Thursday, May 24, 2018

Trinity Lutheran Seminary's merger into Capital University part of US trend.
Cap/Hamma Merger Becomes Trinity/University Merger.
Mainline Seminaries Failing Too - Not Just LCMS, WELS, ELS.

Lenski taught at Capital's Seminary, ALC, after serving as a pastor and a district president.

 John N. Lenker graduated from the ULCA seminary at Wittenberg College - Hamma Divinity School. Hamma had to merge with Capital during the warm up to
ELCA, but that was not enough to keep enrollment up.

Trinity Lutheran Seminary's merger into Capital University part of US trend

"“The traditional model of seminary education is predicated on the traditional church scene,” said the Rev. Kathryn “Kit” Kleinhans, who is to be installed as dean of Trinity Lutheran Seminary on Tuesday. “The landscape of religion in the United States is changing. Traditional mainline denominations are growing smaller, and there’s large growth in those who are spiritual but not religious.”

The merger, which became official in January, has been in the works since Capital’s 16th president, Beth Paul, started at the university in July 2016. The impetus was financial, Kleinhans said.

The seminary’s budgeting and operating expenses were not sustainable, which has to do with a decrease in student enrollment,” Kleinhans said.

Trinity and Capital are just two of several seminaries and religious institutions in the country that are merging resources to keep the theological schools viable, said Tom Tanner, director of accreditation and institutional evaluation at the Association of Theological Schools in Pittsburgh.

“As goes the church, so goes the seminary,” he said.

Nationwide, enrollment in seminary programs declined for more than a decade before leveling out in 2015 and 2016, according to the Association of Theological Schools, the national accrediting body for theological institutions. At Trinity, enrollment declined from 116 in fall 2013 to 80 in fall 2016 before rising again to 85 in 2017."

 Bexley Hall Seabury Western Eucharist 9/10/2013 Gloria Dei Chapel, Trinity Lutheran Seminary.
Note that three other seminaries are involved,
all shrinking down, sometimes moving on to another location.

From Wiki:
Seabury-Western was formed in 1933 by a merger of Western Theological Seminary of Evanston (founded in 1883 in Chicago), and Seabury Divinity School of Faribault, Minnesota(founded in 1858). The new seminary endeavored to hold in tension the "High Church" and "Low Church" identities of its predecessors. However, for most of its history, SWTS occupied a place within Anglican churchmanship akin to that of The General Theological Seminary in New York: a liturgical bent toward Anglo-Catholic practices and an acceptance of modern theology and social tolerance.
In the fall of 2008 the seminary stopped accepting seminarians for the traditional Master of Divinity degree. In 2009 Seabury's property was acquired by Northwestern University with Seabury allowed use of the property for five years. In January 2012 Seabury formally left the Evanston site, functionally ending its presence as residential seminary, and the various buildings are now used by the Northwestern University. The seminary moved its operation to the national headquarters of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) near O'Hare Airport. In March 2012, the boards of Seabury-Western and of Bexley Hall Seminary in Bexley, Ohio, voted to federate.[1] Roger Ferlo was named as the federation's first president.[2]
Inaugurated April 27, 2013, Bexley Seabury seminary initially offered the Master of Divinity degree at the former Bexley Hall campus in Columbus through a partnership with Trinity Lutheran Seminary.[3] From its Chicago campus near O'Hare Airport, the federation offered its Doctor of Ministry in Congregational Development in Chicago and the Doctor of Ministry in Preaching through the Association of Chicago Theological Schools.[4] The Diploma of Anglican Studies was offered in both Columbus and Chicago.[5]
In July 2016, Bexley Seabury consolidated on a single campus location at Chicago Theological Seminary in Chicago's Hyde Park/Woodlawn district.

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