I owe a few book reviews. One post will take a look at several modern theologians. Here I am, vowing not to read modern theologians or buy catechisms, yet having them arrive by mail daily.
This is a thumbnail or preview. Modern theology, like modern Lutheranism, is full of fraud and peculation.
Fraud - the theologians have no "theo" in them. They use Christian terminology without the content, without knowing God or trembling at His Word.
Peculation is a nifty word I learned from obsessive reading. Peculation means embezzlement. I looked up the tuition charges at Duke University - for a PhD or a DMin. A PhD costs around $32,000 a year. A DMin is close to that, but the program only runs a short time since it is not a doctorate, just a fake one for preening pastors.
Mrs. Ichabod was offended that someone wrote to me and used Mr. instead of Dr.
I said, "The pastors who want to be known as Dr. are DMin Larry Olson, DMin Rich Krause, DMin Paul Calvin Kelm, DMin Steve Witte, DMin John Parlow. They have diminished the title as much as they have the word Lutheran. That's why we are Church of the Augsburg Confession."
The under-worked theology faculties (at Lutheran seminaries too) are demanding huge salaries from students who must borrow enormous sums of money to support their untheological professors. The Lutheran ones, too, are engaged in massive faud. They may believe in God, and have a sentimental attachment to the Bible, but they are not Lutheran.
The difference between an ELCA seminary professor and a Syn Conference seminary professor is slight in both respects. ELCA pays better, but its system is also imploding.
6 comments:
Dr. GJ,
A PhD costs around $32,000 a year. A DMin is close to that, but the program only runs a short time since it is not a doctorate,
Wowser, I would never be able to do a PhD with that expense. If DMin is that close in expenses, it would be to the student's interest to recover that expense when he graduates, no?
LPC
"The pastors who want to be known as Dr. are....."
That's interesting. The WELS teaching on the Office of the Holy Ministry is that pastors are teachers and teachers are pastors. Case in point. Check out the presenters listed in the "WELS National Conference on Worship, etc." mailer. No "Rev.", nor "Dr." either. Just us good ol' boys.
Priesthood of believers...
LutherRocks, are you saying "Every member a minister?"
Not my words, Catechesis...
http://www.wels.net/what-we-believe/statements-beliefs/this-we-believe/church-and-ministry?page=0,1
Yes, the WELS confuses the so-called "Priesthood of believers" (Did Luther ever use that term? Or is that term in the BOC?) with the Office of the Holy Ministry.
Thomas P. Nass: "Even the physical education professors at Martin Luther College are called into the public ministry, because they are expected to use the Word of God with students." - The Revised This We Believe of the WELS on the Ministry [This article was published in LOGIA, vol. 10, no. 3 (Trinity 2001): 31-41.]
Seriously? So, let's see: Ephesians 4:11, "And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,...the physical education professors...to equip the saints for the work of ministry..."
Now, at least Naas did write in that same article (begrudgingly): "The WELS would say that it is at least a possibility that the deacons were public ministers who were helpers in some way to the elders or overseers in a subordinate office of the public ministry of the Word that did not include the full use of the keys. This is how the office of deacon
often showed itself in church history. If this were granted, it seems a small step to make a comparison with the school teachers or staff ministers of our modern congregations. Here then is a form of public ministry distinct
from the office of overseer that helps in the gospel ministry of the congregation."
Post a Comment