Mueller versus Brenner - You Read It Here First

I am risking my reputation for calling elections (Crumley, Kieschnick, Kieschnick re-election, Dan Preus out) to predict the WELS Synodical President results.

The California DP has been mentioned as a candidate backed by the Church and Change people. That would go against the unwritten rule, that the First VP (Mueller) gets the job. Secondly, no one has more clout than President-in-Waiting Mueller. He has been the power behind the throne for years. He was able to get voted back in as VP after being voted out, a phenomenon worthy of a dissertation (Ph.D., abnormal psychology, Wayne State University).

The recent letter sent by the seminary faculty, opposing the close of MLS, tells me that Brenner definitely has a base there. Church Growth people in WELS want to close the schools. For instance, closing Martin Luther College would make Wisconsin Luther College (far more liberal) the only WELS college. WLC has plenty of Schwan money. MLC is flat busted, due to synod support money being withdrawn by the synod. The budget has been manipulated against the schools for more than 20 years.

Brenner has the added advantage of being from Michigan, where his father Slick served as a pastor and opponent of the liberals. The original John Brenner--three John Brenners in a row, almost as confusing as Constantius, Constantine, Constantia, Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans--was synodical president during the most trying times, the Great Depression. He was also known as the scourge of the liberals. He detected the changes in Missouri before anyone else noticed. SP Brenner has always been held up as the ultimate bogeyman by the Church Growth fanatics, a singular honor in the eyes of many.

John Brenner was a popular dean of men at Michigan Lutheran Seminary, before he was called to Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. For those of you who do not know WELS history, MLS was a seminary. When the Wisconsin Synod merged with Michigan, the seminary was turned into a prep school, with the promise of synodical support, the funds now being yanked away to support the hobbies of the Church Growth leaders.

Brenner is one of the rare men who would gain support from the Michigan District (grew up there, taught there) and from the Jurassic Age of WELS, when his grandfather was synodical president on a shoestring budget. Therefore, he would have plenty of support in the State of Wisconsin, where WELS pastors and members are densest.

Mueller would necessarily line up the bureaucratic support, the Church and Change people, the ordination of women advocates, and the extensive network of Fuller Seminary and Willow Creek alumni. Many Wisconsinites want MLS closed as a matter of principle (Wisconsin versus Michigan, really puerile). The dissenters would gladly cut out the very people who will support Mueller to avoid those cuts.

Right now I would give the odds to Brenner to win, but only if his people watch the ballot counting. The DMLC-NWC merger vote was flipped, a narrow defeat turned into a narrow victory. Retiring SP Gurgel then went to the disctrict conventions and promised, to win the second (necessary) district vote, that it would cost only $8 million. The Michigan District bought this line from Gurgel - "If it goes over $8 million, we will pull the plug." Sure. Some say the cost-saving merger cost $30 million. Do the Michiganders remember being goosed the last time? You bet.

Brenner should win a honest vote. The disgust toward the Mueller-Gurgel reign is so great that Wayne should not be able to stop the urge to throw the rascals out.

Immune to the message given by the disastrous drop in mission offerings, WELS has instituted an emergency pledge drive to close the gap between the $28 million given the previous year and the current $20 million mission offering. One might expect news releases urging people to die faster so the Grim Reapers (Planned Giving Counselors, aka Tetzels) could harvest faster. "The fields are white for the harvest," as Don McGavran told a slack-jawed Lawrence Otto Olson. "You must harvest with a sickle, not a pen-knife."