Drumheller “was talking to me through a crack in the
door and wouldn’t let me in. I told him, ‘Jesus didn’t put no -trespass notices on his church! Jesus didn’t put locks on his church!’ ” Someone called the police. When the offi cers saw that
Mace had a gun in his glove compartment (he had a permit, he said), he was arrested. The charges were later dropped. “They put the handcuffs on me,” Mace said later, sitting
in a coffee shop about a mile from the church. “They put me in the back of the car. In front of my kids. I had to go sit in a cell and post bail. … His goal is clear. He wants to steal the church’s money. The property, it’s worth a lot. The man is a complete psychopath.” By August, Drumheller had been the pastor for 20 months. His congregation was in complete upheaval.
T
he fall turned into a series of court hearings con- cerning church governance and whether the old bylaws or the new elders should dominate. Drumheller’s past record was deemed not admis- sible. Neither a judge nor a specially appointed
commissioner could determine who was in charge of the church, what laws governed it or even how many members the church had. Commissioner Jay Litten, a lawyer in town, ruled in
September that “it is my judgment that the people of the Harrisonburg Church of Christ have adopted no model of self-governance which remains in effect today.” He ruled against the elders’ idea that they ran the church because “the
“I hope I never hear another case like this while I’m on the
bench,” he said. The fate of the church would come down to a matter of
faith. Whom did the worshipers believe — Drumheller or the elders?
O on his church! ND A WORSHIP SERVICE. HE WAS ARRESTED.
evidence fails to establish that the congregation knowingly turned over governance of the church to the Elders.” It was a victory for Drumheller. Judge James V. Lane ruled that the church would have
an election. Anyone claiming to have been a member with “signifi cant” contact with the church over the past two years could participate. Lane said he hoped that people would remember that “they are Christians” and not attempt any shenanigans.
n an afternoon in late October, with the vote a few weeks away, Drumheller, in a suit and tie, and Mike Harlow, co-chair of the church board, escorted a reporter down the center aisle and past the pews. About a dozen members were
seated down front. Drumheller turned on a video camera and sat in a folding chair before the pulpit. He was ready to share his side of the story, but he had a
few conditions, which he had set forth in an earlier e-mail. The interview would be taped, and the congregants would be present “in quiet testimony and support of all who presently attend here,” he wrote. Now, seated in his chair, Drumheller seemed confi dent,
at ease and pleasant. He produced a packet of information that he said buttressed his case. It included a videotape of that meeting he had taped in early summer with Thomas and Rexrode. (He volunteered that he had taped it secret- ly, without their consent, explaining that it was “well held in the ministry” that all meetings with congregants and church leaders should be taped, even without their knowledge.) He referred to the elders as “thugs.” He said they had taken
power in 2006 and had since put in place a self-appointed “dictatorship,” exemplifi ed when Rexrode and Thomas had made themselves trustees and then submitted court paper- work saying the church had voted them in, he said. “It was absolute tyrannical control over this church build-
ing and monies and everything,” Drumheller said. “The fact that they would never allow the people a voice to speak, it just fl ies in the face of what the scriptures teach.” Tears came to his eyes when recounting how he had re-
gained his faith after he killed David Breitweiser. On “that fi rst night where I was quietly sitting in that jail cell … I de- termined then and there, in recognition of the error of my ways, to turn my life around. “There is literally never a day that I don’t in some manner
recall or have remorse or regret my actions.” But when asked why he had not told the truth about his past
on his résumé, or in his job interview, he began to chuckle. “Really?” he said. “You cannot be that naive. I apologize
for being forthright [in saying this]. But you cannot be that naive.” It was foolish to believe anyone, even a church, would ever
look past child homicide, he said. Nor was the rest of his past relevant. He gave an example. A church member had once told him
that he confi ded everything in his wife. Drumheller said he replied, “You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” It was absurd for someone to tell his spouse of his “previous escapades,” he said, and likewise for his job application in this case. He said Rickel’s informing the church about his criminal
DECEMBER 19, 2010 | THE WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE 17
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