ELCA NEWS SERVICE
November 5, 2010
Stanley Olson Elected President of ELCA's Wartburg Theological Seminary
Since 2005 Olson has served as executive director of the Vocation and Education program unit in the ELCA churchwide organization.
"The Wartburg community gives thanks to God for the appointment of Dr. Olson as our president," said the Rev. James A. Justman, chair of the presidential search committee and chair of the Wartburg Theological Seminary board of directors.
"His grace, strength, and integrity are gifts among many that will lead us in mission and inspire us to love and serve in Jesus' name," said Justman, who serves as bishop of the ELCA East-Central Synod of Wisconsin.
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, said Olson brings to his new role "exceptional gifts as a servant leader," and is a "wise theologian and collegial administrator."
"In his ministry as parish pastor, seminary professor, synod bishop and churchwide executive, Stan has consistently asked how we serve the free course of the gospel and lift up the vocations of all the baptized," Hanson said. "As the former executive director of the Vocation and Education program unit, Dr. Olson is very familiar with and committed to the vocation of theological education in the ELCA, and the vital role of our seminaries in preparing leaders for a church engaged in God's mission."
"With confidence in God and deep appreciation for the mission and people of Wartburg Theological Seminary, I accept this call to serve as president," Olson said. "Wartburg is a wonderful asset to the church. In these challenging times, the ELCA needs the kinds of leaders Wartburg is gathering and sending out. And, Wartburg needs the church to send the people who should be nurtured for leadership and the resources and partnerships that will make that possible."
Olson will follow the Rev. David L. Tiede, the seminary's interim president who has served since July 1. Tiede was appointed interim president after the Rev. Duane H. Larson resigned as the seminary's president earlier this year to pursue other opportunities.
In his current role, Olson, 64, has provided leadership for the ELCA's partnerships with seminaries, colleges and universities, lifelong learning programs, outdoor ministries and campus ministries, as well as supporting young adult and youth ministries, and guiding the ELCA candidacy program.
From 2002 to 2005, Olson was executive director of the ELCA Division for Ministry. He served as bishop of the ELCA Southwestern Minnesota Synod from 1994 to 2002. Olson served as senior pastor of Our Savior's Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minn., and associate pastor of First Lutheran Church, Duluth, Minn.
Olson also was an assistant professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, an ELCA seminary in St. Paul, Minn.
Olson was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa and raised on a farm near Eagle Grove, Iowa. He holds degrees from Waldorf College [sold to an online school business - Dana College, also ALC, just closed], Forest City, Iowa, and St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., one of 26 ELCA colleges and universities. In 1972 Olson earned a master of divinity degree from Luther Seminary. He earned a doctorate in 1976 from Yale University, New Haven, Conn., where he wrote a dissertation on the New Testament.
Olson is married to Nancy Olson, ELCA associate in ministry and member care coordinator at St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Park Ridge, Ill. She is an organist, and has served as a parish music director and on the staff of a synodical resource center. The Olsons are parents of two adult daughters.
During the meeting the board of directors also took action to sustain Wartburg Theological Seminary's financial strength, the news release said. The board approved a work plan for the seminary which identifies initiatives to be taken in the next three years to create stability and move from recovery to health. The board also voted to end two years of retrenchment, the release said.
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GJ - Stan and I took Thessalonians, the Gospel of Mark, and NT Christology together at Yale. We went to the same LCA congregation (Augustana Synod) below the hill from Yale Divinity School. The YDS Lutheran faculty attended there, including Paul Holmer, Nils Dahl, George Lindbeck, Sidney Ahlstrand, and Jaroslav Pelikan.
Yale had a well deserved reputation for conservative Biblical scholarship. My Old Testament professor, Robert Wilson, had no use for the Documentary Hypothesis of the Age of Rationalism. Dahl and Malherbe emphasized the historical and grammatical interpretation of the text. Dahl knew all the theorists like Mowinkel and Bultmann - they were his professors.
During the year we also heard from Roland Bainton, honorary Lutheran, who was still lecturing. Krister Stendahl came from Harvard to lecture on Paul and see his granddaughter. Some people came for endowed speeches and found they were relegated to the basement, because there were so many like them.
Stan was quite enamored of church politics as a doctoral student. He wanted to be top dog and got to be a seminary professor and a bishop. I wondered if the quota system moved him out of the seminary position. He became head of a division in ELCA, which would have been one level down from Archbishop. They apparently ended the divisions during their many staff cuts. He remained in Chicago as head of an office.
Long ago, Stan was quoted in The Lutheran, congratulating his future seminary (Wartburg) for holding a joint communion service at the Presbyterian Seminary a mile away. That was the David Preus ALC initiative, since Crumley was snuggling up to Rome. If the LCA bishop could approach Rome, then the ALC Bishop could re-unite with the Reformed. I was still in the LCA and wrote Preus about it. He replied, making fun of my concerns.
Recently, Crumley and Preus were both quoted as saying they were sorry they got merger started. They never would have done it, if they had known what would develop under Bishop Chilstrom and the current poobah - Mark Hanson. Archbishop Mark still has his position, but many have lost theirs as hundreds of congregations have split in half or headed for the LCMC and NALC for refuge.
Anyone understanding Process or Diaprax would have realized that a quota-based ELCA was bound to become a denomination owned and managed by fringe elements of the far Left.
I said to an LCA group, before I left, "We are programmed and budgeted for failure." An LCA pastor said to the leader, "Is Greg right?" He was alarmed. The leader, who came from business, said grimly, "He is right."
The same is true for Missouri, WELS, and the rest today.
Stan was quite willing to go along with the 2009 ELCA homosexual mandates. All the old rules were re-written and the former exiles were welcomed into ELCA in little groups while members, pastors, and money fled in large groups.
I suspect Stan's job also went out the window in the latest round of cuts. If not, his position was handed to the Lavender Mafia as payment for keeping Archbishop Mark in power.
As anyone can see, Stan's college still exists in name, but no longer as the one he attended. Waldorf, in spite of its luxury name, was so broke that it had to be sold off to a for-profit business.
Likewise, the seminary is in deep yogurt financially, like many ELCA seminaries. I was in the Chicago seminary president's office when he said, "We cannot have three seminaries this close together." Iowa, Seminex, and (LSTC) Chicago were competing for the same students, even though they accepted male, female, and undecided. Chicago has had many mergers and coop arrangements since then and is still in trouble.
Stan will probably lead Dubuque smilingly into merger with Luther (a merger with Northwestern Sem) and LSTC (Augustana, ULCA, Central, Suomi merger). Following all mainline merger trends, the final Pan-Luther-Senm version will be a beautiful campus with endowed professorships of atheism and do-goodism and very few students.
Stan is the man for the job. He has gone along with ELCA's 23 years of mainline apostasy, the amen corner for every bad idea.
All I have to show is a few books and the Church of the Augsburg Confession. Stan and his co-workers have created two new denominations.
PS - Embedded in the article are the reasons why the story about Martin Luther College (WELS) closing is likely true. Waldorf and Dana had long histories of service, but they could not keep their doors open. Wartburg Seminary is in deep trouble, as the board minutes show. If the largest Lutheran group cannot keep its schools open, do WELS members think the same issues are not affecting their schools?
Get in a car at MLC in New Ulm, Many-snowta. The drive to Bethany Lutheran College and their five-student seminary will take about 45 minutes. From Mankato, drive to Willowcreek's Little College in Milwaukee. That can be completed in the same day, even with stops at all the custard stands along the way. The Sausage Factory in Mequon keeps getting smaller, too.
MLC gets more expensive and smaller each year. The Omega Point is approaching.
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| COURSES: | |
| HT 267W | Ethics in Lutheran Perspective |
| HT 363W | Dietrich Bonhoeffer |
| HT 394W | Liberation Theologies |
| IN 206W | Theology of the Congregation |
| MN 350W | Church and Ministry |
| PUBLICATIONS: |
| Draft Resolution on "Ending Hunger as a Core Conviction" (2004). Downloadable in Adobe PDF or in MSWord formats. |
| Many Members, Yet One Body: Committed Same-Gender Relationships and the Mission of the Church. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress (2004) |
| Give Us This Day: A Lutheran Proposal for Ending World Hunger. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress (2003) |
