W. Edwards Deming pioneered the concept of quality parts, something he discovered while working on the US Census. He was ignored in the US, so the Japanese car-makers adopted his concept. The idea was simple - If the parts are high quality, the finished product will work well. Before that the auto makers had the parts manufacturers compete for price, so quality suffered. When they made the vendors compete for quality, the final product ran well and lasted much longer.
Detroit finally caught on. People wanted cars that worked. Now a car can easily reach 100,000 miles without significant problems.
Deming Doughnuts
My father applied the concept in his bakery. He used the best flour and paid extra for its shipping from California. The aroma from the 100-pound bags was intoxicating. He used the best cocoa to make chocolate icing. He insisted on cane sugar rather than beet sugar. Both sugars are identical in chemistry, but beet sugar has an odd smell and does not make icing as well as cane sugar does. He used top quality coconut, huge pecans and walnuts, the best peanuts. The shortening was cleaned often and recycled when old. (No, not recycled in the bakery, but by someone who picked it up and sold it to a chemical company.)
I have never had doughnuts like the ones we made in downtown Moline. They were legendary in the Quad-City area.
Deming and Theology
The Deming theory applies to theology. If a student of religion starts with junk-parts, the final result will be junk. The opposite is what Walther quoted: "The nearer to Luther, the better the theologian."
The Protestants and Catholics during the Reformation started with Luther. For Catholic theologians, he was Public Enemy Number One. For Protestants, he was the gold standard. John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, the most read book in the English language (after the Bible), Luther was his favorite. He said Luther's Galatians commentary was his most read book, after the Bible.
How many Lutheran MDiv students have read the Galatians commentary? How many faculty have? Add them together and the total for the whole Synodical Conference is probably close to zero.
Among the febrile dissenters in the LCMS and ELS, how many are Luther-centric? I read the unshocking claim that Fenton, who repudiates Lutheran doctrine, was a bigwig in creating the newest McCain product, the Lutheran Service Book. Fenton has joined Eastern Orthodoxy. For many in the LCMS, the cure for their ailment is either the Church of Rome or Eastern Orthodoxy. What does that say about the state of seminary education?
No one can imagine graduates of the Mequon Sausage Factory joining Rome. Why give up total infallibility for Rome's weaker version? Mequon graduates are quite enchanted by the junk-theologians of Fuller Seminary. Their former president recommended the Pentecostal Baptist C. Peter Wagner in their official WELS magazine. One of their other Fuller alums, Reuel Schulz, praised Wagner into heaven in his TELL article. Both men made it clear that Lutherans needed to study the great theologian, C. Peter Wagner.
I will add some Wagner quotes below. Here are some non-Lutheran objections.
Wagner believes he is a faith healer. He claimed in one book that a demon lived in an article in his house. Some of his statements would make anyone question his sanity. One of his books was originally called Look Out! The Pentecostals Are Coming!
The time spent studying the crackpots of Fuller Seminary is lost to the study of classical theologians. I would much rather read the serious theologians of any age than the frauds of Pasadena and Willow Creek.
Any Protestant student of theology is going to invest his time wisely with Luther because the Reformer is the greatest and most lucid expositor of the Bible. The editors of the Book of Concord should be next on the list - for Lutherans especially, but also for Protestants in general.
Wagner Was Right About One Thing
"I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with the church-growth principles we've developed, or the evangelistic techniques we're using. Yet somehow they don't seem to work."
C. Peter Wagner Ken Sidey, "Church Growth Fine Tunes Its Formulas," Christianity Today, June 24, 1991, p. 47. [Psst - Don't tell WELS or Missouri, or Paul Tiefel and David Koenig.]
"In the words of C. Peter Wagner, Professor of Missions at the Fuller School of World Missions, Jesus at Bangkok was the 'prototype of an ideal social attitude,' the 'man for others' whose resurrection and lordship meant no more than that others should be inspired by His example."
Ernst H. Wendland, "Missiology--and the Two Billion," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, January, 1974 71, p. 11f.
"The preacher, in fact, was a fascinating combination of eloquent and illiterate (by his own testimony). In the services I saw fervent singing, joyous clapping of hands, dancing in the Spirit, speaking in tongues, testimonies, prophecies, preaching of the Word, and as a climax the handling of deadly poisonous snakes and drinking of strychnine. I discussed this with several members of the congregation. When I asked why they handled snakes they replied, simply, 'Because Jesus told us to do it as a sign.' Another sign of the kingdom." [Footnote - See C. Peter Wagner, What Are We Missing?, formerly Look Out, The Pentecostals Are Coming, Carol Stream: Creation House, 1973, 1978.]
C. Peter Wagner, Church Growth and the Whole Gospel, New York: Harper and Row, 1981, p. 23.
"Church growth is that science which investigates the planting, multiplication, function and health of Christian churches as they relate specifically to the effective implementation of God's-commission to 'make disciples of all nations' (Matt. 28:19-20 RSV). Church growth strives to combine the eternal theological principles of God's Word concerning the expansion of the church with the best insights of contemporary social and behavioral sciences, employing as its initial frame of reference, the foundational work done by Donald McGavran." [Constitution, Academy for American Church Growth]
C. Peter Wagner, Church Growth and the Whole Gospel, New York: Harper and Row, 1981, p. 75.
"Yet this writer is confident we won't go astray in adopting a 'spoiling the Egyptians' approach to the various Church Growth Movement sociological principles and the research that produced them."
David J. Valleskey, "The Church Growth Movement: An Evaluation," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Spring, 1991 88, p. 116. Exodus 12:36.
Bob: "..I'd like to share with you a book I came across the other day. It's interesting, easy to read, and may be the answer to our problem..." "Its title is Your Church Can Grow, and it's filled with all sorts of practical hints that could help us turn things around here." Author: "Bob didn't realize it at the time, but in his browsing he had stumbled upon one of many similar books written from the perspective of the church growth movement, books with such titles as How to Grow a Church, Ten Steps for Church Growth, Church Growth: Strategies that Work, and Leading Your Church to Growth."
Prof. David Valleskey, "The Church Growth Movement, Just Gathering People or Building the Church?" The Northwestern Lutheran, May 5, 1991, p. 184.
"The term 'spiritual breathing' originated with Dr. William Bright in his booklet, 'Have You Made the Wonderful Discovery of the Spirit-filled Life?'"
David Valleskey, Forest Bivens, New Life in Christ, September, 1981 p. 1.
"For several years I've been a Pete Wagner fan. Although I don't see eye to eye with him on many important theological points (he approves of faith healing and speaking in tongues as long as it promotes church growth and he comes from a Billy Graham decision for conversion doctrinal background), he is the most eloquent spokesman of the Church Growth Movement. A prolific author on mission/evangelism/church growth subjects, Wagner is also an excellent teacher and a crystal clear writer."
Reuel J. Schulz, The Evangelism Life Line (WELS) Winter, 1980,
"Please stop exaggerating the amount of study that I have done at Fuller. After four years of study at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, which involved sixty-two different courses and a year of vicarage, I graduated in 1983. From 1987 to 1989 I took four courses where I was in a classroom with a Fuller instructor. That is the extent of my Fuller coursework...In addition, I have taken two courses at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and one at the University of Wisconsin--Madison. Because of Fuller's liberal (would you expect anything else?) policy on transfer of credit, and because of two independent studies I undertook, I could complete the degree by simply writing a dissertation."
Lawrence Otto Olson, D. Min., Fuller Seminary, "A Response to Gregory L. Jackson, Ph.D.," Christian News, 3-28-94, p. 23
"You may reply that by 'Fuller-trained' you mean anyone who has attended a worshop presented by the Charles E. Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth, an agency which is independent of the Seminary. If that is the case, your attribution of 'Fuller-trained' is still simply not true. It would surprise me if even half of the two dozen people on your 'WELS/ELS Who's Who' list have attended a Fuller workshop; I personally know of only five who have."
Lawrence Otto Olson, D. Min., Fuller Seminary, "A Response to Gregory L. Jackson, Ph.D.," Christian News, 3-28-94, p. 23.
Larry Meets His Holiness, Face-to-Face
"Donald C. McGavran died at home home in Altadena, California, on July 10, 1990. He was 92 years old. Dr. McGavran is widely recognized as the founder of the church growth movement, a movement which has sought to put the social sciences at the service of theology in order to foster the growth of the church. In August of 1989 I borrowed a bicycle and pedaled several miles uphill up from Pasadena to Altadena. I found Dr. McGavran in his front yard with a hose in hand, watering flowers."
Lawrence Otto Olson, D. Min., Fuller Seminary, "See How It Grows: Perspectives on Growth and the Church," EVANGELISM, February, 1991, Professor, Martin Luther College (WELS), p. 1.
Larry Loyal to Lutheran Education?
"The church growth movement has made inroads into nearly every denomination in America. Once considered only the turf of conservative evangelicals, you will now find church growth practioners in the United Methodist Church, in the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and among the Episcopalians. The LCMS has more pastors enrolled in the Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller Theological Seminary, the seedbed of the movement, than are enrolled in the graduate programs at their Fort Wayne and St. Louis seminaries combined, and most of them include church growth as part of their studies."
Lawrence Otto Olson, D. Min., Fuller Seminary, "See How It Grows: Perspectives on Growth and the Church," EVANGELISM, February, 1991, Parish Consultant for the WELS Board of Parish Services and his district's Coordinator of Evangelism, p. 1.
Another Gusher for Church Growth
"In the autumn of 1985 and the winter of 1985-1986, a truly momentous step was taken by the five Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) congregations in the metropolitan area of Columbus, Ohio. The five pastors and lay representatives of those churches organized and incorporated Lutheran Parish Resources, Inc., the first Church Growth institute in the WELS."
David G. Peters, "Lutheran Parish Resources: Pilot Program in Church Growth,"
Mequon: Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, April 27, 1987, p. 1.
