Take the Survey - From the Shattered Pulpit Blog

Take the Survey

How does this national survey compare to the Lutheran Denomination? 
Take the survey on the right (and share it) so we can see.

Diana Garland, dean of Baylor School of Social Work and co-author of Baylor University School’s National Study of “Clergy Sexual Misconduct with Adults” conducted the survey on more than 3,500 adults, which is the largest scientific study into clergy sexual misconduct (CSM). The abuse, however, often is seen by parishioners and denominational executives as something else--a problem with alcohol, for example, or an emotional or relationship problem of the pastor or the parishioner, or a parish conflict.

Congregations who blindly trust the person in the pulpit should tune into a new national study, suggesting clergy sexual misconduct with adults occurs across denominations and religions a lot more often than many realize. The analysis by Baylor University’s School of Social Work found that 3.1 percent of adult women who worship at least once a month have been the target of a clergy come-on since turning 18. 

Of those surveyed:

• More than 3% of women who had attended a congregation in the past month reported that they had been the object of CSM at some time in their adult lives;
• 92% of these sexual advances had been made in secret, not in open dating relationships
• 67% of the offenders were married to someone else at the time of the advance.
• In the average American congregation of 400 persons, with women representing, on average, 60% of the congregation, there are, on average of 7 women who have experienced clergy sexual misconduct
• Of the entire sample, 8% report having known about CSM occurring in a congregation they have attended. Therefore, in the average American congregation of 400 congregants, there are, on average, 32 persons who have experienced CSM in their community of faith.

In addition to analyzing data from the General Social Survey, Garland also gathered first-hand accounts of clergy sexual misconduct. She interviewed more than 80 women and men. This group included victims of clergy misconduct, family members or spouses of victims, religious leaders who have committed misconduct, and professionals who have provided care for offenders and survivors.

From those interviews, Garland learned there were five factors that perpetuate clergy sexual misconduct.

-- Nobody acts in a situation that calls for action.

-- Parishioners don’t want to hurt their pastor’s feelings.

-- Religious leaders don’t have to report to an office or supervisor. And much of their communication is private.

-- People worship in sanctuaries, which means "safe place." That increases vulnerability and lack of awareness.

-- The same person exhorting the congregation from the pulpit is often the same person providing counseling or psychotherapy behind closed doors. The overlapping roles create an inappropriate power dynamic. 

A Few Scandals in WELS Reveal the Problem - The ELS and LCMS Are No Different

Various pastors and laity got nowhere dealing with Ski and Glende.
SP Schroeder jumped in to protect Ski and get him a new call, his fourth in four districts.
Ski's porn addiction was part of the letter that went to entire district and around WELS.

WELS policy is to hide stories, even those that make the newspapers, and Christian News has been useful in helping them by spiking stories. If the WELS leaders have to deal with a scandal, they limit the discussion to the area where people know about it and are demanding the facts. The innocent do not get the facts, of course, but a manufactured tale designed to prove once again that WELS is infallible.

Capital Murder - Total prison sentences - 5 years for Al Just
WELS never told this one. Marvin Schwan, the patron saint of WELS-ELS-LCMS, dumped his wife to marry his manager's wife, breaking up two marriages, two families. She found out the truth of their finances when she read the Forbes article in Christian News. There he laughed about getting rid of her for $1 million and a Cadillac when his net worth was already $400 million. She killed herself, but all that was hushed up, except Jay Webber was happy to tell his ELS bosses that I sent the article to Otten to print. Somehow, that was the only sin, since "no one reads Forbes." Marvin spent a lot of indulgence money on the ELS, WELS, and LCMS, and they doubtless assured him of his forgiveness, salvation, and holiness. Wisconsin Lutheran College named their library after him, for a price, and WELS featured him on their magazine cover, grinning like "I did it." John Shep, who got about $15 million from him for Thoughts of Faith, said, "His only weakenesses were Cadillacs and women." In effect, Marvin ripped apart two families, abandoned the mother of his children for a pittance in alimony, and destroyed her desire to live - all while Missouri, WELS, and the ELS bowed before him as a saint while raking money from his nasty little pockets.

WELS knowingly took in an adulterous LCR pastor when things got hot for William Tabor in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He did not change his ways in Cape G, but he received a call to Salem in Milwaukee, where his mistress shot his wife in the head, killing her. I believe this happened in the parsonage, yet WELS had no trouble letting him move - as a pastor - to serve a call in Escanaba, Michigan. WELS made sure Tabor's file was empty when the police investigated, and Tabor never went to prison. His mistress did. Three pastors told me about Tabor and his extensive reputation as an adulterer - William Bischoff (former LCR), Jay Webber, and Roger Zehms.

Al Just stabbed his wife many times over in their bed and pleaded innocent at his trial. He claimed she rolled over in bed and kept stabbing herself until she died. WELS jumped at the chance to defend good old Al Just, a teacher at ALA in Phoenix (the area high school that spawned Jeff Gunn's CrossWalk). The current First VP's father testified about Al's character at the trial. Motive? Al married his children's baby-sitter when he was in prison for a very short stretch. She divorced him afterwards, when she got to know him better - and was scared out of her mind.

Scandals Not Quite Contained by the Machine
We met a CLC pastor's wife whose first husband,  a WELS teacher in Milwaukee, ran off with a high school student. Those teacher flings are fairly common.

A female teacher was found by the police, where she was making out with one of her female students.

Years ago I wrote about a male teacher who was still teaching for WELS in Milwaukee, even though he had a history of offenses against female students. He was arrested and on trial for the latest crime, which should not have happened.

DP Robert Mueller's VP - Rick Schulz - was having an affair when a pastor exposed it. Mueller's response was to lie to the congregation and the pastor's wife about the resignation. The VP was "depressed" so buddy Rick got a job heading the WELS nursing home. Someone forced Mueller to explain all this to the various Michigan District conferences, so everyone knew the DP's spin. The pastor who found out told me how glad he was that his father was dead, so he didn't have to find out how low WELS had sunk.

DP Mueller and VP Kuske were cheerleaders for clergy adultery. If someone was forced out, as one Ohio pastor was, it was his wife's fault for lying about it and having all these connections (Kuske). Once I went to the hospital for a long visit with someone. That particular pastor was on the payphone in he lobby talking with someone, in a state of ecstasy, and was still talking like that when I was done.

Mueller and Kuske ran interference for Floyd Stolzenburg, who was kicked out of the LCMS for cause. They let him pretend to be a pastor, serve as a "consultant" in Columbus, and be promoted  as a pastor in WELS and when that failed - at Emmanuel in Columbus. Their buddy was divorced - no problem. He lied about his wife - no problem. They told the same lies - poor Floyd had a Scriptural divorce! The only difficulty was that I found out the truth and said there was something rotten going on.

The ELS and WELS still treated Floyd as one of their own. Jay Webber was glad to have Roger Kovaciny serve as bagman, collecting money from Floyd for the Marvin Schwan Mission in the Ukraine. Does anyone smell the potroast?

Wait, I am not done with the Michigan District officers. Mrs. Ichabod and I went to Dave Grundemeier's wedding. He was a mission pastor and also district secretary. When he resigned and his new wife divorced him, all the divorced and single women wept openly at his church. One of my contacts said he re-appeared in another district.

This is Michigan-centric, because I was in that district and learned about scandals as they unraveled and were silenced. When Scott Zerbe had an affair with a minor girl in Fred Adrian's parish, the police frowned upon his counseling style and put him in state prison. A nearby WELS pastor told me, "You know more about my district than I do!" That was during the "reform" reign of John Seifert, who put Adrian back in the ministry after good old Fred resigned. You will have to ask them about why he resigned.

I helped the girl's attorney win the trial, and the initial award was $400,000. Fred sent a letter around, rejoicing that insurance would cover it and that they were appealing the figure.

Is anyone noticing a pattern here? I am just getting to DP Ed Werner. He was known for openly messing with girls in his congregation, for decades, but the district pastors kept re-electing him. Finally, when new episodes began, the mothers got together and got him into court. He was doing to their daughters what he had done to them. If you think WELS does not have a grip on people, think of that factoid alone. The mothers stayed in Werner's parish. Werner went to state prison in South Dakota.

WELS spin. Keith Free, whose father was a DP, told the initial cover story for Werner. The WELS version was that good old Ed was arrested for slapping some girls on the face for being sassy in confirmation class. (Who makes up these fables?) Keith added, "At least I hope that is why."

When Valleskey's successor out West resigned, a layman said, "He was depressed." I said, "Really? What was her name?" The layman said, "Who told you?" I replied, "That is the patented WELS cover-up, resignation for depression."

When the synodical VP resigned from Muskego, he got a job at a hardware store and told  his family it was to relieve the stress of being a pastor. He even told his family I lied about it. (This is also a patented response.) I told the family member who wrote me about my "lies" that I had the report, which showed "for cause."  The VP's method of pastoral counseling was to offer himself... One woman told on him instead being "counseled." Ace is the place for the former WELS VP.

The Lavender Network
There is a well known but very hush-hush homosexual network in WELS. Various people have talked about it and their general knowledge of it, including names they know. The Polluted WELS blog had comments that showed homosexual assault to be common at the synodical schools, all in good fun of course. If someone objected to being grabbed, he was accused of being gay. I guess group grabs were common, too. The leaders know and wink and say they do not know.

Hard To Justify, Even with UOJ
Two WELS workers were arrested for homosexual child porn file swapping, which is only a foreshadowing of the scandals to be suppressed in the future. I was already told to stop mentioning one name.