Category: Staff & Faculty

President Lawrence R. Rast Jr. (CTSFW, standing at the podium) and President Dale A. Meyer (CSL, far left standing in the back) presented to the Council of Presidents in San Diego last week on how the seminaries can help the Church in our present culture.

American culture has changed, deeply. The cultural landscape is one of multiculturalism, identity politics, post-sexual revolution, bioethical changes, economic disparity and record debt, distrust of institutions, anti-Christian judgments, and dysfunction at all levels. Religiously, Protestant/Judeo-Christian morality in America has given way to the morality of self-fulfillment, even within the church. According to Barna Trends 2017:

• 91% of US adults and 76% of practicing Christians agree that the best way to find yourself is to look within yourself.
• 89% and 76% agree that people should not criticize someone else’s life choices.
• 86% and 72% agree that to be fulfilled in life, you should pursue the things you most desire.
• 84% and 67% agree that the highest goal of life is to enjoy it as much as possible.

Or, as the study concluded, that “While we wring our hands about secularism spreading through culture, a majority of churchgoing Christians have embraced corrupt, me-centered theology.”

Congregations are trending smaller and older, as are their pastors. Additional trends promise challenges, and others opportunity: people are concentrating in the largest churches, congregations are more independent, there’s increasing ethnic diversity of predominantly (and historically) white congregations, more informal worship, more gender inclusiveness, great acceptance of homosexual behavior, and more technology.

And what are the seminaries’ response to these changing times? “Dale and I have one word to describe the present and future of the seminaries,” Dr. Rast said, speaking to the District Presidents. “You have one word to describe your district’s present and future. We have one word to describe the LCMS’s present and future:

“Hopeful.”

Our hope is in Christ, our confession founded firmly on the rock of God’s Word. As such, the present educational intentions in training future clergy remain clear: to facilitate the interpretation of texts, to raise students’ consciousness of historical and contemporary contexts, to cultivate student performance in public clergy roles, and to nurture dispositions and habits integral to the vocation of religious leadership.

To assist the church in facing these challenges, both seminaries continue to offer the very best in pastoral formation, grounded in our rich historical theology while helping our students and graduates to apply what they learn to our challenging 21st century realities. They also offer resources to laity and clergy, and graduate studies. These resources and graduate courses are available to Lutherans worldwide, as well as to other Christians. “Lutheran leaven!” Dr. Rast called it. In these challenges, we have been given great opportunity.

A number of the District Presidents came up to Dr. Rast afterwards to tell him and Dr. Meyer how much they appreciate their clear understanding of the issues—both the challenges and the opportunities—and to thank them for their leadership as they serve as a model for working together for the good of the Church.

Today’s convocation hour was a collegial debate between our current Greek teacher, Dr. John G. Nordling, and a former professor of ours, Dr. James W. Voelz, who has been teaching at our sister Seminary in St. Louis since 1989. Their debate? “How should Greek be taught to seminarians in the twenty-first century, and why does philological competence remain vital for the church?”

These two are experts in the field. Dr. Nordling has taught Greek at CTSFW for the past twelve years (not to mention at Valparaiso and Baylor for many years before then), and Dr. Voelz, who has taught Greek for over 40 years, wrote “Fundamental Greek Grammar,” the textbook used at both seminaries.

I have to admit: this convocation lost me in the details (it was, as they say, all Greek to me). What I did understand was that both professors hold distinctly different views on the first half of the topic: how Greek should be taught to seminarians. Dr. Nordling’s methodology is very technical, shaped by his desire to lay the building blocks of Greek grammar, terms, word order, and tense usage in order to move seminarians along in their understanding of the language. You teach Greek, then through this stronger understanding of Greek are able to teach theology at a higher level. He also argued that composition, though time-consuming, is the best way to keep seminarians from learning Greek passively. “For,” as he pointed out to his grinning students, “they can be counted on to make many bone-headed mistakes.”

Dr. Voelz accused Dr. Nordling – with good humor – of not having enough romance in his soul. Dr. Voelz’s number one goal when teaching a class is to instill a sense of excitement in his students for the original text, which they can someday pass on to their congregations. As such, his methodology is less technical, jumping more quickly into the deeper dimensions of the text so that a seminarian can quickly begin to open up the language of the New Testament like a flower, even if his understanding of the rules commanding Greek isn’t yet set. Dr. Voelz wants the newly ordained pastor out in the field to regret giving up Greek (“giving up real contact with the Word of God,” as he put it), rather than giving it up out of relief.

Though they disagreed fundamentally on teaching method, they agreed absolutely in purpose – or “why philological competence (strong linguistic skills in the Bible’s original languages) remains vital.” Dr. Weinrich, who was mediating, concluded perfectly: that both men clearly love Greek, and just as clearly love Greek for its purpose — to put seminarians (and our future pastors) into direct contact with God’s Word.

Seminarian Austin Meier made an audio recording of the debate. You can listen to it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rSvd3ElicQLIXjDXz-fXDwyjJVPNMXFy/