Closing One of Two LCMS Seminaries
For The Life of The World
(Christian News, May 2, 2016)
For The Life of The World
(Christian News, May 2, 2016)
This writer just received his new copy of For the Life of the World magazine from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and what a magazine it is! A tremendous piece for any confessional pastor or layman. For the Life of the World, published by Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, is a magazine that speaks eloquently to the issues of the day from a confessional, Lutheran perspective and offers thoughtful insight into the complexities facing our church, our community and each individual. It is an excellent resource to keep you updated on the training of pastors, missionaries and deaconesses as they prepare to spread the good news of the Gospel to all corners of the earth, stated on the website of ctsfw.edu.
In addition, the faculty of CTSFW is deeply committed to achieving successfully the education outcomes we have established for each of our degree programs. We continually review our curriculum and participate in the assessment process with the Higher Learning Commission and Association of Theological Schools to ensure the highest quality experience for each and every student. Yet, formation doesn’t only happen in the classroom; daily worship in Kramer Chapel, impromptu study sessions in the library, coffee with a professor to discuss a point just addressed in class, choirs, sports and Friday evening Gemutlichkeit all work together to form servants of Christ for service in challenging circumstances, declared by Dean Rast of the seminary.
Right from the start, this issue shows that this school is dedicated towards confessional Lutheranism in the 21st century. The cover and many of the opening articles in this new issue present men, graduated students and pastors, wearing clerical shirts which is such a breath of fresh air compared to what is going on over at the seminary in St. Louis. Just seeing men wearing clericals, and in one example, a man preaching from the pulpit speaks volumes in this issue from Fort Wayne. This author remembers graduating from St. Louis and was warned sternly not to wear our clerical for the class photo. At that time, many of us were scratching our heads and saying to ourselves, “Are we supposed to wear a Hawaiian shirt with flip-flops for the class photo?” Probably what Dale Meyer would want us to wear. Even the faculty page in this new journal has instructors wearing clericals. What respect showed to the Office of the Holy Ministry and emphasizing the purpose of this seminary dedicating itself to Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.
But is too late for this seminary to stay in business? It just might be. There have been discussions from the last board of directors meeting of the LCMS about the possibility consolidating or closing one of the two seminaries. With Mr. Fundraiser himself Dale Meyer singlehandedly raising over a hundred million dollars would tell us that the seminary in St. Louis is going to stay open contrary to having a record low enrollment of students and promoting false teachers when inviting speakers to speak on campus.
This writer thinks that the money should be evenly distributed between the two seminaries, more towards Fort Wayne because they are certainly more confessional and Biblical. It’s time to recognize this seminary, which is heading in the right direction for the future, not because they have the most money, but have the right theology. It’s time to support the seminary in Fort Wayne and stop supporting the seminary in St. Louis.
Walter Troeger
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GJ - I have been writing about the ultimate closing of many brick and mortar schools in Lutherdom. WELS closed two prep schools and merged Northwestern College into Martin Luther College. ELCA has closed colleges and merged at least three seminaries - into colleges (Southern and Berkeley) - or into each other (Gettysburg and Philadephia closing and forming a new institution).
(RNS) Two Lutheran seminaries in Pennsylvania are planning to close and launch together a new school of theology in 2017 with hopes of slashing costs and reversing years of declining enrollments."
In other news - "On Thursday (Nov. 12), Andover Newton Theological School announced plans to relocate and sell its 20-acre campus in Newton, Mass. The move will be part of 'a bold new direction' for the 208-year-old school as it struggles with big deficits."
These schools all represent the same trend - abandoning their own confessional position while chasing the fads of Apostasy. Once the gay faction in ELCA got its way with gay ordination and marriage in 2009, the harrowing of its seminaries began in earnest. Just as opposing women's ordination doomed many careers in the past and slanted classroom discussion in one direction only, so the lavender card boosted the income and position of a tiny percentage while driving away anyone with a slight grasp of normal behavior.
The Episcopal Church USA has experienced the same collapse in enrollment. A giant endowment should preserve a school. but General in NYC has had bitter fights and harsh plans to deal with the same declines in enrollment and income. They are selling off properties in Chelsea to pay off debts and build up the endowment fund again, which once was listed as worth $60 million. With 12 faculty members, they can hardly fill a decent sized seminary campus, let alone a posh Manhattan museum of past glory. The school can brag that its alumni include some of the strangest idiots to bring ruin on the Episcopal Church.
I once asked Charles Caldwell. fellow Notre Dame student and eventual faculty member of Nashotah House, "How could the conservative Episcopalians become so radical?" He said, "They are a status quo denomination. When conservatism was the norm, they were conservative. They changed with American society." Caldwell fought against all those hip trends, so he and I were outcasts in the PhD program. His favorite topic - angels - was simply tossed back in his face by our advisor. That was after he wrote 300 pages on the topic. When I put the Charley's Angels Time magazine cover on his carrel door, some feminist ripped it away. One must have thought-police to keep the population under control - and that was back in the 1970s.
How Did This Happen to "Conservative" Lutheran Seminaries?
Lutherans are late to the fads. My advisor Stan Hauerwas said, "They are always a day late and a dollar short." I was studying the Social Gospel Movement in the Lutheran Church, a modernist fad that fermented its way into the LCA, ALC, and LCMS.
The Augustana Synod fell for the Social Gospel Movement because it blended Pietism with Lutheran Orthodoxy. The Pietistic side, which they always acknowledged, rejected dancing in any form, social drinking of any kind, and even owning a deck of cards at college in the olden days of Augustana College.
Pietism displaces Luther and the Book of Concord slowly and effectively. An Augustana response about doctrine would get this response, "I worship Jesus, not Luther." That sounds so LCMS-WELSian, because those two suffer from the same combination of Pietism and Lutheran Orthodoxy, with Pietism triumphant in both.
The Easter epistle lesson is so appropriate, so little understood, so seldom applied. It is based on the Jewish tradition of removing every speck of leaven from the household in preparation for Passover.
1 Corinthians 5:6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
The schemers have been in control of Lutherdom for a long time. They glory in their wickedness. Once bruised they wait their time and work in unison to take over the controlling boards. All they need is a majority on a board to change a seminary.
Likewise the schemers make sure they have a District President with the same low designs. If thwarted, they punish and never forgive.
The Lutheran seminaries do not even teach the Gospel today. They are so far into their rationalistic Pietism that they grasp at every fad and buzz-word. The conservatives work with ELCA and teach the same Universalism, which excuses everything.
