Lutherans are terribly inbred. I was researching this post and found a claim that Jungkuntz is the uncle of the current Mequon president. I believe it was Richard's brother Theodore who was the famous charismatic in the LCMS. Robert Schuman, the Shrinker foisted on St. Paul, Columbus was "a Jungkuntz," which has special meaning in WELS. Schuman is now a loud, obnoxious atheist, and not exactly unique in that regard. "Young Shrinker - Old Atheist."
Here is Richard's obituary - Northwestern College is not named:
Richard Paul Jungkuntz
October 1, 1918~June 22, 2003.
Richard P. Jungkuntz, Provost Emeritus of Pacific Lutheran University, died on Sunday evening, June 22, 2003 of prostate cancer. Born October 1, 1918 in Cleveland, OH, Dick grew up in Wisconsin. He met his wife-to-be, Grace Kowalke, at Northwestern College in Watertown, WI, and they were married in 1943 after his ordination as a Lutheran pastor.
He served Wisconsin Lutheran congregations in Janesville and Ft. Atkinson, and became a professor at his alma mater in 1949, teaching Classics and Ancient History until earning his Ph.D. in Classics at the
University of Wisconsin in 1961. His teaching career continued at Concordia Seminary in Springfield, IL, and he became Executive Secretary for the Commission on Theology for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in 1965.
Dick came to Pacific Lutheran University [ELCA] in 1970, serving as Provost for 18years. Additional professional service included chairing the Board of Directors for Christ Seminary-Seminex from 1974-1980, and participating as a Faith and Order commissioner with the World Council of Church- es from 1968 to1977. His book, The Gospel of Baptism, was published in 1968.
We wish to thank the entire Oncology Department of Good Samaritan Hospital and their Home Health/Hospice Team as well as the extended PLU community for their support and care. Dick is survived by his wife of 60 years, Grace, and six of their seven children: Gay Osborn of Ferguson, MO; Paula (Tom) Warren of The Woodlands, TX; Richard W.D. (Ann) Jungkuntz of Falls Church, VA;
Lisa Darling of Yuma, AZ; Andrea Jungkuntz of Lacey, WA; Laura (Tom) Karlin of Tacoma, WA. A sister, Doris, and two brothers, Ted and Dan, also survive him.
He was preceded in death by his son Will in 1985. The memorial service will be held Saturday, June 28, 2:00 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church, 12115 Park Avenue South, Tacoma. Memorials can be made to TrinityLutheran Church, or to Pacific Lutheran University, or to Tacoma Rescue Mission. Pub Date: 6/25/2003
Tacoma News Tribune
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From the NY Times, 1988:
WASHINGTON — Richard Jungkuntz flew across country this week to sit in conference with some of higher education's most powerful leaders. It is the last time this provost of a small Lutheran college will formally attend such a gathering. This spring, at the age of 70, he plans to end his 30-year career as an educator and retire to the tennis courts.
Mr Jungkuntz is a self-described conservative, a minister and educator who holds, as he put it, ''old-fashioned ideas.'' In an age and at a conference where the expression of some of those ideas might be misconstrued as, say, sexist or otherwise offensive, the provost decided to ''hold my darn tongue.'' Often, hearing something that seemed nonsense to him, he would just slip out of the meeting rooms into the corridors for a smoke.
But at one point here at the 70th annual meeting of the American Council on Education, a gathering of presidents, chancellors and deans from academies across the country, Mr. Jungkuntz listened to a panel debate the difficulties of training teachers and he could no longer maintain his silence.
''My father in 1921 was addressed as professor by people. He was a grade-school teacher and a good one and he was regarded highly, at the same level as the clergy in town and perhaps somewhat higher than the mayor.''
The place was Jefferson, Wis., and the classroom was in a three-room Lutheran school, where teachers went heavy on the basics, the classics and homework. The provost knew that for a fact. He, after all, had been one of his father's students.
By inference, Mr. Jungkuntz was saying that if teachers were held in higher regard, brighter and more able candidates might be attracted to the profession. Though he would never so label it, this notion is sometimes referred to as ''intrinsic rewards'' or ''psychic income.'' And it could merit a second look.
END OF QUOTATION
Martin Marty, who began in the LCMS, said something quite similar about his father's career as a parochial school teacher. Marty and Jungkuntz both contributed mightily in the decline of the LCMS, joining the LCA/ALC/ELCA when their novel doctrines were no longer welcome.
In the slanted Burkee history of the Missouri Synod Civil War, Jungkuntz comes into play a few times. He began in the Wisconsin Synod. He and Ralph Gerke were both at Northwestern College, Watertown, promoting the historical-critical method of interpreting the Bible.
As Robert Preus said in a lecture I heard, the classics professors had nothing left to work on, since they had done everything possible to doubt the authorship of Homer and everyone else ancient. They took their theories and applied them to the Bible - thus, the famous historical-critical method: JEDP. One can discover the authors of the Penteteuch by looking at the names for God - Das Jahwist, das Elohist, das Deuteronomist, und das Priestly Editor. Jah wohl, but the theory does not fit the text. Oh well, it paid well and little work was involved.
Jungkuntz was trained in the classics, and he was a good teacher. His students admired him and followed his lead. WELS only found out his true doctrine when the seminary students turned in homework they did in his class. Everything blew up and he was upgraded from WELS dinky college professor to LCMS seminary professor.
Jack Preus is now famous for saying, "Help me gut Jungkuntz." Jack Preus moved Jungkuntz out of Concordia, Springfield (now The Surrendered Fort), which meant another promotion to CTCR secretary. Thus when Wayne Mueller was in trouble for Reformed doctrine at Mequon (according to Slick Brenner), he was moved up to administration at The Love Shack, for a hefty raise, and became First VP for a cool $100k a year.
Back to Dick Jungkuntz. He was in the crosshairs, he never suffered unemployment. When things got too hot in the LCMS, he became provost of an ALC university, acting president for one year.
I remember the Seminex tabloid that I got for free. I read every issue. Jungkuntz and Gehrke were often pictured as the martyred saints of the LCMS cause, as if they were the first two men burned at the stake, the inspiration for Luther's first hymn,
"Flung to the heedless winds
Or on the waters cast,
The martyrs' ashes, watched,
Shall gathered be at last."
I understand that WELS was ready to split with the LCMS much earlier than 1961, but delayed the action for fear of losing half the tiny sect. The rallying cry was "Be true to your class." No, I am serious. They invoked institutional and personal loyalty rather than doctrinal purity. Relatively few left for the LCMS, so many clergy who identified with false doctrine and unionism stayed behind as the evil leaven of the Pharisees.
One WELS pastor said NWC was really the launching point for Seminex. He said that NWC reunions always featured a lot of cars with Seminex bumper stickers.
Jungkuntz called himself a conservative, an old-fashioned guy, but he chaired the Seminex board for six years (when it became a gay seminary) and held a similar position for the World Council of Churches. His voluntary exertions showed where his heart was.
The Mary Todd book on women's ordination--Authority Vested, foreword by Martin Mary--shows that Jungkuntz, in arguing for women's suffrage in 1967, CTCR, allowed that the same reasoning favored women's ordination. In ELCA, the women's ordination people advanced the gay ordination agenda, like those dances where each partner throws the other forward. Jungkuntz was truly a man for ELCA, a martyr for the errancy of God's Word, a leader of Seminex, an advocate of women's ordination while serving as the first secretary of Missouri's bored of doctrine. (How fun was that?)
One Seminex professor, Deppe, was arrested for propositioning an undercover cop in St. Louis. Deppe was not fired. In fact, he also taught at ELCA's Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago and reviewed books on homosexuality. Like Oscar Wilde, Deppe had a wife and children. He later joined the Metropolitan Community gay sect, jumping the ELCA ship just before it berthed in Capri. Deppe's continued teaching career, in spite of the arrest, showed the approval of Seminex and ELCA.
Jungkuntz was the leaven that moved from WELS to Missouri to ELCA - via The "conservative" ALC. The doctrinal basis is clear. Taught by J. P. Meyer in seminary, he gave an essay arguing vehemently for UOJ:
The direct consequence of this change in the relationship between God and man was the justification of the whole world, the declaring of every sinner righteous before God. For that is the meaning in positive terms of what St. Paul here states negatively: “not imputing their trespasses unto them.” It is impossible to overemphasize this statement. For in our own time, even in our own Synodical Conference, this vital truth is being endangered, both by direct attack and by neglect.
What is stated here by St. Paul means much more than merely that God has “provided and secured” salvation for all men, so that it is now possible for them to be justified through faith. Rather, it means nothing less than that already before faith, without faith, they have been justified by God, declared righteous for Christ’s sake, their sins no longer imputed to them. Henceforth it can never be sin that damns a man, any man, but only the rejection of God’s act of justification. From God’s standpoint every sinner is a reconciled sinner.
This then is our ministry: to proclaim the Word of reconciliation, to make known the accomplished fact, to tell sinners always and again that God’s relation to them has been changed, that He has declared them righteous by not imputing their trespasses unto them. This is the Word of reconciliation that has been committed unto us.
Richard Jungkuntz, 1954
