Not a simple answer...
His church, Immanuel Lutheran in San Antonio, is LCMS, same as my denomination. However, on the LCMS site here he is not listed as the pastor--there is no pastor listed--and the congregation is supposed to have only 32 members. The LCMS logo is not on the church sign per Google Maps, and frankly the church looks really small--and that's saying something, given that my church has just over 70 members. The mailing address for the church, moreover, is actually the address for Holy Cross Lutheran, which has about 100 members and a pastor listed.
Finally, on Mr. Dankof's own web page he lists Valpariso and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, which is non-denominational. This is pertinent, since to become an LCMS pastor one must have graduated from one of the two LCMS schools, in Ft. Wayne, IN and St. Louis, MO. So Mr. Dankof cannot be the pastor of Immanuel Lutheran, though he may or may not be going through the motions of performing pastoral duties there.
Bottom line: he is not an LCMS pastor by any recognizable definition of the term, he cannot speak for the LCMS, and he certainly does not speak for me, and by any fair reading of Scripture, for God.
Well, that’s a relief. I get very tired of the broad brush approach taken by the media. I’ll grant you that our LCMS isn’t perfect, but I just don’t want to be labeled with some of the other, significantly more liberal Lutheran groups. Of course, I guess this approach is something we’ll see much more in the future. Anything to label us as wackos or haters. Sad, really.
He is not LCMS. Apparently he was educated at a non-Lutheran seminary and is part of a very fringe group that calls themselves Lutheran, specifically LMS-USA. My quick internet review suggest this group has at most three small congregations. Other than as click bait — it worked from me — I do not know why this person is covered. I hope it was not to create divisions.