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| Chewie's Angels - The TV series they never made. |
When I attended seminary in 1970, the one in Chicago cost about $600 a year for tuition. The one in Waterloo, Ontario cost $150 a year, payable in two installments. Both were Lutheran Church in America. I attended Waterloo and we paid a small amount for a furnished apartment, utilities included.
Now the costs are enormous, as our researcher, Dr. Bruce Church, has documented. One LCMS District President was shocked at the figures - "Are those numbers real?" That shows how out of touch the Missouri leaders are. Only the top two at Concordia Publishing House can afford seminary tuition for their sons.
One LCMS seminary professor had no idea about the number of parish vacancies and said to me, "I don't know and I don't care."
Two aspects of Lutheran seminary education are quite ridiculous. One is that seminary has been extended far longer than necessary for accreditation. The schools could get the credits earned in two years. Secondly, the vicarage year was added during the Depression and could easily be included in those two years. Moving away for a vicarage is disruptive and riddled with political intrigue. Apostate pastors are rewarded with vicarage slots while others are denied them.
Donald Patterson, fierce slayer of kudu deer, is a genius at getting free vicars from the synod, freeing funds to go on African safaris and time to travel around as a bigshot.
Going to the Little Schoolhouse on the Prairie (Bethany Lutheran, ELS) is like paying for a stateroom on the Titanic. Will the sect be around on graduation day?
Lutherans - how did you let seminary education costs get loaded onto the students and their wives?
A million dollars for a sexual harassment lawsuit, but not one red cent for seminary education.
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| According to WELS-ELS-LCMS, Lutherans stood out during the Civil War in their teaching of UOJ. |
Worst of All - The Dogma
Lutherans have completely lost their way, thanks to the political appointments of seminary professors and their utter disregard for Luther, Chemnitz, the Book of Concord, and Gerhard.
One ELS professor was so dumb that he thought Gerhard wrote hymns - confusing the theologian with the hymn-writer Gerhardt. That is like confusing a Pinto with pinto beans - both terms start the same way, doncha know.
Just as ELCA's seminary system went completely lavender, albeit in stealth mode, the Synodical Conference has adopted Justification Without Faith as its dogma and Church Growth as its substitute for the Means of Grace.
As I have shown, the LCMS-ELS-WELS once taught Justification by Faith, though mixed with the Pietism of Universal Objective Justification. The leaders allowed UOJ to take over and - they let the liars pretend that UOJ is the Gospel and the teaching of Luther.
The nitwits could not find UOJ in the Bible, so they got behind the New NIV, where UOJ was added to Romans 3. Now all have sinned (granted) and all are justified (the extra all). As bad as the old NIV was, the paraphrasers never went that far down the rathole.
Just to show how ludicrous the situation is - WELS DP Seifert never has any problem with the buzzing hordes of false teachers in WELS. He cannot even remember Frosty Bivens bragging about going to Fuller Seminary. But when ex-VP Paul Kuske complained about UOJ being taught at The Sausage Factory in Mequon, Seifert had Kuske's emeritus status revoked. Why not excommunication and defenestration?
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| Be instant in denouncing the blog, but forget that Thrivent funds Planned Parenthood and smears their atrocities in the faces of all Lutherans in their odious ads, their "free napkins," and their "free" flower charts. |