Seminex

In the 1820s, a group of Saxon German immigrants migrated to the United States and settled in Perry County, Missouri. These immigrants were fleeing the forced union of German churches by royal fiat. Seizing the opportunity to freely practice their confession these immigrants, eventually led by C. F. W. Walther, established what would eventually become known as the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. Reacting against the rise of theologians such as Albrecht Ritschl and Friedrich Schleiermacher, Walther emphasized the inspiration and authority of the Bible as well as a strict adherence to the Lutheran Confessions.[1]

In addition to a strict adherence to the Lutheran Confessions, Walther also sought to ensure that the new synod was decentralized and congregational. No congregation could be compelled to accept any resolution from a synodical convention or presidential decree that was contrary to the Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions. Each congregation is to be properly taught by a pastor who has been certified for the ministry by one of the official seminaries of the Synod. The seminaries themselves are overseen by the synodical president, who could not take any action against any official of the synod unless empowered by a resolution passed by the Synod in Convention. It was this governing structure that was to be sorely tested in the Seminex Crisis.[2][3]

Under the presidency of Alfred Fuerbringer (1953-1969), Concordia Seminary in St. Louis had developed a reputation as a more liberal institution within the LCMS due to its teaching of historical-critical methods of biblical interpretation. Though the charges were reformulated in several different reports, they generally held that the faculty (and, particularly, members of the exegetical theology department) were using historical-critical methods for biblical interpretation, and that these professors improperly stressed the importance of the doctrine or teaching of the Gospel (forgiveness of sins in Christ) over the importance of the whole of the Christian Bible. The September 1, 1972, Report of the Synodical President itself states:

While the issues are many and complex, the St. Louis Seminary faculty and the synodical President at a meeting on May 17, 1972, agreed that the basic issue is the relationship between the Scriptures and the Gospel. To put the matter in other words, the question is whether the Scriptures are the norm of our faith and life or whether the Gospel alone is that norm?

Sensing that the Missouri Synod was changing its theological position, two conservative Lutheran church bodies, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Wisconsin Synod, who had been in altar and pulpit fellowship with the LCMS for a century, suspended that fellowship with the LCMS in 1955 and 1961, respectively,[7] and withdrew from the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference in 1963, a body the synods had co-founded in 1872.[8]

Beginning in 1959 and continuing through 1973, the laity in the LCMS reacted to the growing modernism at Concordia Seminary by passing a series of seventeen resolutions either affirming full biblical inerrancy or condemning the spread of "antiscriptural teaching" in the Synod.[9] President Fuerbringer roundly ignored these resolutions as well as the growing discontent in the synod. Many conservatives in the LCMS asked whether the seminary was serving the denomination or the denomination was serving the seminary.[10]

At the end of 1968, Fuerbringer announced his retirement as president of Concordia Seminary, triggering the selection process for his replacement. Presidents of the LCMS seminaries were elected by a vote of the following four entities, with each entity getting one vote: the president of the LCMS, the president of the district in which the institution is located (in this case, the Missouri District), the seminary Board of Control, and the LCMS Board of Higher Education. At the time, these positions were all under the control of either supporters of the ecumenical movement or theological modernists.[11]

Among this group, there was increasing concern that the incumbent synodical president, Oliver Harms, was going to lose reelection. Harms was a key supporter of the Lutheran Council in the United States of America and other inter-Lutheran cooperation, and the modernist faction was concerned that confessional insurgents would disrupt the process of selection for presidency of Concordia Seminary; hindering the greater goal of Lutheran unity. In addition, members of the seminary's Board of Control would be elected at the convention. There was great urgency to complete the process of selecting a new seminary president before the upcoming Synod in Convention could interfere.[11][12] While the procedure for actually electing the seminary president was normal, the timing was unusual in that It was the first time a new president of the seminary would be elected before the actual retirement of his predecessor.[13]

In May 1969, John Tietjen was selected president of Concordia Seminary after sixteen years as a minister in New Jersey and three years heading the public relations division of the Lutheran Council in the United States of America. Although a virtual unknown among the broader synod, Tietjen was well known in the ecumenical movement. The selection of Tietjen caused great excitement among the faculty of Concordia Seminary and in wider Lutheran circles. In the words of the wife of Ed Schroeder (then a professor at the seminary), "Tietjen is the one we wanted".[11]

Two months later, Jacob Preus—then the president of the other LCMS seminary, Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, Illinois—was elected president of the synod in an upset over the incumbent Harms. Preus's 1969 campaign for the LCMS presidency was supported by conservatives within the church body who opposed moves by Harms to have altar and pulpit fellowship with the American Lutheran Church, which did not hold the Bible as infallible and inerrant. Preus's supporters wanted to see the LCMS, and especially its colleges and seminaries, adopt more uniform orthodox and confessional theological stances.[14]

Within a year of assuming office, Preus established a Fact Finding Committee to examine the teachings of forty-five professors. The committee presented this complete report to President Preus on June 15, 1971. Two weeks later Preus sent the total report to the seminary Board of Control and seminary president Tietjen.[15]

That report,[15] called "The Blue Book" due to its cover, was mailed to all congregations and pastors of the LCMS in September 1972. The main bulk of the report consisted of a large number of quotations from the transcripts of the interviews with the seminary faculty members, whose anonymity was protected. The Blue Book had a powerful effect in the LCMS. Based upon the committee's findings, the seminary's board of control was instructed "to take appropriate action on the basis of the report, commending or correcting where necessary ... That the Board of Control report progress directly to the President of Synod and the Board for Higher Education".[16]

The seminary's board of control however had a 6-5 majority in favor of Tietjen and the faculty, and in February 1973 by a 6-5 vote, the board commended each member as faithful to Scripture and the Lutheran confessions. But later in 1973, the LCMS convention in New Orleans condemned the seminary's faculty in a resolution that charged them with "abolish[ing] the formal principle, sola Scriptura (i.e. that all doctrines are derived from the Scripture and the Scripture is the sole norm of all doctrine)".[17] A new, more conservative seminary board of control was also elected at that convention, and the new board quickly proceeded to suspend Tietjen from the presidency of Concordia Seminary in August 1973. The suspension was initially delayed and then "vacated" while various groups in the LCMS attempted to find a route toward reconciliation, but Tietjen was again suspended on January 20 of the following year.

The day after Tietjen's second suspension, some of the seminary's students and faculty registered their protest. A group of students organized a moratorium on classes (which had been planned in the fall but was delayed because of the death of Arthur Carl Piepkorn, the graduate professor of systematic theology) on December 13, causing the Seminary Board of Control to cancel its December 19 board meeting.

A large majority of the seminary's students voted on the morning of February 19 to continue their education under the terminated faculty at an off-campus site. Immediately after the students passed their resolution, they and the faculty staged a dramatic walkout, inviting the local press for the occasion.[18][19] Singing "The Church's One Foundation", they processed out of the seminary grounds, where students planted white crosses bearing their names. The event attracted a great deal of media attention. However, the seminary's Board of Control subsequently accused the students of disingenuous posturing, noting that the students had returned to the seminary cafeteria for lunch immediately after their supposed departure and continued to live in student housing for the remainder of the term.

The next day, classes officially began at Concordia Seminary in Exile (Seminex) in facilities provided by Eden Seminary and Saint Louis University. Since Seminex was not yet an accredited school, an arrangement was made with the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) whereby the first class of Seminex graduates would officially receive their diplomas from LSTC. The first graduation was held in the neo-Gothic quadrangle of Washington University in St. Louis. John Tietjen, who in October 1974 was finally removed as president of Concordia Seminary, was elected president of Seminex in February 1975.

Within a year and a half of its inception, Seminex had acquired its own facilities at 607 North Grand Boulevard and then, following water damage to that building, at 539 North Grand. The institution also immediately received provisional accreditation through the Association of Theological Schools.[20] No longer acknowledging the legitimacy of Concordia Seminary and its new administration led by Martin Scharlemann, Seminex faculty and students referred to that institution simply as "801", after its address at 801 DeMun Avenue. However, facing legal action from Concordia, the exiled seminary eventually changed its official name from "Concordia Seminary in Exile" to "Christ Seminary-Seminex" in October 1977.

In the wake of conservative advancements at the 1973 LCMS convention, opponents had convened a conference in Chicago to chart out strategies. The conference's 800 delegates promised moral and financial support for church members who faced pressure due to their opposition to the actions of the LCMS convention. They also formed a new organization, Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM), to serve as a network and rallying point for the liberal wing of the LCMS. ELIM provided financial support to Seminex, along with public-relations assistance via its twice-monthly newspaper, Missouri in Perspective.[21]

In an attempt to drum up support for their cause, Seminex students barnstormed the nation as part of "Operation Outreach", meeting with LCMS congregations to explain their perspective of what happening in the rapidly evolving situation in St. Louis. Tietjen and the other suspended faculty also contacted various congregations of the Synod to enlist their support. Tietjen fully expected a minimum of 1200 congregations of the synod would leave when asked.[12][22]

As part of the process of ordination in the Missouri Synod, a prospective pastor must be certified for ministry, and per the LCMS constitution, only an official seminary of the Synod could issue those certifications.[23] By 1974, there were two institutions in Saint Louis claiming to be the official seminary, with both of them issuing certifications for the ministry.[24] The expectation of Seminex backers was that if they could place enough of their graduates into pastoral positions, the overall synod would be forced to recognize Seminex as an official seminary of the LCMS.[12] Privately, more than half of the district presidents gave their support to the Seminex faction and indicated that they would place graduates of Seminex as vicars and pastors, giving Seminex good reason for hope that they would eventually prevail.[20] Beginning in 1974, presidents of eight of the 35 LCMS districts (equivalent of a diocese) began placing graduates of Seminex as pastors of LCMS congregations in violation of the LCMS bylaws and constitution. Outraged, the Synod in Convention passed a resolution demanding those districts cease placing Seminex graduates and granting the synodical president the power to remove a district president if the latter refused. Four of the districts subsequently ceased, while four defied the Synod in Convention. By 1976, the four dissident district presidents had been ousted from their office and subsequently resigned from the Synod.[25]

After the expulsion, a movement to leave the Synod took shape among dissident congregations and church officials, most of them members of ELIM or congregations that had ordained a Seminex graduate.[25] The largest number of departures came from the LCMS' non-geographical English District. In the end, more than 200 congregations left the LCMS,[26] a small fraction of what Tietjen had expected.[22]

In December 1976, the departing congregations formed a new, independent church body, the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC). The AELC proved to be a more socially and theologically liberal church than the LCMS, and shortly after its inception, it departed from LCMS practice on ordination by opening the ministry to women. Furthermore, the new body immediately declared full communion with bodies such as the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America, and declared its intent to join the National Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation.[27] To ministers and parishioners who remained with the LCMS, this and other moves by the fledgling AELC validated earlier concerns about the faculty majority at Concordia Seminary.

This new church body garnered far fewer dissident LCMS congregations than its leaders had initially expected. With congregations totaling about 100,000 members, the AELC represented less than 4 percent of the 2.7 million members of the LCMS. In consequence, the break-away organization could not provide nearly enough pastoral positions for all the graduates of Seminex, whose enrollment began to sharply decline.[28]

Humboldt Building at 539 N Grand Blvd in 2012. Seminex moved to this building in 1982.

Starting in 1974, the LCMS made clear to prospective students that there was no chance of ordination in the synod unless course credits were obtained in official LCMS seminaries.[29] The synod also barred Seminex recruiters from the Concordia University System.[29] In 1975, the Synod voted to close Concordia Senior College in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which had served as a pipeline for students into Seminex.

Due primarily to its difficulties placing graduates in ministerial positions, Seminex enrollment sharply declined over the next decade.[30] By the end of the 1970s, any hope that a large number of LCMS congregations would leave had been extinguished, forcing Tietjen (who was now president of Christ Seminary-Seminex) to begin laying off faculty that had walked out. In addition, the seminary was torn between positioning itself solely as the seminary for the AELC, which would have made it difficult to continue to solicit donations from supporters in the LCMS who had remained in that synod, and reshaping itself as a "pan-Lutheran" seminary that would serve many different Lutheran church bodies. By the beginning of the 1980s, it was clear that there was no possibility of Christ Seminary-Seminex's continuing to exist as a stand-alone institution.

In anticipation of the merger that resulted in the formation of the ELCA, Seminex ultimately dispersed its faculty and students to several seminaries of the ALC and LCA around the country, including the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC), Wartburg Theological Seminary , and Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary.[30] The last St. Louis commencement was held in May 1983, although Seminex continued to exist as an educational institution on the LSTC campus in Chicago through the end of 1987.[31] Several professorial chairs at LSTC are still named after Christ Seminary-Seminex.

• Adams, James E. Preus of Missouri and the Great Lutheran Civil War. New York: Harper and Row, 1977. ISBN 0-06-060071-3
• Board of Control, Concordia Seminary, Exodus From Concordia: A Report on the 1974 Walkout. Saint Louis: Concordia Seminary, 1977.
• Danker, Frederick William. No Room in the Brotherhood: The Preus-Otten Purge of Missouri. Saint Louis: Clayton Publishing House, 1977. ISBN 0-915644-10-X
• Krentz, Edgar. The Historical-critical Method. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975. ISBN 1-57910-903-9 [A Seminex professor's overview of the interpretive methods behind the conflict.]
• Marquart, Kurt E. Anatomy of an Explosion: A Theological Analysis of the Missouri Synod Conflict. Fort Wayne, Indiana: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 1977. ISBN 0-8010-6049-4
• Tietjen, John. Memoirs in Exile: Confessional Hope and Institutional Conflict. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8006-2462-9 [First-person account of the Seminex controversy]
• Todd, Mary. Authority Vested: A Story of Identity and Change in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4457-X
• Zimmerman, Paul A. A Seminary in Crisis: The Inside Story of the Preus Fact Finding Committee. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007. ISBN 0-7586-1102-1 [This book contains two primary source documents in its Appendix: Report of the Fact Finding Committee Concerning Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, to President J.A.O. Preus (June 1971); and Report of the Synodical President of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (September 1, 1972).]

• ELCA Archives, Research Collection on the Moderate Movement in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 1932-89, assembled by the Rev. Henry L. Lieske.

• A 1999 speech by former Seminex professor Ralph Klein entitled Biblical Studies after Seminex.
• A layperson's account of the Seminex controversy's effects within St. Louis's Bethel Lutheran Church: Part I and Part II.