A prominent Indiana pastor is under fire after it was revealed he made more than 50 sex tapes with his wife, adding to mounting questions about the church’s handling of sexual matters and accusations about an unhealthy obsession with the subject.
Nathan Peternel is the lead pastor of Life Church, a multisite church with four locations in Indiana, one which is led by state Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith.
Late last year, Peternel’s son Jonathan was arrested for possessing violent “torture” child pornography and was recently sentenced to six years in prison.
While searching his devices, however, investigators discovered more than 50 videos of Nathan and his wife naked or having sex.
This revelation caused a furor in the church, with members questioning how the videos got there, clamoring for answers and causing tension in the church. Church leadership repeatedly told congregants to stop talking about it, but in the face of mounting interest and speculation, Peternel finally addressed his church during a private closed-door meeting, explaining:
“There are a lot of accusations circulating and being circulated, and some of them are blatantly false, some of them are twisted, and some of them are without context. But in the midst of all those things, there’s a reality that I need to own, and I need to address.
Within the covenant of our marriage, my wife and I created private, intimate photos and videos. Although those files were password-protected, they were hacked. And they were hacked from a device without our consent, without our knowledge, and that was done by our son, who was high at the time.”
He later added:
“Though what occurs within marriage is not sinful, some may see that as unwise and reflecting poor choices on our part. And we hear you and we understand.”
The revelations did not quench the conversation but rather served to inflame it, as more questions bubbled to the surface about the morality of their pastor producing sex tapes in the first place.
Our own poll of followers showed that 60% of people would leave the church in these situations.
There’s also Peternel’s uncomfortable treatment of sexuality while pastoring. According to 24Sight News, which has been covering this story closely, “Peternel… told members of his youth groups over the years that if they avoid pornography and abstain from pre-marital sex they can film themselves after they’re married.”
Peternel has also previously preached about his own sex life from the pulpit, dispelling stories that couples’ sex lives dry up when they’re married. He’s shared during messages that he and his wife still have a sizzling and spicy time, and even reportedly told them that they incorporate sex toys to make things even more intimate and satisfying.
Another driving factor in the culture of discontent at Life Church is the revelations that have come to light about a closed-door pre-marital counseling session Peternel had with a pregnant 17-year-old girl named Paige.
Paige, operates the YouTube channel Truth.Fortitude.Justice. She recounts that a decade ago, she and her 19-year-old fiancé, finding themselves with a child on the way, sought out the church to marry them, agreeing to pre-marital counselling as a condition.
During their second session, Paige shared that, at the end of their talk, her counsellor Peternel became very graphic and explicit in his questions, which made her extremely uncomfortable and reluctant to answer.
“The first question is he just looked at me and asked me if I had- he used the O word -but ‘gotten to the finish line.’ And he knew that I was pregnant. So obviously he knew that we had done that. The next question he asked, is if (my breasts) needed to be touched in order to achieve that.
The next thing he did was focus on my fiance and ask him if he had to use his fingers or, you know, you get the idea. something else to achieve me getting to the finish line.”
When the fiancé didn’t want to answer, she alleges that a red-faced and aggressive Peternel insisted that he answer the question, telling him repeatedly to “be a man” and cough up the information.
After he eventually did, Peternel asked the couple if they looked at pornography, had anal and oral sex, and about their thoughts and usage of sex toys.
The couple was so disturbed by the incident that they never went back for any other sessions.
They did, however, write a letter to several people in church leadership complaining about the “perverted and obscene questions” and the way the session went. She also emailed the files to herself to leave a paper trail and confirm when they were sent.
This story, the revelation of sex tape usage by the pastors, the quenching of questions and the sense that the pastors are closing ranks, has reportedly resulted in more than a hundred members departing the church.
Furthermore, two pastors announced that they were leaving the church: Youth Pastor Tina Pavy and Life Church Pendleton campus pastor Ross Steele.
Though they did not publicly cite the recent incidents as impetus for their departure, a person with knowledge of their leaving told us it played a role in their decision to part ways.
