bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "LCMS Seminaries - Where the Money Is. Ultra High T...":
The "Stand Firm" blog has a post on faculty salaries of LCMS and WELS educational institutions. Apparently they do not want to compare themselves to the ELCA, for that would show just how overpaid they are as a group--to the tune of 23 grand per year overpaid.
Unfortunately, Scott Diekmann asks the wrong question. He asks whether the salaries are equitable. In other words, do Concordia St. Louis professors deserve more pay than any other average LCMS professor at Ft. Wayne, or at any of the Concordia university campuses? The real question ought to be: Are the salaries sustainable?
I think the clear answer to the latter question is "no" since the LCMS already had to come up with alternate routes to the ministry since the LCMS M Div degree is overly intensive and expensive. Also, more students then ever are taking the alternative routes since they find the M Div route is so prohibitive, in part due to excessive salaries for faculty members who only work 9 or so hours a week. Recently, SP Harrison said that the LCMS was in danger of hurting a core strength which is having a big pool of M Divs, and is in danger of SMPing the residential M Div program to death:
Faculty Salaries at Lutheran Institutions: Are They Equitable?
http://stand-firm.blogspot.com/2012/08/faculty-salaries-at-lutheran.html
Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "SynConference Lutherans Are Starting To Realize th...":
Ichabod -
Thank you for your explanation underneath the Rev. President Matthew Harrison's shovel ready mustache picture.
I always wondered why the LCMS President Harrison, often is seen wearing that chain around his neck with the attached handle ready crucifix. Now, I know. When a perspective seminary student is on the escape, SP Harrison can assist his accomplice, Frank Kojack, by hog tying the [fleeing from a lifetime of debt] student.
Nathan M. Bickel
www.thechristianmessage.org
www.moralmatters.org
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GJ - Whatever you think, it's worse.
