Posted on 12/04/2019 11:20:39 AM PST by Gamecock
The Rev. Wes Feltner, lead pastor of preaching and vision at the multi-campus Berean Baptist Church in Burnsville, Minnesota, has resigned from his post amid an investigation into allegations from two 35-year-old women who say he manipulated them into sexual relationships while they were teenagers 17 years ago.
“After much prayer and deep consideration for his family and the mission of Berean Baptist Church, pastor Wes Feltner has submitted his resignation,” elders of the church read from a statement to the congregation last weekend, according to the Star Tribune. “Pastor Wes and his family are entering a period to seek healing and we will walk with them during this process.”
Feltner and his wife have three children and reside in the south metro area of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
Berean Church officials said earlier this month that they had hired an outside firm to investigate the claims of JoAnna Hendrickson and Megan Frey, who allege in separate narratives on a website they created that Feltner used his position of authority to dupe them into explicit relationships while he was their youth pastor at First Southern Baptist Church in Evansville, Indiana.
“After 17 years of guilt, shame, blaming myself and questioning every authority, I can see that I did not ask for it, and I did not initiate it. I was not too immature or naive. I was a youth asking for help … I was manipulated. I was sexually abused,” Frey concluded in her account.
Both women, who were about 18 when they got involved with Feltner, shared similar stories of how they went to him for counseling about relationship issues that evolved into prolonged sexual relationships.
“Unbeknown to us, Wes would have JoAnna over to his home a couple nights a week, and then have me over the opposing nights. Many nights, he would have the youth group over for a movie or games, etc., and I would then have to pretend to leave, drive to Bethel Temple Church to park in the lot, and await his arrival, after everyone had left his house, usually around 10 p.m.,” Megan wrote in her story.
“At a point in our [almost 9 month] relationship, I began questioning it all as I felt a change in his behavior and found an earring and a hair pin on the floor by his bed. This was especially alarming alongside a pregnancy scare, to which he responded that he’d marry me and it will all work itself out soon. A noticeable pattern of change had developed [months prior] in his moods and sexual behavior toward me. He went from caring, attentive, sharing bubble baths and candlelight to sexually ‘rough’ and dominant behavior. I was young and naive enough to think this was how older people appropriately handled intimacy,” she added.
Feltner’s betrayal was only discovered at a youth winter retreat in 2002 when both women discovered, through mutual friends of their youth pastor, that they were both involved in a messy love triangle.
When their parents confronted the church’s pastor about the alleged abuse of Feltner’s authority, they were urged to keep things quiet, the two women allege.
“JoAnna’s and my parents met with pastor Don Moore to discuss the betrayal and lies that were exploding before us. Wes told Joe Donahue [his friend in ministry] that ‘he was a dead man,’ and ‘his ministry was over!’ In response to Wes’ behaviors that evening, a few men from the church went to Wes’ house and removed all guns and risk of him hurting himself,” Frey wrote.
“Meanwhile, at the church Pastor Don simply dismissed it all, saying that allowing the church to know what had happened and telling the truth would only allow the church body to see myself and JoAnna for the blame we deserve, and that we needed to protect the church. This meant, ‘what had happened will not be made public, and we should not talk about it,’” she said.
Hendrickson, who also said she blamed herself for a long time for the alleged abuse she experienced after seeking help from Feltner regarding her ex-boyfriend, says she is no longer doing so.
“Just because he made sure we were 18, and legal, did not make it right! We trusted him, and the parents of First Southern entrusted their youth to him. And he abused his authority as a minister,” she wrote.
Feltner, 41, told the Star Tribune that some details of the accusers’ narratives were true but not all. He said he offered to speak with the women with the help of a mediator but they declined. Once the investigation is over, he said, the allegations will be addressed in more detail.
Church elders further noted in a statement that it was “necessary to complete this investigation to be able to speak into the healing process for Wes and for all involved. We also know that this season has opened wounds in our faith family and we are developing a plan to make resources available to help heal our faith family.”
Feltner was reportedly in the running for a pastor position at a church in Clarksville, Tennessee, the Tribune said, but he was dropped in October after officials there heard the women’s stories. He was also suspended from teaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
“He did the difficult thing and owned up to it. I’ll give him that.”
Only after being exposed. So, no.
Hypocrisy in Church Leadership has hurt the Church in the US probably more than anything.
He ought to have become a salesman or accountant or anything not involved in ministry.
The Playa Pastor probably not a good thing.
“If the Pastor lawyers up well, it will probably be viewed as youthful indiscretion but at the legal age. I’ve seen it happen a number of times in court.”
What would he possibly need a lawyer for?
As far as youthful indiscretion, you’re assuming he stopped fooling around over the past 17 years. Doubtful.
Very similar story here but I was a 20 year old youth leader (not a trained minister or pastor). Met a beautiful girl when she was 14. Kept my eye on her and when she was 16 we started dating. I proposed to her when she was 17 and we married a week after she turned 18 (she picked the date). In many ways, she was much more mature than I. Happily married for 47 1/2 years. Cancer. I miss her more than anything. Our only regret was not marrying sooner. She had a girlfriend that married at 16 and they are still happily married today. Have people changed that much?
I’ll take it a step further than that.
A lot of 16 year old girls in the 1950’s were more mature than most women in their 40’s or even 50’s today.
I hang around a lot of these harpies via my wife. Face palm doesn’t even begin to describe the drama they bring.
Since he was single at the time and they were adults there is nothing illegal about their activities
However as a pastor he screwed up big time. He needs to at least undergo some serious counselling with a panel of senior pastors and take a good long time away from active ministry.
Although his sins were 17 years ago, they still affect him today until he is fully repented from them.
Mega churches are breeding grounds for deviants.
Agreed. Age of consent doesn’t matter if it is sex outside of marriage. It is still sin according to the Bible.
Doesn’t mean the guy couldn’t have changed and NOW be a good pastor. The list of sinless pastors is pretty short.
He disqualified himself by sleeping with girls under his spiritual care.
He struck out on a number of these:
1 Timothy 3:1-7
Qualifications for Overseers
3 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
Nobody can have a different past, but anyone could have a different future.
Are you kidding me? He was in a position of power and preyed on these two girls.
I’ve known therapists at a church I used to attend that did the same thing.
No!
Thank you.
It’s true that everyone can have a different future, but not everyone needs to be in a position of religious authority, no matter how badly he wants to be.
The writers at Spiritual Sounding Board raised the question of whether, especially “these days,” it’s a good idea to have a single, young man as a youth minister. One feature of “these days” is that there are an awful lot of people, including professing Christians, who believe sex outside marriage is just fine as long as it’s (arguably) legal.
My church’s high-school youth minister is a married woman in her late 20s with three young children.
My father was 23, and my mom was 15, when her brother (his best friend) introduced them. They dated, married, and he became a decorated police officer and police detective for 37 years. Their 3 kids turned out to be pretty successful and productive members of society, and the first of their great-grandchildren was born last year. Today, he would have served 2-10 years in prison, and would have spent a lifetime on registries, and he likely would still be working today in his 80s as a liquor store assistance manager or something. I’m not sure that things are better today than they were back then.
True. I don’t actually know how non-ordained ministry works, but ordained ministry, anyhow, is not a right.
Is anyone arguing that he broke the law? He is unqualified to continue in the ministry. He resigned. I think that’s the extent of it.
The comments include discussion of whether he did anything illegal.
I agree that he is unqualified, based not only on what’s in this article but others I have read.
I guess a person can’t be stopped from saying, “I’m a minister!” and doing whatever he thinks he should do, along with anyone else who chooses to consider him a minister.
However, when a person is a church employee, regardless of whether he is ordained according to the understanding of that church, the church has a right to tell him, “We don’t think you’re suitable,” and to inform others of why.
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