University Lutheran Chapel (University of Minnesota) to be sold

[Matt Staneck]

Why not utilize CU System and Districts to teach languages?  More localized.  Thoughts?

M. Staneck

[Dave Benke]

Why not utilize CU System and Districts to teach languages?  More localized.  Thoughts?

M. Staneck

Yes!

Dave Benke

[Dan Fienen]

And John, why did you not give the same benefit of that doubt to the people in charge in Missouri in the 1970s?

The decision that fried my brain back then was the closing down of the Senior College, without question academically the strongest stone in the Missouri fortress in our history.  I was too young then in terms of understanding institutional realities/demographics and the like - it just boggled my mind that an almost Camelot-like spot for expanding the horizon with true engagement of the liberal arts would be kicked to the curb. 

I'm guessing - don't have the decision-making facts of the matter yet, and don't know frankly who does - that the logic was that the junior colleges would go to four years, succeed in their mission due to offering Bachelor's degrees, and render the Senior College unneccessary, and that the politics came from the realms of the junior colleges desiring to expand. 

The perception from a relatively recent grad was that the idea was to cut down a place where people learned how to think, and replace it with less of that and more thought-free indoctrination.   

Dave Benke

I am a graduate of the Senior College, class of '74, the year of the great Seminex schism.  I have valued highly the education that I received at the Senior College, and the professors that taught me.  However, I was and am under no illusion as to where their sympathies lay in the disputes of the day, nor of the direction in which they hoped the church would go.  As I graduated, the Senior College was developing into a prep school for Seminex.  For those who supported Seminex, having the Synod maintain a feeder school for Seminex was desirable.  More students from my class went to Seminex than to either Springfield or 801 (I think).  I know that students were actively being recruited for Seminex, I was.  If closing the school was politics, the politics were not just on one side.
 
The Seminary in Springfield also was in a very bad location.  It was not safe, although there were no tragedies while I was there.  There were good, practical and  pressing needs to move that Seminary.
 
Dan

[Donald_Kirchner]

I recall Daniel Preus speaking to us at Sem StL and relating his experiences at the Senior College. An example that stands out was a test he took, part which was the issue of the referent of Isaiah's suffering servant. Daniel wrote that Isaiah's suffering servant referred to Jesus Christ. He lost points for that being an incorrect answer. In fact, he said that he nearly failed that class due to his "incorrect" answers regarding OT prophecy, etc.

[Dave Benke]

And John, why did you not give the same benefit of that doubt to the people in charge in Missouri in the 1970s?

The decision that fried my brain back then was the closing down of the Senior College, without question academically the strongest stone in the Missouri fortress in our history.  I was too young then in terms of understanding institutional realities/demographics and the like - it just boggled my mind that an almost Camelot-like spot for expanding the horizon with true engagement of the liberal arts would be kicked to the curb. 

I'm guessing - don't have the decision-making facts of the matter yet, and don't know frankly who does - that the logic was that the junior colleges would go to four years, succeed in their mission due to offering Bachelor's degrees, and render the Senior College unneccessary, and that the politics came from the realms of the junior colleges desiring to expand. 

The perception from a relatively recent grad was that the idea was to cut down a place where people learned how to think, and replace it with less of that and more thought-free indoctrination.   

Dave Benke

I am a graduate of the Senior College, class of '74, the year of the great Seminex schism.  I have valued highly the education that I received at the Senior College, and the professors that taught me.  However, I was and am under no illusion as to where their sympathies lay in the disputes of the day, nor of the direction in which they hoped the church would go.  As I graduated, the Senior College was developing into a prep school for Seminex.  For those who supported Seminex, having the Synod maintain a feeder school for Seminex was desirable.  More students from my class went to Seminex than to either Springfield or 801 (I think).  I know that students were actively being recruited for Seminex, I was.  If closing the school was politics, the politics were not just on one side.
 
The Seminary in Springfield also was in a very bad location.  It was not safe, although there were no tragedies while I was there.  There were good, practical and  pressing needs to move that Seminary.
 
Dan

Interesting - I'm prior to all that, and at that time Senior College graduates went to either seminary in I'd guess-timate a 2/1 margin toward St. Louis.  There was, however, nothing overt or propagandistic on my recollection tree.  On the other hand, I was a guy who worked his way through college, so I was off-campus in a variety of factories or warehouses or janitorial locales when not in the classroom.

Dave Benke

[peter_speckhard]

The problem is that the very people who work, work, work to make the LCMS missional don't like the result; what you end up with is an Evangelical free church. I was an English/German major at Valpo who had the standard Greek and Hebrew in seminary. My wife is a Latin teacher. We would love to find a Lutheran church with a classical academy type of education system for k-12. Around here it is pulling teeth. We need more electric piano and praise songs, not all that mumbo jumbo for our kids. I'll bet, Dave, that you had choirs that would be considered quite extraordinary by today's standards, too. But "the system" was also incredibly insular. It was all LCMS, all the time, it's own little universe. But, via academics, engaged with the whole thought universe of Western Civilization and Christendom.

So from my perspective listening to you, it seems like quite a catch-22 for me. Your generation did not pass on what you received, but considers what you recieved to be essential, but also views any attempt by my generation to reclaim or recapture it to be reactionary, insular, repristination, inward focused, fleeing from the world, anti-missional, whatever. So the practical result in my ears is you saying, "You ain't got what I got, and without it you can't do squat, so just do what I say." It doesn't work.

[Dave Benke]

The problem is that the very people who work, work, work to make the LCMS missional don't like the result; what you end up with is an Evangelical free church. I was an English/German major at Valpo who had the standard Greek and Hebrew in seminary. My wife is a Latin teacher. We would love to find a Lutheran church with a classical academy type of education system for k-12. Around here it is pulling teeth. We need more electric piano and praise songs, not all that mumbo jumbo for our kids. I'll bet, Dave, that you had choirs that would be considered quite extraordinary by today's standards, too. But "the system" was also incredibly insular. It was all LCMS, all the time, it's own little universe. But, via academics, engaged with the whole thought universe of Western Civilization and Christendom.

So from my perspective listening to you, it seems like quite a catch-22 for me. Your generation did not pass on what you received, but considers what you recieved to be essential, but also views any attempt by my generation to reclaim or recapture it to be reactionary, insular, repristination, inward focused, fleeing from the world, anti-missional, whatever. So the practical result in my ears is you saying, "You ain't got what I got, and without it you can't do squat, so just do what I say." It doesn't work.

Well first, times have changed.  What "worked" forty years ago, when a congregation like the one I entered with 125 in worship was considered small/tiny, was worked through with a lot more budget and denominational security.  The percentages were not against us.  The "mega-churches" and non-denominational stuff was just a blip on the screen and folks went to the denominational setting of their parents and grandparents.  I would guess-timate that a lot of the LC-MS participants on this forum have well less than 100 in worship now, and many to most of those folks are really up there in years. 

So - there's simply less leeway emotionally and economically for the pastor in the parish.  And those who repristinate now, repristinate to a crowd that has thinned substantially.  That's tough.

Second, what you're receiving is not what's being given.  What's being given, by me at least, is that there is a way to offer and receive a quality Lutheran education and parish direction that is not reactionary or pinched, but is evangelical and catholic.  I believe that to be a tiny and narrow road in the overall Kultur-Kampf, where anything that says "woman" in a positive way is deemed a leftist Democratic plot, and anything that says "No" to abortion on demand is viewed as fascist demagoguery.  And the same applies in the church. 

So - go for it.  I don't know about a latin-oriented k-12 there in Green Bay.  I do know that you could bring your kids to NYC, and get that in the public system.  I just spoke with a young Haitian kid who's in Brooklyn Latin for middle school and high school.  The curriculum on the English level is Shakespeare-based.  As in read the whole corpus.  Seriously. 

Dave Benke

[FrPeters]

What worked forty years ago is the Word and Sacraments... our methodologies have deluded our thinking so that we presume what we do makes the big difference.  There is no substitute for or church growth apart from the Word faithfully preached and taught and the Sacraments administered as Christ intended.  This is not an excuse for doing nothing else but either this is the center from which everything else comes or everything else is really nothing at all.  This is the problem I have with new missions currently planted in my district and others -- no sacramental center, the Word is equated merely with Biblical content and not proper distinction of Law and Gospel, and the focus is on what we do (community building, etc.), and the focal point of Lutheran teaching, the catechism, is missing...

[Dave Benke]

What worked forty years ago is the Word and Sacraments... our methodologies have deluded our thinking so that we presume what we do makes the big difference.  There is no substitute for or church growth apart from the Word faithfully preached and taught and the Sacraments administered as Christ intended.  This is not an excuse for doing nothing else but either this is the center from which everything else comes or everything else is really nothing at all.  This is the problem I have with new missions currently planted in my district and others -- no sacramental center, the Word is equated merely with Biblical content and not proper distinction of Law and Gospel, and the focus is on what we do (community building, etc.), and the focal point of Lutheran teaching, the catechism, is missing...

Very much both/and from my perspective and belief.  The Means of Grace without the means of grace is content-free, ergo grace-less; the life of the parish without any sense of the parish as the Body in the world is flaccid and dead, ergo grace-less.

Dave Benke

[Karl Hess]

The thing is, though, a congregation that is centered on Word and Sacraments and has a crotchety contemptuous dead orthodox confessions pounding pastor who, with the congregation, doesn't believe in caring about anyone--will either be brought to repentance by the Word and Sacraments or will cease to be centered on the Word and Sacraments.

The people that want to reach out but are not motivated to reach out by the pure word and sacraments are alienated from that which is capable of bringing them to repentance.  Also their love for the community is not the kind of love that pleases God.  They reach out to help the community because "it's the right thing to do" and they want to be good Christian people; or they do it because they want to grow the church, not realizing that their motives are tainted by their desire to build a monument to themselves, or to secure their existence apart from Christ whose presence they alienate themselves from when they turn away from the pure sacraments and word.

So it's not a question of each side in the argument having part of it right.  The orthodox congregation that doesn't care about their neighbors has Christ's word, but is resisting or rejecting it (and will ultimately lose it unless they repent.)  The congregation that's zealous to reach out but doesn't have the pure word and sacraments--or has it only on paper--has neither Christ's pure word nor the zealous love of Christ that seeks the lost sheep.  The second has a zeal that comes from the flesh.

Respectfully, I don't think it is a both/and.  The only way both orthodoxy and piety are possible, or faith and love, is to have the pure word and keep it.  The fact that some orthodox congregations do not keep the word--or the fact that the word is offensive in its failure to bear an impressive crop--or the fact that true Christian love is distasteful to the world and to the flesh--that doesn't mean that we need to give attention to reading...of Chuck Swindoll and Barna in addition to the Bible and the fathers.

I read this great thing from Luther in the Church Postil the other day:

...There can be no better government for this world than the devil’s, or instead of the devil’s, the government of the Pope. For this is what the world wants.  What the devil wants goes forth and mightily prospers; what God wants both in the spiritual and worldly government, never succeeds without innumerable hindrances…

Luther, Church Postil, 2nd Sunday after Trinity, 48

[FrPeters]

The thing is, though, a congregation that is centered on Word and Sacraments and has a crotchety contemptuous dead orthodox confessions pounding pastor who, with the congregation, doesn't believe in caring about anyone--will either be brought to repentance by the Word and Sacraments or will cease to be centered on the Word and Sacraments.

I suppose that might be directed toward me... but, funny thing, we have tons of adult confirmations and every Sunday we welcome those strangers who walk through the door finding something they have never seen before -- the Word and Sacraments.  Some of them new to Christianity and all of them new to Lutheranism.  I know there are the kind of folks out there you are picking on but I do not think they are as many as is presumed...

[Dave Benke]

From my perspective, Karl, you're just making a point to make a point. Because this:

The Means of Grace without the means of grace is content-free, ergo grace-less; the life of the parish without any sense of the parish as the Body in the world is flaccid and dead, ergo grace-less.

is saying what you're saying.  Orthodoxy produces orthopraxy.  Or maybe orthodoxy is visible in the Body in the world as orthopraxy.

I think one of the most telling aspects of President Harrison's convention video is him standing at the Ft. Wayne seminary podium saying loudly and clearly "now is the time to plant" churches.  He said the same thing in the same way in person at Concordia Bronxville.  And he went on to encourage and exhort leaders and pastors from any and all of the variety of worship styles to plant new churches and extend the mission. 

Since what we possess - the centrality of the Means of Grace as our presenting face to the world - is so strong, in a de-churched period Lutherans should be leading the charge out into the world.

Dave Benke

[LCMS87]

The thing is, though, a congregation that is centered on Word and Sacraments and has a crotchety contemptuous dead orthodox confessions pounding pastor who, with the congregation, doesn't believe in caring about anyone--will either be brought to repentance by the Word and Sacraments or will cease to be centered on the Word and Sacraments.

I suppose that might be directed toward me... but, funny thing, we have tons of adult confirmations and every Sunday we welcome those strangers who walk through the door finding something they have never seen before -- the Word and Sacraments.  Some of them new to Christianity and all of them new to Lutheranism.  I know there are the kind of folks out there you are picking on but I do not think they are as many as is presumed...

I don't know you well, Fr. Peters, but from everything I've seen and read, you're not anywhere near to being a crotchety contemptuous dead orthodox confessions pounding pastor.  Besides, you care about people.

I believe Pr. Hess was taking the caricature that folks who identify as missional have of some of the more traditional among us and, in effect, agreeing with them.  If there is a congregation that is so rebellious against God's word that they refuse to love others, their rebellion against the word will cause them to no longer be truly focused on Word and Sacrament.  Dead orthodoxy--which must be an oxymoron--produces death. 

I understood Pr. Hess' point to be that Word and Sacrament are the means, and the only ones, by which God works to turn us away from serving ourselves to loving and serving others as Christ has loved and served us.  Where God is working through Word and Sacrament, the fruits of faith and love will be present.   

[Karl Hess]

The thing is, though, a congregation that is centered on Word and Sacraments and has a crotchety contemptuous dead orthodox confessions pounding pastor who, with the congregation, doesn't believe in caring about anyone--will either be brought to repentance by the Word and Sacraments or will cease to be centered on the Word and Sacraments.

I suppose that might be directed toward me... but, funny thing, we have tons of adult confirmations and every Sunday we welcome those strangers who walk through the door finding something they have never seen before -- the Word and Sacraments.  Some of them new to Christianity and all of them new to Lutheranism.  I know there are the kind of folks out there you are picking on but I do not think they are as many as is presumed...

No, I was talking about myself.  Or acknowledging the caricature.  There are some guys like this, definitely.  Me for instance.  What a wonderful thing that Christ wants to be found only in sinners!

[Karl Hess]

From my perspective, Karl, you're just making a point to make a point. Because this:

The Means of Grace without the means of grace is content-free, ergo grace-less; the life of the parish without any sense of the parish as the Body in the world is flaccid and dead, ergo grace-less.

is saying what you're saying.  Orthodoxy produces orthopraxy.  Or maybe orthodoxy is visible in the Body in the world as orthopraxy.

Dave Benke

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that.  I thought Pr. Peters was saying that focus on mission methodology was distracting us from the Gospel and Sacraments, which are the means which Christ uses to grow his church, and that you were saying, "No, it's both and."  Or that it's both what Christ does and what we do.  In both cases I would say neither focusing on methodology nor our efforts and zeal is capable of resulting in the growth of the church, though it may produce measurable numerical growth.