United Lutheran Seminary

[mj4]

United has issued a Draft Welcome and Equity Statement. Lot's of affirming going on.

"As a community of the saved and forgiven people of God, United Lutheran Seminary is called to minister to and affirm all people, knowing that the world is often a place of alienation and brokenness. Indeed, the church and even this institution have participated in and perpetuated harm to many marginalized persons. However, we firmly believe that Christ calls us to repentance, reconciliation, and wholeness. We are challenged by the Gospel to be agents of healing within our society."

https://unitedlutheranseminary.edu/draft-welcome-and-equity-statement/

[Dave Likeness]

It is a real stretch of the umbrella to include lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders in Galatians 3:28
However if that is the target audience for their recruitment, then United Lutheran Seminary will not be
successful in proclaiming the truth of Holy Scripture.

[Matt Hummel]

As a Catholic, I am comfortable with, and can say "challenged by the Gospel."

But no. Lutheran's cannot and must not say that.

And I am tempted to speak to those folk ala Inigo Montoya to say, "That word Gospel. You keep using it. I do not think it means what you think it means."

[readselerttoo]

The Gospel does not challenge but gives.  The Gospel proclaimed presents to the hearer in the depth of the heart's deep question (unbelief) that as a sinner God accepts them unconditionally but only so through Jesus' death on the cross for them (read:  their sin(s).  In other words the challenge really isn't a challenge at all.  Either one believes that Jesus is always and forever for them (belief) or that one doesn't believe that this could even be for them in their sin (unbelief).  There is no middle way and no gap between belief or unbelief.  Therefore there is no challenge, really.  It's about faith and trust (or not) in a living Savior...his name is Jesus!  That seminary's statement of the gospel challenge is a gospel that is not Christian, imo.  It suggests that as a challenge somehow life under the law is preserved.  It isn't.  The true Gospel offers sinners forgiveness and eternal life in Christ.  Christ has to be there as the mediator.  Christ does not preserve the law but has fulfilled it in his death on the cross.  If they want to talk about a challenge let them read Galatians for a different understanding.

[mj4]

I find the language pallid and coerced. Not too hot, not too cold. Written like an EEOC policy manual with a light sprinkling of theology.

[TERJr]

“Lukewarm” may be an apt description because it makes me want to vomit.

[Brian Stoffregen]

The Gospel does not challenge but gives.  The Gospel proclaimed presents to the hearer in the depth of the heart's deep question (unbelief) that as a sinner God accepts them unconditionally but only so through Jesus' death on the cross for them (read:  their sin(s).  In other words the challenge really isn't a challenge at all.  Either one believes that Jesus is always and forever for them (belief) or that one doesn't believe that this could even be for them in their sin (unbelief).  There is no middle way and no gap between belief or unbelief.  Therefore there is no challenge, really.  It's about faith and trust (or not) in a living Savior...his name is Jesus!  That seminary's statement of the gospel challenge is a gospel that is not Christian, imo.  It suggests that as a challenge somehow life under the law is preserved.  It isn't.  The true Gospel offers sinners forgiveness and eternal life in Christ.  Christ has to be there as the mediator.  Christ does not preserve the law but has fulfilled it in his death on the cross.  If they want to talk about a challenge let them read Galatians for a different understanding.

And yet, the father's prayer, "I believe, help my unbelief" is also our prayer.

[readselerttoo]

I find the language pallid and coerced. Not too hot, not too cold. Written like an EEOC policy manual with a light sprinkling of theology.

 

[readselerttoo]

The Gospel does not challenge but gives.  The Gospel proclaimed presents to the hearer in the depth of the heart's deep question (unbelief) that as a sinner God accepts them unconditionally but only so through Jesus' death on the cross for them (read:  their sin(s).  In other words the challenge really isn't a challenge at all.  Either one believes that Jesus is always and forever for them (belief) or that one doesn't believe that this could even be for them in their sin (unbelief).  There is no middle way and no gap between belief or unbelief.  Therefore there is no challenge, really.  It's about faith and trust (or not) in a living Savior...his name is Jesus!  That seminary's statement of the gospel challenge is a gospel that is not Christian, imo.  It suggests that as a challenge somehow life under the law is preserved.  It isn't.  The true Gospel offers sinners forgiveness and eternal life in Christ.  Christ has to be there as the mediator.  Christ does not preserve the law but has fulfilled it in his death on the cross.  If they want to talk about a challenge let them read Galatians for a different understanding.

And yet, the father's prayer, "I believe, help my unbelief" is also our prayer.

Yes.  True that.  I had forgotten about that one.

And yet as I ponder that further the father's prayer is a plead to the Savior which is the quintessential act of faith, imo...sort of like blind Bartimaeus' "have mercy on me" in Mark 10....the pleading is continuous with Jesus' follow through for him.  Good stuff as it is.

[TERJr]

I find very little to believe in it.
The authors’ utter failure to distinguish Law from Gospel has already been noted. For Lutherans this failure is the theological equivalent of failing to distinguish one’s anus from a hole in the ground.
There is no place in this statement for original sin a la CA II which in turn leaves no need for the Cross when “affirmation” will do. I’m not sure there is much left to say beyond H. Richard Niebuhr‘a judgment on Liberal Protestantism: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."
“We pledge to provide a place of comfort and safety” pretty much rules out “oratio, meditatio, tentatio faciunt theologum.” We have yet another way that we are reaping the harvest from the seeds of participation trophies and vapid sentimentality posing as theological thought.

[Paul Peckman]

I believe that one marginalized group that was inadvertently left off the list is the unborn.  I wonder:  Did Christ die for them, too?  If He did, then they must have a valuable status in this world.

[Dan Fienen]

Don’t forget that about the only shred of mystical thought that remains in modern progressive orthodoxy is the mystical journey through the birth canal (or C-Section incision) whereby a clump of nonhuman cells are mystically transformed into a living human being.

[FrPeters]

Seminaries are not supposed to be outposts of mission welcoming the many but, as Mark records of Jesus and His disciples, he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach/.  Seminary is the place and the time to be with Jesus, taught by faithful teachers, instructed in the doctrines of the faith, trained in liturgy, equipped to preach, all the while both the seminary and the individual discern the inward call of the person as they commend them to the outward call of the Church.  As much of the formation of a pastor happens in the chapel as it does in the classroom.  That said, the Church is not an equal opportunity employer but the place where those who seek are prepared and those prepared are judged, and those who are judged are elected, and those elected ordained.  Such language as we have read of the ULS makes the whole thing somewhat trivial and odd.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Seminaries are not supposed to be outposts of mission welcoming the many but, as Mark records of Jesus and His disciples, he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach/.  Seminary is the place and the time to be with Jesus, taught by faithful teachers, instructed in the doctrines of the faith, trained in liturgy, equipped to preach, all the while both the seminary and the individual discern the inward call of the person as they commend them to the outward call of the Church.  As much of the formation of a pastor happens in the chapel as it does in the classroom.  That said, the Church is not an equal opportunity employer but the place where those who seek are prepared and those prepared are judged, and those who are judged are elected, and those elected ordained.  Such language as we have read of the ULS makes the whole thing somewhat trivial and odd.

You omitted the second part of Mark's record:      "He appointed twelve and called them apostles. He appointed them to be with him, to be sent out to preach, and to have authority to throw out demons." (Mark 3:14-15)


How do we train folks to "have authority to throw out demons"? What does that look like?

[Steven Tibbetts]

How do we train folks to "have authority to throw out demons"? What does that look like?

However it's done, it's neither welcoming nor safe.

Pax, Steven+