Editorial Update 5-31-2024

I have received the Police Report filed by Sahaab Jauhar-Rizvi in March 2021 and I wanted to include the relevant pages for your review. The redactions were all made by the South Barrington PD with the one exception of my address, which I made. Based on this Police Report, Dee’s talks with the women accused of having taken part in the abuse, and several convincing comments by readers of this article I have changed my opinion. I don’t believe Sahaab Jauhar-Rizvi’s accusations concerning John Ortberg.

In the 1976-77 school year, I attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. While there I became good friends with Gregg Martin. He lived in the dorm room right next to me. Gregg was from the Chicago area and he was a cool dude. He had the best stereo system on the 5th floor of Culbertson Hall and had albums of all the Christian Contemporary musicians. Some, like Chuck Girard. I knew, but many of the artists I had never heard of – Mustard Seed Faith, Phil Keaggy, and Paul Clark are just a few I recall Gregg introduced me to. Gregg was a natural leader and would get groups of us to attend concerts, something I had never done in my youth. I can’t recall most concerts, but I remember attending a Mustard Seed Faith concert. I thought all these musicians were awesome and I still will occasionally listen to their music.

Gregg was also up on new churches in the area that were breaking out of the traditional style of doing church and attracting a younger crowd. One such church was Willow Creek. Gregg organized a group of us to go visit their service. The church met in a movie theatre, which seemed radical to me! Here is a note on their humble beginnings, courtesy of Wikipedia:

“Willow Creek Community Church started when Bill Hybels and Dave Holmbo^[2] were inspired by the success of the South Park Church’s youth ministry, Son City, of which they were both leaders (Holmbo had invited Hybels to work with him a few years earlier), and aspired to start a church that used relevant biblical teaching, music, and drama. On October 12, 1975, the church met for the first time, renting Willow Creek Theater in Palatine, Illinois.^[3] Gilbert Bilezikian was Hybels’ theological mentor.^[4] Bilezikian has been “credited with Willow Creek’s inclusion of women in its highest levels of leadership”.^[5] In 1977, the church purchased 90 acres (360,000 m²) in South Barrington to build its own building. The first service was held in the new building in February 1981. Since then, the building has been doubled in size and the property expanded to 155 acres (0.63 km²). In 2004, it inaugurated a new 7,200-seat auditorium on the same campus.”

In 2014 I was visiting my daughter and son-in-law in Chicago and I asked if we could visit Willow Creek. I was curious to see what it had become since I last saw the church about 40 years earlier. When we drove into the parking lot I thought we were pulling up to a shopping mall. The campus and church building were enormous. They had a guest speaker the day we were there. His name was John Ortberg. I wasn’t familiar with him, but learned he used to be a pastor at Willow Creek and was now in the San Francisco area. I was favorably impressed with him, he was a talented public speaker. He pitched his latest book, I don’t recall the title. Below is a photo of the auditorium. It was nice, but not my style. I’m just not a fan of the mega-churches.

Again, I quote from Wikipedia:

“Ortberg was born and raised in Rockford, Illinois. He earned his B.A. in psychology from Wheaton College, and his M.Div. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Fuller Theological Seminary. Ortberg has also studied at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. From 1985 to 1990, he served as senior pastor at Simi Valley Community Church, and then from 1990 to 1994 at Horizons Community Church (now Baseline Community Church) in Claremont, California. Ortberg then moved from California to Illinois to serve as a teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois until 2003, when he became the senior pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, a multi-campus church in Northern California.^[11]

Ortberg’s wife, Nancy, has also served as a pastor. They have three children: Laura, Daniel, and John III. Laura has written for The New York Times, New York Magazine, and BuzzFeed.^[12] Daniel M. Lavery is the founder, writer and editor of the now-defunct feminist humor blog The Toast^[13] and was the author of the “Dear Prudence” advice column for the Slate online magazine from November 2015 until May 2021.^[14][15] Their youngest, John III, was an Ultimate Frisbee coach until late 2019.”

I imagine most of you are familiar with the scandal that enveloped John Ortberg in 2020, but to refresh your memory, here is a summary from the Washington Post: by Bob Smietana

Washington Post July 29, 2020
(RNS) — John Ortberg, popular Christian author and speaker, has resigned as pastor of Menlo Church, a megachurch congregation outside of San Francisco. His resignation is effective Sunday, Aug. 2.
“I have considered my seventeen years as pastor here to be the greatest joy I’ve had in ministry,” Ortberg said in a statement. “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.”
In November, Ortberg was placed on leave after Menlo Church elders learned he had allowed a volunteer who had admitted being attracted to children to work with them at the church and in the community.
Ortberg had first learned of the volunteer’s admission in July 2018. He did not inform other church leaders or the youth sports team that the volunteer coached. Church leaders did not learn of the volunteer until Daniel Lavery, Ortberg’s son, sent an email blowing the whistle.
The pastor returned to the pulpit last spring after the elders hired a lawyer to conduct an inquiry.
But the issue flared up again after Lavery revealed that the volunteer in question was his younger brother, the pastor’s youngest son, a fact that had been withheld from the congregation. Lavery, former friends of the Ortberg family, and other critics of the decision have called in recent weeks for the pastor to step down.

A few weeks ago I came across this post by Daniel Lavery on “X.” Note that the post is “pinned” and dated Feb 23, 2021. Pinning a post simply keeps it at the top of your page on “X”.

TRIGGER ALERT – What follows are some graphic details of alleged sexual abuse.

Note from Editor: I found a video from 2021 in which John Ortberg denied the charges of sexual abuse in the blog article by Sabaah Jauhir-Rizvi, saying in part:

“As some of you know, there are allegations that have been talked about over this last week about me. They actually were written in a blog almost about three years ago, charging me and four other colleagues in our old church back in Chicago with serious sexual misconduct. And I want you to know they are not true. They have no basis in reality. I have not and would not ever do any of the actions described there. And I know directly from my colleagues that they would say the same thing. It’s very difficult and painful even to find language to talk about this.
The stories of misconduct and clerical abuse by leaders in the Christian world and the church world are hitting us in extremely fresh ways. And so often they get mismanaged or covered up by organizations or by churches. And that’s the worst thing. That’s the worst response. It’s hard to find a way of talking about it without sounding either defensive on the one hand or demeaning. And I know firsthand how much courage it takes for a woman who has been the victim of abuse or clerical misconduct or violation to step forward. And I would sacrifice a great deal to try to help there to be the courage for such people to come forward. And the last thing in the world I want to do is to make it more difficult for anybody in that situation.”

The following material is from My #MeToo Tale & An Apology by SabaahJauhir-Rizvi. I had not previously read or heard of this alleged abuse by John Ortberg.

“Evangelical (adjective): a person who claims to be a Christian but whose actions are the complete opposite of Christ; a hypocrite; a person full of false piety. See also John Ortberg, Franklin Graham, the RNC, Ted Haggerty, Joel Olsteen. Tweeted by @austenlied on 4/19/2018 (I am @austenlied and that is my definition).

Now I come to the part that involves Willow Creek Church. My mother, now divorced, joined Single Parents Ministry. I was about 15-16 at this time and most children of these parents were 8 or younger, so meetings were quite dull for me and I ended up drawing or reading. I was approached by Nancy Beach and after speaking to her, she was able to glean that I had suffered sexual abuse and she really thought some counseling with one of the pastors would be really beneficial for me since I was at that age when most girls were dating, not hanging out with their parents and children. I could see her point-I really could. I had friends who were guys and while friendly with them, I had no feelings other than friendship towards them. While most girls my age talked about boys, makeup, upcoming school dances, etc, I was rereading Lord of the Rings, The Tempest, John Donne, The Odyssey, etc for fun. Nothing screams lonely and pathetic like Nancy Beach walking up to you as you’re reading the Homeric Hymns (English translation in case you are wondering). She then scheduled a one-on-one meeting with John Ortberg that would take place at the same time as the next Single Parent’s meeting so I could come with my mom, but not be stuck in the room with all the children.

That first “Session” started off pretty normal. I told John everything. About Bert and his abusive family. the neighbor, Dan and the pastor who told me I was a whore. About boys who teased me in school by leaving me fake love notes in my locker, which made me uncomfortable. He promised me that he could help me get over my fears of intimacy but I had to trust him. This trust consisted of him sitting behind me and running his hands over my breasts and hips because per John, I needed to get over my “fear” of being touched if I was ever to learn how to please a man. It didn’t feel right. It felt wrong. It felt like my neighbor all over again. I told Nancy right away. She told me that I needed to trust John because he was a “Godly” man. That his methods had worked with other girls just like me and they had gone on to have boyfriends. Some even were dating fellow Creekers. I then asked if I could speak to Bill Hybels. Nancy informed me that Hybels would only direct me back to John because Bill was too busy to do counseling. I did not tell my mother.

The second “session” included similar touching. But now on my actual skin and in my pants (though my underwear was still on). I vividly remember crying and feeling very dirty. John was moaning behind me and I could feel him. He was grinding into my backside. I don’t know how long it lasted because every second feels like an eternity. I didn’t cry out because John told me if I cried out, I was going to Hell.  All I recall is that when he was done, he was still very visibly aroused. John told me that I was “very blessed” by his touches and doing “God’s Will” by participating to these “sessions.” I remember scrambling to get my clothes on and straightened and just rushing as quickly as possible into the hall outside his office before crying. I remember just crumbling, crying as I struggles to put shoes on and tie laces, trying my best to straighten my clothes and wiping the tears away when a woman, heading towards me, going into John’s office, told me to “Shut up.” I later found out, when I saw her again and pointed her out to someone, that the lady in question was Betty Schmidt. Did Betty know what John had just done with me? Did she know there were possibly others as Nancy clearly indicated? I don’t know. But one does question why the longest serving elder, and a woman, seeing a child crying and clearly upset outside of John Ortberg’s office, clothes clearly is disarray, and showing no compassion towards the child. Instead, tells the child to “shut up” and heads into the office when it’s obvious that’s where the child emerged from. Now, I’ve never dealt with Betty Schmidt personally and that was the only time I’ve ever encountered her. I have just always wanted to know if she knew. And if she did, why didn’t she stop it?

The third “session” was the worst and the last one I attended. I don’t know if one would consider it rape, but it felt like it to me. He had me remove all clothing. And I didn’t want to. He called Nancy in and she forcibly removed the clothes from me before leaving. My socks she allowed to stay on as a kindness. That’s when I knew she was fully aware of what John was doing to me and didn’t care. John was again behind me. Again, I could feel him. He used his fingers on me. It was painful and it hurt. I cried a lot and he covered me mouth with his other hand. He rubbed himself against me. He kept going until he was done. At one point he had bitten down on my shoulder, but there is no bite mark now and I never took a picture. I was bruised, sore and I felt like I was a fault because the pastor at the community church had instilled in me the belief that I was a temptress and  my lot in life was to be a whore. I remember not even fully getting dressed before running into the nearest bathroom and vomiting. Nancy Beach came in because it was obvious John had called her as I had not grabbed all my clothes when I fled. She then proceeded to slap me and yell at me as I continued to dress. She told me I was an ungrateful colored whore. that I should be thankful that a man as holy and as pure as John Ortberg was willing to sully himself, was willing to demean himself to try to cleanse me of my sins for tempting good Christian men with my body. She then forced my face in a sink basin she filled with cold water because my eyes were red from crying and red from her slapping me. Nancy then made me eat a brownie. Which I guess she thought since I was young, I needed to be bribed. I also think she thought by giving me a sweet, she could then bribe me into attending another “session” with John. I let her set it up. I just stayed home whenever my mom went to a single parent’s meeting. If a meeting was held at someone’s house, I went because I didn’t mind watching the kids. But if it was at Church, I never left the house. I fully believed the next “session” would have involved physical sex. Because Nancy had known what was going on and I think Betty Schmidt did too, I never told my mother. And why would I? My only experience in telling the authorities ended up with a man who got off on probation. There was no justice for me with what happened.

Also, telling people in charge, people in positions of power, up to that point hadn’t helped either. Dan’s parents thought he was just “playing” with me even though he was still pinching my breasts in High School, cornered me a few times and then forcibly dry humped me in High School while he was dating my best friend at the time. The pastor of the small church knew and told me it was my fault. Nancy Beach not only knew, she procured me for John Ortberg. I wonder how many others she procured for him during his tenure at Willow Creek and who does his procuring now at Menlo Church?”

You may be wondering what John Ortberg has been up to since he was forced to resign from Menlo Church in 2020. Well, things have seemed to turn up roses for him. He started a “ministry” called “The Center For Becoming.”

As you can see, John is doing quite well with his new ministry. No more sermons, meetings, shaking hands, baptizing babies, conducting funerals, or investigations! Just put out a few teachings and watch the money roll in! Check out the salary he pays himself, according to his 990 tax forms.

In 2021 Ortberg worked 20 hours per week and paid himself a salary of $220,000. In 2022 Ortberg worked 40 hours per week and gave himself a 20K pay raise, for a salary of $240,000. What a racket!