Ichabod, The Glory Has Departed: 01/04/18

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Lutheran Theological Seminary installs first Anglican president – Anglican Journal

Lutheran Theological Seminary installs first Anglican president – Anglican Journal:

"Saskatoon-based Lutheran Theological Seminary (LTS) has appointed the Rev. William Harrison as president. Harrison, who is the first Anglican to be president of LTS, says he wants to be “something of a bridge” between the Anglican and Lutheran churches."

'via Blog this'

Waterloo Lutheran Seminary - Remodeling - Most of the Students Are Not Aiming at Pastoral Work

WATERLOO — The century-old institution that founded Wilfrid Laurier University is changing its name.

Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, which is in the middle of a $9-million renovation of its 54-year-old building at Albert Street and Bricker Avenue on the Laurier campus, will soon become Martin Luther University College.

The name change, confirmed by the seminary's principal dean Mark Harris, is intended to reflect the reality of the school's educational evolution beyond its original mission of training Lutheran pastors.

"We're more than just a seminary," Harris said on Friday.

"We have a small-but-growing undergraduate program. And high school students don't look to seminaries for their (bachelor of arts) degrees."

Last year, the seminary had 178 full- and part-time students. About 250 Laurier students took classes at the seminary as well. This year, the seminary expects about 160 students, with classes taking place on the nearby Laurier campus during seminary reconstruction.

Waterloo Lutheran Seminary is federated with Laurier and its students earn Laurier degrees.

A new logo for the renamed seminary is being designed to go along with the new name.

"The name Waterloo Lutheran Seminary — which once accurately described who we were when we were primarily a denominational school — no longer reflects who we have become," Harris said.

"We continue to have a (Master of Divinity) program training Lutheran clergy and clergy from a number of other Christian denominations as well. But, in fact, the M-Div is now the smallest program in the school. Our largest program, the one we feel very strongly about, is the Masters in Spiritual Care and Psychotherapy."

Delton Glebe directed the seminary toward all counseling courses, revising various classes to fit his main interest.

Did Latte Lutheran (WELS) sell their cushions and couches to Waterloo Lutheran Seminary's chapel?

The Bishop of ELCiC graduated from Waterloo.

Seminary status check - Living Lutheran. The High Cost of ELCA Seminaries.

Seminary status check - Living Lutheran:

"At Lutheran Southern Seminary, leaders are developing more programs of interest beyond Lutheranism to attract more students.

The high cost of postgraduate education is also a major concern for the seminaries and their students, and there are significant plans to make it possible for people to get through seminary without incurring tens of thousands of dollars of debt. The seminaries, too, often operate on a deficit budget, draining reserve funds or incurring the heavy costs of debt.

In an effort directed both at reducing student debt and developing a new form of seminary education, Trinity is changing its master of divinity program into a “2+2” package. A student spends two years in seminary and then two years on an internship during which time they also take online classes.

When he was a parish pastor, Barger said he had 15 interns and eight of those were in the congregation for two years. “The difference that the two years made was astonishing; it was a much better formation of a new pastor,” he said.

Distance learning technology makes that kind of education possible, said Johnson from Wartburg. Her school was working with students in North Dakota who would be serving in congregations while taking online courses. “Our distance learning programs use video so the faces of the online students are seen in the classroom by the other students,” she said."

'via Blog this'

The Real Story about Karl Barth and His Unpaid Mistress - His Wholesale Plagiarism and Marxism

Charlotte Kirschbaum worked for Barth for almost nothing,
agreed with his Marxism, and wrote the bulk of his Dogmatics.

The Evangelical world is still rocking from the decades-old story that Karl Barth moved his mistress into his home with his wife Nellie and his children. Although some made a point of not drawing the obvious conclusions, the facts were already known in the 1970s.

Moreover, my classmate at Yale, George Hunsinger, was and is a Barth scholar who published about the avid Marxism of Barth and his lovely mistress/assistant Charlotte Kirschbaum. Precious few realize how important Marxism was to this couple, but that can be studied in Hunsinger's book, Karl Barth and Radical Politics.

Perhaps Charlotte was assigned by the Party to control Barth and keep him on the straight and narrow path to world conquest. No one will touch that for now.

The real scandal is Barth's wholesale plagiarism of Kirschbaum's work. He was only a parish pastor who became an overnight sensation from his Romans commentary. Suddenly he was teaching at a university and expected to lecture on a variety of subjects. He was not prepared and could not keep up.

Kirschbaum came along at just the right time and began helping him. Everyone agrees that his most productive work began with her help and ended when she was too sick to help anymore. Frank Fiorenza, former president of the Barth Society, taught us in class that his fellow Barthians concluded this - Kirschaum wrote the fine print in the Dogmatics and Barth wrote the large print outline.

Most people think the fine print is the better part of the Dogmatics.

We know Barth was a shameless plagiarist from other sources. If an academic was was asked to write material related to Barth's current effort, Barth simply included those notes in his book, pages of it, without giving any credit. The theologian was flattered by being included, because Barth was the Elvis Presley of theology at that time.

The earlier Dogmatics effort was a failure. But when Charlotte helped out, one volume after another kept appearing over the years, until she became sick. He did not dedicate a volume to his wife Nelly until the end, but he dedicated one of the first volumes to Charlotte. I went to the library when I heard that in class and checked it out.

Karl Barth and his mistress assistant in their later years.

The dedications tell me more about Kirschbaum's work than her ambiguous life with Barth. He had to have felt a great sense of dependence upon her for elevating him to international star. After all, many other theologians were known at the time but are largely forgotten because they did not leave behind a massive set of books.

Paul Tillich was another apostate who combined adultery and plagiarism. He slept with the wives of his graduate students and stole the academic work of those students. His star was dimmed greatly by his widow's frank autobiography and his obtuse theological nonsense.

But Barth remains the backbone of modern Protestant theology, to the shame of all. He is THE theologian of Fuller Seminary, a favorite among the academics, the CFW Walther Great Prophet on all topics. Have an issue? - cite Barth/Kirschbaum. Whoever quotes the most wins.

Where do we find the same kind of dialectic mumbo-jumbo?
Ja - in Marxist philosophy.

Thus Protestant theology - and Catholicism - owe their weakness to the bog of Barth's thinly disguised political rhetoric. He did not spell it out, but the radicals realize this truth - Barth/Kirschbaum is quite convenient for those who want to double-talk their way into political radicalism. Theologians of the Left can always duck back into the Yes and the No of every phony tidbit offered in the Dogmatics.

But believe me, no one dares claim that the emperor of theology has no clothes on - and is hiding behind his mistress. I said far less than that to a conservative Evangelical professor and he jumped on me like a hobo on a hotdog.