 |
| Matt the Catt |
Long ago I watched a TV drama where all the dissenters in the military were put on border watch as punishment. One was alarmed that they enemy was drawing closer each day and wanted to alert the higher ups. No, he was told, just keep scanning the horizon.
I took that a final statement on the decline of a country. No one was listening before, so let them have their just desserts.
That sounds crazy and suicidal, but it is not unlike the collapse of the seminaries.
Grand Canyon University's seminary is less than 20 years old. They have:
- 600 students in their seminary.
- 2500 students in their entire College of Theology.
Fuller Seminary is as old as I am.
They have:
- 705 full-time seminary students.
- 2435 students in all their theology programs.
Here is the data I have on ELCA -
 |
| Loehe's Other Seminary is headed by Louise Johnson, DD. |
 |
| "We could unite at one LCMS location and invite the CLC (sic) and ELDONA to join us - and still have room left, dollars saved." |
WELS and Missouri have explained the sociological reasons for the shrinkage, no solace for their bleating masses. The synod leaders have not confessed their apostasy, switching from
Justification by Faith in the early years (See
The Path To Understanding Justification) and lying about the change to
Objective Justification.
The Boomer generation has harvested the goods for itself and left behind a bitter harvest of weeds, brambles, and toxic fruit. They cannot explain Romans 4, which they used to cite with glee, but they know how to get even.
The far-sighted genius class of WELS-LCMS spent gazillians on seminary buildings while higher education was moving into online education. Now they have even more money-pits to dump insurance and maintenance money into - fewer but better seminary students each year.
A local education means a heavy load of tuition, to be paid through the wives working and enormous student loans. The male seminarian cannot easily move and get a decent job. The online seminaries allow a man to keep his job and housing while pursuing his education at reasonable pace. Even though seminaries require far too much busy-work for an MDiv, an online MDiv can be earned as quickly as a local one.
Did I mention that student housing is a lucrative cash cow for schools? They get the building paid for - The Marvin Schwan Girls Dorm - and charge Arab sheikh prices for a little cell and bad food.
When Lutheran seminaries charged almost nothing for tuition and board, going to one was easy, right out of college. Now they are MBA-expensive with the potential of earning as much as a BA in Women's Studies or The Ecology of Culture. The Boomer DP will ashcan the recent graduate for any reason or no reason, but definitely not for championing OJ and Church Growth.
 |
| WELS has women "staff ministers" all over - guided by Larry Olson, DMin from Fuller Seminary. But there is no Church Growth in WELS, ask Steve Spencer's buddy Wayne Mueller. At least Wayne never went to print on "No cross-dressing in the WELS ministerium." |
 |
| Some go to Mecca, others to Pasadena. Larry Hadji-Olson chose the better option, the rewarding one, because the road is paved with Fuller degrees, even for self-centered, arrogant dummies. Do not call him Professor Olson or Mr. Olson. He is Dr. Olson, DMin from Fuller Seminary. Then he will answer the questions of the poor, ignorant slob students. |
 |
| LCMS-WELS pastors rushed to Fuller Seminary for a graduate degree in Calvinistic Enthusiasm. How many Calvinists and Baptists rushed off to Lutheran seminaries? The non-reciprocity of the false teachers - add the Latin term to the Scaer Latin dictionary - at least it is relevant. |
