Freddy Finkelstein has left a new comment on your post "Willow Creek Wisconsin Lutheran College Hires Geez...":
Given the growing expense involved with college education, it is prudent for parents to begin planning ahead of time, so I have been planning for my children's college education for some time, now. For what it is worth, even though my children are 8 years, minimum, from college age, WLC has already been ruled out of consideration. At this point, the only Lutheran college under serious consideration is Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, MN (ELS). I have visited the campuses and spoken with professors and admission counselors at both WLC and BLC, I have met several students and graduates from both colleges, including students of WLC from my own congregation, and I am far more impressed with Bethany at this point, both academically and confessionally speaking. I am particularly impressed with the Confessional activism of some Bethany professors -- the involvement of some here, being characteristic of those I've met. By comparison, the overt "Schwaermer" activism that proceeds from WLC does not help them, Charis having been one such glaring example of it. These influences do trickle down to the students. In fact, all of the students who have been sent to WLC from our own small congregation in the past six years or so (roughly 30% of our high-school grads), have been lost to these influences, while the students I have met from Bethany seem to be hotly Confessional by comparison. Yes, students, your words and actions represent the primary influences that have shaped you -- your college, high-school, church, family, etc. -- and, based on your words and actions, others rightly form judgments regarding those influences.
Yet, I am not blind to the reality that change is possible. According to my contacts in LCMS, there are two relatively conservative Concordia colleges left, Wisconsin and Irvine, and having spoken with a few Confessional professors from Concordia Wisconsin over the years, and several of their students, I am duly impressed, and am eager to see how the future may shape the reality of Lutheran education in LCMS and elsewhere in America. In the end, if I am going to purchase a specifically Lutheran education for my children, I am not going to be suckered into paying for one that is not calculated to produce, and which does not demonstrably produce, Lutheran confessors. Merely providing an education in a "Lutheran" environment is not sufficient -- that is to pay extra for only an adjective, and for just that I can purchase a positively excellent education at St. Olaf in Northfield, MN. Otherwise, there are many other very fine sources of education available.
So there is my open letter to the WLC Board. I'm not going to waste my time personally engaging fruitless discussion with a group of men whose public decisions demonstrate an undying commitment to CGM and other forms of enthusiasm. Their minds are already made up, the direction their leadership is taking them is evidence of this fact. Instead, I'll point out that WLC is not WELS, per se, but is only affiliated with WELS as an external organization, apparently sharing in a fellowship arrangement with WELS; and I'll suggest that maybe it's time WELS begin independently reconsidering that arrangement -- which would, of course, impact the member congregations of the WLC corporation and prompt them to exert appropriate influence.
I'll vote with my patronage, and encourage others to do the same.
Freddy Finkelstein
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+Diet O. Worms has left a new comment on your post "Paul Kelm Effect: Freddy Finkelstein on Lutheran C...":
A few years back, a waitress approached and struck up a conversation after seeing me reading a Bible over lunch. (How's that for efficacy!) Eventually we found that we were both WELS, and that she had just graduated from WLC and was studying further to start a career in substance abuse counseling. I asked her impression of the WELS school, and her first response was, "It is way too easy to get pot."
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GJ - That will be called slander, Diet O. Worms.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Paul Kelm Effect: Freddy Finkelstein on Lutheran C...":
the reason chapel is poorly attended is because it reeks of reformed theology and practice!!My niece just graduated from WLC and while there attended the local wels church St.Johns, she couldn't stomach the chapel worship.
signed,
confessional Lutheran pastor's wife
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GJ - The Reformed emphasis is coming from the WLC board of directors. WLC has been on a unionistic bent for a long time.
Someone asked me today, "Why such a huge board? Is that normal for higher education?" I think the board is huge to give more power to a few people - divide and conquer. Besides, each board member is expected to bring in money or influence. Joe Kennedy (the patriarch) was on the Notre Dame board, but he did not give much money. They threw him off.
