Synod Stories

Brian Yamabe (00:01)
Welcome to Synod Stories, a show about the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, where it's been, where it is, and where it's going. The LCMS National Convention is a little less than a year away, and with it comes a lot of questions. In this episode, we go deep into the weeds of specific board nomination and specific nominees. For that, we have Eric Johnson, a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Merrill, Wisconsin. He was a lay delegate for the 2025 North Wisconsin District Convention and is a 2026 delegate to the LCMS National Convention.

And most important for this discussion, Eric is one of the founders of the Flacius Caucus. Eric, welcome and thank you for being here.

Erich Johnson (00:37)
Thank you very much for having me. It's fantastic to be here.

Brian Yamabe (00:41)
All right, right off the bat, am I saying Flacius correctly? Is that the right pronunciation? And why the name Flacius Caucasus if that is the name?

Erich Johnson (00:49)
So the pronunciation of the name has been a bit of a topic of discussion because it's a Latinized name. ⁓ So technically, I would guess if you're hanging out in academic circles, you're going to hear phlesius, which is like the ⁓ Latin ecclesiastical way to pronounce it. The Germanized version is probably phleikius.

Brian Yamabe (00:53)
You

Erich Johnson (01:16)
⁓ it's named after Matthias Flakius Illiricus. He was a Croatian reformer, ⁓ in the 16th century during the Augsburg interim. He stood up strongly and refused to basically bow to the interim. Very outspoken. He's not super well known in our circles, really in the American Lutheran circles at all. ⁓ towards the end of his life, he kind of took some very strong stances towards, total depravity.

that we probably are not totally comfortable with. And so he's often remembered negatively for that, but we remember him positively for standing up to the emperor and for standing up for the doctrine of the Lutheran Church at a time when it almost disappeared. I mean, the Augsburg Interim was hard on the German Lutheran Church and most of the vast majority of our great theologians who were alive at the time.

kind of went along with it. Philip Melanchthon, most notably, who we happily remember as a fantastic theologian, went along with the interim. And so there's actually some great, great debates between Flakius and Melanchthon, which are fun to, fun to read. But he's a character who I find to be inspiring, especially today in our American context, where things seem to be increasingly watered down and ecumenical. There's less and less

definitive doctrine less and less stands against what are seen as the mainstream either mainstream Christian doctrines or even mainstream worldly doctrines that have come into the Christian faith in America. And so that's, that's where I took the inspiration. Also, when I was naming the caucus, I didn't want to like, I didn't want to name it the Luther caucus or the Walter caucus, you know, so I went, I went for a little more unknown guy.

Brian Yamabe (03:10)
Cool. That makes sense. So what kind of jovi to start this, this organ, you know, this group and what do hope it accomplishes?

Erich Johnson (03:18)
So, this has kind of a long and complicated story behind it. ⁓ Following the release of Luther's large catechism with annotations, contemporary annotations and essays, la caca, as some people call it, ⁓ there was a lot of noise, especially from laymen, and there was a lot of laity who historically had never really been involved in church politics.

They had always kind of assumed, I think, especially since President Harrison has been elected, there's been like the strong assumption that the Senate is moving in the correct direction and is moving back towards confessional conservative Lutheranism, which I think in broad strokes is probably true. But when the large catechism with contemporary annotations and essays was released, it kind of woke people up out of a slumber. And there was a lot of discussion about like, what can we do?

So I started a group on Facebook of laity and clergy, and we discussed the issues in the Synod and what can be done about them. Eventually we started pushing for Dr. Benjamin Ball to be nominated for Synod president in the 2026 convention. As I was talking to people about that, they kept asking me, well, do you have anybody else for any of these other 60 some positions that are up at convention?

And I was like, no, I haven't even thought about that. And so then I decided, anyone doing this? Has anyone started doing this? And no one had. So I was like, well, I guess I will. And so people in the group kind of just charged me with putting together a list. I've gone through every single position, hunted down a lot of laity, followed up with a lot of laity, spoken probably to close to a hundred LCMS clergy about this list to try to put together a list that is both

confessional and conservative but also spans the pretty broad range of opinions that are inside conservatism within the LCMS. So I think when the list gets released, I don't think people will see it and be like, my gosh, it's all hardcore right wing Christian nationalists. It's certainly not. It's a broad representation of the entire conservative movement in the LCMS. It was done that way intentionally. ⁓ I think that

Right now, especially if you look at America generally, maybe not the best time to be getting into ⁓ inside baseball battles with people who could be your allies on a larger scale. ⁓ So like when we win, we can fight over those things. ⁓ But so it's, it's been a long process. We got kind of started late in the game. ⁓ Nominations are due in October.

Brian Yamabe (05:56)
you

Erich Johnson (06:08)
And, the Senate has said they would prefer to have them basically this week if they at all possible, but the hard deadline is October. ⁓ we're working towards that. We're working towards getting the list out. The list has been reviewed by a lot of people, mostly now it's just a matter of tracking down the last couple of people to ask if they will actually stand and if they won't replacing those people. There are a lot of laity and.

especially commissioned, non-ordained people within Senate who think that because they don't have like a great biography of achievements or they feel that they aren't theologically experts, they aren't ⁓ qualified for these positions. So I would just really like to encourage laity in general to A, get involved at your circuit and congregational levels because that's how you start to build that experience and B, to just ⁓

Realize that your real life experience is actually valuable to the church. Being a manager at wherever or working in retail and working with people all day or working in finance or working in law, real estate, all of these realms, the Synod as an organization, because of how large it's a national entity with its fingers in lots of different things, needs people who are experts in all kinds of things, not just theology.

You don't have to be an expert in theology to be a confessional layperson. You just need to have been catechized and know the basics and know enough that if somebody is trying to trick you, can be like, that doesn't sound right. And then know somebody who is an expert in theology to ask about it. And so I really encourage lady to get involved, to dive in. ⁓ It seems really intimidating, but if you go through and look at the job descriptions for a lot of these positions,

it's four to six meetings a year in person the vast majority of it is handled where you are in your region because a lot of the positions have to do with. Regional and national kind of meetings like your boards for national missions your board for international missions those people do a lot of work where they are not just you know in saint louis with senate. So i think the.

The big thing to remember about the list is that I am sure when it is released there will be people out there who are saying like, this won't change anything. There are always those people. And there are also going to be people out there who are going to send alarm bells that ⁓ fascists are coming for your synod. And ⁓ they might be trying, but there's not enough of them to come for your synod. And we're certainly not those people. ⁓ It will be used as a club as it is.

Every time and i'm sure that the people who are on the far far right friends ever seen it will tell us that the list is too far left. I'm i'm positive that that will happen as well and so. I just i want people to actually look at the list for what it is which is it's a bridge list it's not a perfect list there is no perfect list. There may be a perfect list for you and there might be a perfect list for myself but that's gonna be different and.

If we all decide we're just going to be entities unto ourselves, then we will all just slowly watch as the synod either declines or goes on without us. And we're just sitting at home.

Brian Yamabe (09:32)
So what are, like you come up coming up with this list, what are the, you know, the primary areas that you're looking for this list to address? Like, is there some directionally, you know, that these candidates or something you would like to that promoting the these this list? you know, what would it, where would it guide us? Or what do you hope that this effort gets to?

Erich Johnson (09:53)
Yeah, so I think we've seen the data kind of come in now on a lot of the evangelical practices that have been adopted by El Simas congregations and it's not good. It's not working. And jettisoning the conventions for grape juice or for online communion or for large missional settings where you're bringing tons of people in and basically you are, you're like cycling people through your church and trying to, you're like, if we can get a hundred people in and we just get one.

⁓ Those methods haven't really worked. ⁓ The people on this list are people who I think in my experience have a record both either in the parish or in their lay life of representing Christ and the confessions. I think that when it comes to growing the church, there are two ways it happens, either through missional work or through growing your families and catechizing children. I think if you take

Dr. Ball, for example, I think his church in Hamill is growing like a weed. That's not just because they're having lots of children, although they are having lots of children in that congregation and they're catechizing them well, but they also are doing lots of outreach and they've built an intentional community. I think one of the things that the LCMS has lost, which historically it has always had, is like a very intentional community. Like your car breaks down, the first place you call to look for a mechanic isn't Craigslist or.

the yellow pages you go to your church and say is anyone here a mechanic that can help me fix my car. They'll give me a fair honest rate for their work. My son needs a job, his first job in high school. Does anyone here own a business that they can employ my son? Things like that which have been categorized as nepotism, as bad. I think if you ask the average LCMS congregant, like is it good to intentionally hire LCMS people from your church for your business?

They would probably there's a very high chance they would tell you that's not fair. That's not good because it's not fair to all the people.

Brian Yamabe (11:55)
That's actually interesting

because there was really a strong movement earlier, like probably 2000, it's like you didn't want the Christian yellow pages, right? That was even actually issued, et cetera, was against that, you know, like this idea that we would be insular in that way. So that's a really good point.

Erich Johnson (12:13)
Yeah, and I think that was born out of a righteous desire to be fair to all people and to bring outsiders in. And I think that's good, but I think that right now you have so many people in your congregations who need help. I mean, always. That's what the Congregation of Believers is. It's a whole bunch of people who need help. And they need help from their pastor getting confession, receiving absolution. They need help from their pastor to get the sacrament.

But they need help from their fellow congregants, their fellow Christians to live life. that's, I mean, early Christianity, Christianity, obviously the term Christian is like the word assigned to us by the Romans, which we adopted, but they called themselves the way. Because it wasn't just, we're coming in on whatever day our worship is and we're worshiping together and going home. It was, this is the way we live together in communion.

Brian Yamabe (12:48)
Yeah, that's really good. Yeah.

Erich Johnson (13:10)
with each other, with our families and as individuals. And so I think that there is a lot of value in synod adopting a model like that. So Dr. Ball, they have the sons of Schieffer-Decker at their church, which he has talked about on previous podcasts where they get the young men involved. They, they trust them with responsibility. They raise them up. And I would like to see something like that become much larger.

I think there's a lot of desire for that, especially from our young people and from our parents. ⁓ Dr. Peterson talked about recently how missional work should be personal, and I could not agree with that more. You're not a mission field for the entire world. You are, but you're a mission field for John the plumber or Carl the farmer specifically when they come to you. You're not missioning to them as if they're just a person who you want to bring into your church.

you're missioning to them as who they are and you need to know them, you need to become intimate with your people. I think ultimately a lot of it comes down to pastoral care, which, and I don't want to make this seem like I'm disparaging our pastors. I think in general, our clergy are fantastic, upright men of God. But I think that America as a whole, as our communities, our families, as everything is kind of degraded, we've really lost pastoral care as far as like

Does your pastor actually know you? How much time do you spend a week talking to your pastor? Does your pastor know your problems? Are you too proud to ask your fellow congregants and your pastor for help? I ⁓ think that I have three children under four, well, four and under. And I think one of the things, the best things that having lots of young children teaches you is humility. Cause like you just, you have to ask for help. You can't make it yourself. And I think a lot of times we're too proud, especially as Americans.

to just be like, I can do this myself. I can handle this myself. I will get my own money. I will get my own job. I will find my own whatever it is, doctors, whatever, babysitters. Whereas like Christ gave you this beautiful community so that they can help you. And I would like to see men in offices who aren't just worried about the bureaucracy of Synod and keeping the bureaucracy of Synod going, but rather men who

are here to build an intentional national community that is the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

Brian Yamabe (15:37)
⁓ that's really well said. I think the one thing I'd add, when they get older, then you'll learn more of trust. Humility at the young age and then trust as they get older.

Erich Johnson (15:48)
It's interesting because I talk to other Lutherans with large Lutheran families who are older than my children and they tell me, toddler's the hardest age. I always hear that teenager's the hardest age, but they are like, no, because you can talk to them, communicate with them, they understand things. If you've done well the rest of the time, there's obviously struggles, but toddler, they're just chaos.

Brian Yamabe (16:13)
Very good, very good. you spoke in a past pastor Ben Ball. And so let's go into the what you know, like highlight the some of the boards and positions and then the the nominees that you currently have and you know, why you chose them that might be some an interesting direction to go.

Erich Johnson (16:31)
Yeah, so I think we should probably just start with Presidium. They're probably the most well-known positions that are up for ⁓ election at convention. These are the people who your regional vice presidents, your first vice president, and then president of synod. And then the district presidents kind of make up the like upper level government of the LCMS. So for president of synod, we have ⁓ Reverend Dr. Benjamin Ball, obviously.

I mean, he's out there and he can find, he's not been on tons of podcasts, but he was on the line, he's done issues, et cetera, a few times, and ⁓ he's written a lot. So if you want to know more about him, there's plenty out there to read about him. His church in Hamill is pretty well known. Pastor Whedon is also there. They have a large classical school. ⁓ So his church has been on like, ⁓

Pastor Whedon did the podcast with the, like, reformed guy who came in and was like, what's going on with the Lutheran Church? That kind of blew up. That's Hamill, St. Paul's in Hamill where Dr. Ball is. Then you have for first vice president, Peter Lang, who has been first vice president for, I think, probably about as long as I've been in the Senate. He has a pretty unimpeachable reputation. I don't know a lot about him personally, but

all the clergy and the people we've talked to have said that he's an excellent person for the job. ⁓ East, Southeast, you have Christopher Esgett, who in the classical circle, he's going to be very well known. He preaches at a church outside of DC and Alexandria, Virginia, I believe. That's pretty well known, especially in like the higher levels of synod. Basically, if you are a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and you've ever done any work in DC,

You've gone to his church. It's very large, very confessional. ⁓ Also, I believe has a classical school. ⁓ He's the incumbent for that position as is Peter Lang for first vice president. Central reason for his president, we are nominating Dr. Ball. That's his incumbent position. So how this works is if he's elected to both spots, obviously he will have to pick which spot he will serve in. That's true of any of the positions on the list.

So anyone who's nominated, you can be nominated for multiple positions, but if you are elected to multiple positions, you have to select the one you will serve in. You cannot serve in multiple positions. ⁓ For Great Lakes region vice president, you have David Ramirez. ⁓ Bugenhagen conference is at his church. He's been on Goddastien's a lot. He's pastor who I think is uniquely excellent at discussing contemporary Christian issues.

issues in our contemporary world that are directly affecting the Christian church and how Christians can respond to them faithfully. He's gone on God-esteem many times and talked about issues that I don't know if other pastors even want to touch. Things like slavery, polygamy, genocide in the Bible. Like those topics when you're talking about your friends, talking to them with your friends at lunch, they're like, well, what about when God wiped out all the Amalekites?

And you're like, I don't want to talk about that. He addresses them head on and does a very good job at it. ⁓ Very edifying to listen to him speak. He's a fantastic pastor, a great man. Very excited, very hopeful that he will be elected. ⁓ For Great Plains region, vice president, we have the Reverend Dr. Matthew Richard, who ⁓ he's fairly well known. He's written a lot. ⁓

came over to us from the Church of the Lutheran Brethren, which is a pretty small, interesting church. Most of the time when you think of colloquy guys, you think of the NALC or the ELCA or one of the larger synods. ⁓ So he has a very interesting perspective coming out of outright pietist movement. And so I think he has a very unique perspective that he's brought to the LCMS for a long time. His writing is very interesting. He's very well known, very well respected.

What they're doing up in North Dakota is fantastic and could serve as a blueprint for the whole synod as far as actually setting up preaching stations and teaching stations. And you don't necessarily need to call a pastor to do some mission work. So like you have Paul Preuss who set up a preaching station. He goes once a month to a town that doesn't have a Lutheran church and they're gathering families there. Places like that where even though you have a decreasing

maybe Christianity broadly, you can go into those places and speak without having to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in a pastor, a building, all those places. You can start small. ⁓ So I think what's going on in North Dakota, and Dr. Richard has been a big part of that, is something that Synod should really be looking at. For West Southwest Region Vice President, we probably have our least well-known pastor on this list.

the Reverend Daniel Hinton, ⁓ priest in Texas, ⁓ Texas District Church. So not only do I think it's probably important at this time, considering what's going on with Concordia, Texas, to have an actual Texas District parish pastor on the Presidium, I think Daniel Hinton, who maybe is not well known to the laity, is very well known to the clergy, well respected to the clergy. ⁓

Somebody called me, he is a parish pastor's parish pastor. He is just focused on his parish. It was actually kind of surprising to me that he accepted, that he was willing to accept nominations and stand. When I reached out to him originally, I already had a ready and in mind because I was pretty sure he wouldn't take the call to stand for that. But I think there is a lot of people who 10 years ago would not have stood for these positions who are now willing to because

Brian Yamabe (22:26)
.

Erich Johnson (22:45)
They kind of realized the fight is here. The battle's on, the numbers are in. And if something, some kind of shift change doesn't happen on the ship, we could be in trouble. ⁓ And so I'm very excited that he's on the list. But again, he's probably the least well-known person on the list as far as clergy. ⁓ First secretary, which is a super important position that is often overlooked where

Nominating the incumbent, ⁓ John Seas. He is fantastic. I've reached out to him a little bit just to ask some bylaw questions. ⁓ I do not envy him. He has a very, I'm sure it's interesting to him, but to me, what would be a very boring job going through bylaws and interpreting bylaws and making sure bylaws are good and efficacious and all those fun things, suggesting bylaw changes. I know more about our bylaws than I ever intended on knowing.

⁓ Those are the big clergy ordained positions. Basically, they'll be at the top of the list. They're the ones, those are the positions where congregations nominate for those positions rather than individuals. So if you've ever watched or attended a national convention in the past, they have the big PowerPoint screen and it'll go up and it'll show how many nominations each person got. Those are for these positions where those nominations are coming directly from congregations.

⁓ Going down the list, you have the board of directors, which is Laity led. They're kind of like the legal, the technical legal representatives of Synod. So kind of like a board of directors at a corporation or any other nonprofit. They're like the ultimate deciders of a lot of legal and property representation. ⁓ This is one of those positions and you'll notice this happens a lot in the list.

As we continue to talk about it and we talk about convention in general, is something that I, having spoken with several people in Synod and clergy who have been involved in Synod politics in the past, I believe somebody told me, this might be maybe not a direct quote, I'll paraphrase it a little bit, but somebody told me, we don't need more good men, we have enough of those, we need men who know what they're doing. ⁓ So there is a high emphasis on this list on qualifications.

real-world experience that will help you for whatever position you're being nominated for. So for example, for the board of directors, minister of religion commission, not ordained at large, we have Dr. Steven Bucke. He was the CEO of Faith Lutheran, Middles and High Schools in Las Vegas, Nevada, which are the largest LCMS schools in the country. He served on the board of regents for the Concordia University Irvine. He's on the national board of association of Lutheran secondary schools. He has a PhD from Marquette.

He's been on the board of directors for the Pacific Southwest District. So not only does he have a lot of experience dealing with legal issues and other like such high level issues, real estate and all of those things, but specifically in regards to education, which is so much of what our Senate does. ⁓ You have ⁓ Anthony Pellegrini, who is the executive director of Higher Things. He's been on the Higher Things board of directors.

Brian Yamabe (26:00)
you

Erich Johnson (26:06)
He's been directly responsible for the execution and planning of all of their conferences. He holds responsibility over their financial or oversight, their strategic planning, personnel compliance with Synod, all the other functions that keep them as a nonprofit and good standing with the IRS. He's the CEO at BellSole Properties, which is a real estate company, a vice president of a licensing company. He's a former manufacturing engineer for Boeing.

So this isn't like, it's not like I just pick my friends and put them on the list. Like we very intentionally sought out very, very high level professionals. ⁓ People who have proven themselves to not only be upright Christian men in their family lives and in their interactions with Synod, but also have proven themselves to be successful Christian businessmen or teachers or executives or whatever it is that they're doing. ⁓

For the rounding out national board of directors, you have John Townsend, who again, a long, long term accountant, business accountant, high level business owner for his own accounting firm. And Nathaniel Pullman, who has not confirmed he'll stand, but we're really hoping he will. He's the headmaster at ⁓ the classical school attached to Redeemer in Fort Wayne. So Dr. Peterson's church.

⁓ He's graduate of Hillsdale. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He's on the national board for the consortium of classical Lutheran education. He's the founder and headmaster at Redeemer Classical School. He was a fellow for the Winston Churchill project, which is a very prestigious project within Hillsdale. He apprenticed with Kenneth Calvert. So he's been a featured speaker. He's a consultant for Christian schools all over the country, not just LCMS ones when it comes to classical education.

probably one of the most qualified and tenured people at his age in classical education in the country. again, I think anytime a list like this comes out, because so many people are unknown, especially our laity and our commissioned teachers versus ordained, basically in the LCMS, the only people who are well known are clergy, at least to other LCMS people. And I think part of that is good, because like,

Laity are just living their lives. They're not really meant to be famous, especially not for theology. ⁓ but we, we use the networking, the LCMS being the biggest small pond on earth to really find candidates who are excellently suited for their positions. ⁓ Going down the list, you got board of national mission. So board of national mission, obviously very important group.

They do a lot of support for congregations, setting up new teaching and speaking stations. ⁓ you got Reverend Willie Grills, a lot of these. The other thing is, so at the top of this list, you'll have a lot more at large positions or regional positions that were maybe easier to fill because of the regions they're in. You have LCMS regions with a lot less LCMS people in them than other regions. So I was very proud of our ability to hunt down some people.

Um, and convince them to stand. Like, I don't know if you, if you asked the people who listened to a brief history of power or word fitly spoken, if Reverend Willie Grills would ever stand for a position at Synod, I think they'd probably tell you no, but yet here he is confirmed on the list for a board of national mission. I think he'd be fantastic at it. Um, he, he, Reverend Grills is well known for his podcasting.

But before that, mean, he was, he's a major voice in synod when it comes to mission work with Mormons. He's, he's been on podcasts and like speaking engagements specifically about Mormonism. He's very well read on the other various religions that exist in the United States. So as far as outreach and discussion with groups that are non-Lutheran, I think he'll be a vital voice. ⁓

You have incumbents here, like Peter Bender from South, just South of me in Wisconsin. Again, just a long history of serving the board of national mission. Well, he has a large thriving parish in South Wisconsin, classical school, one of the only classical schools in Wisconsin. I think there's maybe four of them. Well, Lutheran ones, he has one of them. So a wide variety of people who.

are all competent and capable, but just come from a lot of different backgrounds, even within the clergy positions. ⁓ Board for International Mission, we got Reverend Larry Bean. He would prefer I probably call him Father Larry Bean. ⁓ Again, just men who have a history of high levels of competence, high levels of writing about the Confessions.

Brian Yamabe (31:10)
Yeah

Erich Johnson (31:21)
high levels of writing about what Christianity is and what it can do for you, not the global you, but you specifically. ⁓ So I just think that a lot of these are opportunities for us to really put our best foot forward. And I think that in the past there was a lot of like, ⁓ I don't know if Larry Bean will stand for a position like this. And so people didn't even ask him. It's kind of like the super attractive girl at the bar. No offense, ⁓ Father Bean.

But that no one wants to go and talk to because they're like, ⁓ that person will never say yes. And you just got to ask them and tell them and be like, this is important. We need you to do these things. so, Chris Braidmeyer, a pastor from North Dakota, maybe not the most well known for board of international mission. but again, I just, some places are doing things that we haven't done a lot historically in the LCMS. Well, or maybe we did in the past.

And North Dakota is one of those places. I think North Dakota might be on its way to needing like basically a circuit rider, a person who's called to the district and just goes around to all of the preaching stations because they've started expanding their preaching station system so much. And I think that that's a very reasonable and viable path forward for the Synod when it comes to spreading the gospel. ⁓ The CTCR, the Commission on Theology and Church Relations,

probably one of the more well-known positions on this list. For parish pastor, we have the Reverend Paul Kane from the Wyoming district. ⁓ Fairly well-known, I think, in LCMS circles, but maybe not well-known outside of LCMS circles. Very involved in the Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education. Very involved in confessional writing. ⁓

essays, lots and lots of Paul Kane essays you can find. ⁓ Absolutely outstanding and coherent Lutheran thinker, very clear, very concise, ⁓ and brings decades of parish ministry experience with him to that position. So very, very excited to nominate Reverend Paul Kane. And for lay person, we have Matthew Cochran on the list. Perhaps one of our most well-known lay theologians out there.

Probably not really lot of essentially full-time lay theologians in the LCMS. ⁓ I know that writing theology is probably not how Matthew Cochran eats, but he writes it enough that he's basically full-time, ⁓ very, very well-spoken, very knowledgeable, has a deep understanding of the Confessions, a historical understanding of the Confessions, and is absolutely fearless.

When it comes to going after the world and what's the devil is doing in our world. ⁓ today it's not, it's not the 1990s anymore. We're not fighting liturgy wars. mean, lots of us are still fighting liturgy wars, but that there's demons at your gates. Like they want to take your children from you. They want to, they want to take your churches from you. They closed churches for in some places for a year. Like.

If you can't get into your building, it doesn't matter what the liturgy is, you can't get inside. So I think that a voice who will fearlessly proclaim the truth to the world from the position of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations, not only will it give a bold witness, but it will also embolden so many of our laity and our teachers and our pastors who feel like

they're just taking it on the chin all day every day from the world and just getting bludgeoned and it's easier sometimes to just be quiet i think that having a voice like matthew cochran's on the ctcr well maybe those people up a bit remind them that they're not alone but there are other people who are looking around and are just like this is insanity. They've lost we've lost the plot the country's lost the plot and so. He's loud.

and boisterous and unapologetic, but I think now, especially now, we need somebody like that. We have an entire commission on theology and church relations full of winsome, kind people. So they've got that part covered. Let's get somebody in there who will proclaim loudly and without apology. ⁓ The other big positions I really want to highlight Concordia Publishing House Board of Directors.

Brian Yamabe (36:01)
you

Erich Johnson (36:10)
Going all the way back to the beginning of this conversation with Luther's ⁓ large catechism with contemporary annotations and essays, ⁓ this is a position that maybe gets overlooked by some, but is very important. CPH isn't just our publishing house. I mean, it is our publishing house, but it, of all of the LCMS institutions, probably has by far the largest reach. Lutherans of all kinds read CPH books.

Evangelicals read CPH books, Baptist reads CPH books, Baptist writes CPH books, which again, maybe is something that the board of directors could look into. it's, CPH has a huge broad readership, a very large customer base. is, I would say the LCMAS has maybe zero prestige institutions where it's like universally among

theological people in the United States, no matter their background, you're like, wow, that's an institution. think CPH is one of those institutions in America. It is a Christian publishing institution, not just an LCMS institution. And so I think protecting that, like the gem that it really is, is highly important. And so for these, we have Asa Hoffman, just a fantastic young man, beautiful young family. He's on the board of...

not the Board of Regents for Luther Classical College. is the the director, the executive director. Something, hold on, I have a letter from him, let me tell you.

Brian Yamabe (37:46)
You

Erich Johnson (37:52)
it doesn't say. But he took Samuel Price's job at Luther Classical College when Samuel Price went to seminary. Then we have Aaron Michael Nielsen. Again, ⁓ a laity not super well known, but Mr. Nielsen has tons of experience, not just in synod, but in real life, the real world. ⁓

His mother has served on the board of directors for CPH before so he he knows kind of the ins and outs of the publishing world and the writing world ⁓ Obviously TR Halverson is on our list. He's an incumbent on the list. He is a long tenured service with CPH and has done a fantastic job and we would love to see him there again and then Heidi Kayebeg who is a lay person from the English district

I do not know her or know a ton about her other than that she comes with fantastic recommendations. ⁓ The English district really ⁓ produces a lot of fantastic laity. So I don't know what's in the water at the various places that the English district exists, but they're doing good work over there. And ⁓ I wish their current, their new district president ⁓ luck in continuing that tradition. I think he'll do fantastic. And president.

party who was there previously and who is now obviously the director of CUS ⁓ did a fantastic job there and has been doing a fantastic job at CUS. it's just good to see. The English district has kind of a history of being like the rogue renegade liberal district. It was one of the districts where the DP was removed by President Preuss after Seminex because they kept calling Seminex pastors. So it's people say it's impossible to turn around and the English district kind of very obviously tells you that it is in fact possible.

so all of the men who have been involved men and women have been involved in that from laity to clergy to district presidents they should be commended for that so i just want to throw that in here ⁓

Then you have the various Concordia University systems and the Concordia University system board of directors. So for Concordia University system board of directors, Reverend Chris Harrison ordained, again, a pastor with not just a history in the parish, but a history in education and working with education who ⁓ comes with very impressive confessional credentials. ⁓

Some of the people who I want to highlight for the Board of Regents, we'll just go through some of them quickly because there's a lot of them. We have the Reverend Dr. Christopher Toma for Concordia University of Chicago. Dr. Toma, he might be one of the rare LCMS clergy who has reached fame outside of our Synod, ⁓ hosts just fantastic conferences with Calvin Robinson and like other very like

big names in the Christian movement, broadly speaking. ⁓ Very like active when it comes to addressing how politics affects the synod and how like the changes in politics in our country are affecting the changes in synod. I'm very excited to have him on the list. I'm also very excited to have him involved at a Concordia where he can help bring young people back into the fold.

We've seen numbers of young people dropping out of Christianity in general. We're seeing a slight uptick in that now as people are starting to return to church ⁓ in small numbers. And I think Tomah can be part of having those returnees come to us and realizing that the LCMS is very serious about its theology, very serious about the country, very serious about the society we live in.

And I think lots of people could say lots of things about Dr. Tomo, but I don't think anyone could call him unserious. So I look forward to him standing. I hope he is elected. I think he'll be fantastic at that job. For Concordia Irvine, the Reverend Carl Hess, who recently spoke at Bougainhagen on the American interim, which I thought was kind of interesting, not planned. ⁓

But he's a fantastic man. I've spoken with him a lot. ⁓ Just a really brilliant, wise, smart pastor who also just does not pull punches when it comes to the truth and scripture in the world. And I think, especially in our Concordia systems, when we're dealing with young people, I don't think young people today want a wishy-washy, sanitized version of Christianity.

I think those people have already left and walked away. I think the people who are considering the church are already kind of taking a bold stance in our society just by considering the church. And so I think they're looking for a place that's serious, intentional, and I mean, at this point, counterculture. I know that sounds crazy to say that Christianity is counterculture, but you don't tell your friends in college that you're a Christian unless you're serious about it, because it's just not worth it, even at our Concordia System schools.

which is unfortunate. So I think that the various men we've elected to these positions ⁓ will do a big, will play a big part in making our university system a serious place for serious young Christians to go and meet other serious young Christians and expand their faith. ⁓ As for ministers of religion non-ordained, ⁓

I don't necessarily want to highlight any of these people individually. Same with the laypeople. I don't know that any of them will be big names. Other than to just say all of them come with impeccable credentials when it comes to either the real life, real world business, whether that's in computer sciences, technology, real estate, finance, or they come with direct experience in education.

for ministers of religion not ordained we're really looking for people with experience as school administrators principles cios of schools are deans of students and such things from our with long histories of serving at our high school levels and people have done that the district what what level as well so you have like sean martins who is basically his job is that he assists

the schools in north and south minnesota with finding good administrators for their schools finding good pastors and so people with decades of experience in our education system or with experience in a professional field that applies to education or higher ed so like technology is a useless thing useful thing to know about when you're talking about universities because technologies coming it's here

it came a long time ago. Real estate, these universities deal with real estate law all the time, finance law, all of those things. So the people were selected intentionally. ⁓ Board of Regents for our seminaries on the bottom of our list, ⁓ also very important. think, again, I'll highlight the laypeople because I think this is one of those spots where we did a really good job of finding laypeople. You have Blaine Rasmussen for

⁓ St. Louis Seminary and Hunter Anderson for the Fort Wayne Seminary, both of whom are, I believe, guess, I don't know this for sure, millionaires. People have been profoundly successful in their professional lives and despite all that success have remained steadfast, are great examples of family men, are great examples of Christian laity.

This list is, I mean, it spans, like I said at the beginning, it spans not only just the spectrum of conservatism within the synod, but it spans the spectrum of skills for our lay people. And it really shows that with intentional looking, can find, we have some impressive people in the synod, some fantastic men who have shown that by not just their actions with their families and their actions in their church, but their actions in the world, out there hiring people, dealing with finance.

balancing books paying people insured getting people insured health insurance dealing with the morass of legal bureaucracy all of those skills are directly applicable to serving our senate who also has to do with the government bureaucracy who also has to go out and meet people also has to make ends meet at the end of the day so the emphasis obviously ⁓ from the name of the list from the people who are involved in the list you'll see it's

confessionalism and ⁓ devotion to our Lutheran history and our Lutheran identity is very important, but that isn't the only thing that puts you on the list. You had to be qualified. We don't need more good men. We have those. We need good men who know what they're doing. that's not to say that there's not a

myriad of other ways if you're not on the list don't be sad people can still not make you i highly encourage i've been i've had other people reach out to me and be like what if i want to nominate this person for this position please do it please do it i want as many good men nominated for these positions as possible i want are delegates to have an open and fair and honest accounting of their options when they cast their votes

and I think that as many good options as possible is good for that process. ⁓ I think going forward it's very likely that this list will evolve to involve multiple people at each position suggested nominations because the other thing that I've been really trying to tell people with this list is I don't want you to take this list and just copy and paste nominate everyone at this list. I want you to take this list to your pastor

Discuss the list with your pastor and your board of elders and other laity who you know are serious about these things and it should be a guide. Pick the people off the list you think are good, put in the people you think are good. It is not a tool like this is the list. This is how it should be. It is a guide. Ultimately, you at your parish and your pastor are going to know who will be best to serve your church at the synodical levels and you should not be usurping

your pastor's authority and theological knowledge by using this list as a way to nominate people around him. I do not want that to happen.

Erich Johnson (49:05)
talking about us. So the list is a tool. It's a guide. It's not meant to be a like mandate and in the future, we're likely going to go towards having multiple qualified people listed for each position. ⁓ There's some discussion about like vote splitting and all that fun, intricate political talk when you start talking about doing that. But I think that for so long, we haven't had

we have this vast resource that I didn't, when I started making this list, I didn't know it existed. We have this vast resource of laity with incredible qualifications, incredible real-world experience that could be so useful to the church, and we just haven't been putting them on the field. ⁓ Pastor Stucker talks about this on the line, it's one thing if you lose and you put your best team out there, but if you don't even put the team out there, and so I...

I think before we start talking about vote splitting and all of that fun political intricacies, maybe we should just put the best team on the field and kind of let the chips fall where they may not to mix metaphors. ⁓ But I just, I think there's so many laity who don't realize how much influence and power they could have in synod and they spend a lot of their times, they see something.

go viral on Twitter or Facebook or wherever they're seeing it of something bad happening in the LCMS. Some woman preaching from a pulpit because the pastor is like, well, it's just a message or whatever it is, and they're like, this is horrible, but there's nothing I can do about it. And they just kind of throw their hands up and move on. And it's not true. There are things you can do about it. Maybe not directly, but you have a lot of power in the Synod. The Synod wants you. The Constitution was written with an active

laity in mind, and it's for an active and educated laity, and we have an uneducated laity. So I think getting them back into that activity level is vital for the health of our synod, because when you see those things online that set you off, they're... It's not useful to just throw up your hands and complain about it. It feels good. I've done it many times. I get it. I understand the temptation.

And sometimes you need to vent, that's fine, you can vent. But when you're done venting, you gotta go to work. And those things that are bothering you are bothering other people, and they're causing discord and disunity in the church, which is not what we want. And so, we either need to address them and have a disputation about them and come to a conclusion about them, which may not be satisfying to me.

however I view it, at least we have a conclusion then we have a result instead of everything is a constant kicking of the can down the road. Everything is a constant like, well, that's happening over there, not here. So it's not really my business. And it's like, well, are we walking in fellowship together or are we not? And so I think a lot of the spirit of the list is simply to get people active and realize all the opportunities they have, as well as to nominate people who have been on the bench.

so to speak, for so long that we've forgotten they were there. And these are men who can do a lot of good for sinned. So I'm very excited about this list. think one of the things that was most exciting about it for me was just like talking and meeting so many people within sinned and realizing that you're not by yourself. You're not the only lay person who takes Lutheranism seriously. There's lots and lots of lay people everywhere who take Lutheranism seriously. And it's just very encouraging to run into those people.

Brian Yamabe (52:23)
right.

Erich Johnson (52:48)
When you're looking at a list and you're like, man, how am I ever going to find a board for national mission lay person from the Great Plains? And then you talk to like five pastors and they give you 20 names and you're like, goodness, how am going to narrow this down? It very quickly shifts once you get into the water and start swimming. So I just, I really want to encourage other lay. I'm just a guy. I'm literally just a guy. I have a right. I work a quick trip. Like I have a really regular job, just a regular parish.

a tender. ⁓ I and I just started working on it. You can just you can just do things as they say. And ⁓ it's been a very edifying experience for me. I think it's been an edifying experience for a lot of the people who have been involved in it. And I think a real positive movement is being built out of it. So I'm excited to see where it goes. I'm really looking forward to 2029. ⁓

because I think we'll be much better organized. This started relatively late in the game for us to be putting this list together.

Brian Yamabe (53:54)
All right, so like currently, what is your process or strategy for reaching out with this list to congregations and convention delegates?

Erich Johnson (54:04)
So one of the things that I, when I set out to make this list, I said from the beginning was that this list will not be passed around in secret from person to person in hushed rooms. This will be a public list. It will be published. So when this list is finalized, it will be published into Lutheran circles. We already have publishers who have agreed to publish it. It'll get shared from there, I'm sure.

If you want to find it, you will find it. It will be out there. ⁓ It'll be published on our own website, which will be set up. ⁓ As well as, like I said, numerous blogs in the Lutheran sphere have already agreed to publish it. ⁓ Some of our bigger publications. I'm in talks with publishing it. So we'll see. I would guess once it gets picked up by some of the smaller ones, some of the larger ones will pick it up because I do believe it'll become news. ⁓

And so that's one way. That's the public primary way because there are lists in Synod that do get passed privately and quietly, and I do not think that that is a salutary way to practice politics within the Church. I think maybe in...I don't think it's salutary way to practice politics in the secular world either, but I think that there's utility to doing it in secret. And so in the secular world, you can maybe justify it with the utility, but...

Inside the church you can't justify sneakiness because it's useful that's not acceptable and so. That's a big part of this is that the list will be public it will be accountable if you have a problem with a name on the list you'll be able to. Say it and somebody will see it and talk to you about it because i don't have interest in this being some kind of secret conservative ploy to take the senate over that is not what the list is about. ⁓

The other way is just word of mouth. I mean, we've been talking to lots of pastors, lots of laity. People, like I said, people are excited about this list. When I started this list, I thought it was going to be a little bit like pulling teeth, but people really got behind it. People are really excited to see lay people getting involved. There's been a lot of help from clergy, a lot of help from other laity to me in putting the list together. ⁓ So I think there is, like I said, the LCMS is the biggest small pond in the world.

So I think that word of mouth will be a major way that the list will spread. ⁓ Nominations from congregations will be contacting congregations, sending emails, calling pastors to talk about how their congregations can nominate and how those forms and that process works. ⁓ As for a lot of the positions, they're nominated by individual laity. You could go right now onto the nominate, just type in nominate a worker LCMS and it'll bring you right to the page.

You can click it, make an account and nominate a person off the list or nominate your friend who you think is excellent or your teacher who you think is excellent ⁓ for whatever one of those positions. So that would be like Board of National Mission, International Mission, ⁓ CPH, your Board of Trustees. A lot of those positions are just a simple you log in and nominate a person. They don't really count the nominations.

Those are the ones where on the big projector at convention, it doesn't have the numbers next to their names. Those are also the positions where the like Synod Nominations Committee Board will review the qualifications. So another reason why you should be nominating qualified people because Synod is going to check their qualifications as they should. You don't want a person serving on the Board of Regents for a university who can't hold down a job. So vetting people is important. ⁓

So those are the primary methods we'll use. I think word of mouth will probably be the way most people see it. But like I said, it's not going to be a private list. It'll be publicly available on the internet. You'll be able to find it. ⁓ I think that's important. I think that no matter what side of synod politics you are on, you should be open when it comes to the actual politicking.

you should be honest about what you're doing. shouldn't be like, hey, this guy might be really good for that position. You should just say, hey, this guy does these things. And so I think he would be excellent at serving in this position for those reasons. That way we can have open and honest dialogue about it. Because otherwise you end up just whispering about people who you're supposed to be in full fellowship with. And that's not a salutary practice at all.

Brian Yamabe (58:46)
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Do you see a role for the caucus outside the convention cycle?

Erich Johnson (58:52)
Yeah, so that's been talked about going forward, especially like pertaining specifically to overtures and district conventions. We're planning to be active for district conventions in 2028. We plan on forming a overture committee within the caucus to try to either put together overtures ourself or overtures from other districts that we think would be salutary to have in multiple districts, getting permission to send those across.

to have somebody sponsor them in their local district. Circuit work is a little more tricky because there's so many circuits and circuit visitors and circuit meetings are very like, they're very non-official. I don't know if you've ever been to like a circuit meeting, but I was a lay delegate to one of our circuit meetings and it's literally like 10 guys sitting around a table just kind of talking and figuring stuff out. And so I think actually that model,

Is pretty good. I think that's actually maybe a good way to do your circuit politics is to like get all the people together because there's only 10 or 12 of you and talk about it and figure it out that way. I think it's a brotherly way to solve problems, so I'm not sure that there's as much of a need for us to be directly involved at that level. ⁓ As for like individual congregations, one of the things I would like to see us take on is maybe like a side project would be something like the sons of Schieffer-Decker kind of promoting the idea that you should have.

this young man's brotherhood group at your church for men between the ages, young men between the ages of like 11 and 16 or 18 and they can progress through the ranks and they're learning about discipline, they're learning from their fellow brothers, they're learning from mentors and they're becoming more more active in their church. That way by the time they're 18 and they're making decisions about college and careers and what to cut out of their life as life gets crazier as you get older and you have more responsibilities.

They're like, well, I can't cut church out of my life. have all my responsibilities there. Those people depend on me. I depend on them. It's my community. And so I would like to, I think it's just such a fantastic idea. It's not really related necessarily to the caucus's original mission, but I just think it's so important to have. And I would like to see maybe like a daughters of Katarina or a similar group for our young women to train them up to be pious and God fearing young women. I think it's super important.

to get our young people involved in church. It's one of the reasons that I'm one of the weird conservatives of Senate who thinks that raising congregation voting ages to 18 instead of being at confirmation is bad. I think that you should have the right to vote in your church as soon as you're confirmed. And if that means you push confirmation back, fine, whatever, do that. But I think it's silly to be like, you're confirmed, I trust you to take what you believe to take communion with me, but I don't trust what you believe to vote with me. I think that's foolishness. And so I think

I think we have young men who are hungry for leadership and so I think that would be a good thing to support. mean we had a Walter League at one point which was a little different but similar in kind of its goals and its mission which was to connect laymen and together so that they had a community to rely on. So that would be something I would like to see us get involved in. I'm not really sure how that would work with our current setup and what we're currently focused on. ⁓ But primarily

will be functioning through district and national conventions.

Brian Yamabe (1:02:20)
Makes sense. All right. So kind of to wrap things up, what advice would you give to other lay people who are concerned about the direction of CNN, but don't know how exactly to get involved?

Erich Johnson (1:02:29)
⁓ I would strongly encourage you to reach out to me. ⁓ You can find me, Eric Johnson on Facebook, E-R-I-C-H Johnson, not a lot of us. ⁓ Otherwise, you can email me. I don't know if you can drop an email into the show notes, but perfect. You can send me an email. Reach out to your pastor, ⁓ email pastors who are on the list. There's

Brian Yamabe (1:02:44)
Nope, I can do that.

Erich Johnson (1:02:55)
anything you can do to get connected to us, we'll be happy to help you out in the caucus. But other than that, if you're not interested in national-level politics, but you maybe want to get involved at the district's synod level or even at your congregational level, I strongly encourage serious laity to run for their elders or to stand for their church councils, depending on how their church's polity works. ⁓ I think that's a major issue. I think if you picked

a hundred LCMS churches at random and did a survey, a demographic survey of their council of their church council government. It would probably be 90 % over the age of 50. I would say at least 90 % if not higher. I think that's a big issue. I think that you don't have to pick your 18-year-olds in your congregation, but I'm sure there's some 30 or 40-year-old guys who know what they're doing who are serious about the confessions who

have never even thought about it before. And so I would like those people to really think about it. That's where locally, mean, church is where you, your church is the most important part of this. Synod can go away tomorrow. Your church will prevail. The gates of hell may well prevail against the synod, but the gates of hell will not prevail against your church. And so that's the most important part of this all. Get involved with your congregation, talk to your pastor, where you're gonna make the most change in your life and in the life of the people who you've been called to.

serve around you, your community is going to be at your congregation, in those institutions, and it doesn't have to be the church council. Maybe you start off, you have a Bible study, you host a potluck at your house every week for the young families, whatever it is that you're doing, get involved, get to know the people in your congregation. Those are the people who you have been called to help, and those are the people who God has called to help you, and that support system can't exist unless it's built. And so if it doesn't exist already, build it.

If it does exist already, get involved in it. That would be my advice.

Brian Yamabe (1:04:57)
All right. Thanks, Eric. This has been a wonderful conversation. if you have anything else you'd like to bring up, we can have you on again. this has been a wonderful ⁓ discussion. And I learned a tremendous amount. So thank you very much.

Erich Johnson (1:05:09)
Well, it's been fantastic. Thank you so much. I'm very excited to see how this podcast grows.

Brian Yamabe (1:05:14)
All right. Thanks, Eric.

Erich Johnson (1:05:16)
Thank you.