My social secretary in WELS contacted me because the new DP for Arizona-California-Nevada, Jon Buchholz, wanted to meet with me. The long-time friend also arranged for similar contacts with SP Mark Schroeder, who wanted to be in contact with me.
I have emails from both men from 2008. I also had lunch with Buchholz several times. He introduced me to his church staff as "The notorious Greg Jackson." Sims, the former GA pope, smiled wanly. Sims is now in St. Paul in Germantown, Columbus, Ohio, where Shrinkers Stolzenburg and Schumann once prowled - where the Glende boys learned how to spread false doctrine.
Buchholz and Schroeder wanted spin on Ichabod, but that is the purpose of Otten's Christian News. Otten is often on the phone with LCMS, WELS, and ELS officials who want stories spiked or manipulated to fit the mythical public imagine. Bury a felony arrest story on page 13? No problem.
I gave both officials a chance, as many others in WELS did. Documents and actions are more revealing that furtive assurances that "things are getting better" and "WELS is getting more confessional."
The Gunn Report says otherwise. Or rather, the hypocritical handling of the Gunn Report says otherwise.
Note that Buchholz was complaining to me about Gunn and the Shrinkers back in 2008. Here is a quotation from a Buchholz email, October, 2008:
On another note, here’s
a little piece that chaps my hide. There are no “Worship Wars” in Corona
Beer Country, because there is nothing to fight for. It’s all a matter of style,
anyway, right? We’ve left the Church Militant and entered the realm of triumph
and glory, where everything is fun and games and there are no more crosses to
bear. We’re all happy with one another and are content with a casual,
laissez-faire approach to worship.
The wheels of justice grind slowly
but very fine.
The link should come through - it is about Leonard Sweet fan Rick Johnson (WELS, Corona, California). In that post he is talking about Mark Batterson, one of the favorites of Ski, Glende, and Bishop Katy. Buchholz' hide must not be very chapped, because the same Rick Johnson has just received a huge sum of money from WELS to do more of the same.
What have we learned?
For all their talk, SP Schroeder and DP Buchholz have consistently backed, promoted, and protected the worst false teachers in WELS. They have done worse than doing nothing - they have publicly and loudly backed them - from Jeske on up to Gunn.
Schroeder and Keith Free have just handed Ski and Glende a small fortune to buy an ugly, failed saloon in downtown Appleton, just blocks from a beautiful, ornate WELS church. This is mission? Evangelism? It is another expensive sheep-stealing program, just like Gunn's in Phoenix.
