Alvarez, but the board determined that John Ortberg had “exhibited poor judgement” in allowing the volunteer to continue working with Menlo Church’s youth. The senior pastor was placed in a “restoration” program designed by the elder board meant to rebuild trust.

From the congregation’s point of view, it seemed as if John Ortberg had merely been careless, several church members told HuffPost.

Livienna Lie, a 20-year-old middle school ministry volunteer who has attended Menlo Church for 11 years, told HuffPost that when she first heard about the matter in January, she assumed the investigation was thorough and that the staff interviewed knew the volunteer’s identity. She thought it was possible that John Ortberg didn’t know the volunteer personally, so she was initially “very on board to forgive” the pastor, she said.

It seemed like “he just made a mistake and he’s apologizing,” she said.

Bachler said she also took the January email at “face value.”

“Every communication made it seem like he’s made this one mistake,” Bachler said. “But every day for 16 months, he woke up and made the decision that he was not going to let the church know that his son was continuing to volunteer and was attracted to kids.”

Growing Frustrations

A little over a week after the board’s January email, Lavery published his first public statement about the matter, disclosing that the volunteer had also confessed to him but not revealing the volunteer’s identity. Lavery, a columnist for Slate, helped shine a spotlight on the fact that there was more going on behind the scenes at Menlo Church.

“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,” Lavery wrote in the Feb. 2 statement. “But the situation they had created was risky, unsafe, and unsustainable.”

Asked to respond to Lavery’s comments during a congregational town hall, Beth Seabolt, the chair of Menlo Church’s board, claimed that Lavery’s post was likely motivated by a need to “lash out” at his parents.

Meanwhile, John Ortberg completed the board’s restoration plan and returned to the pulpit on March 7. He told parishioners in his first sermon back that he had held 80 one-on-one or small group meetings with elders, staff, volunteers, parents and congregants. During these meetings, he would ask people how his “actions or decisions or mistakes” had created problems for them.

“These conversations have actually been very freeing for me, and I actually got this wonderful gift of being able to see blind spots and areas where I need to grow and discovering how I could love people better and become a tiny bit more like Jesus,” the pastor said, according to a transcript of the sermon.

But frustration among some parishioners was growing.

On the day that Ortberg returned, Ruth Hutchins, who has attended Menlo Church for over 10 years, published a letter to the editor on a local news site demanding that Menlo Church apologize for its “lack of transparency.”

“What do you call John’s actions, if not ‘misconduct’? How could the investigator have ruled out harm to children in such a short time frame and without speaking to parents?” Hutchins asked in the letter.

Kelly Morehead, a member who regularly attended services for 13 years but no longer considers Menlo her “home church,” told HuffPost that the board’s efforts this spring seemed as if leaders were just trying to cover themselves legally.

As a recent volunteer and the parent of two boys who were once involved in the church’s youth programs, Morehead said she was surprised that the investigator hadn’t spoken to her. While emphasizing that she had no reason to suspect Johnny Ortberg had done anything wrong, she said that she was most concerned with John Ortberg’s inaction after hearing his son’s confession. She was also upset that when the elder board learned of the pastor’s silence, “their response was not one of utmost concern for children.”

“That should have been the goal. Instead, the goal, to me and to many, felt like, ‘Oh gosh, we need to protect the pastor and the brand and be able to defend ourselves from any legal investigation,’” said Morehead. “I was just horrified that the church seemed to think that what they had done was sufficient and we should move on.”

“That should have been the goal. Instead, the goal, to me and to many, felt like, ‘Oh gosh, we need to protect the pastor and the brand and be able to defend ourselves from any legal investigation,’” said Morehead. “I was just horrified that the church seemed to think that what they had done was sufficient and we should move on.”

Unsatisfied with the scope and depth of the investigation, Daniel Lavery publicly identified Johnny Ortberg on Twitter on June 28. Lavery called for his brother’s volunteer work with children to be “thoroughly scrutinized.”

Lie, the volunteer who has been attending Menlo Church for most of her life, said she was devastated to learn that Johnny Ortberg was the person at the center of the investigation. Though she said she understands a little bit more why the pastor might have decided to stay silent, she believes it was the wrong decision.

As someone who worked with middle school students at the church and was at one point a student herself, “the feeling of knowing that John was putting his son over the students … kind of hurt more than it did originally,” she said.

A Reexamination

Facing criticism from congregants, the board admitted publicly on Sunday that the previous investigation “could have gone further,” announcing that it would be conducting a “supplemental independent investigation” into concerns raised about Johnny Ortberg that will be overseen by a new committee of elders, staff, parents and volunteers. The church also pledged to hire an “independent outside organization” to audit its child safety policies.

“Fundamentally, we did not provide the transparency that our community deserves and as a result have eroded the trust some of you place in our leadership,” the board said in its statement.

Seabolt, the board’s chair, also apologized publicly to Lavery for claiming that he was lashing out, which she admitted was “discrediting and obviously very hurtful.”

Grace Lavery, Daniel Lavery’s wife, told HuffPost that the couple believes these steps are inadequate, since John Ortberg and Seabolt still hold their original positions.

“Their presence and position is a material disincentive to anyone who might want to come forward with reports of misconduct,” she said. “We think the need for a real investigation is absolutely unquestionable and we also think we already know enough at this point to know that we need to get a fresh broom.”

Both Johnny Ortberg and Menlo Church declined to provide HuffPost with details of the extent of his volunteer work with children. Menlo Church also declined to provide specifics about who will be leading the second investigation and audit, and whether John Ortberg will continue as senior pastor while these new reviews are taking place.

“We’ll announce further details to the congregation regarding the supplemental investigation and audit as soon as we have them,” a spokeswoman told HuffPost on Monday.

The church and its senior pastor appear to be confident that the “restoration” process John Ortberg went through was enough.

“I have sought forgiveness from God, from our church Elders, our staff, and from our congregation,” John Ortberg said in his statement last week. “I am thankful for the restoration process the Elders put in place for me, which while difficult, has enabled me to grow and seek forgiveness.”

John Ortberg’s actions in this case are notable when compared to his decision to speak up about instances of potential misconduct at his former church, Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois. Months before Johnny Ortberg’s confession in 2018, John Ortberg and his wife Nancy Ortberg were instrumental in pushing for a “fair and thorough” independent investigation into allegations of misconduct by Bill Hybels, Willow Creek’s former pastor. Hybels ― and Willow Creek’s entire board ― eventually resigned.

Bachler, the Atherton resident, said she believes the steps the board recently announced are a positive sign. But she doesn’t see how the board could continue to put their faith in John Ortberg.

“Their loyalty and friendship with him is blinding them from doing the right thing,” she said. “We can forgive him and we can have compassion for him, but he doesn’t need to stay in that leadership position.”

Lie said that her frustration is less with the board, which she believes was doing the best job it could in difficult circumstances, and more about John Ortberg’s inaction for those 16 months. She said she’s still processing her feelings about what the pastor didn’t do and although she loves being part of Menlo Church’s community, she said she feels that something needs to change.

“In my heart, I want to be forgiving. But at this moment in time, I don’t feel very good about [John Ortberg] coming back as senior pastor,” Lie said. “Just because of how that trust has been broken and I’m not seeing how that can be built back up. ... Maybe restoration just takes more time.”

A Second Investigation

Menlo Church has acknowledged that their investigation of the Ortberg situation was inadequate and they've agreed to another one. This is how RNS is reporting it:

Earlier this week, megachurch pastor John Ortberg claimed his congregation had “extensively investigated” concerns about his son and found “no misconduct.”

Now elders at Menlo Church, a Bay area congregation of 5,000, say their initial investigation fell short and have announced plans for an additional “supplemental” investigation.

“While many of you know that the Board took immediate action upon learning of these concerns, we understand our initial investigation could have gone further and included specific expertise in child safety and sex abuse issues, and it could have been informed by conversations with a wider group of people,” church elders said in an email to the congregation Saturday (July 11).

Rev. Ortberg was placed on leave last fall after church leaders learned he had withheld information about his son from them, a move they described as “poor judgment and a betrayal of trust.”

In July 2018, Rev. Ortberg’s youngest son — who volunteered with children at the church and in the community — told his father he experienced what church leaders called an “unwanted thought pattern of attraction to minors.” The senior Ortberg did not tell church leaders or staff about what he had learned from his son. Nor did he act to prevent his youngest son from working with children.

Church leaders finally learned of Ortberg’s decision after his older son, Daniel Lavery, wrote to them expressing concerns.

As reported by Religion News Service, the elders hired an investigator who talked to church staff and Lavery, among others, but never spoke with Ortberg’s younger son, or with any parents of children who had contact with him. The elders also never officially acknowledged the family connection between Rev. Ortberg and “the volunteer” in question.

The church had consistently defended its investigation as "independent" and said no misconduct was found. Rev. Ortberg told RNS he had betrayed his "sacred trust" as pastor but also defended the investigation.

After the identity of the volunteer became public in June of this year, congregation members began to pushback against the elders.

“After carefully listening to our community these last several days about the investigation into a former church volunteer, we want to first acknowledge the Board’s ownership in what we have done to contribute to the pain and distrust many of you are feeling right now,” the elders said in the statement. “Fundamentally, we did not provide the transparency that our community deserves and as a result have eroded the trust some of you place in our leadership.”

Church elders said they would begin a “supplemental investigation” to be overseen by a committee including elders, parents, staff and volunteers.

On social media, Lavery expressed disappointment in the church’s announcement and called for his father to be removed as pastor.

“This plan is a non-starter, a confession of failure, and a disgrace,” he said on Twitter.

During an online church service, Eugene Lee, an executive pastor at Menlo Church, acknowledged the recent controversy at the beginning of his sermon.

Lee did not specifically mention Rev. Ortberg in his opening remarks, instead mentioning “a hard week for our church.”

“I have talked to so many of you who are hurting, disappointed, confused and heartbroken and I am so sorry you are feeling that way,” he said. “I want you to know that we are listening."

"We are listening and praying and we hear your concerns. We are listening to your questions and we understand your disappointment.”

Lee also said church leaders were working on “significant next steps” which they hope to share with the church in the coming week.

This is the church's statement, posted Saturday night:

DEAR MENLO FAMILY,

After carefully listening to our community these last several days about the investigation into a former church volunteer, we want to first acknowledge the Board’s ownership in what we have done to contribute to the pain and distrust many of you are feeling right now. Fundamentally, we did not provide the transparency that our community deserves and as a result have eroded the trust some of you place in our leadership. We are writing you today to show how we’re moving forward as a community.

While many of you know that the Board took immediate action upon learning of these concerns, we understand our initial investigation could have gone further and included specific expertise in child safety and sex abuse issues, and it could have been informed by conversations with a wider group of people. Based on the feedback we’ve received, we are initiating a supplemental independent investigation into concerns raised about the volunteer.

The Board will also form a new committee, comprised of representatives from elders, staff, parents and volunteers, to provide transparent oversight of the new investigation and ensure all impacted perspectives are represented.

We also have directed staff to conduct a full audit of policies, practices and training related to child and youth safety, to be led by an independent outside organization with expertise in this area and are committed to conducting regular audits on an ongoing basis. Our staff and volunteers run incredible ministries for children and youth. Our community deserves to have full confidence in their work and that the systems safeguarding our children and volunteers are best-in-class.

We sincerely appreciate your patience as we finalize further actions in the coming days. As a reminder, we encourage you to report any instances of inappropriate conduct or behavior in our community.

We know what Menlo Church means to you, and each one of us on the Board shares a deep sense of mission and partnership with our community. We commit to be in better communication with you, our church family. We covet your prayers as we seek to discern the Lord’s guidance for how best to serve our community.

In prayer,
Menlo Church Elders

This is Danny's reaction:

It must not be allowed to stand.

First, and most importantly, John Ortberg’s position as senior pastor will materially impact any possibility for a full and scrupulous report.

— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) July 12, 2020

Second, there would be no need for a follow-up investigation were it not for the Ortberg- and Seabolt-led cover-up effected by the Alvarez investigation.

— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) July 12, 2020

I’m very skeptical that this fix will last the weekend: the case for the investigation IS the case for firing Ortberg. It makes no sense to do one and not the other.

— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) July 12, 2020

We will not remain silent until consistency and accountability have been established. John Ortberg must go. He must go NOW.

— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) July 12, 2020

Religion News Service Covers The Story - Updated

RNS has posted a reported story; this is the article in its entirety:

Title: Megachurch pastor John Ortberg kept a family member’s attraction to children secret. Then his son blew the whistle.

(RNS) — In the summer of 2018, a volunteer at Menlo Church came to the Rev. John Ortberg seeking help.

The congregation member, who volunteered with youth and children at the Bay area megachurch and in the community, had been experiencing “an unwanted thought pattern of attraction to minors” and needed the pastor’s support.

After hearing this admission, Ortberg asked if the volunteer had ever acted on that attraction.

The volunteer said no.

Once Ortberg was convinced the volunteer was telling the truth and was not a danger to others, he prayed for the person and offered a referral for counseling and then allowed the volunteer to continue working with children.

In what Menlo Church’s elders would later call “poor judgment” and a betrayal of trust, the megachurch pastor did not notify the church’s staff of the volunteer’s admitted attraction to minors.

He did not notify the church’s elder board.

He did not suggest the volunteer stop working with children – in fact, the pastor and his family encouraged the volunteer in his work as a coach of an Ultimate Frisbee team for high school students.

Instead, Ortberg, the lead pastor of Menlo, kept what he had learned about the volunteer secret from his congregation.

Especially the volunteer’s name: John “Johnny” Ortberg III, the pastor’s youngest son.

But nothing in a church or in a family stays hidden forever.

Concerned about the safety of children in the church and his brother’s well-being, the elder Ortberg’s other son, Daniel Lavery, revealed his father's actions in an email to Menlo Church leaders in November 2019 and made a public break with his parents. At that point, Lavery chose to keep the reasons for the break confidential.

The controversy that ensued tarnished the reputation of the father, who’d built a career as a friendly, nonconfrontational evangelical pastor who had mostly avoided culture war battles while promoting seeker-friendly evangelism and conservative values of family and sexuality.

Before coming in 2004 to Menlo Church, a San Francisco-area congregation of about 5,000, John Ortberg and his wife, Nancy, had been teaching pastors at Willow Creek Community Church, one of the nation’s largest churches, in the suburbs of Chicago.

In 2014, Menlo left the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to join a breakaway denomination called ECO, A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. The church cited theological differences in the break, which came after years of dispute in the PC(U.S.A.) over sexuality, and paid close to $9 million in order to keep its property.

After the initial Menlo investigation, the Rev. Ortberg took a leave of absence and was reprimanded by the church in early 2020. He underwent a brief restoration process. Then Ortberg, a popular speaker and evangelical leader who played a key role in drawing public attention to allegations of misconduct against Bill Hybels, the legendary founder of Willow Creek, returned to the pulpit and the church hoped to move on.

Lavery wrote in his initial 2019 email that he hoped Menlo's leadership would conduct a “robust, thorough inquiry” into the matter. But in June, believing the church had failed to do so, Lavery posted his email to the church elders — this time revealing his brother’s name — on social media.

The revelation that the volunteer was John Ortberg’s son raised many questions that remain unanswered. And a group of critics — including Lavery, church members, a former friend of the Ortbergs and others — hope public pressure will cause the church to conduct what they call a more thorough investigation.

A fateful meeting

Lavery had high hopes when he planned to meet with his brother, who is in his early 30s and a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in the fall of 2019.

The two had been close in the past, said Lavery, an author and Dear Prudence advice columnist for Slate.com. But the relationship between the two had become strained after Lavery publicly came out as trans earlier in 2018.

“I noticed that my brother would no longer use a name or pronouns to refer to me,” Lavery told Religion News Service. “He stopped returning my texts. He avoided me. And that was very painful.”

After talking to his family, Lavery reached out and invited his brother and his sister, Laura Ortberg Turner, to visit the apartment that Lavery shares with his wife, Grace, who is also trans. Family members told Lavery that Johnny was having a hard time understanding his gender transition and that Lavery should “be gentle” with him.

Lavery hoped the two could reconcile. Instead, the meeting would shatter their family to pieces.

Things started out well, said Lavery. All three siblings met at Lavery’s apartment and visited for a while before Turner, a writer and former RNS columnist, left. After their sister departed, Lavery and his brother talked for a bit about the state of their relationship.

Then, according to Lavery, his brother turned to him and said, “I have something to tell you.”

“It was then I learned the reason my brother had been avoiding me was not only because of my transition, but it was because everyone else in the family knew that he was a pedophile. And I didn’t,” Lavery said.

Johnny Ortberg declined repeated requests for comment.

Lavery said his brother told him that for years he had experienced sexual attraction to children but never acted on that attraction. He told Lavery that he had shared this secret with their parents and their sister the year before.

Still, his brother continued working with kids. According to Lavery, the family had a group chat where they cheered on the Ultimate Frisbee team his brother coached. Lavery feared he had become complicit in giving approval to someone who could be a danger to children.

Lavery was also concerned that his brother invoked the phrase “virtuous pedophile” to describe himself — a term used by an online support group of people attracted to children who never act on that attraction and who maintain that abuse is wrong. Some group members believe it is safe, even healing, for people with this attraction to work with children.

After his brother left, Lavery spoke to his wife and to Nicole Cliffe, a close family friend. Then he called his father.

“I had entered that phone call thinking surely we will be wanting the same thing, which is for Johnny to get treatment and to not be alone with children,” Lavery told RNS. “It’s not safe for children. It’s not healthy for Johnny.”

Instead, Lavery told RNS, his father insisted on keeping the matter secret and urged Lavery to show compassion to his brother. Lavery said his father also used the term “virtuous pedophile” in referring to his youngest son — a claim the Rev. Ortberg denied. A spokesman for the Menlo Church elders said John Ortberg has not used that term in their conversations with them.

During the call, Lavery said, John Ortberg insisted his youngest son be able to keep working with children.

Lavery recalled his father saying his brother “would have no reason to live” if he could not continue his volunteer work.

“I became convinced that my parents do not have my brother’s best interests at heart,” Lavery said.

When his father refused to act, Lavery wrote the initial email to church leaders expressing his concerns, detailing his conversations with his brother and his father, along with his brother’s long history of work with children. He also cut ties with the family and took his wife's last name.

“I would not share this information with you unless I believed there to be a credible basis for a serious and thorough investigation of every aspect of my brother’s work with children, and the cover-up my parents have conducted,” he wrote. “In the most charitable reading possible, my parents have acted with unconscionable disregard for their responsibilities as leaders, ministers, and parents."

In response, the church placed John Ortberg on leave in November — although it kept that information from the congregations for more than a month. The church also contacted leaders at ECO, its denomination.

Church elders hired an employment lawyer named Fred W. Alvarez, a partner at Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP, to look at the concerns raised by Lavery. A spokesman for the church’s elder board described Alvarez as a respected investigator. Alvarez’s official bio describes him as an employment lawyer whose practice focuses on defending employers but lists no expertise in working with churches or abuse.

The church also barred the volunteer from working in its children’s ministry and said the volunteer no longer has a role at the church. Church leaders do not expect the volunteer to have any future role at the church, according to a spokesperson for the elders.

The younger Ortberg has also ended his role in volunteering with the Ultimate Frisbee team.

Since the church wanted the investigation to be independent, with no ties to their pastor, church leaders did not contact GRACE – a leading evangelical group whose name stands for “Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment” — because the group’s founder had previously worked closely with the Ortbergs in their efforts to investigate the alleged misconduct by Hybels. The Willow Creek founder, who denied any misconduct, resigned in 2018, followed by most of the church's leadership. An outside panel found that the allegations against Hybels were credible.

Alvarez's investigation, which lasted about six weeks, included interviews with children’s ministry staff — past and present — and a review of volunteer records. According to the church elders, the investigator found no allegations of misconduct.

The investigation closed just after Christmas. Church elders reprimanded the Rev. Ortberg for poor judgment and sent him through a “restoration program” that included apologizing to staff.

John Ortberg returned to the pulpit in March, with a sermon titled “Lessons Learned on Leave.”

A brief investigation 

Lavery was not convinced by the investigation.

According to the church’s elders, the investigator did not speak to any parents whose children had contact with the volunteer. The investigator did not speak to any other volunteers who worked alongside the younger Ortberg.

The investigator did not speak to any outside group where the volunteer had a role working with children. During interviews with staff, the investigator did not ask specifically about the volunteer’s conduct or reveal there were any concerns about the volunteer.

A spokesman for the church’s elder board also told RNS that the investigator decided not to interview the volunteer, deeming it unnecessary.

In addition, the church’s elder board repeatedly refused to reveal the volunteer’s name, citing confidentiality concerns, describing the person only as someone who was part of the church community and never as someone who had direct family ties to leadership.

“We did not disclose the name of the volunteer during the investigation due to the confidentiality requirements of an ongoing investigation. Once the investigation closed, the results found that there was no indication of wrongdoing,” the church’s elders told RNS in a statement.

That decision left both congregation members and other organizations where the younger Ortberg had volunteered in the dark, said Jimmy Hinton, a pastor and child abuse prevention advocate.

“In situations like this,” Hinton said, “what the leadership needs to realize is that they have the benefit of being in the know and the power to keep everybody else in the dark. And that’s a dangerous, dangerous situation for any parent who has a child in that congregation.”

Hinton, whose own father, a former pastor, was convicted of abuse in Pennsylvania, said church leaders are often blinded by friendship when it comes to investigating concerns about the pastor or members of a pastor’s family.

He does not know if there was any misconduct at Menlo Church. But he sees a great risk that needs to be investigated.

“I think all of us who are not members of that congregation can see this,” he said. “Every decision that they made was a really bad decision. We can see that clearly because we’re not friends with them. We don’t know these people. We’re just looking at the facts that are in front of us.”

Shira M. Berkovits, president of Sacred Spaces, an organization that seeks to “prevent and respond to sexual abuse and other abuses of power” in Jewish communities, said there are plenty of opportunities for volunteer work that do not involve contact with children.

Berkovits has no specific knowledge about the situation at Menlo Church. In general, she said, it would be “the far more prudent choice” for someone who is attracted to children to stick to those other opportunities.

“Speaking generally, a person who discloses sexual attraction to children should not be employed to work with children or permitted to volunteer with children,” she told RNS in an email. “It is important to note that sexual attraction to children does not mean that a person will act on that attraction, and one who admits to the attraction and is seeking qualified treatment from an expert, has begun the necessary work. However, even as such a person may be doing the work, they should still not be given a position which provides them with access to children.”

Still keeping secrets

Lavery was quick to insist he knows of no specific instances of misconduct by his brother. He said his brother has also insisted that he has never harmed anyone. Lavery hopes that is the case.

Yet given the scope of his brother’s work with kids — which included years of mission trips to Mexico — Lavery believes a lengthy and thorough investigation should be in order. That kind of review cannot be done quickly, he said.

“I don’t know how you can investigate 16 years of volunteer work in about five weeks over the Christmas holidays,” Lavery said.

Keeping his brother’s name secret also made it harder to find out if his brother had ever acted on his attraction, Lavery said. No one in the church or the community would have known they or their children were at risk.

For example, Johnny Ortberg served for years as a coach with the Gunn Control, an Ultimate Frisbee team made up of students from Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California. In November 2019, he sent a note to team members saying he had stepped down because of a family crisis. They received no other information, said Michael Tao, who was team captain for two years.

Tao, who is 18, told RNS in a series of emails that he had seen tweets on social media about his former coach and called them “quite unbelievable.” A team member for four years, he said he never saw any inappropriate conduct.

“In the years that he has coached my teammates and me, not only has he been an excellent coach, but also a great person who everyone could share a laugh with,” Tao said. “Now I am not refuting the condition which Johnny has, but am putting out there that he is a good person who has never acted on said condition, which Twitter is making it out to be.”

Shannon Mather, whose son played with Gunn Control, said she received no information from Menlo Church. She said her son has never expressed any concerns about his coach.

Still, she was angered by the church’s handling of the situation and especially at the Rev. Ortberg.

“His silence and secrecy put my child in harm’s way,” she said. “He was in an admittedly horrible, untenable position and he made the wrong choice.”

Different rules

Lavery said he did not want to name his brother but ultimately felt he had no choice. He believes the church’s elders and his father have worked primarily to protect their reputations, rather than finding the truth.

He said the family has long believed that there is one set of rules for the Ortbergs and different rules for everyone else.

“I’m not naming Johnny out of malice, but he cannot be trusted to set the terms of his work with children,” he said.

Lavery also said his father urged him to remain quiet, out of fear that his brother might harm himself if he were cut off from contact with children.

John Ortberg has denied this allegation, saying he has never considered his son a threat to himself or others.

In an email to RNS, the father expressed both his confidence in the church’s investigation and his regret for his actions.

“I am deeply sorry for my shortcomings in handling this situation, and for not fully considering the legitimate concerns of our congregation and my responsibility to ensure the safety and security of everyone who comes through our doors,” Ortberg said in the statement. “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 children and youth.”

The pastor also said the church had “extensively investigated” the situation and found “no misconduct or allegations of misconduct towards anyone in the Menlo Church community.”

He said he also urged anyone who had knowledge of wrongdoing to report it to authorities. Menlo Church elders have made a similar statement.

“Again, I am deeply sorry about my poor judgment and acknowledge that I betrayed my sacred trust as Senior Pastor,” he said in the statement.

Ortberg declined to answer a question about whether he remains fit to serve as a pastor or spiritual leader, saying decisions about his future lie in the hands of ECO and the Menlo Church elders.

Nicole Cliffe, a writer and family friend, said she hopes John Ortberg will step down.

Cliffe co-founded the Toast, a now-dormant but beloved blog, with Lavery. At the time, she was a self-described “happy atheist.” She said when Lavery first introduced her to his parents, he told her, “you’re going to like them more than you like me.” John and Nancy Ortberg are known for having a gift of drawing people in and engaging them in discussions about Christianity.

In 2015, Cliffe converted to Christianity after reading an obituary that John Ortberg had written about theologian Dallas Willard.

“Since then,” she later wrote, “I have been dunked by a pastor in the Pacific Ocean while shivering in a too-small wetsuit. I have sung ‘Be Thou My Vision’ and celebrated Communion on a beach, while weirded-out Californians tiptoed around me. I go to church. I pray. My politics have not changed; the fervency with which I try to live them out has."

John Ortberg baptized her. Lavery and his siblings were there too, as was Nancy Ortberg, John's wife.

When Lavery first told Cliffe about the conversation with his brother, Cliffe said she told her friend to go slow. She kept in contact with his sister, herself a writer. (Turner declined to be interviewed for this article.) Cliffe also said she spoke with Johnny Ortberg, trying to convince him to end his volunteer work and to seek treatment.

She wanted to believe the best.

Cliffe later broke with the family after being interviewed by Alvarez. Cliffe said she told the investigator that her friend, Turner, would not allow her child to be alone with her younger brother — a choice Cliffe said Turner had confided in her. The investigator, Cliffe said, acted surprised and told her he had not known of the restriction. John Ortberg said in an email that no such restriction exists.

Cliffe, who has a young son, said she believes her friends can no longer be trusted. She said she worried the Ortbergs would never have warned her about possible risks to her son — choosing to protect their secrets rather than watch out for the best interests of others.

She described the whole situation as profoundly sad.

Cliffe believes John Ortberg has betrayed the trust needed to be a pastor. Instead, she said, he needs time for self-reflection and to make amends for his decisions.

“John Ortberg is not capable at this point of being a spiritual leader to anyone,” Cliffe said.

Cliffe also worries about the fallout for her friend, Lavery. She said Lavery’s concerns have been dismissed in part because of his transition or have been seen as the biased comments of an estranged child angry at his parents.

“I would like people to know that Danny sacrificed everything,” she said. “His entire family, extended relatives, there’s no one left. Danny put his whole life aside to attempt to protect children.”


Update on Wednesday: Christianity Today is now covering the story. You can read it here.

Details

Last night Grace posted a Twitter thread with a detailed tick-tock of how this all happened.

They've also created a website that lays everything out in narrative form, including all the various documents. Click here.

The first thing Danny did was call me. I was eating ramen in Berkeley at the time and I asked him how his meeting with his brother had gone. He stuttered, unable to talk, said some panicky and trivial things about playing chess and eating fruit.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

Laura was saying what a “hero” Johnny was, how brave he was, and what a great demonstration of love it had been for him to disclose to Danny. Danny muttered something into the phone. “Yes, it was... I guess...” Johnny had also made him promise that he would still love him.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

Our therapist wondered about getting the Ortbergs in for a group session. I was down for that in principle, but wanted to speak to John and Nancy first. We spoke with John. He sounded unhinged, like the bad guy at the end of a Columbo episode.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

The next day, Danny got a “desdichado” tattoo with a pentagram. “I need something on my body to make sure I’m not buried in a Christian churchyard.” We spoke with a couple more friends. Their advice began to focus on reporting: how, who, what, where, when.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

On Sunday 17th we flew to New York, since I had a bunch of work events lined up at Princeton, Brown, and the New School. We arrived in NYC late; we determined that the following day we would make our reports, having drafted some letters on the plane.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

We didn’t sleep. Around 2.30am we admitted that fact, and for some reason watched that song from Community “Baby Boomer Santa” over and over. When we were ready, we finalized the letters, and hit send. Only then did we call those friends we had in common with the Ortbergs.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

We arrived in Princeton, 18th Nov. Danny left his backpack on the train. We looped in Meredith Martin, who was hosting me: she was great. I gave a lecture. Jeff Nunokawa was really engaged and generous. A friend of Danny’s came down from NY to hang out while I gave the lecture.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

The next day (Nov. 20th), I gave my lecture at Brown and realized people commuted up to Providence from New York. No longer than the flight from JFK to SFO, I started to think. I wondered whether we needed to move. California did not feel like home, suddenly.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

(Also on the train, one of the mutual friends passed a message to me that Johnny was suicidal and seemed “particularly anxious about the idea of reporting to Menlo.” The friend who was reporting saw that the same way as me: a threat. I did not heed it.)

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

We borrowed a significant sum of money. We still needed creditors for the application so we asked all the fancy people we know and then (rather desperately) asked Twitter. Twitter yielded two guarantors, to whom we owe our current safety and comfort. Thank you to them.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

On 22nd December, we got married. It was so fucking joyful! A celebration of our values and our identities and bodies and aesthetics and commitments. It felt revolutionary. Terry Castle was there looking dope as fuck. No evangelical ministers. Lots of dykes, fags, and trannies.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

We moved into our apartment on the 1st January 2020. We got new stuff and installed the old stuff. It was home but it was wholly new. I started to commute across the country every week. We are at Ugly Baby and/or Frankie’s every time I had to fly.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

I listened to a lot of Lana Del Rey. Danny grieved, and connected with his friends here, and missed his friends there. We started to date other people, together and separately: it felt utopian, world-building, a way of continuing and expanding the free love vibe of the wedding.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

We decided not to name Johnny at first—we really thought the penny was just about to drop and it wouldn’t be necessary. We had no reason, until the 21st January, to believe that Beth Seabolt was anything other than an honest broker. Seeing her shilling for Ortberg was stunning.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

Covid changed the commute; the murder of George Floyd and the powerful embodiment of abolitionist politic made new force. Graham Linehan accused me of “grooming,” which felt especially cruel and stupid given that we had just turned our lives over to prevent grooming.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

Father’s Day came (21st June). Danny was weeping and weeping. He felt responsibility for the cover-up. I assured him that the shame was wholly on the other side. And at the same time I began to wonder (sometimes aloud) whether he wanted to publish his brother’s name.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

But, as we discussed it, we realized that Johnny had himself been part of the conspiracy: he had colluded with John and others. He wasn’t, himself, a child, even if he had been utterly mistreated by his parents and sister. He did not deserve to be treated like one.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

As it happened, the situation with Linehan had led me to do tiny bits of research on defamation law. I established that truth was an absolute defense, so I said to Danny that we had to only publish things that we are certain we could prove. We edited the statement carefully.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

Once more, we didn’t know that people would support us. We thought they wouldn’t, in fact: people tend to flock to the side of the vulnerable straight guy, rather than the loud and dramatic trans people. We did what we thought was right, not what we thought would be popular.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020

It goes without saying that I am so proud of Danny. And, a week out, I am proud of this decision. It is not the only decision we could have made; not everyone who thinks otherwise is on our shit list. But I am proud of this choice that Danny made, and grateful to be useful. 💖💖

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) July 6, 2020