Married? Partner? Flying Solo? None of Your Business!

 The new president of Luther Seminary, Robin Steinke.

 The new president of Wartburg Seminary, Louise Johnson.

 The new ex-president of United Lutheran Seminary, Rev. Theresa Latini.

When I took journalism in junior high, we interviewed faculty and wrote them up. In all such cases, even in the adult world, facts about education and family are pertinent. We noted when someone was married, but our crusty old maid teacher said, "Don't she - she has no children. We don't want people to think they are not trying." She doubled over, laughing at her joke.

But the new orthodoxy in ELCA must be saying, "Their relationships are none of your beeswax." I recall an old story that indicated Latini had a daughter. Everything else is unstated. Watch that trend continue.

These seminary presidents? NOYB.

 ELCA Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber is married, but where does a pastor buy clerics designed to show off one's deltoids and tatts? She is not a seminary president...yet.

Louise Johnson, DD, Lands a Grant To Shorten One's Stay in Wartburg College and Seminary. To Dream the Impossible Dream. This Is My Quest To Follow That Star! No Matter How Hopeless No Matter How Far

 Wartburg posted this pose as her thrilled and excited photo
when they gave Louise Johnson an honorary D.D.

Wartburg Theological Seminary has received a $497,115 grant from The Kern Family Foundation to streamline preparation for pastoral ministry for first career ministerial students in partnership with Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa. The grant allows for implementation of a fully integrated Bachelor of Arts/Master of Divinity degree program to provide leadership, theological education and spiritual formation embedded in congregational contexts.

This new program will include 3 years of BA education at Wartburg College with at least one semester interfacing with Wartburg Seminary, Dubuque, IA. The final 3 years (which includes a year to complete an internship required by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) will be located in a collaborative congregational context.

Louise N. Johnson, Wartburg Seminary President, explains, “The generosity of the Kern Foundation and the partnership of Wartburg College offer us an extraordinary opportunity to press into our calling to form young faith leaders, who can proclaim words of hope, healing, forgiveness, mercy, grace to a world desperately longing to hear and to know the living God.”

***

GJ - Without foundation grants, Mrs. Ichabod and I finished Augustana in three years and a quarter. I finished seminary, so that both degrees took six years, including a vicarage. Mrs. Ichabod earned a master's degree in German literature, where most of the classes were in German. So she also earned two degrees in six years, plus working at the UniWat library.

Reu has been forgotten. Where did he teach?
Wartburg? Really!

Louise Johnson, DD - “Vocation was a huge piece of what Martin Luther gave the church. His reframing of a sense of vocation was radical at the time, and in its own way, is still radical now,” she said. “It pushes us to think differently about how we spend our time and what God calls us to do and how we understand that. Those basic Reformation principles still sing in our culture today.”

 ELCA Bishop Liz Eaton has a lot more damage planned.
Most of her higher education appointments have been single women, so put a ring on it.

 ELCiC Bishop Susan Johnson

 Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber

Encore.

 Bishop April Larson

 Pastor Anita Hill paved the way for
Mark Hanson's career.

 Pastor Megan Rohrer is
ELCA's first openly transgender pastor.

 Dr. Robin Steinke is thrilled and excited to sell off
Luther Seminary property.

If You Want To Stay Slim and Healthy, Ladies, Do Not Accept a Position of Authority over Men in ELCA. Try LCMS or WELS Instead

Louise N. Johnson, MDiv is the new president of ELCA's Wartburg Seminary.
Shortly after she was inaugurated, she cut three staff positions
due to enrollment drops and financial shortages.
Food shortages began showing up, too.

The Wartburg previous president had a PhD from Yale - plus parish, seminary teaching, and district bishop experience.

This looks like the old British press-gang recruitment.
 

Wartburg honored the first woman bishop in ELCA, April Larson,
proving the old adage that a bishop once appointed will never
hear the truth again,
and never miss a meal.

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Robin Steinke, Current Head of Luther Seminary, ELCA, Also Grew in Office

Before -

Robin Steinke

 After

Robin Steinke

Men Overboard - Robin Steinke Installed as the First Female President of Luther Seminary. Liberian Leader Attends

Robin Steinke came to install the new female head of the Berkeley ELCA seminary,
which has very few students but very valuable land.
The seminary has merged with California Lutheran U.,
so Boss Bloomquiest is merely a dean.

This ELCA pastor preaches herself and really likes the word "like." She's like saying like whenever transitioning to another, like, story about her favorite topic, her amazing life.

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Feel free to watch the installation of Robin Steinke as president of Luther Seminary, where Jack and Robert Preus attended.

I found the entire service to be strained, awkward, and weird. This is the largest seminary for Lutherans, but the church was not full. The school is located in the Twin Cities, where one ELCA congregation alone has 10,000 members. Those attending seemed mostly to be seniors - not seniors in seminary, but elderly and possibly stunned.

The choir was small; the orchestra accompanying it was every bit as good as a high school band.

One of the opening songs was African, so Steinke can be seen rocking back and forth a bit. The new ELCA presiding bishop, Liz Eaton, is petite and mannish. Robin Steinke is large and mannish, wearing slacks, heavy boots, and preaching from the chancel holding a notebook. The face mike reminded me of Ski's attempts to be cool.

The pulpit was nearby but empty. Everything is in code. The radical Left knows what the language and symbols mean. Pacing about in the chancel is a message, like Ski preaching in his car repair clothes. Words about new horizons and reaching out to the marginalized  - that means their radical Left activism that will leave liberal mouths hanging open in dismay.

If you want to study bumbling sermons, try to listen to Steinke. Everything seems to say, "We finally got to take over the ELCA institutions, and now it is not so fun."

I could not find a news story about the event, which should be a major bragging point. The gay Left was thrilled with Eaton taking over ELCA. Reconciling Works, their home base, bragged about Eaton, who is safely married to a man. Why not Steinke? Her domestic status is never mentioned. That may account for the sullen reaction to her installation - but I am only speculating.

Karen Bloomquist is the new dean of the transplanted California seminary.
Her obedient husband Bill is on the right.
The old campus had a spectacular view - they will miss Sodom-by-the-Bay.

This pot on the head dance was part of the Bloomquist installation.
Where do they get these clowns?

Try to read her Leftist mumbo-jumbo below.
She is not speaking in tongues.
She is speaking in gay Marxist rhetoric.

Karen Bloomquist

• Dean and Chief Administrative Officer
• kbloomquist@plts.edu
• (510) 559-2710

I am a constructive theologian/ethicist, pastor and administrator, committed to preparing the people of God to discern critically and work collaboratively with others to further God’s liberating mission in pluralistic, multi-faith contexts.  Given the global horizons within which I have been networking, teaching and writing over the past decade, I am eager to find ways in which my experience, expertise and perspectives might be drawn upon in the preparation of religious and other leaders in settings throughout the world.  Throughout my career, my passion has been relating to, analyzing and actively seeking to change situations of injustice and furthering God’s mission in the world.

The preacher at the Bloomquist installation was a long-term friend,
and has a doctorate in feminist theology.

Education
Ph.D., Theology, Union Theological Seminary [The Devil's Playground], NYC
M.Div., Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
B.A., Sociology and Religion, St. Olaf College

Professional History
Director, Department for Theology and Studies, Lutheran World Federation
Associate Professor of Theological Ethics, Wartburg Theological Seminary
Director for Studies, Division for Church in Society, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Assistant Professor of Church and Society, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
Pastor, Lutheran Church of St. Philip, Brooklyn, NY
Pastor, Faith American Lutheran Church, Oakland, CA

Chairman of the Board

Even the Seminary President's Name Is Ambiguous. Save the Date - October 12, 2014. Will She Do an Ellen Afterwards?

Robin Steinke is the only woman Lutheran seminary president, the first woman to head Luther.
Liz Eaton is the first woman to head a Lutheran denomination.
Rebecca M. Bergman is first woman president of Gustavus Adolphus College.
Paula J. Carlson is the first woman president of Luther College. 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

THE INAUGURATION OF ROBIN J. STEINKE

SERVICE OF INSTALLATION

Save the Date!

October 12, 2014

3 p.m.

Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, 12650 Johnny Cake Ridge Road, Apple Valley, Minn.

Preaching: The Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton, ELCA Presiding Bishop

A reception will follow the service.

Get directions to Shepherd of the Valley.

ROBIN STEINKE

President

The Rev. Dr. Robin Steinke came to Luther Seminary as president in June 2014. She was the first woman in the 145-year history of the seminary to be named to the position.

Prior to coming to Luther Seminary, Steinke was the dean of the seminary and professor of theological ethics and public life at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, where she served from 1999. She previously served as an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) pastor; a training manager and financial planner at American Express Financial Advisors; and a middle school band director in Marietta, Ga. Steinke is a graduate of Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D. She holds a Master of Divinity and a Master of Sacred Theology from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in England.

Steinke is known for her strategic leadership and passion for sharing the gospel. She is involved in a number of important church and academic initiatives. She is currently co-chairing the national ELCA Theological Education Advisory Council that is evaluating and exploring the future of theological education. She serves as the ELCA Representative to the Lutheran World Federation Council and chairs their Endowment Fund. She is a member of the ELCA Ecclesiology Task Force and serves on a number of other church and academic committees. She previously served a six-year term as a commissioner for the Association of Theological Schools’ Commission on Accrediting.

***

GJ - A reader noted that Phyllis Anderson (married) became the first woman seminary president when she replaced Timothy Lull, who died after heart surgery. Below is Anderson with the entire incoming class at Berkeley, which had to merge and sell its valuable property to stay alive.

The prez with less than 20 incoming seminary students.
Why not host a secret initiation ritual, the way WELS does, and lie about it?
These are details about the amalgamation.

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Grumpy Luther wrote:

Whenever I see a portrait of Robin Steinke, all I can think of is the "It's Pat" skits they used to do on Saturday Night Live.

If you are not familiar with that, Pat was a sexually ambiguous character.  The whole theme of the skit usually involved the other characters trying to figure out if Pat was a man or woman.

So, ditto with this Robin lady...er...dude....ah...well, anyway....