Revisiting Part of My Past By Reading From the Other Side

     When I was in graduate school in German at UC-Berkeley in 1975, I took a course in Luther and was very impressed. While I had Lutheran roots on both sides of my family, I considered myself to be more or less Presbyterian but had not been active for a few years. During that course, I felt an urge to check it out, so I attended the University Lutheran Chapel to check it out. What impressed me was how Lutheranism seemed to preserve the best of the old with the best of the modern.

     Pastor Gus Schultz wore sandals, an alb and chasuble (old) and there was an electric guitarist for music (new). I was hooked. I attended a few more times, then went to the UC-Irvine campus where I had been granted a teaching assistantship. Orange County then was very conservative, and I resolved to find a spiritual home there. I did, but that is another story.

     Two years later I felt the tug to seminary and on Pastor Herb Niermann's suggestion, attended what became Christ Seminary in Exile (Seminex). It was a wonderful place that gave me a thorough theological. pastoral education, a strong spiritual life, and some friendships that endure to this day. In 1979 I realized that its future was in jeopardy. After a long process, I transferred m membership from the Lutheran Chruch-Missouri Synod (LCMS) to the Lutheran Church in America and then went to the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, graduating in 1981 and being ordained that same year.

     I read a lot about the "Missouri Civil War".  D. David Scaer taught at the Springfield and Fort Wayne LCMS seminaries (they eventually merged), and is an opponent of all that Seminex stood for. That is is right, and he is a renowned scholar. in systematic and biblical theology. After reading this book, I am glad that I did not remain in the LCMS.

     Oh, I could have. I am German-speaking, and that would have been a plus. But I saw too many careers and families suffering because of what went on. My fear was that even if I made it through seminary and was ordained, down the road someone would take exception to something that I said, and I would have been in trouble. 

     That happened to Scaer. Someone who was no way near his equal in scholarship brought charges of false doctrine against him. It took years to be resolved. At the same time Scaer was Academic Dean at the Fort Wayne Seminary, and constantly felt pressured, living in fear of losing his position on the faculty. 

     I found it interesting that Scaer portrayed John Tietjen, St. Louis Seminary president who became Seminex president as overly political but sang the praises of his counterpart Robert Preus. The latter found himself subjected to horrible pressures for his theology (and his brother Jacob was LCMS president even). 

    For me, this was a sad but affirming read.I made the right choice, thanks be to God. After the moderates were expelled from the LCMS, the High Church contingent (I am one of those) and other groups were weeded out. The image that comes to be is of Chronos eating his young. Those interested in an interesting time of American Church History in the 20th Century will enjoy this. There were also upheavals in other denominations.