This link describes the unbearable lightness of the LCMS SMP program. One would never know that Missouri took farm boys and turned them into pastors who read Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.
I saw the books left to the Mequon library by pastors who died. They left such works as Hoenecke in German, Schmid's Doctrinal Theology (condemned by Tim Glende), and many other scholarly classics of Lutheran orthodoxy. Many of the books were in German, so the class of 1987 did not want them. One senior translated Eins ist Not as "One is nothing." Great try - "One Thing Is Needful." I laughed out loud. Many of them said, "You read German?" I asked, "You don't?"
Larry Olson, DMin (Fuller), heads the staph infection program for WELS, at Mary Lou College. His degree consisted of four courses at Fuller, some transferred credits, and a paper. Nevertheless, he tells his Church and Change disciples and the gullible WELS members that he is a "doctor." All the Changer leaders have DMins from Schwaermer schools, and they all call themselves DR:
Dr. Rich Krause (union seminary program, Ohio, Larry Olson, supervisor).
Dr. Paul Calvin Kelm (Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Louis.)
Dr. Steve Witte (Gordon Conwell).
Dr. John Parlow (Denver), who was listed in three different denominations at one time - Denver graduates, the Willow Creek Association, and WELS.
The point of these programs and other alternative programs is - turn the synod into a clone of Fuller Seminary. The people who head them and manage them hate Lutheran doctrine, but the synod membership pays for it.
