Controversial LCMS LGBTQIA+ YouTube Interview Canned
Unite Leadership Collective's interview with retired Pastor Mark Schulz and Lutherans for Racial Justice representative Joshua Salzberg was removed after Synod pressure.
Unite Leadership Collective (ULC) recently interviewed Pastor Mark Schulz (retired) and Joshua Salzberg, a layman who founded Lutherans for Racial Justice, about homosexual and transsexual issues in the church. The video was removed from circulation on February 12, 2026, at the request of Schulz’s District President and Synod President Matthew Harrison.
Ad Crucem News was preparing an article on the video before it was deleted and was in correspondence with ULC host, Rev. Tim Ahlman. The interview had gained instant notoriety on social media, and we received many requests to cover it, but we were unable to do so immediately due to other work and travel commitments.
Informing us via e-mail that the video was being removed, Pr. Ahlman stated to Ad Crucem News,
I fully subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions. God hates sin in all of its forms. Homosexuality is a sin against God's original design for humanity. I preach and teach this. Because of this public teaching, we have had families leave our church because they have loved ones who struggle with sexual sin. Romans 2 does not excuse the truth of Romans 1. Romans 2 does lead us all, as sinners, to the foot of the cross. This is our prayer for all sinners. Also, the Law can't work individually apart from a relationship. I have strived to stay pastorally connected to these families in the hopes of the Spirit leading the individuals to repentance. This is hard...especially in today's culture. Finally, I do not have close family in the LGBTQ+ community - my guests do, I believe. The podcast sought to have a hard conversation that is needed in our culture. I don't agree with all of our guests opinions, but I strove to be kind, challenge as much as possible, and agree that the church should be a place that welcomes all sinners, longing for them to repent and receive the grace of God in Christ and walk in the newness of life offered by the Holy Spirit.
The topic has been in the news since we reported on homosexual and transgender affinity and associated abuse of whistleblowers at Our Savior Lutheran Church & School in Arlington, Virginia. In response to the pastor's eventual resignation in that case, Salzberg launched a fundraising initiative for him, which attracted many sympathetic donors.
Most Controversial Statements
The most controversial portion of the interview was this segment by Schulz:
One of the reasons this matters so much to me personally is because I have a gay brother. He’s married to another man—and he is a Christian.
I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me, flat out, “That’s impossible. He can’t be gay, married to a man, and still be a Christian.”
And that always stops me short. Because what they’re really saying is that if one aspect of his life doesn’t line up with how they understand God’s plan, then nothing else about his faith counts.
And yet, if you gave me thirty minutes, I could probably identify something in their life that doesn’t line up cleanly with Jesus’ teaching either.
Jesus talked about money more than almost anything else, and materialism is everywhere in American Christianity. But no one uses that to declare someone “not a Christian.”
When my brother first came out, I handled it badly. Not intentionally—but because I thought I was being faithful to Scripture.
What I’ve learned since is that I didn’t need to compromise a single doctrinal conviction in order to be loving, patient, and present. I just needed to listen.
I’m deeply grateful my brother didn’t walk away from me, because he could have. We’re close now—but that relationship survived in spite of me, not because I handled it well at first.
So when I talk to parents or pastors, I always say this: I’m not asking you to change what you believe Scripture teaches. I am asking you to think very carefully about how you live that truth with the people closest to you.
[The transcript statements are rendered in cleaned prose for readability, without alteration of substance.]
Salzberg also delivered an instant flashpoint:
“Another example since you brought up, you know, male and female, you know, both in Genesis and Jesus’ words—when was dusk created in Genesis 1 and 2?
If we actually look at what’s going on in the Hebrew there, you know, as we go through the creation story in Genesis 1, we’re looking at night and day, light and darkness, land from the sea, waters from the waters.
What that is—the authors there are taking these extreme examples of what they’re talking about.
Does that not include dusk? Does that not include a pond? It includes everything.
God didn’t create one or the other. He created everything.”
…
“And again, I’m not making any kind of theological assertion, but people who are non-binary, trans, and in the LGBT community that are Christians that take the Bible seriously—they’re looking at that and going like, ‘Yeah, what’s the difference between creating all examples of gender and sex and how that works, as well as creating all examples of time and day and land and water and animal and fish and bird?’
It’s creating everything. Not just these two things that are mentioned.
It’s a literary device there.”
[The transcript statements are rendered in cleaned prose for readability, without alteration of substance.]
These statements, along with many similar ones, impudently contradict the clear teaching of Scripture and the Evangelical Lutheran Church. It is therefore unsurprising that they drew the attention of Synod officials and prompted the withdrawal of the podcast.
The interviewee’s statements reaffirm concerns about the extent of homosexual and transgender enculturation in pockets of the Synod, and the associated antinomianism and universalism that affirms it.
Please tell me if I am missing something, but am I correct in understanding that what Synod officials have done in response to the YouTube video, amounts to removing the public evidence of these LCMS pastors and lay leader demonstrating their false teaching, but not, as far as we know, putting any restrictions in place, or enacting any disciplinary measures to prevent these false teachers from further false teaching which subjects all Lutherans subject to their leadership to severe spiritual danger? In other words, the public evidence of the problem may be mostly removed, but is there any word on, or evidence that the problem itself has been, or is being addressed to stop the false teaching? Now, if one is the type of person who thinks the PR problem is the primary problem, and that the problem of the false teachers persisting in their false teaching is insignificant, then I can see how removing the public evidence of the problem would be your idea of solving the problem, but for the rest of us, I think my question is a fair question.
"I fully subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions."
Based on later statements, he obviously does not. He's well down the path of using scripture to justify his brother's sin.
He's muddying the difference between public sin with repentance and without repentance. His brother struggling with homosexuality in a private manner versus publicly participating in it are two different things. The former recognizes the sin and with God's grace will overcome it. The latter is flaunting their sin, claiming it isn't a sin, and damages others in the church.