Scott Dalgarno

Senior Pastor

Scott was raised in Sacramento and the Bay Area of California. He is a graduate of Whitworth College and has an M.A. in Literature and Film Studies from the University of Oregon. He is first and last a proud Duck.

After college, he taught Italian Renaissance literature in Rome and was a part-time instructor of Comparative Religions and Film Studies at Southern Oregon University. He is a graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary and has been the preaching pastor (in the following order) at Grace Presbyterian (Portland), First Presbyterian (Ashland), Westminster Presbyterian (Eugene), Westminster Presbyterian (Portland), and Wasatch Presbyterian (Salt Lake City). He has never pastored a church he didn’t love.

Scott taught various classes in Preaching, Desert Spirituality, Jewish-Christian Relations, The Historical Jesus, and Poetry & the Bible at Cascades Summer Conference. He has also twice been dean of Cascades Presbytery’s “Dad & Me” camp for kids ages 5 to 7.

He has demonstrated his commitment to justice and equality over many years of ministry. He was a charter member of the Cascades Peacemaking Committee. In the 1990s he spoke in many evangelical Presbyterian churches in Cascades in favor of gay ordination. A commissioner to the 1996 PCUSA General Assembly in Albuquerque, he spoke in favor of gay marriage. In response to the burning of a copy of the Islamic Qur’an by a Florida Baptist sect, Scott challenged the Session of his church in Utah to buy 90 copies of the Qur’an and give them away with a bookmark in each one saying, “This book was donated by the leaders of Wasatch Presbyterian Church who are not afraid of truth wherever it can be found.”