Is John Ortberg Wrong?

Ever since my encounter with the Text, a long time ago (Ha!) in seminary days, and Peter’s walk on the water, I’ve seen that passage as a commentary on Peter’s impulsive and individualist approach to faith and life. In other words, this is no story to be mined for the typical American “you-can-do-anything” approach to life.

Peter was wrong to get out of the boat!

His moment of exultation lasted only a moment, his 15-minutes of fame, if you will. Glory of this kind is always a passing fancy, a story without substance, an experience without purpose (which seems to be very much a part of the American religious story).

Jesus saves Peter from the waves, of course. 

But here’s where the story turns important. Not only for what is said. But for what isn’t said.

Jesus doesn’t invite Peter to try it again.

Nor does Jesus invite the other disciples to try it, either.

Jesus takes Peter in hand and they both return to the boat.

It’s in the boat where the fellowship of faith is experienced, and that was the point of Jesus coming to them. Not to invite them out on to the waves, but to join them, or at least, as Mark puts it, to “pass by them,” as God “passed by Moses in the cleft of the rock,” to reveal God’s glory. 


In Mark and John, there’s no Peter doing his thing. But only in Matthew, and there, Matthew makes it clear when Jesus says to Peter, “You of weak faith; why did you doubt?” Not his ability to walk on water, but that it was the LORD coming to them. 


Peter’s impulsive move contradicts one of the central tenants of Christianity spirituality - waiting. Waiting on the LORD. Peter couldn’t wait, and that can only end badly, for everyone!

Impulsively, Peter leaves the boat, even as he did in the post-resurrection account in John. Peter dives into the water, wanting Jesus for himself, abandoning the work of his fellow-fisherman who have just taken a miraculous haul of fish and need help.

Peter is always about Peter … and he wants Jesus all to himself.

Which is why Jesus instructs Peter to “feed my sheep.” It’s not about Peter; it never is. It’s about others; it always is.

When I first read Ortberg’s book, I was taken with the story as he re-tells it. Yes, and wow, “you can be just like your rabbi; you, too, can walk on water. But ya’ gotta get outta of the boat first.”

It makes for great American preaching.

It appeals to our narcissistic instincts and our “Jesus and me” attitudes.

It appeals to our pride of power, and our daring-do stories.

But is it faithful to the text?

Is this what God wants us to hear?

Is this the Gospel?

I think not.

And more, I think Ortberg is wrong on this point. Seriously, terribly, tragically, wrong, misleading so many who are hell-bent on their pathway to the American version of faith.

It’s not about daring-do and water-walking - this is not what faith is all about, because faith is defined by love, by the Beatitudes, by mercy and compassion, forgiveness and bonding in Jesus, and through Jesus to the fellowship of faith and to the whole wide world. 

Faith about loving one another as Jesus loves us, by washing feet and putting our lives on the line, not for personal achievement, but for the sake of one another.

Faith is all about getting back into the boat with Jesus! It’s about feeding and tending the flock.

Peter has always been willing to abandon the others to secure his own place.

Peter has a lot to learn.

So do we!

A Letter to John Ortberg

The Rev. John Ortberg

Menlo Park Presbyterian Church

Menlo Park, CA

Dear John,

With delight and gratitude, I followed your career at Willow Creek, and with attendance at many a conference, I was encouraged and blessed by your ministry and preaching, and how I enjoyed your careful exposition of Scripture, especially with your focus upon the Old Testament, the “Bible” of our LORD and Savior.

When you left Willow to become a Presbyterian, I gave thanks to God and prayed for you and the Menlo Park Church, for I am a Presbyterian pastor, and have been so since my ordination in January of 1970, First Presbyterian Church, Holland, Michigan. I emailed you a welcome note at the time of your transfer, and you were kind enough to reply.

As a pastor, I promoted your books and CDs, and used your material to guide some of my own preaching and teaching.

Last week, I saw “The Letter to the PCUSA,” and noted you as a signatory.

I felt as if I had been stabbed in the heart and betrayed.

I know many of the pastors on that letter, and I know the truth of that letter, and that’s what disturbs me so deeply.

Whatever pretensions there might be about the centrality of Jesus Christ with high doctrines of revelation, claims of orthodoxy, notions of mission for the glory of God and being Reformed, the root is politics and money and property and pride, buttressed by powerful interests on one singular issue: the ordination of gays and lesbians, and, in California, marriage rights. Fueled by the political far-right, the ordination of LGBT persons has become the line-in-the-sand.

That’s the defining element of “A Letter to the PCUSA,” because, otherwise, there is no reason to write such a letter proposing the essential dismantling of the PCUSA, the church of my ordination, and the church that welcomed you to Menlo Park.

Presbyterian pastors and their congregations have always enjoyed great liberties to conduct ministry and mission and congregational life as they see fit.

There is no reason for “The Letter;” no reason at all, other than pride, and the issues mentioned above: money, property and politics and a decision to leave a fellowship wherein LGBT ordination may someday occur without a fracas.

Carry on your work at Menlo, and let Menlo carry on its ministry, or at least be honest enough to tell the world that the ordination of LGBT people is so distasteful to you that you cannot for a moment tolerate being in a fellowship where their ordination might someday be possible. There is no need to hide behind highfalutin theological notions of the church’s purity.

In reality, the conservatives behind “the letter,” have been hungering and thirsting for a way out and the means to retain their property at the same time. What with gracious dismissal policies emerging, which I gladly support, many a large congregation, rich like the temple-keepers in Jerusalem, now can see a way to realize their dreams. Dreams emerging as far back as C67 and the “Angela Davis Defense Fund.”

Let’s face it, money and property are always the critical factors in the larger churches, and these days, politics, too. That’s the truth of this letter you’ve signed, and I fear it’s the truth of many a ministry represented by its signatories, a gathering of the “boys club.”

By now, you are no longer reading this letter, but if you are, I ask you to reflect upon your Willow journey, your effort to deepen that congregation biblically and historically, and, further, I ask you to retract your signature, because, in truth, “The Letter” is filled with flawed historical analysis and spiritually demeaning theological pretense.

Please, don’t succumb to the notion that the framers of “the letter” have the high moral ground on Scripture and tradition. The biblical work has been successfully done with regard to LGBT persons and their ordination, as the work was done in earlier periods of time with regard to persons of color, who were considered, both by the church and the US Constitution, to be less human than the white race, and the work done on the ordination of women.

Though, in both cases, there are those who yet question these developments, and who would be glad to return us to the days of segregation and racial discrimination and relegate women to the pew and teaching Sunday School. Willow’s own work on the place of women in the church ought to be a paradigm for you and the ordination of LGBT persons.

By now, you are weary of this letter, and I’m weary of writing it.

I fear that the signatories of “the letter” will walk into a dark corner, shared by the likes of Orthodox Presbyterians, Bible Presbyterians, Presbyterian Church in America and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church – fractured and fractious bodies, driven by a certain “Presbyterian madness” – the so-called “purity” of the church, with all love being truly lost. “The letter” is a formula for disaster, but like the powerful of Jerusalem, blinded by their unreasonable “trust in God,” the cry of Jeremiah goes unheeded, as Jerusalem, with its tainted sense of purity, speeds headlong into ruin.

With sadness and resolute determination to do everything I can to illumine the flaws of “The Letter to the PCUSA,” I am,

The Rev. Dr. Thomas P. Eggebeen

Interim Pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church

Los Angeles

CC: To all the world.

I'm really glad to be here. It's a miracle, ya' know, that any of us are.