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| Stadler was a pioneer in divorce and remarriage, with many WELS clergy to follow. The late and unlamented Iver Johnson edited the WELS hymnal and crossed out his 50 year marriage to marry his mistress. From such wild oats has come the crop of crimes today. |
bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "WELS Watergate? Waterloo? Or Another Tabor, Just,...":
I know that Minnesota requires all clergy to have a background check ever since the RCC priest-boy scandals. The LCMS doesn't send any unmarried vicars to Minnesota as a precaution--to minimize potential conflicts with the state. Otherwise, the state might become even more stringent.This means, especially if every denomination does the same, that many women from Minnesota who would have been pastors' wives won't be from now on. The Hochmuth scandal surely doesn't help church-state matters any.
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GJ - Maybe the women of Minnesota are better off.
3 comments:
Maybe they are, but that means the LCMS clergy will definitely stay more German if they don't mix in any Norwegian genes from Minnesota.
Come to think of it, maybe that's why Rev. Rolf Preus is having such a hard time getting back into the LCMS--a Norwegian trying to mix in a German pool of people.
Dr. Jackson informed me of this: "A Missouri pastor questioned your Minnesota vicarage post. He asked around and they thought that was no longer true. That is something hard to judge."
Bruce Church says: I don't know whether the seminaries have held on to that policy since the 1990s. They may have resigned themselves to paying the $140 for a background check to send single vicars to Minnesota for nine months to a year, and just pay the piper if something bad happens:
http://www.uccmn.org/Ministry%20Resources/2011-12%20Compensation%20Guidelines.pdf
Criminal Background Check
Based on the requirement of Parish Life and Leadership of the United Church of Christ,
all clergy must submit a Criminal Background Check in order to circulate their profile.
It is incumbent on the local ministry setting to reimburse the called minister for their
out of pocket expense. [currently $140]
It occurred to me that if the LCMS seminaries had ended that policy, the Minnesota LCMS pastor would have readily identified several LCMS vicars sent to Minnesota in the last decade who were unmarried. The fact that he could not invalidate the statement with concrete examples suggest the policy is still in place.
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