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| Opperman was a visiting whirlwind and insisted on students visiting all over town. Our confirmation program was Biblical and lasted three years. |
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| St. Peter's nave intimidated me. My first reading was "Perfect love casts out fear." I thought "fear, fear" and could hardly breathe. |
I looked up the congregation where I vicared, St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Kitchener, Ontario. Rev. Henry Opperman was the supervising pastor. He had a German pastor - I helped in the German services as a lector. That was the total pastoral staff: 3,500 members. One full-time pastor, one semi-retired German pastor, one vicar.
Now they have a labyrinth in the former German chapel, boasting that the concept is 4,000 years old and found in many religions.
I posted Opperman's grave because he was already crying about the betrayals there, before he retired. They sent over an activist seminarian to work there. The student bluntly told Opperman about his proclivities. Opperman was a major supporter of the seminary and his congregation was traditional, liturgical - enough to get him thrown out of WELS today. Moreover, Opperman grew up in Kitchener.
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| Ulrich Leupold was the dean of Waterloo Seminary. He was a noted music scholar, an organist, and a fine teacher. |
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| One of the founders of the seminary was a Pietist and taught UOJ. Imagine that! Jay Webber was schocked, schocked. |
So I toured the congregational site again, looked up downtown churches in Kitchener - all mainline, all shrunken down to almost nothing. A giant UCC church next to St. Peter's has sold its property because they were down to 60 Sunday attendance.
Waterloo Lutheran Seminary is hardly that anymore and has a new name, almost as ironic as LutherQuest (sic). Martin Luther University Seminary! But they have almost no seminary students now, which is just as well. They have dog days so students can come to the chapel and pet dogs, apparently a rare species in Canada.
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| Otto Heick's two-volume doctrinal history book was popular in WELS, but I don't recall any WELS books popular at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. |
