Knock It Off!
Lt Col Gregory T. Schulz, CAP (USAF Auxiliary), Retired
One of the best cars that I ever owned was a 1992 Saturn SC. It was a beautiful aqua color with manual transmission. I bought it brand new, and put just shy of a quarter million miles on it in five years. It was the epitome of quality. This was before Saturn was subsumed by GM, and had autonomy - making use of quality management techniques that had become common in Japan, but were still largely unheard of among our big, lumbering, bureaucratic dinosaur auto companies.
One policy at the Saturn plant was that if any worker saw a safety or quality issue, he could hit a button on the wall. Production was halted until the issue was addressed and resolved. The “whistleblower” was not only not punished, he was rewarded. That is how quality happens. It is not by Soviet-style top-down bureaucratic control and sweeping problems under the rug, but rather by encouraging people with “boots on the ground” to sound the alarm when something is amiss - so that it can be fixed.
In fact, Dr. Luther was a whistleblower. And the bureaucratic Vatican’s response was predictably to try to silence the whistleblower, to shoot the messenger, and to cover its own ecclesiastical posterior by means of brute force. In fact, the scriptures are rife with whistleblowers known as “prophets.” And we see how they were often treated by the bureaucracy.
The US Air Force has a similar policy in which anyone - regardless of rank - can order everyone to stand down by calling: “Knock it off!” This can be done for reasons of:
(1) safety, (2) deviations from procedures/rules, (3) when the call adds to the knowledge needed to complete the task, (4) when something has changed from desired expectations, (5) when asked a question to confirm, and (6) when you have pertinent questions.
In the Civil Air Patrol, which is the US Air Force Auxiliary, we have the same policy - especially in matters pertaining to safety. We are especially careful to protect our cadets, and we drill it into their heads that they are all, regardless of rank, authorized to call “Knock it off!” - and all personnel are to immediately stand down - even our squadron commander, even our commanding general. This is for everyone’s protection, and for the sake of success in the mission.
This brings me to my colleague the Rev. Dr. Gregory Schulz, who is a retired Civil Air Patrol lieutenant colonel. He is probably our most famous whistleblower in the LCMS today. He sounded the alarm over the invasion of Woke ideas at Concordia - Wisconsin. His concerns were verified by no less than President Harrison. But instead of receiving a commendation from the chain of command, he has been exiled from campus, prohibited from entering his own office and accessing his library, locked out of his campus email, and forbidden to have contact with students - and this “hostage crisis” is now in day 507.
Yes. Day 507. It beggars belief.
Some of our readers might remember the Iran hostage crisis (1979-1981) under President Jimmy Carter - which gave birth to newsman Ted Koppel’s ABC News Nightline - which began each evening telling America what day number we were in the hostage crisis. Here is the first episode. This foreign policy you-know-what-show went on for 444 days.
Again, the Schulz crisis is in day 507, with no end in sight. Let that sink in.
Dr. Schulz has been paid his full salary this whole time - but has been forbidden to earn that money by teaching - even though he has a Divine Call and a contract. That’s some mighty fine stewardship of resources there, CUW! I’m sure parents are thrilled at how you are making use of their hard-earned tuition dollars.
In a wry observation to yesterday’s (July 9, 2023) Gottesblog post by Dr. Eckardt “Convention Concerns Part 2: On the Use of Online Media,” Dr. Rick Strickert comments:
". . . the proposed resolution. . . just resolves that members 'avail themselves of the dispute resolution process'”
In addition to being a day of celebration of our nation's independence, the Fourth of July was also the 500th day since Prof. Gregory Schulz's liberty to access his office, his research, his emails, and his students was taken away by the CUW administration. His crime was exposing the "Woke Dysphoria at Concordia" (https://christiannewsmissouri.com/2022/02/15/woke-dysphoria-at-concordia/) at the LCMS university in Mequon, WI.
This banishment still continues despite a new president at CUW, a visit to CUW by President Harrison, whose visitation report (2023 LCMS Convention Workbook) confirmed woke problems at the CUWAA campuses. An Overture to the 2023 LCMS Convention to reinstate Prof. Schulz has been trashcanned by the Floor Committee with the claim that, even now after 500+ days, Prof. Schulz is still under the dispute resolution process, which, it seems, will not be making a final decision until after eschaton. (emphasis added)
What we are seeing is bureaucratic, institutional paralysis owing to an anti-whistleblower culture. There are three presidents in Col Schulz’s chain of command - but nobody seems to have the, er, potentia to fix this. If that isn’t indicative of a failed “dispute resolution process,” I don’t know what is. We seem to have three presidents worth of impotentia at play here. Three levels of presidents (making presidential salaries), and nobody can, or will, do anything. I suppose we should be grateful that burning dissident professors at the stake went out of style in the sixteenth century.
This farce would be funny if it were an episode of The Three Stooges. But it isn’t funny in the real world. It isn’t funny to Professor Schulz and his family. It’s not funny to people in our synod who are concerned about Wokeness in our institutions. And to have synodical resolutions telling people to stay off the internet and just rely on the dispute resolution process is a total joke. One can only ask, “Cui bono?”
Considering that Dr. Luther was a whistleblower who made use of the cutting edge communications of his own day and age - whose tone was frankly not anywhere near as gentlemanly as Dr. Schulz - one has to wonder if these guys will soon be censuring Dr. Luther for using pamphlet “tweets” and woodcut “memes” to criticize ecclesiastical superiors and institutions, and not following the bureaucratic institutional procedures for dispute resolution.
In my opinion, if the LCMS and its leadership want to restore confidence and support - not to mention actual concord - then LCMS, Inc. needs to create and foster a culture in which the whistleblower is rewarded rather than persecuted, Dr. Schulz must be unconditionally returned to his position and classroom (and receive an apology), and the dispute resolution process needs an overhaul.
Automobile manufacturing and national defense are both very important, since lives are at stake. Quality matters. Safety matters. And empowering individuals to sound the alarm matters - because it saves lives. But as important as these things are, theology and doctrine are even more important - since eternal life is at stake. We should not have to operate in a culture of fear, intimidation, and reprisals. That is not just bad for quality’s sake, it is bad for our witness, mercy, and life together.
We desperately need to encourage a culture within our synod and its institutions that rewards the whistleblower.
If Synod, Inc. won’t say it, I will: “Thank you, Dr. Schulz.” And they need to knock it off.