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Michigan State
Umverslty

 

 

 

This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

THE ONE THING NEEDFUL: THE CHANGING ROLE
OF CONCORDIA COLLEGE, ANN ARBOR, WITHIN
THE MISSION AND WORK OF THE
LUTHERAN CHURCH - MISSOURI SYNOD

presented by

TIMOTHY MARK FRUSTI

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D. degreein Teacher Education

 

(24,7,% Qt

Major prdflssor

MSU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 0-12771

 

 

 

 

PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FlNES return on or before date due.
MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested.

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

 

6/01 c:/C|FlC/DateDue.p65-p,15

 

 

 

 

THE ONE THING NEEDFUL: THE CHANGING ROLE OF CONCORDIA
COLLEGE, ANN ARBOR, WITHIN THE MISSION AND WORK OF THE
LUTHERAN CHURCH - MISSOURI SYNOD

By

Timothy Mark Frusti

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Educational Policy

2001

 

ABSTRACT

THE ONE THING NEEDFUL: THE CHANGING ROLE OF CONCORDIA
COLLEGE, ANN ARBOR, WITHIN THE MISSION AND WORK OF THE
LUTHERAN CHURCH - MISSOURI SYNOD
By

Timothy Mark Frusti

This study focuses on a small college owned and operated by a large,
conservative church body. It examines how the school’s mission has been
shaped through market pressures, increased competition for students and funds
from within the Church itself, drastically altered patterns of governance, and
uncertain expectations by the Church’s officials and conventions. The study finds
that, contrary to expectations, the college is emerging with a strong, though
Changed, sense of faith-based mission and increasing financial support from
constituents.

Primary sources for this historical study include minutes of church
conventions, the college’s Board of Control, and the denomination’s school
governance board; interviews with past and present college administrators;
accreditation self-study reports; and papers presented by the various presidents
of the church’s colleges to each other during the early years of this institution’s
history.

The college (along with nine other schools owned by the denomination)

has faced heavy criticism for failing to maintain an assigned, singular role of

 

preparing church professionals, in spite of conditions created by the
denomination making survival virtually impossible under the limitations of that
assignment. The college has survived by changing its programs and redefining
its student base in moves shifting it away from its founding role within the church.
These changes, however, would be difficult to characterize as secularization or
as disengagement from the Church’s aims.

The institution’s survival and revival in the face of such circumstances
provides evidence for an alternative way to consider the impact of market
pressures on faith-based schools. Typically, it is theorized that such pressures
lead almost inevitably toward secularization and increased homogeneity. This
study suggests that market pressures may, in fact, force (or perhaps enable) an
institution to embrace a changed yet distinctively faith-based mission in hopes of
securing a specialized recruitment and service niche within the increasingly

homogenized world of higher education.

 

 

Copyright by
TIMOTHY MARK FRUSTI
2001

To my dad and mom
and, most of all, Kathy.

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My most sincere thanks to:
Dr. Helen Featherstone, for guidance, encouragement, and a listening ear

throughout the eight years.

Dr. David Labaree, for helping me to think about the purpose of my work
within the Church in new and important ways.

Dr. Suzanne Wilson and Dr. Steve Welland, for reminding me Of the
importance of laughter and passion in the life of the scholar.

Dr. Robert Church, for assistance in this writing process.

Dr. Gayle Grotjan, Dean of the School of Education at Concordia College,

for extraordinary encouragement and support.

vi

 

 

PREFACE

History is not Often written from a participant observer perspective. As I
review the story I tell in these pages, though, I am struck by how Often my own
path has intersected the events I tell.

I was editor of the student newspaper at Concordia College in St. Paul
when its president resigned at the height of the Missouri Synod’s theological
crisis of the 19703. My father served on the floor committee which sent to the
1971 Synodical convention the resolution which sparked that crisis. My brother
was one of the pre-seminary students who demonstrated how simple it was to
bypass the Synod’s prescribed course of studies, helping foment the
disintegration of the “preferred route” of pastoral training. My wife was a member
of the last class of students forced to follow the teacher education route from
Detroit to Ann Arbor to Nebraska (with student teaching in Missouri) that Ann
Arbor’s President Zimmerman found so absurd. My college classmates were
part of the group worried about a perceived oversupply of teachers, calling into
question the wisdom of church-work preparation.

More recently, I have served on a variety of national planning committees
for Synodical events and have had a variety of worship and Bible study materials
published by the Synod’s publishing house. I have been on Concordia College,

Ann Arbor’s faculty for five years. It would be difficult to be much more of an

 

 

 

 

insider. The only thing missing from my Missouri Synod pedigree is a German
last name.

This presents the risk that my analysis could be distorted by subjectivity.
At the same time, I face the concern Maurice Punch identifies regarding the
political and moral difficulties faced by a participant researcher regarding
friendships and confidences.1 l have compensated for both concerns by
intentionally avoiding the use of faculty discussions and hallway conversations l
have been a part of as evidence, unless the goings-on were formally recorded by
others and made public as minutes or memos. l have fought the urge to insert
“facts” and anecdotes that come only from my memory rather than historical
artifacts and primary sources. I have taken far more notes and gathered more
data than I could ever use in three dissertations. Perhaps some day the seven
hundred typed pages of notes I have not yet used will be useful for other
projects.

I do not regret the time they took to collect. The Missouri Synod’s efforts to
maintain and make wise use of its colleges, universities, and seminaries strikes
me as both important and deeply interesting.

The story I tell does not necessarily make my church look good. It is filled
with foolish decisions growing out of godly intentions, resolved by efforts to make
the best of the mess we created. It is, in other words, a story of what it means to

be Lutheran.

 

1 Maurice Punch, “Politics and Ethics in Qualitative Research,” in Handbook of Qualitative
Research, eds. Norman Derzin and Yirma Lincoln (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994).

viii

 

 

 

Each of my chapters starts with an excerpt from a Lutheran hymn or
anthem. I include them because they provide eloquent and honest insights into
the Lutheran faith and mind. They are songs we sing often. All but one are
included in the Synod’s hymnal. We Lutherans could generally hum most of them
if you gave us the title. They reveal our confidence and our struggles. They give
public acknowledgement to our inevitable failures and of our ultimate trust in
Christ to make things right.

I include them because apart from the understanding about Lutheran ways
of thinking they reveal, my story would sound cynical. Many Protestant
denominations will look at a Christian’s actions that are foolish or driven by pride
and label them examples of “backsliding,” a fall from grace, or perhaps in more
scholarly terms, “secularization.” Lutherans recognize them as simple reality,
proof of our doctrinal conviction that God’s people are both saints and sinners at
one and the same time, needing constantly to trust in his grace.

Richard Hughes describes the “genius” of the Lutheran worldview as
being its acceptance of “human finitude and the sovereignty of God," the
understanding “that my reason is inevitably impaired, and that my knowledge is
always fragmentary and incomplete.”2 Put simply, there is a God, and I am not
Him. We are fallible, doing what we can by his grace to do his work. And so we
can sing and pray, over and over again, “Cure your children’s warring madness,”

without too deep a sense of hypocrisy as we sadly continue our battles.

 

2 Richard Hughes, “How the Lutheran Heritage Can Sustain the Life of the Mind," in From

Mission to Marketplace: Papers and Proceedings, 1997: Lutheran Educational Conference of
North America. (Paper presented to the Lutheran Educational Conference of North America,
Washington, 0.0., February 1, 1997).

 

 

 

 

My favorite question to ask as I teach Bible studies focusing on the heroes
of the faith is, “Why in the world would God use people like these to do his
work?” The Lutheran answer is always, “Because he has no one else to Choose
from.” Confessional Lutherans take literally the Apostle Paul’s statement, “All
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”3 I have seen, up close, the reality
of that doctrinal teaching. The history I tell in these pages is a story about that
reality, told with deep respect and a sense of humility as I see that I, too, am a
part of it, and one of those types of people God uses.

One more word about the validity of an “insiders” view before I begin the
story: I believe the fact that I am a part of this story is a strength. My perspective
provides a deep understanding of the issues, doctrines, and vocabulary
described in these pages that an outsider could easily miss. That will, in fact, be
my whole point in telling this story -- that an outside, disconnected,
unsympathetic analyst may easily miss what’s going on beneath the surface and
thus see “secularization” where there is only changing priorities among a range
of equally valid and valuable faith—based goals.

Clifford Geertz writes, “The claim to attention of an ethnographic account
[rests] on the degree to which [its author] is able to Clarify what goes on in such
places, to reduce the puzzlement — what manner of men are these?”4 I have
been trying to figure that out for much of my career as a church worker in this

Synod. I believe I am well prepared to explain what I’ve learned.

 

: Romans 3:23.
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, Selected Essays by Clifford Geertz (New York:
Basic Books, 1973), 16.

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................ xiii

LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................ xiv

KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................. xv

DEFINITION OF TERMS ................................................................................... xvi

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1

CHAPTER 1

Description of the Research Question and Study ................................................. 4
The History of Church-Founded Colleges ...................................................... 6
A Melancholy History .................................................................................... 10
An Alternate Interpretation of the Story ........................................................ 21
What’s Missing From the Argument .............................................................. 23
Another Possible Argument and a Theoretical Perspective .......................... 26
The Purpose and Shape of My Study ........................................................... 30

CHAPTER 2

Historical & Theological Foundations of LCMS Colleges .................................... 33
The Religious and Political Context of the Emigration .................................. 36
The Stephanite “Cause” Of the Emigration ................................................... 40
The Founding of the Synod and Its Institutions of Higher Education ............ 52
Birth of the Missouri Synod ........................................................................... 53
Defining a Culture of Orthodoxy and Change ............................................... 56
An Ironic Legacy ........................................................................................... 58

CHAPTER 3

Creating a “System” of Higher Education ............................................................ 62
Threats to the System .................................................................................. 66
New Strength and Growth ............................................................................ 68
Competing Purposes and Hopes for Higher Education ................................ 72

CHAPTER 4

First Steps: Site and Name Selection ................................................................. 82
Selecting a Site for the New ‘School of the Prophets’ ................................... 82
The Board of Control’s First Task: Choosing a Name .................................. 88
A Pattern Established ................................................................................... 91

xi

 

 

CHAPTER 5

Defining and Limiting Roles for the Colleges ...................................................... 93
Determining Needs and Choosing Directions for the System ....................... 95
Answering the Need for Additional Church Workers .................................... 98

Solution One: Opening Additional Campuses .......................................... 98
Solution Two: Limiting High School Enrollment ..................................... 102
Solution Three: Expanding the Present Institutions ................................ 110
Solution Four: Eliminating General Education Students ......................... 113
A Well-Planned, Well-Coordinated System ................................................ 1 17
A Theoretical Sidebar Considering Market Research ............................ 118

CHAPTER 6

From Confidence to Crisis: Concordia’s First Years ......................................... 119
A Clear Purpose ......................................................................................... 122

Dwindling Synodical Financial Support ....................................................... 125
A System with “More than Enough Capacity” ............................................. 129
“On Paper, a Fine Scheme” ........................................................................ 132
The Synodical Crisis of 1973 ...................................................................... 137
CHAPTER 7
Disintegration and Redirection .......................................................................... 143
“Think Creatively” ....................................................................................... 156
CHAPTER 8
Concordia Today ............................................................................................... 162
Students and Student Satisfaction ............................................................. 163
Recruitment Philosophy & Strategies ......................................................... 168
Governance ................................................................................................ 170
Faculty and Staff ......................................................................................... 172
Mission ....................................................................................................... 174
Institutional Core Values ............................................................................. 176
Finances ..................................................................................................... 179
New Efforts and Directions ......................................................................... 181
CHAPTER 9
Facing the New by Embracing the Old .............................................................. 183
Conclusions ................................................................................................ 192
Selling Out or Answering a Call? ............................................................ 196
What Has Taken Place .......................................................................... 198
The Need for Alternative Explanations ....................................................... 199
So What of the Concordia System? ............................................................ 205
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................... 209

xii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 6.1 Institutional expenses provided by BHE subsidy, 1963—1977 .......... 128

xiii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 6.1 Financial support of congregations and Synod, 1957-1981 ........... 128
Figure 6.2 System-wide pre-seminary enrollments, 1971-1976 ....................... 142
Figure 7.1 CCAA’s pre—seminary and teacher enrollment, 1963-1977 ............. 146
Figure 7.2 CCAA’S pre-seminary enrollment, 1973-1993 ................................. 148

Figure 8.1 Church work enrollment as a % of total headcount, 1990-2000 ...... 164
Figure 8.2 Donations to CCAA, 1986-2000 ...................................................... 179

Figure 8.3 Total endowment, 1991—1999 ......................................................... 181

xiv

 

KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS

 

BHE - Board for Higher Education. The Missouri Synod’s elected board
governing the church’s institutions of higher education.

CCAA - Concordia College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One often colleges and
universities owned and operated by The Lutheran Church - Missouri
Synod.

CLJC - Concordia Lutheran Junior College. The original name of Concordia
College, Ann Arbor. It was changed in 1975 when the upper-level pre-
theological program of studies was added, transforming it into a four-year,
baccalaureate-granting college.

CUS - Concordia University System. The legal name of the association of the ten
colleges and universities owned and operated by the LCMS. The CUS is
an officially recognized “auxiliary” organization of the Synod.

LCMS - The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. A national affiliation of Lutheran
congregations with headquarters in St. Louis. Traditionally a theologically
conservative denomination. The Synod is made up of 2.6 million members
in 6,145 congregations. The congregations own and Operate 1010
elementary schools and 71 high schools enrolling slightly more than
200,000 students.

XV

 

 

DEFINITION OF TERMS

 

Confessional - A theological description of a church body which claims and
embraces a unified “confession” of faith, usually published.

District - A regional affiliation Of LCMS congregations. The Synod is divided into
35 districts. The Michigan District has the largest number Of
congregations, Lutheran schools, and congregational members.

Minister — Any of several officially recognized and certified church work
profession, including pastors, Lutheran school teachers, Directors of
Christian Education, deaconesses, and others.

Plenary Group - The regularly scheduled meeting of the Board for Higher
Education elected members, full-time staff members, and the college and
seminary presidents. It ceased operating at the end of the 19603.

Rostered - A Church worker who has been trained or colloquized by one of the
Synod’s institutions of higher education and placed into ministry in a
congregation or Synodical agency. All “rostered” workers are listed on the
Synod’s official “roster,” published yearly as The Lutheran Annual. Not all
teachers at Lutheran schools are rostered ministers.

Seminary — A training institution for the post-baccalaureate training of pastors.
The LCMS owns and operates two seminaries.

The Lutheran Confessions - The official collection of doctrinal statements and
papers which define the confessional Lutheran faith. Published in 1580 as
The Book of Concord.

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

St. Luke’s Gospel tells Of a visit by Jesus to the home Of dear friends - two
sisters, Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus. During the visit, Martha was
irritated because her sister was not helping with the preparations required by
Jesus’ visit -- fixing dinner, cleaning the house, perhaps securing extra lodging
for those who traveled with him. So she expressed her irritation to Jesus: “Lord,
don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to
help me!”

His response was instructive; rather than supporting Martha, he chastised
her. “Martha, Martha! You are worried and upset about many things, but there is
only one thing needful. Mary has chosen what is better.” Mary was spending the
precious few hours he would be with them by actually being with him -- listening
to him and learning from him.1

That reply has come to represent an essential, defining sense of identity
and purpose for many within the Christian Church - that its primary task, its “one
thing needful,” is to hold the teachings of Christ above all other concerns.

Much has been written about the history of church-founded colleges. By

and large, that literature has told the story of institutions that have lost, or, at

 

1

Luke 10:38-42

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

best, are in the process of abandoning their “one thing needful” in a relentless
process of secularization.

In this study, I examine one particular church-founded institution which
looks very different than it did when first opened in the early 19603. It has lost
most of the once generous financial subsidy provided by its mother church and,
at the same time, gained a great deal of independence of governance. Where
once its enrollment was entirely made up of those intending to become ministers,
its student body includes many -- in fact, a significant majority — who are now
studying for a variety of non-church related professions: business, aviation,
public school teachers, sports management, psychology.

Secularization theorists look at such things and see a college’s
disengagement from its faith-based mission and heritage. I will Show that there
may be something far different going on, as the faculty and administration brings
the college around to a new church-centered role which is still deeply religious in
nature.

I will argue that the secularization theories may get it wrong because they
often assume that a faith-based college’s “one thing needful” somehow lies near
the surface, and that its absence or decline is easily discerned and labeled:
faculty religious affiliation, level of denominational control, sources of financial
support, religious instruction across the disciplines. I will Show how an institution
can appear to have lost a significant proportion of such things and still be a
deeply religious, denominationally supportive institution, far from a victim of the

insidious secularizing pressures. In particular, I will Show that Significant changes

 

 

 

in programs or student demographics need not constitute an abandonment of
mission, but rather can be illustrative of an institution’s efforts to become involved
in the church’s larger mission, as it is freed from initial limitations of role and
purpose placed Upon it by its founders.

In the process, I will show that the “needful thing” which reveals an
institution’s alliance with the mission of its church may, in contradiction to the
surmising of many theorists, sometimes be strengthened through the market
pressures that we often assume upend so many best-intentioned efforts. For, at
least in the case of this particular faith—based, church-founded college, the
surprising result of those pressures has been the opportunity to do things its

founding Church body has wished of its schools for a very long time.

 

Chapter One

DESCRIPTION OF THE RESEARCH QUESTION AND STUDY

Although all the world should forsake and forget you,
In love I would follow, I’ll never desert you.

The words of your teaching, O Lord, are my life,

My joy and my peace in this vain world of strife.

“One Thing’s Needful”
Johann H. Schroder; tr. Frances E. Cox

Concordia College in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was founded by The Lutheran
Church - Missouri Synod in 1963 as a preparatory school (junior college level) for
its young people who felt God’s call to serve as pastors or teachers within the
national church body’s congregations and parochial schools. No other programs
were Offered by Concordia, and no other students were formally recruited. In its
fourth year of operation only six “general education” students (those who had not
registered an intent to prepare for a fulltime Church profession) were enrolled, out
of a student body of 508.1 But reflecting the history of nearly all church-founded
institutions of higher learning in the United States,2 over its relatively short 38-
year history, Concordia’s programs have been expanded and its mission has

become much less clear. In fact, of the entire student body enrolled at all ten

 

Concordia Junior Lutheran College. Self Study Report of Concordia Lutheran Junior College.
1 967.

 

 

colleges and universities owned and operated by the LCMS in the fall of 1999,

only 29% were even members of the Synod, much less preparing for full time

service to the church.3

These Changes in the enrollment and programs of its higher education
institutions have been accompanied by much debate and doubt within the LCMS,
by a sense that its training institutions may have lost sight of their “one thing
needful.” With those doubts have come repeated calls over the years to
fundamentally alter the Synod’s system of higher education, including the
possibility of consolidating its professional church-work programs at far fewer
Institutions and selling off the others to survive or fail on their own as

independent colleges or universities.4

Here, I describe and explain this transformation of the Missouri Synod’s
colleges and universities, particularly as it has been revealed by the shaping and
reshaping of the programs and student population at one of those institutions -
Concordia College in Ann Arbor - over the past several decades. By telling the
story of this one institution’s recent and ongoing struggle regarding its purpose
within the larger mission of its sponsoring church, I intend to challenge the
prevailing perspectives and approaches within the scholarly literature analyzing

the history of church-founded colleges, while exploring how an institution

 

Fredrick Rudolph, The American College and University: A History (Athens, GA: University of

Georgia Press, 1962/1990).
Joe lsenhower, Jr., “Schools Report Largely Steady Enrollments.” Reporter, November 1999,

1.
See, for example, 0.0. Berger, “Wither Higher Education in Missouri?” Lutheran Education

127, no. 3 (1992). This recommendation was also expressed by Paul Zimmerman,
Concordia’s first president, in a phone interview with the author (audio taped), on April 17,

2001.

 

 

 

supported by a largely conservative constituency is able to embrace and/or resist

historical, societal, philosophical, and economic forces encountered for change.

THE HISTORY OF CHURCH-FOUNDED COLLEGES

Laurence Veysey argues in his landmark history of American higher
education that the development of the nation’s colleges and universities was
indelibly shaped by a national discontent with European influence in the country’s
affairs following the Civil War.5 Although the EurOpean concept of the university
was embraced, its underlying structure of governmental control through a
centralized university was rejected. Martin Trow, likewise, argues that the
possibility of a national university serving as the model and head of a system of
closely aligned institutions of higher education was never seriously considered by
Americans, who created instead a sprawling collection of independent, highly
autonomous colleges. Many of these were established with the intent to serve
only specific population groups and relied on the uncertain financial support of
those various constituencies.“

Christopher Jencks and David Riesman explain that this pattern resulted
from the tendency of nineteenth century Americans to group themselves by their
distinctive differences, such as social class, ethnic background, and, in particular,

religion. 7 Hoping to ensure the continuation of their distinctive subcultures

 

Laurence Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1965).
Martin Trow, “American Higher Education: Past, Present, and Future," Educational

Researcher 17, no. 3 (1988): 13—23.
Christopher Jencks and David Riesman, The Academic Revolution. (Garden City NY:

Doubleday, 1968).

 

 

 

 

(particularly their religious practices) among their children and communities while
also striving to gain legitimacy among the larger society, such groups often
established their own small colleges. The roots of America’s system of higher
education are, accordingly, deeply set in religious, denominational soil. Historian
Frederick Rudolph argues further that the great “college movement” of the
nineteenth century, a period which saw phenomenal growth in the number of
colleges opened, was in many ways the direct result of the several historic
periods of spiritual revivalism (the “Great Awakenings”) across the nation and
their accompanying competitiveness and drive toward sectarianism among the
various denominational church bodies in America.8

The result of these twin influences - the rejection of a national university
system and the corresponding establishment of a multitude of parochial
institutions of higher education - was a flood of diverse, financially fragile (and
thus consumer-dependent) colleges operating in fierce competition for a limited
number of students. This led to a clear pattern in which these colleges, in order
to survive, eventually rejected the limitations established by the parochialism
inherent in their founding purposes and created instead a variety of new
programs attractive to a wider population of potential students. In short, in
overwhelming numbers, they tended to shift from mission-driven to multi—purpose
institutions. Jencks and Riesman offer a wry summary: “The entrepreneurs who

set up these colleges seldom did anything like market research before opening

 

B

Rudolph, The American College, 54.

 

 

their doors, and most were ready to redefine or blur their initial aims if this was
necessary for survival.”

This blurring and shifting of aims often included a dilution or an outright
rejection of their religious roots, 3 process which has been termed
“secularization.”10 This move away from sectarian foundations has, at times, been
rooted in internal conflicts or philosophical questions. Colleges founded by
Calvinist denominations, for example, faced questions regarding their purpose
due to their faith’s sense that clergy need no special training or credentials. Thus
their colleges were opened up to laity (at a time when few denominational
colleges would consider such a move) and with that opening came the necessity
of offering non-religiously based courses of study.11 Many church colleges
following this model would fall victim to the twin but competing intentions to be

both “strong enough to serve the church and wide enough to catch members of

other denominations.”12

More recently, supporters of many church-founded colleges have
confronted the fundamental question of whether a continuing relationship with the
church is even a viable possibility if an institution wishes to foster a sense of
intellectual integrity, for fear that religious faith is somehow counter to the

possibility of serious intellectual inquiry,13 a conviction Clearly reflected in Jencks

 

1O Jencks and Riesman, The Academic Revolution, 3.
See William Ringenberg, The Christian College: A History of Protestant Higher Education in

America (Grand Rapids: Christian University Press, 1984), and George M. Marsden and
Bradley J. Longfield, eds, The Secularization of the Academy (NY: Oxford University Press,
1992)

21 Jencks and Riesman, The Academic Revolution.

3 Rudolph, The American College, 56.
See, for example, Edgar M. Carlson, The Future Of Church-Related Higher Education

(Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing, 1977).

 

 

and Reisman’s claim that institutions continuing such commitments “cannot
compete academically with their non-sectarian rivals.”14
Coupled with these internal struggles were a variety of external forces
running counter to the sectarian foundations of many colleges. Included among
these are an intellectual climate that increasingly demanded scientific
“naturalism” as its foundation, rising national concerns for pluralism and diversity,
public distrust towards tests of religious loyalty, issues of academic freedom, and
the nation’s growing uncertainty and struggle over church-state relationships.15

Veysey describes yet another factor forcing the Changes within the

financially fragile colleges:
Once any one respectable institution moved in a new direction, others

found themselves under a powerful compulsion to follow suit. The
changes, if they meant anything, were bound to attract more students.

Colleges which lagged behind for any reason, including religiously
motivated traditionalism, had to face the threat of eventual starvation.16

The end result, according to these analyses, has been denominationally-
founded colleges in ever-increasing numbers moving away from their original
sense of identity as servants of the faith to a distinct secularism in which religious
thought or mission has little influence. In a recent study of seventeen
denominational colleges (published under the pointedly evocative title, The Dying
of the Light), James Burtchaell found that “wistful concern” is often all that
remains of the ties between these institutions of higher education and their

founding church bodies, even among those that claim to have a continuing bond.

 

’4 Jencks and Riesman, The Academic Revolution, 329.
15 These issues are raised by a number of educational historians, including Rudolph, The

American College, and George M. Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From
Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (New York: Oxford University Press,1994).

 

 

He characterizes these various stories of estrangement and alienation as sad

circumstances of self-deception, in which the churches have lost valuable

intellectual leadership and scholarship.17

A MELANCHOLY HISTORY

The current national debate over education provides a useful illustration
for the types of concerns that are also raised about Church-founded colleges,
through the debate’s focus on the nation’s teacher training institutions. These
discussions have generally suggested that the college and university programs in
which our nation’s teachers are prepared are in a sorry state and have been ever
since their inception as ‘normal schools’ about 150 years ago.18 One line Of
argument claims that market and political pressures have ovenNhelmed efforts to
thoughtfully consider the value and purpose of teacher training programs. This
has been accompanied by a decided lack of interest by our nations’ institutions of
higher education to take on the task with any serious level of commitment.
Jurgen Herbst, for example, details how the initial mission of many normal

schools was changed or lost as low cost and expectations attracted men and

 

1’: Veysey, The Emergence, 11.
James Tunstead Burtchaell, The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges &

18 Universities from their Christian Churches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), ix-xi.

See, for example, David F. Labaree, “The Lowly Status of Teacher Education in the US: The
Impact of Markets and the Implications for Reform.” In Teacher Education in Industrialized
Nations: Issues in Changing Social Contexts, edited by N.K. Shimahara and l.Z. Holowinsky
(New York: Macmillan, 1995). Also see R.J. Altenbaugh and K. Underwood, “The Evolution of
Normal Schools.” In Places where Teachers are Taught, edited by John Goodlad and others

(San Francisco: Jossey—Bass, 1990).

10

 

 

women with no intention of becoming teachers. They valued, rather, the step-up
in social status these readily available “higher education” programs provided.’9
This history of normal schools provides a well-documented portrait of
single-purpose, mission—driven institutions evolving into multi-purpose
universities. Within the literature examining that transformation, there is generally
a sense of a “selling out” of teacher preparation. While the multi-purpose
universities these institutions have become are valuable, their willingness to

continue the essential task of preparing the nation’s teachers is often described

 

as compromised, at best, suspect at worst.
Similarly, the literature examining the “secularization” of religiously-

founded colleges includes a sense of loss of purpose and identity. George

 

Marsden, an historian and critic of church-founded colleges, decries the current
exclusion of religious understandings and study from American higher education,
particularly in the elite universities which were founded by people of faith.20 Philip
Gleason, professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, examines the
evolution of the nation’s Roman Catholic colleges and universities, concluding
that they have lost both their sense of identity and an intellectually viable
rationale for their existence.21 Douglas Sloan finds that, at various liberal
Protestant Institutions, theologians hoping to reunite faith and knowledge in the

academy ended up pandering to the other disciplines, causing only confusion.”-

 

19 Jurgen Herbst, And Sadly Teach: Teacher Education and Professionalization in American
Culture (Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989).

21 Marsden, Soul of the American University.
Philip Gleason, Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth

22 Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
David Sloan, Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and American Higher Education

(Louisville: Westminister John Knox, 1994).

11

 

Burtchaell, one of the first presidents of the American Academy of Religion,
describes the disengagement of church-founded colleges from their church
constituencies and their founding purpose as “melancholy,” a series of stories of
misplaced mission in which the study of theology no longer informs nor
invigorates the rest of the curriculum.23

Among the seventeen institutions Burtchaell presents as case studies of
disengagement is the oldest of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod’s teacher
training institutions, Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois. Generalizing
from this exemplar, he paints a dismal picture of the entire LCMS system of
colleges and universities. He finds them buffeted by a crippling paradox: the
Synod’s national leadership provides “flaccid” governance of the institutions while
imposing “adamantine” control of the teaching allowed within them. The result, he
charges, is that the Church has “weakened the capacity of the synodical
colleges... to fulfill their mission?“

Thus, Burtchaell claims, the LCMS lost its greatest possible gift, “an
education in which the study of theology was a central and enlivening inquiry.”
One might expect to find rich and respected scholarship and leadership from the
Synod’s theology faculty. But the historical reality Burtchaell finds is that during
the early 19703, the Synod’s leadership “was so traumatized by the abuse” of
theological scholarship on several campuses that its response was “to shun

virtually all scholarly inquiry into Scripture.” The result at the Concordias, he

argues, is lamentable:

 

:3 Burtchaell, Dying of the Light, xi.
4 lbid., 531.

12

 

 

 

As regards right doctrine, conformity was traded off heavily against
energetic articulation or exploration, so although theology was the premier
discipline at the colleges, it was not particularly biblical in its development
or scholarly in its outcome.25

It is worth noting that the situation he found at the LCMS institutions is not
terribly different than the stories he finds at the remaining sixteen institutions.
They have all, he claims, in one way or another, become “disengaged” from their
churches, willing prey to a “very able,” or perhaps even an “irresistible seducer”
known as higher learning?“

Burtchaell’s extremely negative assessment of the state of church—
founded colleges represents a continuation (pushed, perhaps, to a new level of
sharpness) of a long—established scholarly trend of finding missed opportunities
and failed missions, an analytical stance which has defined the field of inquiry
and thus influences the public perception and self image of places like Concordia

College. Other key publications within that field of literature include:

Buckley’s God and Man at Yale. The discussion about an insidious loss of
faith and values among church-founded institutions got off to a rousing public
start with the 1951 publication of Yale alumni William F. Buckley, Jr.’s God and
Man at Yale. In this open attack on the claim that his alma mater was Christian,
Buckley argued that the institution had embraced a moralistic relativism which he

found contrary to the faith:

 

:: lbid., 531, 532, 536.
Burtchaell, Dying of the Light, 851.

13

 

 

There is surely not a department at Yale that is uncontaminated with the
absolute that there are no absolutes, no intrinsic rights, no ultimate
truths.27

Buckley pointed to a wide variety of evidences,” including:

. Christian faculty members who intentionally avoided relating their faith
to their instruction, even in religion classes, and (to Buckley’s
consternation) others who were “vigorously atheistic” or “confirmed

debunker[s] of the Christian religion?”

. Textbooks which were almost universally indifferent or hostile to the
faith.

. The Yale University Christian Association’s characterization (most
notably in its journal Et Veritas) of the faith as an option rather than a

foundation.

Trueblood’s Marks of a Christian College. In this 1957 study, D.E.
Trueblood offered a list of specific “marks” or criteria by which the seriousness of
a college’s Claim of being Christian might be assessed. 3“ Going beyond
questions of mere financial support or denominational affiliation, Trueblood
argues that the “first mark” needs to be “the penetration of the total college life by
the central Christian convictions." Simply offering religious studies is insufficient.
Rather, the judgment regarding true church-relatedness depends on affirmative
answers to the questions, “Does your religious profession make a difference?”

and “Can you show the fruits [resulting from the embracing of the faith]?”“1

 

William F. Buckley, Jr., God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom”
(Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1951), 25.

lbid., 8-19.

Buckley, God and Man, 16, 29.

DE. Trueblood, “The Marks of a Christian College.” In Toward a Christian Philosophy of
Higher Education, edited by JP. vonGrueningen, (Philadelphia: The Westminister Press,
1957)

lbid., 163.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As evidence, his necessary “marks” include a “notion of togetherness”
between administration and faculty; a “passion for Truth” (specifically the Truth of
Christ’s cause and teaching) as opposed to “mere objectivity;" and an intentional
“fellowship” among the institution's members, revealed by such things as
professors eating in the same dining rooms as the students. Such “mingling of
life in making up true fellowship,” he argues, is intrinsic to the idea of the true

Christian college.32

National Council of Church’s What is a Christian College? In 1958 the
National Council of Churches’ Commission of Higher Education weighed in to the
growing discussion with its own expectations of what the liberal Protestant
Christian college ought to be.““ To highlight the gap it saw developing between
church bodies and their colleges, the Council’s report Offered a quantifiable
definition: a college could call itself Christian if all faculty or staff members
responsible for policy decisions, plus at least a majority of the remainder of its
personnel were consciously and actively Christian. Further, to be considered a
Christian college, an institution’s preeminent discipline would to be the Christian
faith, the study of which is “at least equal” to the academic requirements in any

other field.

Wicke’s The Church-Related College. In 1964, the purpose of church-
related colleges was taken up by M. F. Wicke, a member of the Methodist

Church’s Division of Higher Education. Hi3 report, The Church-Related College,

 

“2 lbid., 155-157.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

adopted a new angle for negative analysis. He argued that this sector of
America’s higher education had failed to establish and communicate a clear
vision of purpose, relying instead on “cliches” that “appear so laudable,” while
“neglecting... the inherent potentialities of their own mission.” Wicke chided
institutions that were able to point only to Biblical study and required chapel as

the evidence of their uniqueness. While finding nothing wrong with the

 

“exceptionally great” variety among church-related colleges in philosophy, he
admonishes their great variety in quality of scholarship. “There is continuing
suspicion,” he claims, “that in many of these institutions intellectual rigor and

excitement are subordinated [either] to religious indoctrination or because of

 

sheer incapacity.”“"

Wicke’s intent was to refocus the discussion away from issues of a
college’s faithfulness to a religious heritage, and towards indicators of the quality
of instruction and scholarship. The report’s Foreword, written by TR. McConnell,
makes clear the argument (soon to be echoed by Jencks and Riesman) that
those choosing to stay close to their chartering churches and doctrinal stances

were academically suspect:

The church colleges have not always searched freely for the truth from
whatever source it might come. Many of them were narrowly sectarian in
the beginning and some still are. Many were suspicious of the intellect...
The best of them, however, have escaped the pettiness both of religion
and of mind. ...Free|y searching for the truth in all fields, they have
submitted religious doctrine to scholarly examination and evaluation.35

33 Commission of Higher Education, National Council of Churches, What is a Christian College?
34 (New York: Published by the author,1958).

M.F. Wickes, The Church-Related College (Washington DC: The Center for Applied
35 Research in Education, 1965), 28, 45, 95, 45.

TR. McConnell, foreword to The Church-Related College by MP. Wickes.

16

 

 

 

 

 

Pattillo and Mackenzie’s Church-Sponsored Higher Education in the
United States. In this widely Cited Danforth Commission study, Manning Pattillo
and Donald Mackenzie created a typology of criteria and categories which
seemed most useful for identifying a college as “church-sponsored.”““ Of the
nearly 1200 non-publicly controlled institutions responding to their survey, 817
reported relationships of “sufficient significance to be considered church-
sponsored institutions.” Based on the diversity of the types of evidences Offered
by institutions, Pattillo and Mackenzie found it necessary to argue against the
earlier trend to define a college’s church—relatedness through a single criterion
and the corollary effort to assign all such colleges a place on a continuum
ranging from little to high evidences of relationship. In place of this ‘one question
fits all’ analysis, they identified six criteria with which to define the college-church
relationship in a more complex and, they hoped, useful manner: “7

o the extent to which the institution’s Regents are selected by and/or
representative of a sponsoring church body;

. whether the institution is actually owned by a church body,

0 the level of financial support provided by the church,

. the college’s acceptance of denominational standards or use of the
denominational name;

0 whether or not the college’s educational aims, as described in its
published statement of purpose, are somehow linked to a particular
denomination; and

. the extent to which the denomination is represented among faculty and

administrative personnel.

 

3“ Manning M. Pattillo and Donald M. Mackenzie, Church-Sponsored Higher Education in the
United States: Report of the Danforth Commission (Washington, DC: American Council on
Education, 1966).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interestingly, Pattillo and Mackenzie found it impossible, using its six
criteria, to identify either Wheaton College in Illinois, or Bob Jones University as
fitting into any of their categories of church-relatedness. Though strongly
religious in character, both were independent of church sponsorship. This
exclusion of institutions which are outspokenly Christian in perspective and
program makes it problematic to utilize Pattillo and Mackenzie’s categories for
any purpose other than asking, “Is the college church-sponsored?”

Perhaps the awkwardness is inherent to their own occasional confusion of
their report’s purpose. At one point, they examine how one of the six criterion
may reasonably serve as “a valid indicator of church affiliation.” Several
sentences later, they consider another criterion’s impact on “influencing the
religious character of an institution.”““ But these are two very different issues. By
noting an analysis of an institution’s “religious Character,” they lead readers
astray from the study’s stated intent and limitation, which is simply to examine
how closely affiliated a college is to a specific denomination or sponsoring church
body.

Even more confusing, in terms of utilizing their criteria in my study, is their
avowed intent to omit all schools “engaged exclusively in the preparation of
ministers, priests, or other church workers.”““ I wonder, then, why they included
eight of the Missouri Synod’s junior and senior colleges, even though they directly
acknowledge that the Synod’s higher education goal is the “provision of a supply

of workers for the teaching and preaching ministry.” The authors note that

 

:3 lbid., 19, 30, 31.
lbid., 50. (Emphasis added).

 

 

“almost all” of the graduates of the Synod’s college in Fort Wayne proceed to the
pastoral seminary in St. Louis.”0 Nonetheless, not only is the college not
excluded as would be expected by the study’s self-reported selection criteria, but
is, in fact, cited three different times as an exemplar.“1
Ringenberg’s The Christian College: A History of Protestant Higher
Education in America. “2 In 1984, William Ringenberg took the old marks with
which researchers had Characterized the level of colleges’ relationships with their
churches and transformed them into a set of criteria by which to quantify the
“remarkably uniform” process of their move towards “secularization.” He noted
such marks as faculty hiring policies in which “being a committed Christian”
receives reduced emphasis, a decline in “the importance of the Bible and the
Christian religion in [the] general education curriculum,” and reduced support for
religious activities and Chapel services. Most telling among his indicators of
secularization is the campus environment in which an “increasing number of
students and faculty join the college community in spite of rather than because of
the remaining Christian influences,” leading to a culture in which the “deeply
committed Christian students begin to feel lonely.”43 Overall, the intent of this

broadly generalizing “history” seems to be to provide critics with a sharpened

 

39 -
IbICI., 18.
4° See Pattillo & Mackenzie’s Appendix D (pages 230-247), which includes the LCMS institutions

among the 817 institutions considered “church-related” by the study’s criteria. Quotes are from
41 pages 249 and 180.

lbid. On page 45 the Fort Wayne Sr. College is referred to as “a notable example of

generosity” of denominational financial support for its colleges. On page 149 it is described as

an example of an institution where “spiritual life has been highly developed." On page 180 it is

highlighted as an exemplary model of “a carefully designed unit within a highly planned

42 educational system...”
William C. Ringenberg, The Christian College: A History of Protestant Higher Education in

America (Grand Rapids: Christian University Press, 1984).

19

 

 

 

 

 

stick for goading colleges which fail to meet what many would consider rather

parochial standards of Christian witness and doctrine.

Hutcheson’s Are Church-Related Colleges Also Christian Colleges?

 

Richard Hutcheson, Jr., writing in The Christian Century, made the stick even
sharper. “4 He praised the Christian witness of institutions which were members of
the Christian College Coalition, most of which are independent of denominational
affiliation. But he not—very—subtly damns all colleges fitting into the various
“church-related” categories established by Pattillo and Mackenzie by asking two
pointed rhetorical questions. First, “Why must ‘church-related' and ‘Christian’ be
different qualities?” Then he pointedly asks, “Cannot some church-related
colleges offer a distinctively Christian education and atmosphere?”5

F. Thomas Trotter’s published response, written to defend the work of the
church-related college, does little more than twist the stick in further. He argues
that the “genius” of the Christian tradition is that it “liberate[s] people to explore
the world without constraints of ideology or doctrine.”““ I find his argument - that
the Christian tradition in higher education is best served by being “liberated” from

the faith’s convictions and teachings - to seem contradictory, at best.

 

DeJong’s Reclaiming a Mission: New Direction for the Church-Related
College. In this 1990 study, Arthur DeJong adds yet another voice to the chorus

that church-related colleges had become irrelevant, both theologically and

 

43 -

Ringenberg, 121-122.

Richard Hutcheson, Jr., “Are Church-Related Colleges also Christian Colleges?” The Christian
45 Century 105 (1988): 838-841.
46 lbId., 839.

PT. Trotter, “The College as the Church's Gift,” The Christian Century 105 (1988): 1098-1099.

20

———

 

 

culturally. They had become captive, he argues, “to the model provided by large,
secular universities” rather than doing what they ought to be doing, clinging to
“Christian tenets and a paradigm consistent with those tenets!“7

But rather than encourage a return to an abandoned focus on the
centrality of Christ in history and knowledge, DeJong argues that the Christian
academy’s only hope for renewed relevance lies in its readiness to challenge the
church’s most basic theological thinking. He calls on colleges to lead their
churches away from the nO-Ionger-relevant emphasis on God’s unchanging
nature to a more contemporary and relevant “concept of creativity” by
emphasizing “God’s... and man’s creative activity.” 4“ DeJong offers here a
provocative new purpose for church-related colleges. But by implicitly dismissing
the possibility that orthodoxy of faith or practice has any relevance in today’s

world, he goes far beyond what I can accept as reasonable for a scholarly

argument to claim.

AN ALTERNATE INTERPRETATION OF THE STORY

Through a variety of publications spanning a forty-year period, Merrimon
Cuninggim has attempted to refocus the discussion of denominational colleges
away from the use of “marks.” His most recent publication, Uneasy Partners: The
College and the Church, includes a study—by—study rebuttal of most of the writers

cited above. Cuninggim argues that the increasingly small number of colleges

 

47 Arthur J. DeJong, Reclaiming a Mission: New Direction for the Church-Related College (Grand
48 Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990), xi.
lbid., 81, 162.

21

 

 

which fit into the categories created by the various authors is not (as those
authors claim) evidence of disengagement from church roots. Rather, the
widespread lack of the identifying marks among institutions merely serves to
reveal how terribly “outmoded... or highly suspect” the efforts at categorization
have become.“9 There have always been “many opinions as to what was
desirable in, or even required by, the tie” between churches and colleges, he
contends. Efforts to find universalizing definitions are thus bound to prove
meaningless.

He argues that Pattillo and Mackenzie had fallen into a “trap” of
“categorizing the colleges on the basis of alleged marks or qualifications that
church leaders had once set or hoped for, but that no longer accurately
described the institutions.” Ringenberg’s defining criteria is an obvious failure,
since it “leaves out Catholic institutions entirely and denigrates the Protestant
ones that don’t fit his formula - which is most of them.” Hutcheson’s article asks
the question “of whether or not [the colleges under consideration] are ‘Christian’
[and] his answer is nearly always no.” If so few institutions seem to fit the
descriptive categories, Cuninggim asks, then of what use are the categories?“°
this strikes me as an insightful question.

Cuninggim’s intent is to create a forum in which each college and church
is free to define the basis and nature of the relationship on its own terms and
ignore baldly biased or poorly informed efforts of outsiders to tell them what it

ought to be. The problem (and he considers it a serious problem indeed, even

 

49 Merrimon Cuninggim, Uneasy Partners: The College and the Church (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1994), 61.

22

 

 

 

 

“dangerous”) is that these “certain churchmen and their somewhat gullible
counterparts, certain secularists, [first] thought their colleges fit patterns Of
external qualifications or requirements, and before long they thought they should
fit them.”51

As he surveys the literature, Cuninggim includes among these
misinformed analysts both the old “admiring and demanding church folks” who
originally ran their denominational colleges however they saw fit and the
“denigrating and confused secularists” who allegedly studied, but more often
simply dismissed or ignored, the church-affiliated institutions (the “tail of the
academic procession”).52 Among current writers, the guilty ones Cuninggim
primarily seeks to silence are the neoconservatives representing the newly-
assertive evangelical colleges of the Christian College Coalition. On the top of

the list is James Burtchaell.

WHAT’S MISSING FROM THE ARGUMENT

As an LCMS “insider,” I find Burtchaell’s argument reasonably well
supported and accurate, as far as it goes. What is missing, however, from both
his and the other cited studies is an agreement on what “disengagement” from a
founding denomination or mission actually means. Burtchaell provides no clearly
articulated definition of the term. Of particular concern is that he provides no

theoretical or analytical foundation for examining the question. Although his

 

:‘1’ |bid.,41,47, 50,66.
52 lbid., 116, 94. (Emphasis in original).
lbid., 43, 51.

23

 

 

 

chapters each average over fourteen pages of notes and citations, there is
virtually no reference to a wider field of literature providing a framework for
understanding how and why institutions change.

One is left concluding that the colleges he describes are failing to carry out
the mission he believes a Christian college should focus on, or to fulfill criteria he
feels are indicative of an ongoing engagement with its founding church. In the
case of Concordia, River Forest, his evidence includes the declining proportion of
LCMS youth enrolling in the Synod’s colleges, the declining percentage of
students preparing for church work vocations, the lack of a full-time campus
chaplain or clean of the chapel, and a change in rhetoric in various versions of
the college’s mission statement. In Burtchaell’s analysis, the shift in student
demographics from mostly Lutheran and church-work to a population diverse in
faith and occupational plans is obvious proof of secularization.53 A3 Cuninggim
points out, Burtchaell’s assumption of a neoconservative Christian definition of
the faith calls the usefulness of his analysis into question for any purpose other
than his own: the effort to show how far the so-called Christian institutions have
fallen.54

Absent from Burtchaell’s analysis is the possibility of an honest evolution
in the church body’s view of the purpose of its colleges within the context of its
broader goals and mission. When Burtchaell cites LCMS leaders and studies
offering positive explanations of the changes taking place at the colleges, he

dismisses them as “ignoring,” or as “cosmetic protection” which is “flamboyant in

 

5: Burtchaell, Dying of the Light, 533.
Burtchaell describes this as his purpose on page 851,

24

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

its understatement.”55 Missing a broader theoretical framework for his analysis, I
find it reasonable to question and reexamine his melancholy conclusions.
Cuninggim, on the other hand, is Open to most any definition of “church-
relatedness.” He harks back to his own system for categorizing differences,
published in 1978, and argues that what was true then is still true today: “All the
colleges on the line are authentically church-related in the way in which they, but
not always their churches or some of their leaders, have come to define such
relatedness.”““ The effort to define the term “church-related” is left intentionally

vague:

We should take note of both the awkwardness and the appropriateness of
the disjointed term, “church-related.” To be sure, it does not say much.
Quite purposely, it says less than “church-controlled,” “church-directed,’ or
“church-owned.” It tries to say more than “church-founded” or some
absurdity such as “church-sympathetic.” ...Better stick, then, to the
descriptive that say simply that a college possesses, and owns to, some
sort of relationship with a religious body, the terms of which are not
automatically disclosed by the term.57

He eventually adds criteria of his own to help identify the Church-related
college’s “archetype.” He avoids the term “mark,” calling them, instead, “the
things that such an institution must be, or have, or do, to deserve the cognomen”:

o a sense of its past and a visible appreciation of its history;

0 an understanding and practicing of the essential academic values,
including a respect for truth and for exchanging points of view,
concern for justice, and a sense of kinship among all members of

the academic community; and

 

:: lbid., 531, 529.
57 Cuninggim, Partners, 61 .
Cuninggim, Partners, 98.

 

 

 

 

. a relationship with a church that is “credible and mutually
understood,” which is to say, “college and church should be in
touch with each other in such fashion as to enable each to fulfill its

own purpose and destiny, in the exercise of its own autonomy.”““

I find this, too, to be valuable stuff as far as it goes. He intends to permit
all colleges that wish to consider themselves somehow related to a church to use
the term confidently and without fear of abuse. But he also acknowledges that we
“badly need” a new definition for the church-college connection.““ Perhaps he
intends his archetype to be that new definition; it so, it feels incomplete. Given
the argument that the old “marks” have proven to be pejorative and not
particularly useful in defining the relationship for most church-college
partnerships, Cuninggim’s readiness to define a church-related college as any
college that claims such a relationship provides little additional theoretical or
analytical help for an examination of where that relationship has been or where it

might be heading.

ANOTHER POSSIBLE ARGUMENT AND A THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

I would Offer a third perspective fer the sake of my inquiry. I suggest that
the relationship between a college and its affiliated denomination ought to be
explored via the continuity between the college’s programs and purposes'and the
underlying sense of purpose and mission of the church.

Cuninggim might not like this definition, for it seems to make the

denomination the senior partner in the relationship, calling the shots and

 

58 Cuninggim, Partners, 99—115.

 

 

 

 

determining the purpose. Cuninggim states unequivocally that the time has come
for the college to set its own direction. Burtchaell may find the definition less than
useful, for it provides room for diverse ideas of what a church’s true mission
might be, an unacceptable premise to the neoconservative evangelical Christian.
I believe, however, that it might provide a more useful exploration about the state
of the relationship between college and church and where the affiliation might be
headed. It allows colleges to remain fully in charge of their destiny, but expects a
reasonably authentic match of its mission with the intentions of the church. At the
same time, it provides the church the right to declare its own purposes and to ask
the college whether it can, in fact, be a part of them. If the two are at cross
purposes, or if there can be found no support for one partner’s goals from the
other’s affiliation, it seems reasonable to question the ongoing validity or value of

a claimed (or merely remembered) relationship.

Adding a Theoretical Framework: In the past decade, a new approach to
organizational theory has emerged which may offer helpful insight into the study
of educational institutions. This “new institutionalism” moves away from a
previous model in which organizational entities were seen as relatively
autonomous actors pursuing their self interests, to a newer model in which social
groups are considered in light of the larger socially organized environments in

which they function. In that light, researchers are reminded to pay attention to the

 

59 Cuninggim p. 93.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rules and norms imposed by the larger social organization, since they Often
constrain and shape the actions which the smaller organization can take.“°

An underlying assumption of this analytic framework is that, in order to
gain the support and resources needed to survive, organizations often ignore or
discount information about their actual activities and outcomes in order to
maintain the appearance that things are working as they should be. Sometimes
this disingenuousness is employed to create the appearance that the

organization is conforming to externally-defined norms or rules. In other

instances, it makes it possible for the organization to actually conform to those
norms, even though they disrupt efficiency in what the organization is intended to
accomplish.“1

At first glance, this theoretical framework seems to explain an important
part of Burtchaell’s negative analysis of Concordia, River Forest. He cites a large
number of “ignoring and ignored” studies and actions through which the LCMS
seemed to turn a blind eye to what its colleges were doing or no longer doing.“2
These instances may, in fact, be examples of the Synod’s leaders quietly
allowing the colleges to do what they had to do for survival while allowing

Synod’s general membership to believe that the System was continuing in its

historically taken-for-granted role.

Burtchaell pays little attention to either the denomination’s or the faculty’s

institutionalized beliefs or norms, ignoring their potential impact on the shaping

 

6° 8. Rowan and CG. Miskel, “Institutional Theory and the Study of Educational Organizations.”
In Handbook of Research on Educational Administration, edited by J. Murphy 8 K. S. Lewis.

1 (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1997).
Ibid.

28

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and constraining of the colleges’ changes. A prime example: he cites the faculty
of the Synod’s St. Louis Seminary in the early 19703 as having been “the only
scholarly working group sponsored by the church.”“3 But as the Synod found that
the seminary faculty’s support of several liberal theologians on campus at that
time was "schismatic” and heretical,“4 it would seem he is working from a
distinctly different definition of Biblical scholarship than the definition embraced
by the LCMS. Such attempts to force inappropriate or inaccurate definitions of

key concepts onto a group under study can only lead to questionable

conclusions.
In sharp contrast to Burtchaell’s, Ringenberg’s and DeJong’s melancholic

stories and condemning analyses, a recent publication by Richard Hughes and
William Adrian gathered self-reported stories of fifteen Christian colleges which,
they claim, enjoy “strong academic reputations" while managing to continue
serious engagement in carrying out their historic faith commitments.““ A primary
factor leading to Hughes and Adrian’s far more positive findings is their decision

to present each institution in light of the underlying beliefs and culture of its
affiliate denomination. In their preface, they argue that

to the extent that these institutions seek to structure their work around a
Christian mission at all, they inevitably must draw upon their own historic
Christian identities or church connections. They really have little other
choice... One cannot understand these institutions apart from specific

denominational perspectives.““

 

 

“2 Burtchaell, Dying ofthe Light, 531

“3 lbid., 532.

“5“ LCMS Proceedings 1973.
Richard T. Hughes and William B. Adrian, eds. Models for Christian Higher Education:

6 Strategies for Success in the Twenty-first Century (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1997).
Hughes and Adrian, Models, 4.

29

 

 

 

 

Hughes and Adrian do not cite institutional theory. The concern they raise,
however, regarding the role of “denominational perspectives” within the analysis
of a church college’s understanding of its own role and mission provides a useful
model of its application. In particular, it honors the theory’s contention that social

actors of all sorts—whether individuals, corporations, or colleges—are

“embedded in socially organized environments that generate rules, regulations,
norms, and definitions of the situation that constrain and shape action.”“7

Following their lead, I would argue that research on church-founded
colleges must take into account the denominational values, assumptions and

demands that shape and constrain the college’s ongoing development if the

telling Of the school’s story is to be accurate.

THE PURPOSE AND SHAPE OF MY STUDY

In the study, I explore how such an understanding of a church body’s
beliefs, culture, history, and sense of mission (as important examples of the
“rules, regulations, norms, and definitions” embedded within a church body) can
be applied as a framework when telling the history of a college founded and/or
supported by that church. The story of the LCMS colleges provides a unique
Opportunity to conduct such an analysis. Paralleling the nation’s normal schools,
the Missouri Synod’s system of higher education was established 150 years ago
with a primary goal Of preparing an adequate, well-trained supply of teachers and

pastors for the church’s schools and congregations. But the normal schools

 

67 Rowan and Miskel, Institutional Theory, 2.

30

 

 

 

 

described in the history of higher education were widely diverse in governing
apparatus and financial support with varying degrees of autonomy. The LCMS’S
institutions of higher education, on the other hand, have been closely governed
by the conventions of the laity and pastors of the national church body and
limited by the terms of the Synod’s Constitution and bylaws.

For most of the Synod’s history, those conventions repeatedly held that
the purpose of those institutions was to be the training of church workers. But a
growing tension between the educational institutions’ desire and need to offer
additional programs and the church’s contention that it could ill-afford to allow the
colleges to be sidetracked from the essential task of training church professionals
has continually buffeted the Synod.

Concordia College, Ann Arbor provides a particularly interesting case for
the examination of those tensions and the efforts to move in directions which
seemed at odds with the stated expectations of the governing body it ultimately
answers to, the conventions of the LCMS. Rather than tracing evidence of an
evolution of mission and role over the course of 75 or 100 years, the school
provides a unique opportunity to observe the trend in a remarkably short time.
Opened in 1963, when the student body at Concordia, River Forest was still
nearly completely church-work and the LCMS’s system of junior colleges, senior
colleges, and theological seminaries was at its peak, Concordia, Ann Arbor offers
a remarkably clear example of the move from founding purpose to a Changed

and expanded - and perhaps rather ambiguous - sense of purpose.

 

 

 

My study examines two intertwining stories. While my intent is to
understand the history of Concordia College, Ann Arbor, that story will to be told
within the context of a larger story, that of the Missouri Synod’s struggle to
maintain and justify the purpose its system of high schools, colleges, and
seminaries. This second story begins with a telling of the Synod’s founding,
summarized from a variety of published histories and memoirs, in order to
understand the power of both the church’s continued adherence to orthodox
Lutheran theology and its commitment towards the training of orthodox ministers

and teachers for its work.

32

 

 

 

Chapter Two

HISTORICAL & THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF LCMS COLLEGES

 

You led our fathers to this land, A land of beauty, bounty, pow’r;
You blessed the labors of their hands, Upheld them in each trial hour.

“Our Father’s God in Years Long Gone”
W. Harry Krieger

 

 

 

The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod has a certain reputation among
both its members and outsiders, nicely characterized in the Rev. Gerald
Coleman’s sermon to the Lutheran Education Association Convocation in April,
2000. Pastor Coleman, a physically imposing preacher, began by gripping the
podium with both hands, leaning towards his listeners, and slowly asking, “So,
how many Missouri Synod Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb?” A
dramatic pause followed as the preacher rose to his full height, glared at the
audience, and in a voice tinged with shock and bewilderment, thundered out the
cry, “Change?!”

It is impossible to understand the Missouri Synod’s continuing debates
over the purposes of its institutions of higher education without first
understanding the Synod’s orthodoxy of theological identity and sense of
mission. While the history of most American Lutheran Church bodies has

reflected a move toward an increasingly liberal doctrine and practices, the LCMS,

33

 

 

 

in both Constitution and action, continues to claim adherence to orthodox
theology and practice - that is, the effort to continue holding onto traditional
understandings of Scripture and its faith - as a defining and central concern. This
driving concern for conservatism of its orthodoxy is a fundamental feature
shaping its colleges and universities.

That orthodoxy is evidenced clearly in the Synod’s constitutional
requirements for membership. In order to join the Synod, a congregation must

Sign the Synod’s Constitution, with its “unalterable” second article which states:

The Synod, and every member of the Synod, accepts without reservation:

1. The Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament as the written Word
of God and the only rule and norm of faith and practice;

2. All the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as a true
and unadulterated statement and exposition of the Word of God.1

The “Symbolical Books” referred to are nine doctrinal documents which
were collected, formally adopted and published by the Lutheran reformers in
1580, in a volume titled The Book of Concord (often referred to as the “Lutheran
Confessions”)2 The authoritative and defining role of these documents in the
Synod can be seen by their frequent use in the various doctrinal statements
published by the Synod, particularly as prepared by its elected Commission on
Theology and Church Relations (CTCR). For example, in the first thirteen pages

of the CTCR’s 38-page statement regarding the role of social ministry within the

 

1 LCMS, Handbook of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, 1998 Edition (St. Louis: LCMS,

1998), 9.
2 Theodore G. Tappert, ed. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran

Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press), 1959.

34

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Synod, the Confessions are quoted seven times.3 The CTCR’S doctrinal paper
regarding the relationship between the Church and civil government includes an
extended discussion of the perspective on the issue expounded in the
Confessions, calling it “one of the treasures of our confessional Lutheran
heritage.”4

Like congregations, any pastor, teacher, or other church professional
seeking certification as a “minister of religion” also must sign the Constitution and
is required to make public pronouncement of acceptance of the Synod’s doctrinal
stance at the time of his or her installation into service.“ Congregations and/or
workers may be expelled from Synodical membership for acting in a manner
“contrary to the confession laid down in Article I I,” including such actions as
participating in the worship services or sacramental rites of any congregation or
group which either holds or tolerates teachings contrary to the Lutheran
confessions.“

The source of this conservative legacy in doctrine and polity, and of the
Synod’s accompanying readiness to formally condemn those with opposing
views, is revealed in the earliest history of the German immigration to American
which formed the core of the Synod’s establishment. Understanding this history

and the Synod’s early leaders also provides valuable insight into the role the

 

3 Commission on Theology and Church Relations, Faith Active in Love: Human Care in the
4 Church’s Life (St. Louis, LCMS, 1999), 5, 6, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17.
CTCR, Render Unto Caesar... and Unto God: A Lutheran View of Church and State (St. Louis:
5 LCMS, 1995), 34-41. The quote regarding “the treasures” is found on page 34.
LCMS Handbook. See especially Bylaws 207a, 207C, and 211d. Note: Technically, LCMS
“members” include only congregations and certified professional workers. Although lay
members of LCMS congregations do not fit into that constitutional definition, for simplicity‘s
6 sake I will use the term in the broader sense.
lbid., see Constitution Articles VI and Xlll.

35

 

 

 

 

Synod has expected of its institutions of higher education and why that role has

been so difficult to challenge and, ironically, to accomplish.7

THE RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL CONTEXT OF THE EMIGRATION

Late in 1838, six hundred sixty-five Saxon immigrants left the German port
of Bremen aboard five ships, planning to purchase land in the frontier of America
and build a theocratic community of their own. They claimed to be leaving
Germany to escape religious persecution, to establish a community where they
would be free to teach the Christian faith according to what they believed were
the Truths of God’s Word. Their intent was explicated in the “Brief Sketch of

Emigration Regulations“ signed by each family as the immigration was
undedaken:

After the calmest and most mature reflection [the undersigned] find
themselves confronted with the impossibility, humanly speaking, of
retaining this faith pure and unadulterated in their present homeland, of
confessing it, and of transmitting it to their descendants. They are,
therefore, constrained by their conscience to emigrate and to seek a land
where this faith is not endangered, and where they consequently can
serve God undisturbed, in the manner which He has graciously revealed
and established, and enjoy undisturbed the unabridged and pure means of
grace“ (which God has instituted for the salvation of all men), and preserve
them thus unabridged and pure for themselves and their descendants.“

 

7 My summary of the events leading to the Saxon emigration and the subsequent formation of
the Missouri Synod is drawn from a variety Of historical accounts, including published scholarly
histories (Forster 1953, Schmidt 1972, and Wentz 1955/1976), published anthologies of
selected primary sources (Meyer 1964), celebratory histories (Bredemeier 1978 and Overn

8 1967), and published memoirs (Dau 1922).

The phrase “means of grace” refers to the emigrants' concern over the proper and effective
use of several means through which, Lutherans believe, God provides his gifts of grace and

9 forgiveness to his people, most specifically through the rites of Baptism and Holy Communion.
Translated and published in Walter Forster, Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the
Saxon Lutherans in Missouri 1839-1841 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953), 567.

36

 

 

 

In the three centuries since Martin Luther birthed the Reformation,
German Protestantism had undergone several major shifts in theological
perspective.1O During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, it embraced Pietism,
a spiritual movement countering the prevailing formalism of church practices.
This Pietism sought to emphasize dynamic preaching and emotionalism,
rejecting the doctrinal forms of Lutheran theology and focusing on lay activity and
moral living.

Pietism was then overshadowed by Rationalism, an effort to apply the
scientific method of natural reasoning to the realm of religion. The initial intent of
those who introduced Rationalism to the Church was to use human reason to
make revealed theological truth self-evident. But the movement eventually

rejected the very idea of “divinely” revealed theology. The result, described by

church historian Walter Forster, was that

Problems of religious life were neglected, and sermons were devoted to a
discussion of current events, scientific discourses, and homespun advice
on... coffee drinking, drunkenness, careless bathing, the culture of
silkworms, intelligent agriculture, and the profitableness of potato

raising...11

The term “Protestantism” came to mean little more than opposition to
Roman Catholic dogmatism, the encouragement of free inquiry, and loyalty to
one’s own convictions. While embracing Luther’s insistence on the right to judge
for oneself the correctness of doctrine, Rationalism’s recasting of Protestantism
rejected Luther’s primary point: that the revealed truth Of God as recorded in the

Scriptures should serve the only norm and foundation of the faith.

 

1° The summaries of Pietism, Rationalism, and Unionism are drawn from Forster, Zion, 10-17.

37

 

 

 

By the beginning of the 19th century, the excesses of the French
Revolution had discredited the intellectual movement of the Age of
Enlightenment and Rationalism. According to Forster, a variety of new spiritual
movements were taken up in which people once again “felt the need of religion

and returned to Bible reading and prayer. Preaching became more earnest;

pastoral work was resumed.“

The move did not, however, represent a return to the traditional forms of

 

Protestantism. Rather, the movement

usually styled itself more inclusively as merely Christian, or evangelical, or
Protestant... The main purpose... was to call forth a real religious

“awakening” and to oppose a domineering Rationalism whose “liberalism”

all too frequently did not include the tolerance of divergent opinions.”

These movements were not, however, universal and a variety of religious
groups remained. An effort to merge these divergent groups eventually grew out
of the country’s growing nationalistic spirit. An emerging devotion to the State,
springing out of the struggle against Napoleon, led the national Church to try to
accommodate both the Calvinist Reformed practitioners (the faith embraced by
the Prussian ruling house of Hohenzoller) and the Lutherans (representing the
majority of their subjects). Thus, in 1817, the Reformed and the Lutheran
Churches (such as they were) were merged into “the Union,” a formal association
which highlighted commonalities and ignored differences between the two

groups. This model Of unity, begun in Prussia, soon spread throughout the many

smaller German states.

g

'1 Forster, Zion, 12.
Forster, Zion, 15.
Forster, Zion, 15.

38

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout these movements, dissent was often raised by small groups of
“confessional” Lutherans. Conservative in doctrine and practice, they resisted
any movement away from the theology espoused by the early reformers,
particularly as it was codified in the official statements of doctrine (that is, the

formal Confessions) published by the early Lutheran church. These dissenters

had little impact. During the Unionizing movement of the early 18003, they were

thwarted by both official and unofficial suppression.
The severity of the suppression, however, and the necessity of fleeing has

 

engendered debate. Particularly in the case of the rather massive Saxon
emigration of 1838, with over 650 people filling five ships, there has been much
questioning of motives. The earnestness of the emigrants’ “Brief Sketch”
statement (cited above) notwithstanding, many other confessional Lutherans
stayed behind, thriving in their home communities and Openly questioning the
emigration’s wisdom or virtue. An editorial published in 1840 by a leader of the

confessional Lutherans remaining in Saxony raised several pointed questions:

Does God’s Word require these Prussian Lutherans to remain in the
country or to leave it? If they were expelled from the country, the question

would not be necessary... However, no one has been expelled.
Furthermore, if it were true that the authority of the Lutheran [Confessions]

had been formally revoked in the Prussian territory, this would be the legal
equivalent of expulsion. The recent [governmental] decrees about the
Union... however, have not legally abrogated that authority; the royal
administrative order Of 28 February 1834 even positively and expressly

declared that the authority of the [Confessional writings] shall not be
changed. Under these circumstances it would seem that the clear Word of

God is that they should remain in the land...14

’4 Translated and published in Carl S. Meyer, ed., Moving Frontiers: Readings in the History of
The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,1964), 84.

39

 

 

 

Forster echoes the doubt, finding the Saxony conditions far less than

desperate:

[I]t seems clear that they were not actually prevented from exercising
any of the functions of the ministry which their own Confessions required
of them. Therefore, a moral or spiritual Obligation (sic) to emigrate as a
matter of conscience cannot be demonstrated...

“Conditions in the Church"... “Faithfulness to the Confessions”... The
desire “to save themselves and the Church”... All these considerations
combined had not produced an emigration movement during a period of
time when they [had been, in fact], more valid that they were in 1838.

SO why did they leave when they did? Forster offers his pointed

conjecture:

Something else must finally have been the determining factor... This
factor was the reaction which [Pastor Martin] Stephen’s self-induced and
self-styled “martyrdom” called forth in people who had previously fallen
under the sway Of his dominating personality. The basic reason for the

departure... from Germany was not a principle, it was a person -
Stephan.15

It seems, on the whole, a fair condemnation.

THE STEPHANITE “CAUSE" OF THE EMIGRATION

Martin Stephan (1777—1846) could be fairly termed a rogue preacher.
Fiercely conservative, he was a charismatic leader capable of engendering blind
loyalty among highly educated people even as he made himself and his followers
the target of suspicion and public condemnation. Although lack of formal training

disqualified him to serve as pastor within the Saxon state churches, he received
an appointment to St. John’s Church in Dresden in 1810. This was possible

because St. John’s had been granted in 1650 a special charter providing unique

40

 

 

 

 

 

rights and freedoms, in recognition of the particular needs of the Bohemian
population that had settled in the area as refugees of the Thirty Years’ War.
Although the congregation’s membership had become fully Saxon in the ensuing
one and a half centuries, the unique charter remained in place, giving the
congregation the rare right to choose its own pastor. They chose Stephan.

The 160-year—old charter also provided the congregation latitude in
practice unavailable to other Saxon churches. Although the legal status of those
rights was uncertain, Stephan took full advantage of the gray areas in conducting
both his ministry and his life. The result was public outrage, rumor, and arrest.
Public law demanded that appropriate hours be observed; Stephan insisted that
St. John’s charter allowed his practice of holding meetings and of counseling
members (including single young women) until the early hours of the morning.
Fear of political conspiracy had led to strict regulation of activities allowed in
religious meetings; claiming immunity, Stephan went far beyond the limitations,
often turning his congregation’s “religious meetings” into extended social
functions including chess, billiards, and beer. He flaunted forestry regulations
forbidding the use of campfires. His late night walks with young women were the
source of unending accusation and eventual arrest.“

But when he spoke of returning Christ’s Church to the truth of confessional
Lutheranism, he was spellbinding. Gathering a band of young pastors and
university candidates (few over the age of 30), he spoke first of forcing the state

church to return to the teachings of Luther. As opposition grew and accusations

 

 

15

6 Forster, Zion, 111-112.
Forster, Zion, 32, 67-69, 101.

41

 

 

 

 

circulated, he spoke of martyrdom and suffering for Christ. As the risk of
imprisonment become more and more real, he spoke of building a “new Zion” in
a new world, free from the devilish power of Rationalist and Unionist forces.

Then, at midnight on November 8, 1837, police Officers raided a lodge
frequented by Stephan and his followers, expecting to find them involved in
illegal activities. Stephan was not there and nothing questionable was going on.
Five hours later, however, they questioned a young woman who suddenly arrived
at the lodge. Though she claimed to have no knowledge of Stephan’s
whereabouts, having left his company the previous evening, Stephen was
discovered hiding and watching nearby. His subsequent arrest and suspension
from carrying out any ministerial duties were clearly, he informed his followers,
the sign from God that the time had come. Within eleven months all
arrangements were made and the emigration began.17

Forster’s contention that “the basic reason for the departure... was not a
principle, it was a person —- Stephan,” seems appropriate. Though their sincerity
of conviction is generally acknowledged, the emigration leaders’ judgment has
often been questioned, most pointedly by themselves shortly after their arrival in
St. Louis. Though Stephan’s followers faced ridicule over their alignment with
him, they had personally suffered little actual persecution because of their
confessional beliefs. Since his legal troubles were the result more of
questionable behaviors than his doctrines, other confessional Lutherans, those

not under his sway, found it difficult to understand why so many would blindly

¥

17

Forster, Zion, 100-105.

42

 

 

 

follow his insistence that they give up home, family, and career to flee
persecution or trouble that seemed mild, at best.

To his adherents, however - particularly the small band of young pastors,
lawyers, and university candidates he had gathered around himself - it made
perfect sense. It did not matter that they were not suffering. As Forster points out,

it mattered only and deeply that he was suffering:

In the eyes of his followers Stephan became the champion of orthodoxy,
the defender of the faith. They firmly asserted that the means of grace18
were dependent upon his person and that, if he were silenced, the
Lutheran Church would cease to exist in Saxony. Stephan’s doctrine was
unerringly true, his solution of a question inevitably correct... [A]ll who
disagreed with him, or with whom he disagreed, were wrong. Since
Stephan eventually disagreed with almost everyone, the simple conclusion
was that all other views represented in the church were false; only
Stephanism was right.19

Thus, for the sake of the Church, for the sake of their salvation, for the
sake of the eternal destinies of their children and grandchildren, once Stephan
was officially silenced in Germany, only one option remained: to quickly bring
Martin Stephan, the one hope for the Church, to somewhere new.

The emigration was difficult. Accusations of kidnapping accompanied their
departure. (Several minors were encouraged and enabled to join the emigration
contrary to their parents’ wishes). One ship was lost at sea. Costs ran far beyond
expectations. Relations between Stephan and several of the group’s leaders
began crumbling. Nonetheless, as the group traveled up the Mississippi from

New Orleans and reunited in St. Louis, consensus was reached to affirm the

 

'8 In Lutheran doctrine, the term “means of grace” refers to the means through which God grants
the gifts of faith, forgiveness, righteousness, and peace, in particular the written Scriptures
and the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.

Forster, Zion, 63-64.

43

IL

action already taken by Stephen’s lieutenants: Stephan was formally invested
with the title and office of Bishop. With his investiture came both the assurance
that the pastors and the congregations to be established among the immigrants
would “at all times and with unqualified confidence follow your further paternal

leadership,” and the prayer that Jesus would

permit you, as our leader on the way to eternity, to hold the Bishop’s staff
among us until the most distant limit of your - God grant it — very high Old
age, for our spiritual and temporal welfare, for the building of the ruined
Lutheran Zion, for the blessing of all Christendom.20

But this trust in Stephan would soon be the source of great crisis, as the
accusations regarding his actions and character raised in Saxony followed him to
America.

Though Stephan was a distinctly unfit administrator, he and the other
ministers insisted that his rights as Bishop included all aspects of the movement,
including unquestioned financial authority over the massive emigration fund.
Intended to cover all costs of the emigration (including salaries for the ministers
and the coming land purchase), this fund was planned as a profitable financial
investment for those placing their money into it, as the land would be improved
and then sold at a profit. Thus, many participants had placed their assets into the
fund before leaving Saxony.

Stephan’s undisciplined stewardship of those funds is well illustrated by an
incident reported by Forster.21 Shortly before the departure from Bremen,

Stephan was still under arrest in Saxony. Finally released on bail (paid by

 

2° Translated and published in Meyer, Readings, 135.
‘ Forster, Zion, 186 and 353.

44

 

Stephan out of the emigration fund) but with charges still hanging over his head,
he used his private carriage to flee to Bremen with his personal valet and maid.
Upon reaching the port, he felt it would be appropriate for the group’s leader to
have his own carriage in America, so at substantial cost, it was added to the
cargo. Once in St. Louis, he found the vehicle to be inadequate, sold it at a
substantial loss, and replaced it with the purchase of a new, lighter carriage.

During their months in St. Louis, the rank and file of the newly-arrived
immigrants were “miserably fed and probably even more poorly housed,”
crowded into poorly heated homes which rented for perhaps only $7.50 per
month.22 Stephan’s accommodations, on the other hand, were sumptuous (a $20
per month apartment with room for several servants), his expenditures for
entertainment and ecclesiastical vestments exorbitant (the chain itself for his
Bishop’s cross Cost the emigration fund one hundred dollars), and his salary
generous. 2“ The salary was set and expenditures perfunctorily approved by the
young ministers who had served as the initial organizers of the movement in
Saxony, now officially given authority by their appointment as an “Advisory
Council” by the Bishop himself. This was, of course, the same group who had
invested Stephan with the office of Bishop 3 short time earlier.

Meanwhile, the emigration fund was nearing bankruptcy. Employment in
St. Louis could have relieved the worst difficulties, but Stephan feared that those
who found jobs in the city might refuse to follow him into the wilderness where

their “Zion” was to be built. Thus, the Bishop decreed that only temporary

22

3 Forster, Zion, 330.
Forster, Zion, 353.

45

 

employment, lasting no more than a week at a time, could be sought. The
several professional men who had been instrumental in the planning stages in
Saxony had been shut out Of leadership during the Atlantic crossing, as Stephan
demonstrated both savvy and paranoia in dealing with any who questioned his
authority. The reality of severely limited funds, coupled with his adamant refusal
to heed the counsel of the group’s businessmen or farmers, resulted in a poor
choice in the land purchase. Little of the 4500 acres was ready for cultivation.
The soil was of questionable farming value. Few buildings existed. Though it was
financially essential to move the group out of St. Louis (given the ovenrvhelming
expenses of room and board), the land purchased and Stephen’s ineptitude in
managing its development made such a move nearly impossible.24

Resentment and distrust of Stephen began to run deep among the laity.
Likewise among the clergy, questions emerged and doubts took hold. Stephan’s
skill at playing one person against the other had worked in securing obedience
during the Atlantic crossing and the early days in St. Louis, but as the reality of
the financial crisis and their Bishop’s managerial ineptitude became impossible to
ignore, the Advisory Council began searching for ways to undo the damage they
had wrought in elevating this man to the episcopacy?“

The opportunity presented itself ten weeks after their arrival in St. Louis,
shortly after the land purchase and Stephan’s move to Perry County to oversee
the work there. Two young women, each claiming no knowledge of the other’s

action, made private confessions of improper relations with Stephan. This was

 

2'“ Forster, Zion, 384.

Forster, Zion, 391.

46

 

followed over the next several days by similar confessions from other women.
Some were outright admissions of adultery while others accused Stephan of

unsuccessfully attempting to seduce them. Forster reports the response:

[Pastor] LOber is supposed to have been greatly surprised and probably
was deeply shocked by what he heard. He promptly told the story to
C.F.W. Walther. Within the next few days the secret was shared with Keyl
and EM. Burger... Thus, for approximately a week the clergymen were
the only persons in the group aware Of what had taken place. This time
was used by the pastors in mapping out their strategy for dealing with the

situation. . .2“

The ministers, all members of the Bishop’s Advisory Council, expressed

dismay and profound surprise, but not disbelief. Forster reads this response

somewhat cynically:

As a matter of fact, no more nor less was known now than had been
known several months -- and in fact, several years -- before in Saxony...
Fundamentally the charges made by the women in St. Louis were no
different from those made already in Germany... The only real difference
between the two cases was that prior to this time Stephan’s lieutenants
had failed to place any credence in the accusations against him, no matter
what the circumstances were, whereas this time they believed the worst
only too readily... By the time the St. Louis episode occurred they were
rather thoroughly cured of their profound admiration for the Bishop, and
anything which promised to discredit him before the people or even to rid
them of him entirely was accepted without further scrutiny.27

The result was swift. Within a week, the ministers took it upon themselves
to excommunicate Stephan (in his absence and without testimony or defense)
and remove him from Office. Pastoral candidate C.F.W. Walther was chosen to
travel to the Perry County settlement, where he spent a week quietly building
support for the ministerium’s decision while intentionally misleading Stephan

regarding the purpose of his visit. On May 29, the entire St. Louis contingent of

k

2“ Forster, Zion, 393-394.

47

 

 

 

the immigration arrived at the settlement. The next day Stephan was summoned
to publicly appear before a meeting of the Council. The Bishop refused, denying
the authority of his self-appointed judges, so the charges were read and his guilt
announced in his absence. Stephen’s house (among the first structures built in
the settlement) and belongings were searched. He was made to sign a document
renouncing all claims against the immigration’s members, as well as a promise to
forever avoid the colony in exchange for a settlement of $100 and the right to
keep certain personal effects. He was rowed across the Mississippi River and
there, equipped with a spade and an ax, set down on the lllinois bank. His
involvement with the group was ended.28

The crisis, however, was not. Though the cause and scapegoat was gone,
the difficulties were just starting. As the Advisory Council attempted to continue
exercising on their own the authority which had been granted to the short-lived
Bishop’s office, they soon became the new targets of the laity’s resentment and
distrust. An effort to wrest control away from the clergy began slowly, but as it
grew it took both political and, importantly, theological form. Over the coming
months, as the initial storm quieted and the settlement began to take shape, the
crisis refocused itself on the issue that had originally driven the group to follow
Stephan, the question of their eternal salvation. They had left Saxony out of the
conviction that Stephan alone provided a link to the one true saving faith. His
elevation to Bishop reflected their belief that God worked His grace through the

Church’s ministry and authority. Now, absent the authority of a Bishop, the

 

 

 

27

8 Forster, Zion, 394.
Forster, Zion, 420-422.

48

 

 

pastors were left without the right or authority to serve. Without the hierarchy of
the ministry, the church’s sacraments could not be offered nor the forgiveness of
sins granted. These issues were far more than academic, as the colonists faced
the realization that their Bishop had not formally established congregations nor
assigned the pastors to their respective offices within congregations. Now they
were without a Bishop who could do so and circumstances did not bode well for
any effort to elect a new one.

These issues, both regarding the political administration of the group’s
affairs and the theological validity of the pastoral office among them, were first
raised formally by Dr. Carl Vehse. A lay leader of the group and originally one of
Stephan’s right hand men, Vehse challenged the clergy members’ self-claimed
continuation of ministerial authority. His formal “Protest” of the theocratic
hierarchy, published and distributed three months after Stephan’s removal,”
sought to discredit the clergy’s claim by pointing to the theological doctrine of the
universal priesthood of all believers?0 Based on this Confessional doctrine,
Vehse repudiated the Stephanite system’s hierarchical principle with its central
emphasis of the pastoral office and its view that a congregation could be created
only by a properly ordained and appointed clergyman. At the same time, Vehse
argued that the entire emigration had been a devilish decision in which the
people and the pastors had been guilty of idolatry (of Stephan) and disobedience

to their duties as Christians back in Germany. His protest accomplished little,

 

29 Translated and published in Meyer, Readings.

49

 

 

 

 

 

however, as the small core of clergy condemned his action of writing the Protest,
while effectively sidestepping the questions he raised.

Vehse returned to Germany and did much to discourage other
confessional Saxons from following the original emigration. The questions he had
raised, however, came to consume those in Missouri, until both clergy and laity
were paralyzed by public and personal questioning of their spiritual state. Were
they members of Christ’s true body, the Church? Or were Vehse and, later,
lawyer Franz Marbach right in characterizing the entire enterprise as a “rabble”
facing certain damnation unless they demonstrated repentance by returning to
the authority of the Church and the tasks they had abandoned in Saxony?

The answer came in April 1841 (two years after Stephan’s deposing)

 

through a dramatic series of debates in the settlement in Perry County, held in

 

the log cabin college the settlers had already established. On one side, lawyer
Marbach argued the necessity of undertaking an impossibility (in view of the
community’s financial situation) - returning to the authority of the Church in
Saxony as their only hope for eternal salvation.

Ironically, in opposition to that view, C.F.W. Walther took up Vehse’s
position, which he and the other pastors had dismissed 20 months earlier.
Working from the writings of Luther and the Confessions, Walther argued that
correct doctrine cannot hold that the Church (and congregations) are established

by the presence or actions of ordained clergy, since ordination is never

 

30 This key doctrine of the Lutheran church is based on several New Testament passages, most
specifically, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
belonging to God” (1 Peter 2:9) and “Where two or three are gathered together in My name,
there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).

50

 

 

mentioned in the Scriptures. Obviously, in light of their protests against the
authority of the Roman Catholic Church, Luther and the other writers of the
Confessions could not have supported the authority of an episcopacy or
hierarchy of the clergy. Contrary to the teachings of Stephan, in rejecting the
Papacy the reformers had also rejected the Papacy’s doctrinal claims regarding a
supposed primacy of the ordained priesthood.

From this perspective, in direct repudiation of the Stephanite views that
had shaped and guided their lives and doctrines only two years earlier, Walther
now argued that the Church exists wherever true Christians gather, that is (in the
words of the Lutheran Confessions), wherever “the Gospel is preached in its
purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel.”31 But
whereas Vehse had used the argument to call into question the validity of the
emigration, Walther now used it to offer assurance and stability to the reeling
community. Yes, the adulation of Stephan had been wrong. Yes, the emigration
was based on false claims and sinful pride. Yes, the result had been great
suffering. And yes, the clergy’s earlier claims to absolute administrative and
spiritual authority were shameful.

But there was no need to follow Vehse back to Germany for, since the
immigration firmly believed its members and pastors held the Gospel and
sacraments in their truth and purity, then their association with one another in this
new place was, in fact, the true Church. The sacraments celebrated in their midst
were, in fact, true means of God’s grace. The immigrants had every right to

establish themselves as congregations and to call whomever they wished to

 

 

 

serve as pastors and teachers. The Church did not draw its authority and validity
from those appointed by a hierarchy of clergy to serve as its ministers. Rather,
the opposite was true. The clergy drew its authority only through the individual
congregation’s decision to delegate the public preaching of the Gospel and
administration of the sacraments on its behalf to particular ministers through the

issuing of a formal “call” into its ministry.32

THE FOUNDING OF THE SYNOD AND ITS lNSTlTUTlONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The Perry County settlements established in those first two years
eventually prospered, aided both by Walther’s brilliant resolution of the
theological crisis and by the transfer of administrative duties from the hands of
the clergy to business and professional members of the laity. Congregations
were established, each with parish schools taught by the several university-
trained teachers who were a part of the immigration or by the pastors and the
pastoral candidates awaiting calls into the ministry. The first school established in
Perry County was soon transformed into a college for the training of new pastors
and teachers. Families who chose to remain in St. Louis built their own church
and school and were served by Pastor Walther, who accepted their call shortly
after the conclusion of the Altenburg debates.

In 1844, Walther, highly respected for his definitive role in those debates,
began publishing a newsletter, Der Lutheraner, which found circulation among

confessional German Lutheran pastors across the Midwest and provided a

 

3’ Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 32.

unique forum for establishing ties among widespread settlements, congregations,
and clergy. Foremost among these were missionaries and pastors in the
Saginaw Bay and Monroe areas of Michigan, the Milwaukee area, and around

Fort Wayne, Indiana.”

BIRTH OF THE MISSOURI SYNOD

 

The men serving these remote areas tended to be highly evangelical, that
is, committed to carrying out missionary work among Native American tribes and
among the German immigrants homesteading far from Lutheran churches. Most
of these missionaries had come to the region poorly trained. They came because

the pleadings of missionary F.C.D. Wyneken, who had arrived in the Fort Wayne

 

area in 1838, convinced Pastor Wilhelm Lohe of Neuendettelsau, Bavaria, to
enlist and funnel substantial manpower and funds from Germany directly to the
struggling Lutheran work in the Midwest.34 Among other successes, Lohe’s
efforts in Bavaria led to the establishment of a confessional theological seminary
in Fort Wayne in 1846, aimed primarily at providing accessible and fast training
for the men he was sending from Germany. This, along with the log cabin school
which had been established in Altenburg, Missouri, ten months after the Saxon
arrival in 1838, provided a steady source of newly-trained pastors and teachers

for the growing confessional Lutheran work in America.

 

3: This argument, offered by Walther during the debates, is detailed in Forster, Zion, 522-525.
34 Meyer, Readings, 177.
Suelflow, 1964, in Meyer, Readings, 91.

53

 

 

in 1847, prodded by both Wyneken’s and Lohe‘s insistence and gathered
around Walther’s doctrinal and administrative leadership, twelve congregations
and 17 pastors (representing both the “Lohe men” from the upper Midwest and
the Walther contingent from Missouri), met in Chicago and legally affiliated into a
synodical association, named “The German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of
Missouri, Ohio and other States.”35 its purpose, explicated in its Constitution, was

clear:

The conservation and promotion of the unity of the pure confession and
the common defense against schism and sectarianism, ...[and] the
protection and maintenance of the rights and duties of pastors and
congregations.36

Conditions for membership were strict and straightfon/vard:

1. Acceptance of Holy Scripture... as the written Word of God and the
only rule and norm of faith and life.

2. Acceptance of all symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church (i.e. the Confessions as published in the Book of Concord).

3. Renunciation of all unionism and syncretism...
4. The exclusive use of doctrinally pure church and school books.

Lessons learned from the Stephanite debacle can be recognized in the
constitutional delineation of the level of authority to be exerted by the young

Synod:

Synod is in respect to the self government of the individual congregations
only an advisory body... Should a congregation find a synodical
resolution not in conformity with the Word of God or unsuited for its
circumstances, it has the right to disregard, that is, to reject it.

 

35 J .L. Neve, History of the Lutheran Church in America, Third Revised Edition (Burlington, lowa,

The Lutheran Literary Board, 1934), 184.
The 1854 version of the Synod’s Constitution is translated and published in its entirety by
Meyer, Readings, 149-161.

54

———___

 

 

 

 

 

Likewise, a careful avoidance of any hint of an episcopacy or hierarchy of
clergy over the Church is seen in the constitutional definition of the Synodical

president’s responsibility and authority:

The general President... has and always shall have the authority only to
give advice, admonition, reproof... Other official administrative decisions
can be made only by the assembled Synod or by other respective
synodical officers. Hence decisions rendered by the general President are
binding only in those cases when they are already in themselves, as
decisions of the Word of God, have conscience-binding power...

The power of the clergy over the Synod was further limited by what has
been termed “Walther’s compromise.” Each congregation could send both a
pastor and a lay member to the conventions of the Synod as voting members,
with equal voting power.

Congregations were autonomous; the Synod’s authority began and ended
with the doctrinal supervision and training of clergy and teachers. Thus, a primary
function of the Synodical affiliation from its beginning was the “establishment,
maintenance, and supervision of educational institutions for the training of future
pastors and teachers for service in the church, and election of instructors and
other officers in these institutions.” Having determined this responsibility, the
young denomination needed to gain ownership of one or more such institutions.
And “fortunately,” (as stated in the words of an LCMS historian in 1922), “due to
the providence of God, two such institutions were already in existence and were
soon to be turned over to Synod as its property.”37 The first was the pastor and

teacher seminary in Fort Wayne. That school’s co-founder (Wyneken) quickly

 

37 W.H.T. Dau, Ebenezer: Reviews of the Work of the Missouri Synod during Three Quarters of a
Century (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959),105.

55

 

 

 

 

sought and won approval from the seminary’s financial backers (Lohe and others
in Germany) to turn it over to Synod’s ownership in 1847. The second was the
log cabin school in Altenburg, Missouri. Established as a co-educational school
for children in 1839 by three of the ministerial candidates awaiting assignment to
a congregation (including Walther), it had already been transformed into a
college and ministerial training seminary. As Walther’s congregation in St. Louis
became its primary financial backers, its members insisted it be moved to St.
Louis in 1850. Chartered by the State of Missouri as a degree-granting college in

1853, its ownership and control was soon granted to the young Synod.

DEFINING A CULTURE OF ORTHODOXY AND CHANGE

It is worth noting how radically different the political structure established
for the new Synod was from the fundamental convictions that had led Walther
and the other Saxon Lutherans to leave Germany ten years earlier, namely, the
belief that the authority of their clergy must be defended and preserved. The
extent to which this shift in thinking was embraced and demanded by Walther
and the Synod is illustrated by a particularly sad event in the Synod’s early years.
At the time of the Synod’s organization in 1847, Pastor Lohe, who had provided
such significant resources to the confessional movement in America, had serious
misgivings about the “democratic, independent, congregationalistic principles”
embraced by the Missouri Lutherans.38 The ensuing debate between Lohe and

his colleagues in America was described by an observer in Germany as “two

 

38 Quoted in Meyer, Readings, 122

 

 

 

 

 

enemy camps... vying with each other in their church papers from week to week
with an antipathy and bitterness which in truth is not an honor to Lutheranism and
Christianity.”39 Walther and Wyneken visited Lohe in Bavaria in 1851 hoping for
a reconciliation, but when he was unwilling to be convinced of the “error” of his
thinking, the relationship was broken off entirely.

A letter from Lohe to one of his own recruits for the American mission
work, who had become a follower of Walther and a pastor within the new Synod,

reflects the severity of disagreement over the issue of the role and authority of

the clergy:

i am joyful about your Synod and your work But far be it from me that I
should share in and strengthen your confidence that your position and that
of your old and new leaders, whose views of God’s Word and whose
direction you follow, is in all matters correct... Oh, happy scholars, that
you are now seated at the feet of such old and mighty masters...

But the problem was not just one of doctrinal disagreement, but the
realization of what was meant by the Synod’s constitutionally defined task of
“conservation and promotion of the unity of the pure confession and the common
defense against schism and sectarianism.” Here, in the question of the role and
authority of clergy over the congregation, was a clear difference of doctrine. To
Walther, this meant one thing: if there was lack of unity in doctrine, there was no
true fellowship. This required that any formal relationship with Lohe be dissolved.

Lohe’s response was astonishment and frustration, evident in the

bitterness of the remainder of his letter:

You [can now] only tolerate our kind in your midst in the hope that we [too]
may soon as ripe figs drop into the laps of your leaders ...You demand

 

9 Translated and published in Meyer, Readings, 184.

57

 

 

 

 

 

free mission territory as though you were the masters and can tolerate no
one as your neighbor who does not share your doctrine of the ministry,
even though he agrees with you in essentials... You have set your course,
your system, and are finished - and done it is and resolved... Our sort are
at best erring Lutherans and brethren. You, on the other hand, are great
and highly elated, full of the joy of truth and victory! We can only remain
silent...

What is there to be done? If we are not willing to agree with Walther
and transfer our private property to you and to your authority... then we
are to give up our activity among you. You are taking our people who have
emigrated from us, our students whom we have sent, the expenses they
have incurred, all, everything you are taking, and we can go elsewhere;
because [you believe] the truth is involved and the proof in this instance is
an easy one, that you can forsake everything if only you can preserve your
theological speculation. With a “truth is more dear...” you are rid of us."°

AN IRONIC LEGACY

These, then, are the forebears of Concordia College, Ann Arbor, whose
convictions and practices set the path upon which the school’s administration,
faculty, and constituencies would eventually need to walk. (And follow them they
must, as Walther’s writings continue to be studied and quoted as authoritative
statements of correct confessional Lutheranism in religion courses at LCMS
colleges, seminaries, and high schools and in the doctrinal statements published
by the Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations)”1

They were, first, people of strong courage and conviction, willing to leave
home and country, to risk both life and fortune, to forsake family and friends, for

the sake of protecting and preserving the “truth.” They were also ready to

 

40

Letter from W. Loehe to G. Sievers, 1853. Translated and published in Meyer, Readings, 123-
125.

4’ See, for example, footnote 84 in the CTCR’s Divorce and Remarriage: An Exegetical Study
(St. Louis: LCMS, 1987), and pages 8 and 20 of the CTCR’s Church Discipline in the Christian
Congregation (St. Louis: LCMS, 1985).

58

 

 

 

radically change their understanding of that truth when faced by crisis and turn
against companions who found it difficult to make those same theological shifts.
They demanded, for example, democratic leadership within the church,
basing the model on a “rediscovered” understanding of Confessional teachings
that had been published at a time and place in which such forms of democracy
would have been unthinkable. They defined the “true Christian church” in broadly
inclusive, non-denominational terms, but established denominational boundaries
with the most exacting of conditions and demands. They espoused higher
education within the Arts and Sciences as central to the task of the Lutheran
church while establishing a system of higher education exclusively for the
preparation of church workers. They expected their people to joyfully pay taxes
for the support of public schools, while berating those who would consider
allowing their children to attend them and failing to offer a viable alternative
beyond the elementary grades.“2
Carl Meyer, editor of a definitive collection of primary sources reflecting
the Synod’s development (letters, diaries, articles, convention proceedings)
wistfully notes, ”Quite obviously there were shifts in the thinking of both Missouri
Synod leaders and followers, if not so much on central teachings, then at least on
peripheral matters.” He excerpts a variety of editorials and articles from the
Synod’s official publications which “reveal that not even the leaders succeeded in
anchoring themselves as securely against the waves of cultural change as they
might have wished, even though an ‘unmoving theology’ remained a theological

ideal.” He finds that, in both its theology and practice, Synod has revealed a

59

 

 

pattern -- first, a “statement of conservative position, [followed by] prudent silence
when the position proved too difficult to maintain, and then accommodating

restatement.”43

Meyer offers that insight with neither cynicism nor criticism, just as the
Synod has practiced it without much in the way of apology or explanation.
Interestingly, though, to the conservative Lutheran mind such a pattern is not all
that disturbing, as it merely reflects the reality of the great paradox of the human
condition, as described by Luther. True Christians, the paradox explains, are
both sinner and saint at one and the same time. Infused by the power of the Holy
Spirit, the Christian is enabled to interpret and apply the Scriptures with clarity
and confidence. Based on Scriptural mandates and the model of the Reformers,
they judge the teachings and doctrines of their leaders carefully and boldly reject
and condemn heresy whenever it is recognized. At the same time, the Christian
understands that human reason is fatally flawed by sinfulness and pride, so it is
possible that one’s understanding of Scripture and doctrine may be flawed.“4
When such is found to be the case, one repents of the former belief, boldly lays
claim to the new, and defends it in every way possible.

This, then, provides a possible understanding to utilize in exploring how
the Missouri Synod’s higher education institutions have responded to the

expectation that they continue being what they have always been. An

 

 

4: See Meyer, Readings, 211-212.

44 Meyer, Readings, 366.
This Lutheran mindset is summarized in Richard Hughes, “How the Lutheran Heritage Can
Sustain the Life of the Mind,” in From Mission to Marketplace: Papers and Proceedings, 1997:
Lutheran Educational Conference of North America. (Paper presented to the Lutheran
Educational Conference of North America, Washington, DC, February 1, 1997).

60

—+_

 

 

examination of the colleges’ roles within the Church’s larger mission is
strengthened by asking how they think about their right to question the
assumptions placed upon them, or their role in debating or confronting the
differing theological perspectives brought fonNard by an increasingly diverse
student body and faculty corps. To what extent can the colleges affirm or
encourage discussion of differing theological perspectives without being in direct
conflict with the Synod’s stated purpose: “The conservation and promotion of the
unity of the pure confession”?45 To what extent might the colleges lay claim to the
“autonomy” constitutionally granted to congregations (an autonomy which, by the
way, Merrimon Cuninggim insists is one of the defining requirements of the
“church-related” college)? How might the colleges’ new programs and changed
students populations better serve the Synod’s understandings about its primary
responsibility of carrying out Christ’s command to “Make disciple of all nations...
teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you”?46
These questions may not provide an appropriate analytic lens for
historians of other Church-related colleges. But within the unique theological and
historic context of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, their answers may
reveal much about the continuing and future purpose and validity of the
relationship between this “stubborn” Church and its continuously changing

institutions of higher education.

 

:: LCMS Constitution, Article 2.
Matthew 28:19-20.

61

 

 

 

Chapter Three

CREATING A “SYSTEM” OF HIGHER EDUCATION

God of the prophets, bless the prophets’ sons;
Elijah’s mantle on Elisha cast.

Each age its solemn task may claim but once;
Make each one nob/er, stronger than the last.

"God of the Prophets, Bless the Prophets’ Sons”
Denis Wortman

 

Central to the uncertainties surrounding Concordia, Ann Arbor and the
other Concordias is an understanding of what it means to be a “system” of higher
education. The Synod’s current use of the word in the legal name of
incorporation for its coalition of schools (the “Concordia University System,”)
gives the long—honored term a different meaning than what it implied prior to
1979. The changes reflected by that shift in nomenclature lies at the heart of

debate over their purpose and relationship to the Church.

Initially, the training programs for the Synod’s pastors and teachers shared
locations, curriculum, and instructors.‘ In 1861, however, the St. Louis teacher

training department was transferred, along with the seminary’s “college” and

“academy” departments to Fort Wayne. At about the same time, the pastoral

 

1

H.G. Bredemeier. Concordia College, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1839 - 1957 (Fort Wayne: By the
author, 1978), 19.

62

 

 

 

program at Fort Wayne was transferred to St. Louis.2 By the time the pastoral
program was again divided into two locations, the teachers’ seminary had been
transferred to a new campus in Addison, lllinois (later moved to River Forest,
lllinois). And with that, the model of separating the professional training of
teachers and pastors became the established norm and the “System” started to
develop.3

The LCMS saw tremendous growth during its early decades, with
congregations soon spreading from New York to Portland, from California to
Texas. By 1872, at least 240 teachers were officially listed as members.4 But as
the supply of pastors and teachers provided by the Synod’s training institutions
failed to meet the growing need for more workers, a supporting network of
synodically-owned preparatory schools was developed. Their purpose was to
provide a high school level German-style education, originally at no cost, to those
who were ready (at age thirteen or fourteen) to begin preparation for the teaching
or pastoral ministry. These were designed and located to serve as feeders of
students from the widespread regional districts of the Synod to the three
professional training institutions. As were the preparatory programs already in
existence at the three seminaries, these were modeled after the five- or six-year

German gymnasium, equivalent in level (though not content) to the American

 

Meyer, Readings, 221.
Stephen Schmidt, Powerless Pedagogues: An Interpretive Essay on the History of the
Lutheran Teacher in the Missouri Synod (River Forest: Lutheran Education Association,
1972)

4 August Stellhorn, Schools of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia

Publishing House, 1963) 99.

63

 

 

common school’s ninth grade through the first years of college. Eventually the

network expanded to include:

. a six-year prep school in Milwaukee opened in 1881;

another in Bronxville, New York, in 1881;

a four year academy in Concordia, Missouri, (founded privately in
1883 and acquired by Synod in 1896; expanded into the first year
of college in 1905);

a three-year Synodical prep school in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1893;
another in Seward, Nebraska, in 1894;

another in Portland, Oregon, in 1905; and

a co-educational college in Winfield, Kansas (established privately
as a business school in 1893 but donated to the Synod and
transformed into a synodical prep school in 1911, becoming the first
coeducational college of the LCMS).5

As the number increased, the Synod developed and mandated a carefully
aligned curriculum of ministerial training, moving students from ninth grade
through the senior college and post—graduate level seminary. Each institution was
assigned a specific role. River Forest and Seward were the only institutions
allowed to offer the final two years of teacher education. Those studying to be
pastors needed to move through a high school and junior college, then the pre-
theological senior college and then on to St. Louis. The St. Louis and Springfield
seminaries offered nothing but the upper level of pastoral training. The junior
colleges maintained high school departments, but requests to add a third or
fourth year of college were repeatedly and unequivocally denied.

The basic structure of “the System” (as it came to be called) changed only
slightly through the first half of the 20th century. The teacher training program

was added at Seward’s prep school in 1905. The original teacher seminary was

 

Brief histories of these schools are found in the “Report of Task Force to Consider
Restructuring Synod’s System of Higher Education,” Convention Handbook: Reports and

Memorials 1959, p. 281-283

64

—+_

 

 

moved to River Forest in 1913. A high school and junior college in North Carolina
was opened and closed. Both teacher seminaries were expanded to four-year
programs in 1939. The System would not see another addition until the new pre-
seminary senior college was opened in Fort Wayne in 1957 and a junior college
was opened in Michigan in 1963.

However, the seeds of change began to scatter and take root well before
the middle of the 20th century, as the Synod’s continued efforts to maintain its
sprawling, nearly century-old approach to preparing its workers became more of
a financial burden than it could bear. The Depression brought severe enrollment
declines and the risk of financial disaster to the schools and the Synod,
precipitating the first official, though quiet, call to seek students to fill the empty
dorms and desks by deliberately recruiting general education students. New
expectations by the various states for teacher certification and institutional
accreditation, along with an increasing desire by members of the Synod that their
Children ought to be able to use “their” colleges and high schools for purposes
other than full time church work, and the occasional demand that the co-
educational programs at Winfield (required by the terms of its transfer to the
Synod) be replicated at the other institutions would soon force the Synod’s
conventions to face the fact that Changes in the System’s fundamental purpose

might be inevitable.6

 

“Report of Task Force,” 283.

65

 

 

 

 

THREATS TO THE SYSTEM

Following more than Sixty years of sustained growth in members,
resources, congregations, parish schools, prep schools and colleges, the second
decade of the 20th century was devastating to the Synod in both resources and
identity. The nation’s anti-German sentiment of World War I found a ready target
in this denomination which, until 1938, still required that the minutes of its
national conventions be read in their founders’ mother tongue;7 which did not
drop the word “German” from its legal corporate name (“The German Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Missouri, Ohio, and other States”) until 1917; and in which, in
1919, over 60% of the worship services conducted by its congregations were still
spoken in German.8

The Synod’s official English newspaper, The Lutheran Witness, carried a
variety of articles and editorials expressing the response of the Synod’s leaders
to the acts of discrimination associated with the war — both official statements

and advice. In May 1918, the editor of the Witness described an example of the
severity of the situation faced by the Synod’s churches and members:

Governor Harding of Iowa has issued a proclamation in which he advises
the Citizens of the state to abstain from the use of German in all public
meetings, also in public worship. He says: “Each person is guaranteed
freedom to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience,
but this does not protect him in the use of a foreign language... nor

entitle the person who cannot speak English to employ a foreign

language when to do so tends, in time of national peril, to create discord
n 9

among neighbors and citizens...

 

Carl S. Meyer, Moving frontiers: Readings in the history of The Lutheran Church — Missouri

Synod (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1984), 355.

LCMS, Statistic Yearbook 1920.
“Editorial Afterthoughts. ” The Lutheran Witness 37 (1918):187.

7

66

————

 

 

 

 

 

The Synod’s official response, briefly summarized in a separate editorial

within the same issue, seems a surprising non-response to such a grave and far-

reaching difficulty:

[Our synodical] experience has established the wisdom of the principle
that it is best... to let each congregation work out its own solution... The
synodical body as such has taken no stand in the matter beyond this, that,

where the welfare of the Church demands the use of English,
congregations should introduce the English language... 1°

Suspicion and persecution ran high, particularly against the Synod’s
schools, where children were continuing to be taught to honor the same German
heritage which the Kaiser now represented in such ominous ways. During World
War I, in a wave of nationalism intent on wiping out the potentially dangerous
attitudes of ethnic subcultures still active among the nation’s population, several
states — Oregon, Nebraska, Michigan, North Dakota — went so far aS to attempt

to outlaw parochial schools entirely, until the Supreme Court found (in 1925)

such limitations to be unconstitutional.11

Through The Lutheran Witness, the Synod urged prudence in

congregational response to these threats to their schools and identity:

There can... be no doubt about the increasing virulence of the country-
wide campaign against our schools... It behooves us to remember always
that it is better to save the schools minus the German than to be left with
Churches minus schools... Let pastors and congregations take counsel
with one another, and then, asking the Lord’s guidance, take such steps

as far-sighted caution demands and sober reflection permits.12

 

10

11
12

Theodore Graebner, “The Language Question”. (Editorial). The Lutheran Witness, 378 (1918)

169.
Meyer, Readings, 372.
Theodore Graebner. “Waging War upon the German Language.” (Editorial). The Lutheran

“fitness 37 (1918): 139.

67

 

 

 

 

 

But even in this time of crisis, the Synod’s response was confident of the
correctness of its underlying convictions and blatantly condemning (with a certain
flair of satirical put down) of its opponents. In 1919, the Lutheran Witness editor

utilized the remnants of the war’S persecutions to take a swing at the perceived
doctrinal softness of the nation’s Reformed denominations:

The campaign of hatred... has pretty well subsided... The only public
abettors of persecution at the present time are certain Reformed

preachers of the Gospel. The Lutheran Standard [a non-LCMS

publication] recently quoted from the sermon Of one of these divines, who
suggested that all Germans should be drowned in the sea, and that all
American Citizens of German parentage ought to renew their oath of
loyalty to the United States. We do not understand why the Standard
Should become so exercised over this preacher. Poor fish, he has to
preach something on Sundays, and since he has no Gospel-message, he
must curse the Germans and malign German-Americans. Habits of long
standing are so difficult to get rid of. Let us have patience. If we give these
preachers just a little time, they will begin to remember a few topics they
used tO preach on before the war, for instance, the Brotherhood of Man,
and the various proofs for A World Ever Growing Better, and other
subjects they for some reason or other have not mentioned since 1914.13

NEW STRENGTH AND GROWTH

The results of the national pressures against the Synod’s schools were

surprising. Many of the congregational schools were, of course, lost during the

period. In 1921, EA. Krause, director of the teacher seminary in River Forest,

noted:

The total number of parochial school Children [in the synod] is 83,875; this
shows a decrease of 12,825 in the last three years... Of course, this
decrease is easily explained if we consider that in the last three years,
chiefly during the war, not less than 500 schools (especially such as were

 

13

Theodore Graebner. “Editorial.” The Lutheran Witness 38 (1919): 347.

68

 

 

 

 

 

taught by pastors) were closed by the fanatical opponents of everything
connected with a German name.14

In the longer run, however, the Synod’s legal and public relations efforts to
counter the threats provided a new vision and identity for both the Synod and its
congregational schools. Though fewer congregations actually sponsored one,
and those that remained quickly dropped their requirements for the use of
German, the school issue had become a specific source of cultural identity, as

the Missouri Lutherans “banded together” to confront the “common enemy of
forced Americanization.”15 Efforts to maintain the German language and culture
as the way of ensuring doctrinal purity was disappearing. The expectation of
continued synodical growth through work among first and second generations of
immigrants was gone. But the Synod successfully adapted to a new priority Of
mission outreach with their “pure” Gospel to their English-Speaking neighbors
and to other nations of the world.

In 1917, for example, the denomination adopted a missionary endeavor in
China.16 In 1922, the Synod took ownership of an academy for African
Americans in Selma, Alabama.17 In 1929, the Synod began a radio outreach
program in Rio de Janeiro. Seven years later, it sent its first missionary to Nigeria

and in 1945, began formal efforts to Share the Gospel with Moslems.18 Mission

E. Krause. “The Missouri Synod and Its Parochial School System." In Ebenezer: Reviews of
the Work of the Missouri Synod during Three Quarters of a Century. Edited by W.H.T. Dau,
1 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1922), 228.
Schmidt, Powerless Pedagogues, 85.
LCMS, Proceedings 1 91 7, 83.
BHE minutes, November 1958, Item 7.
Meyer, Readings, 310-322.

 

69

 

 

 

 

work was begun in the Philippines in 1946 (including work in a leper colony) and
in Venezuela in 1951.19
During this same period, the Synod’s focus successfully shifted more and
more from German to English, opening new potential for growth through local
outreach to the communities surrounding the Churches. That work was
formalized in 1911. In that year, the English Evangelical Lutheran Synod Of
Missouri, Ohio and Other States (founded in 1890, following a refusal by the
Missouri Synod to form an English District to work alongside its German-
speaking regional districts)20 was finally accepted into the LCMS as a separate,
non-regional district.21 With the English—Speaking leadership and resources
brought into the Synod through the merger, the Church was well positioned to
make the transition made necessary by the War’s changes in American attitudes
and emigration patterns.
With this new sense Of purpose driving its work, the years following the
Great Depression saw unprecedented growth and strength. Forster concludes
his scholarly history of the Synod’s founding with this glowing description of its

success on its centennial anniversary:

In 1947, when the representatives of this Church body again assembled in
Chicago for its centennial convention, it was overwhelmingly the largest
Lutheran Synod to have developed in the United States. In Size the
organization was slightly surpassed only by the United Lutheran Church,
which was a merger of forty-five synods. The more than one and a half
million members of the Missouri Synod constituted between a fourth and a
third of the total membership of Lutheran Church bodies in the United
States. It had 4,215 clergymen. . ., 4,685 congregations, and carried on
synodical work calling for an outlay in excess of $10,000,000. About 2,800

 

19

LCMS, Proceedings 1938, 185; Proceedings 1956, 288.
1 LCMS. Proceedings 1887, 69, 70. Translated and published in Meyer, Readings.
LCMS. Proceedings 1911 . In Meyer, Readings.

7O

 

 

 

teachers were serving 1,200 parish schools. Thirteen colleges and
seminaries for the training of Church workers were maintained in the
United States and Canada, six in foreign fields. A large publishing house
in St. Louis served as a nerve center for the Church’s educational,
administrative, and propaganda activities, not the least of which were the
fifteen periodicals designed for the needs and interests of the group. The
statistics of mere mass may, however, be less important for illustrating the
vitality of this Church body than the fact that the tenth decade of its history

(1937-1947) showed a larger percentage of growth than any other in the
preceding fifty years.”

With astonishing growth in numbers and mission, a new sense of
importance and purpose for the Synod’s system of higher education became
inevitable. In a 1923 editorial prodding the Synod towards increased efforts in the
new “mission-mindedness,” the editor of The Lutheran Witness foresaw the

growing importance of the Synod’s prep schools and seminaries towards those

endeavors:

The relation of our institutions of learning to our missionary work is readily
perceived. From these colleges and seminaries we must draw our future
workers in school and church. In spite of the fact that we are graduating, in
proportion, greater numbers of preachers than the seminaries of any other
Protestant body, we are unable to satisfy the demand for workers. When
we reach the stage where we generally adopt the policy of canvassing our
Districts for missionary openings instead of waiting until we are invited in;
as soon, in other words, as we devote our full strength to the work of
extending the Gospel invitation to those who are now without Shepherds
or are turning away from unfaithful hirelings, it is easy to see that the
demand for more workers will become overwhelming.23

In one light, this growth did, in fact, provide great Opportunities for the
institutions. In another, it served to put into place limitations on program and
purpose which, after a short period of usefulness, would cause severe

challenges for their very survival.

 

22 Walter Forster, Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri
1839-1841 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House 1953), 533.

 

 

 

 

 

COMPETING PURPOSES AND HOPES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

By 1959, the year in which the Synod formally approved and budgeted for
the establishment of a new junior college in Michigan, it was widely accepted by
both laity and leaders that the Synod’s system Of higher education should provide
only one service — the training of the church’s pastors and male teachers. (Also,
Within the limits of available space, female teachers for the Synod’s schools,
although the wisdom of the cost outlay for their reported short terms of service
before marriage was doubtedf. But it is reasonable to challenge the oft-made
Claim that such a single-minded mission was, in fact, a return to the true intention
Of its founders.
C.F.W. Walther, the Synod’s first president, (and, in fact, a founder of its

first institution of higher education, the Perry Count gymnasium founded in 1838),
was an active proponent of synodical academies and colleges with broader
purposes. In an 1866 editorial, he argued that providing Lutheran higher

education in addition to the existing ministerial seminaries was essential:

If we German Lutherans in America are not forever to play the role of
"hewers of wood and drawers of water” as did the GibeoniteS (Joshua
9:1), and if we wish to contribute our part to the advancement of the
common welfare of our new fatherland according to the Special gift which
God has given us, then the situation dare not remain as it is. Rather we
must establish institutions of higher learning, and Offer more than our
parish schools... Certainly there are enough American schools whose
goal is higher education to which we could send our youth. Unfortunately,
however, our children would lose their irreplaceable treasure Of the

 

 

23 Theodore Graebner, “The Dawn of a New Missionary Era.” The Lutheran Witness 42 (1923):
375.

72

 

 

German language and nature (in the best sense). Worse, they would be
subjected to the pressing danger of losing their Lutheran faith.“

It is clear that Walther and three other theological candidates who built
and established that first gymnasium originally intended to Offer a broad and
inclusive higher education. In the school’s original advertisement, run in St.

LouiS’s two German-language newspapers, the four founders promised that the

institution would provide:

all college sciences (Gymnasialwissenschaften) necessary tO a true
Christian and scientific education, as religion, the Latin, Greek and
Hebrew, German, French and English languages, history, geography,
mathematics, physics, natural history, elementary philosophy, music,
drawing. The pupils Of our institution are to be so far advanced in the
above-named studies that, after absolving a complete course of study,
they will be qualified for university studies.25

In 1843, under the new leadership of Pastor Gotthold LOber, the school’s
program was narrowed into a seminary for pastors and teachers.26 But when it
was transferred to the young Synod’s ownership and moved to St. Louis in 1849,
the broader dream for its mission was again stated by Walther, Speaking now as

the Synod’s president at the institution’s cornerstone laying:

May also this house, then, for which we are laying the cornerstone today,
be and remain a... witness that our evangelical Lutheran Church, too, is a
faithful and honest patron of the arts and sciences; that both may find here
an undisturbed, quiet haven and grow up as a tree which raises its crown
to heaven and bows its branches to the earth... [May their study be] the
means by which also in this Western country the Church is built on the
foundation Of the apostles and prophets, beautifully ornamented, and
bravely and Victoriously defended; the genuine illumination and welfare of

C F. W. Walther, Der Lutheraner, 22 (1866): 181. Translated and cited by August Suelflow,
“Convention Essay," in Proceedings 197384.

25 5Translated byW. A. Baepler, published In Meyer, Readings, 214.
Mayer, Readings, 224.

 

 

 

 

 

the world furthered; but above all God’s glory enhanced and His name
magnified.27

That intent was formalized in the college’s 1853 Charter with the State of

Missouri:

Whereas, the members of the “German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of
Missouri, Ohio, and Other States,” and their friends, are desirous of
building up and endowing a college to this state, to be called the
Concordia College, for the purpose of aiding in the dissemination of
knowledge, including all branches of Academic, Scientific, and Theological
instruction in general, and giving, moreover, to suitable persons desiring it,
instruction in the creed and tenets of said denomination in particular...28
The school’s 1860 catalog indicates, at least on paper, that the broader
curriculum continued to be the intent. The college’s program was divided into two
courses of study: a Theological Seminary (for the training of pastors and
teachers for the church) and a Gymnasium whose function was to “give students
a Christian training and a general Classical education for scholarly studies.”
Although this preparatory course was also Officially designated as the preparation
route for ministerial studies, the college’s 1860 catalog includes the specification

that “students who wish to participate only in some of the courses will be

accepted according to their wish”?9 In theory, at least, general education

 

students studying the arts and sciences were an acknowledged part of the

Synod’s earliest programs of higher education.
Walther’s vision, however, was never realized, as ministerial training

quickly again became the sole function of the school. This confusion of intent and

:73 Translated and published in Meyer, Readings, 224—225.
LCMS, 1924 Synodical Handbook of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and
Other States, English edition (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1924),109-111.

   

 

reality is not surprising. By including two highly contradictory stipulations, the
articles of agreement governing the institution’s transfer from Perry County to the
St. Louis congregation set a precedent for the uncertain place of general
education students within the Synod’s schools which would continue throughout
their history. That agreement stipulated, first, “that the institution be used only in
the service of the Lutheran Church, and only to train pastors and teachers...”
Having stated this limitation, an additional stipulation hedged on that resolve,
allowing that “also young people who did not wish to devote themselves to a
professional study of Lutheran theology might attend,” although endowments and
gifts to the institution could not be used to subsidize their enrollment.30
By contrast, the school founded in Fort Wayne by missionary Wyneken

and Dr. Wilhelm Sihler (with the financial support of Pastor LOhe in Bavaria) was
never intended to be more than a seminary for the “practical” training Of pastors
through a shortened course of study for candidates lacking the five to six years of
preparatory work at the gymnasium level.31 Likewise, the teacher training
institute founded in Milwaukee in 1855 by Rev. F. Lochner (transferred to and
combined with the Fort Wayne seminary in 1857 and then separated and moved
to Addison, ”L, in 1864) was also singular in its purpose.32

The desire for non-theological higher education within the Synod,

however, was strong. The voters’ assembly minutes of Pastor Walther’s

 

29 Programm des Evangelish-Lutehrischen Concordia, Co/legiums der Synode von Missouri,
Ohio u. a. St. zu St. Louis, Missouri. (St. Louis, MO.: Synodaldruckerei von Aug. Wiebusch u.
0 Soh, 1960), pp. 17—19. Translated and published in Meyer, Readings, 218-219.
Synodical-Bericht, 1850 (Synodical Handbook, 1850). Translated and quoted in Bredemeier,
1 Concordia College, 18.
2 Meyer, Readings, 216-217.
Meyer, Readings, 195, 230 — 231.

75

 

 

congregations in St. Louis, for example, indicate an ongoing interest among the
laity in providing institutions for the secondary and higher education for German

Lutherans. The minutes from one such meeting records the warning,

If the concern for higher education is left to the Americans, we must bear
the blame if Lutheran doctrine is lost... If we want to assure ourselves
that a German Lutheran stock remains here, we must erect good German

higher institutions of learning.

The rationale seemed obvious to meeting participants: “How Lutheranism

iS lost through English institutions is shown by the Lutheran congregations in

Pennsylvania.”33

As a possible alternative route to Lutheran higher education for the
Synod’s members, a number of efforts were made to begin general education
academies - distinct in purpose from the gymnasium and seminary programs —
in St. Louis, Fort Wayne, Milwaukee, and, for females, at Springfield, Illinois.“ All
but one failed before the end of the nineteenth century.35

The reason for the failures is clear to historian Meyer: “The cost of training
the Clergy was and remained a deterrent to the establishment of academies and
liberal arts colleges by the Synod.”36 That is, the need to train more and more
pastors and teachers for the rapidly growing Synod oven/vhelmed the financial

resources available from the congregations. Although certainly the dream and

intent of the Synod from its founding, efforts to provide Christian/ Lutheran higher

 

33 Excerpts from congregational meeting minutes (1864 and 1865) translated and published in

4 Meyer, Readings, 227.
As noted earlier, Concordia College, St. Louis included a “high school” department in the form

Of the six-year gymnasium, but this soon was available only to boys intending to continue into

the Theological Seminary.
6 Meyer, Readings, 225-230.
Meyer, Readings, 225.

76

 

 

 

 

education for its sons and daughters failed to find the financial resources to
provide anything beyond the needs of its Clergy and teacher corps.

It seems ironic, therefore, that it was the financial crisis of the Great
Depression that finally officially opened the doors of the Church’s prep schools
and colleges to general education students. But the turnaround was relatively
short-lived. By the time that Concordia College in Ann Arbor was added to the
System in 1963, this response to the Depression was characterized by the

president of the Fort Wayne senior college as an obvious mistake:

Every informed person knows the colleges did Open their facilities to
“general education students” in the 30’s, and there has been a continuous
struggle to return the use of Synod’s facilities to their original purposes

ever since.“7

 

This “temporary” addition of general education at the time of the
Depression, to which President Neeb refers in a negative tone, provides a
valuable insight into a pattern Of vision-driven planning and reality-driven surprise
that has often shaped the Synod’s efforts to define the System’s role and
mission. This pattern is illustrated in Professor Oswald Overn’s recounting of the
experience Of the Depression years at Concordia College, St. Paul?” In Overn’s
celebratory history of that institution, he notes first that the proposal to the
Synod’s 1893 convention requesting a prep school in Minnesota specified the
hope that it include programs for students “who do not intend to enter the

professional service of the church.” The lengthy memorial to the convention

 

37 Martin Neeb, “Higher Education in the Missouri Synod: A Critical Inquiry into Its Cost and
Value.” (Paper presented to the LCMS BHE Plenary meeting, Sept 29-Oct 1, 1963).

77

 

demonstrated that such a plan was feasible, but responding to the “stringent
financial condition” of the country and Synod at the time, the convention
authorized the Opening of the institution only for future church-work students.39
The college enjoyed tremendous growth in the decade following World
War I, culminating in the construction Of a “grand new dormitory” in 1925, the
addition of two new professorships in 1926, two more in 1929, and a new dining
hall (with kitchen, bakery, living quarters for the steward and kitchen employees,
and a health center) in 1930.40 In light of a strong growth of enrollment (from 173
in 1920 to 282 ten years later), it undoubtedly seemed reasonable that the Synod
authorize the expenditure for each of these additions in support of the school’s
pre-ministerial and pre-teacher preparation. With the financial crisis of the 19303,
however, the SynOd’s debt reached crisis proportions, making impossible the
generous financial subsidies it had provided its institutions of higher education. At
the same time, enrollment plummeted over 50%, to only 131 students in 1941.
As congregations faced their own financial straits, ministries were curtailed,
leading to a growing synod-wide over-supply Of ministerial graduates who could
not find placement.
The crisis was so severe that several Pastors’ Conferences of the
Minnesota District petitioned the Synod to Close all of its schools for two years. In

reporting that development to the college’s Board Of Directors, St. Paul’s

 

38 Overn served Concordia, St. Paul, as professor, dean, archivist and director of the college’s
museum from 1921 until his retirement inn 1963. His personal memoirs of the college’s history
was published at the institution’s seventy-fifth anniversary: Oswald Overn, History of

39 Concordia College, St. Paul (St. Paul: Concordia College, 1967).

0 Neeb, Higher Education, 56
Neeb, Higher Education, 2832.

78

 

 

 

 

 

president cautioned that they not lose faith in God’s providence. He advocated
that, rather than Close, the college make itself more useful “to those who do not
have the ministry in view” by adding mathematics and business courses.

An important point raised by President Graebner in his recommendation
was the fear that closing the colleges, even on the short term, would result in a
severe future shortage Of pastors, as the loss of any incoming high school
freshman in any given year would lead to the loss of all new ministerial graduates
ready for placement twelve years later.

It is interesting to note the important shift in rationale brought about by this
period of financial crisis. Throughout its history, the argument has generally
prevailed in the Synod that its institutions Of higher education were to keep
focused on their primary focus: the preparation Of workers for the church’s
ministries. The leading rationale for that focus had not been philosophical, but
financial. The programs were limited because the Synod felt it could not afford
the expense involved in providing higher education for non-Church-work
programs, as highly desirable as they may be. (Or, in more theological terms, its
leaders felt that such use of its resources would not be appropriate “stewardship”
Of the limited resources God had provided it). For this brief historic period,
however, that rationale was turned on its head, as the Synod suddenly
discovered that the only way it could afford to continue preparing its future church
workers was by opening its prep schools and colleges to other students.

The Synod accepted the answer to the times, and its prep schools and

colleges survived the crisis and continued to provide a corps Of trained pastors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and teachers. Two decades later, however, remembering the endorsement of
“general education” programs as a response to a crisis which no longer existed,
the Synod would once ~again strive to return their schools to the “nobler” task of
preparation of the future ministers.

Overn agreed that this was appropriate, opining in his 1967 memoirs that
the President Graebner’s plan for adding mathematics and business programs,
“of course, was made as an emergency measure only. For the long term, the
anti

primary purpose of the college was not to be forgotten.

But not everyone agreed. In contrast to Neeb’s and Overn’s negative

 

analysis of the place Of general education students within the System, President

A. F uerbringer (Neeb’s successor at the Fort Wayne pre—seminary senior

 

college) argued in 1964 that the historical problem was not the admittance of
these students, but rather the “mistake of filling, or attempting to fill, our
Classrooms and dormitories by admitting non—professional students without being
realistic in assessment of fees.”42 The debate was still Open.

By the early 1960s, however, the debate seemed moot to the staff and
elected members of the Synod’s Board for Higher Education (BHE). The question
was rarely asked at that time whether or not the schools Should be more
aggressive or open towards the enrollment of general education students.
Rather, the question had once again become one of finding space enough to

enroll the students necessary to fill the anticipated needs for full time Church-

 

41

Overn, 58.
42 A. Fuerbringer, “Finance.” (Paper presented to the BHE Plenary Meeting, July 23-24, 1965).
(Emphasis added).

80

 

 

work professionals. If projections proved true, there would be little if any space

available to consider any longer the option of providing other programs.

 

 

81

 

 

Chapter Four

FIRST STEPS: SITE AND NAME SELECTION

 

How blessed is this place, O Lord, Where you are worshiped and adored!
In faith we here an altar raise To your great glory, God of praise.

“How Blessed Is This Place, O Lord”
Ernest E. Ryden

 

In light Of the history and culture Of its founding denomination, it might be
expected that the Missouri Synod’s junior college in southeast Michigan would
see a cantankerous start. The story Of its first steps - finalizing a site and
selecting a name - foreshadows the continuing conflicts it would face regarding

authority and decision—making.

SELECTING A SITE FOR THE NEW ‘SCHOOL OF THE PROPHETs’

The search leading to the campus’s eventual site was a painful one. The
circuitous process required agreement among the Board for Higher Education,
the Synod’s elected Board of Directors, the college’s Board of Control and the
officers of the Synod’s Michigan District.

Here’s how the process for getting the new campus up and running was

set up to work: Based on the request of the BHE, the LCMS Board of Directors

82

 

 

 

 

 

would be authorized by a Synodical convention to purchase property for one or
more new Synodical colleges. The purchase would be pursued upon the Specific
recommendation of sites by the BHE. The actual decision to open a college on a
purchased site, the determination of that school’s role within the System of
Higher Education, and the establishment of a budget for construction was the
responsibility of the delegates at a future convention. Such action would be
based on, once again, the recommendation Of the BHE. If approval is won, at an
appropriate point the BHE would recommend to the Synod’s president that he
appoint the institution’s first Board of Control, whose members would then need
to request that the president convene a “Synodical Board of Electors.” That ad
hoc Board would then select and call a school president, but only after the BHE,
the college’s Board of Control, and the Synod’s Board of Directors had approved
its list of nominees. The college’s Board of Control would select an architect, but
campus design and the decision to proceed with construction required BHE
approval, while actual expenditures (to be paid from the budget adopted by the
convention) would need to be appropriated by the BHE through the Synod’s
Board of Directors.1 Throughout the process, the Officers of the regional District
would need to be consulted, their support gained, and their expectations
satisfied. All in all, the process was a labyrinth of checks and balances almost
guaranteeing stalemate and frustration.

The steps towards Concordia, Ann Arbor’s founding were initiated at the
Synod’s 1956 convention, where the BHE (strongly encouraged and supported

by the elected officials of the Michigan District of the Synod), gained permission

 

1 Board for Higher Education minutes, March 1960.
83

 

 

 

 

 

 

to explore its feasibility and, if deemed appropriate, to recommend that land be
purchased.2 (The convention gave its approval for pursuing the establishment of
several new colleges). A site at the intersection of Middlebelt and Fifteen Mile
Roads in Oakland county (near Detroit) was recommended by the BHE and
purchased by the Synod’s Board of Directors several months before the Synod’s
1959 convention.3 With site in hand the BHE, with active support and
campaigning by Michigan District,4 gained the delegate’s approval for its actual
establishment (although just barely”), along with a budget of $6,000,000 over the
next triennium for construction and initial operation.

Shortly after the July convention, the BHE, pressed by the Michigan
District’s Charismatic and politically savvy president, the Reverend Dr. W. Harry
Krieger, had second thoughts about the site. Noting problems Of “increased traffic
and uncontrollable noise” at the Fifteen Mile Road location, the Board began
negotiations for a much larger site in the rural Clarkston area.6 In October,
however, the BHE was informed that though it had visited both sites, the Board Of
Directors was unable to reach consensus and was unwilling to act before its
December meeting on the BHE’S recommendation that this newly identified site
be purchased and the original site disposed of.7

In November, anxious to choose an architect and move ahead on the

convention’s action quickly, the BHE again urged the Board of Directors to make

 

2

3 1956 Proceedings, Resolution 25, p. 114.
4 “Synod Purchases College Site.” The Michigan Lutheran, March 1959, p. 1.
See, for example, BHE minutes, October 1958, item 6.
Michigan District President Krieger describes the narrowly- -achieved vote of approval In “Our
President’s Report: The Shimmering Hour.” The Michigan Lutheran, July/August1959, p. 4.
:BHE minutes, August 1959, item 9.
BHE minutes, October 1959, Item 56.

84

 

 

 

 

 

an “early favorable decision” towards the Clarkston site.8 Two months later, its
members were still pleading “for one more opportunity” to make its case for the
larger Site at an upcoming Board Of Directors meeting and expressing frustration
that they had not been given opportunity to see a report privately commissioned
by the Directors which had led to their refusal.9 Forced to seek a compromise, the
BHE in March 1960 began discussing “a new site possibility between Detroit and
Ann Arbor.”10 But six weeks later, having finally received a copy of the Directors’
study comparing the first two sites, the Board was again pushing the Clarkston
Option while expressing pique at the report’s s“short—run priority” and
“shortcomings and serious omissions.”11
It is helpful to note that at this point in its history, most of the Synod’s
schools were located either in land-locked City locations or isolated in small
farming communities. The BHE was being pressed to pursue the less expensive
and supposedly advantageous option of purchasing and building in an “urban
renewal area.” But the BHE members knew too well the difficulty Of pursuing
dozens of piecemeal real estate transactions in ongoing efforts to expand and
stabilize its deteriorating urban campuses. So it went on record “disclaim[ing] any
validity in alleged advantages” of locating a college in an urban renewal area and
“unanimously rejecting” the suggestion “on both theoretical and practical

grounds.”12 In an apparent effort to drive that point home to the Synod’s Board of

Directors, the BHE made Clear at its April 1960 meeting that if the Fifteen Mile

 

:0 BHE minutes, November 1959, item 33.
BHE minutes, January 1960, item 46.

1°BHE minutes, March 1960, item 87.
BHE minutes, April 1960, item 6.

85

 

 

 

 

 

Road location remained “the inescapable alternative,” it felt compelled to
immediately begin the process of purchasing additional adjacent lots and
properties for the future campus. The Board also pointedly noted that the
impasse was creating a serious risk of “antagonizing or endangering the future of
the Michigan school, of the existing colleges and seminaries, and of any
impending new project in other areas of the Synod’s work.”13 A line was being
drawn in the sand.

It seems that the Board of Directors heard the message, at least in part. In
June they sent word to the BHE directing them to “locate and recommend for
purchase a third alternate Site in Southeast Michigan,” with the stipulation that it
have “characteristics which would make it acceptable to both boards as well as to
the Michigan constituency.” Their directive identified a number of the issues
which the Directors disliked about the location being pushed by the BHE staff

and members:

The committee is to attempt to secure a property whose unit cost will be
markedly less than [the] Fifteen Mile — Middlebelt [Site], whose size will be
as large or larger than Fifteen Mile... but less than half the size of
Clarkston. Utilities and service lines are to be at the property or very near.
The Lutheran Church situation is to be attractive. If possible, the property
is to be closer in, more intimately related to a City or town [than the
Clarkston site], and with good local transportation development
possibilities.14

An examination of the sites explored during this period (including in
several other regions of the United States where additional colleges were being

considered) suggests that the staff and elected members of the Board for Higher

 

:BHE minutes, October 1960, item 12; July 1960, item 9.
:BHE minutes, April 1960, item 8.
4BHE minutes, June 1960, item 42.

86

 

 

 

 

 

Education intended to start fresh and dream big. The members of the Board of
Directors, however, who were ultimately responsible for appropriating the monies
to turn the plans into reality, refused to consider a site requiring a large financial
commitment for infrastructure, ruling out the Clarkston location.15

Over seventy possible sites were considered and rejected by one or
another of the three parties, in what the BHE called “this protracted and
disturbing problem.”16 Finally, an opportunity to purchase land on the eastern
outskirts of Ann Arbor presented itself. It seemed ideal. The site, Offered by the
estate of local philanthropist Harry Earhart, was made up of an expansive piece
Of acreage located along a scenic, little-developed stretch of the Huron River. Its
location between two major universities (the University of Michigan and Eastern
Michigan University) fulfilled a requirement set by the Synod’s Board of Directors.
The property’s stately, forty-five year old manor house (twenty-three rooms, a
third floor ballroom, hidden doorways and a secret stairway, landscaping
designed by a world-renowned architectural firm) caught President Krieger’s eye
as a future home for the Michigan District offices. (His request for this use was
eventually rejected by the Board of Directors). And the BHE was thrilled with the
Site’s beauty, potential for expansion, and ready access. In November 1960,
nearly two years after the original, ill-advised land purchase and over halfway
through the triennium for which construction monies had been budgeted by the

Synod, the Board of Directors authorized the purchase.17 The deal was closed

 

’5 BHE minutes, June 1960, item 42.
16lbid. ‘
17 The Board Of Director’s decision is noted in the BHE minutes, November 1960, Item 57.

87

 

 

 

 

 

 

four months later, shortly after the new school’s Board of Control held its

inaugural meeting.

THE BOARD OF CONTROL’S FIRST TASK: CHOOSING A NAME

As a new LCMS institution, the college’s Board of Control was appointed
by the Synod’s president, Dr. John W. Behnken, rather than elected at
convention. As per constitutional requirements, it was made up Of six members
(two clergy and four laymen) plus the president Of the Synod’s regional District in
which the institution was located, Dr. W. Harry Krieger.

The Board held its organizational meeting in the LCMS’S chapel at the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on March 7, 1961. In attendance for the
occasion was Dr. Behnken and several members of the BHE, including its
recently retired Executive Secretary, Dr. W. F. Wolbrecht, and its newly
appointed interim Executive Secretary, Arthur Ahlschwede.

In his capacity as Synodical president, Dr. Behnken reminded the Board of
Control that, although the college represented the fulfillment of a dream first
expressed and pursued by the congregations and officers of the Michigan
District, they were to serve as “a Synodical board, and not as a Michigan District
group.” It was their responsibility to see to it that the interests and objectives of
the Synod, and not the region, were the college’s first and foremost concern.18

Meeting in St. Louis four days later, the BHE formally noted its need to

“begin an orderly transition of authority and responsibility” to the new Board of

 

 

 

 

 

 

Control, with the expectation that “When the Board Of Control incorporates, it
assumes responsibility for the progress of the college in consultation with the
Board for Higher Education.”19

Of course, “in consultation with” might mean many things. What it would
mean in the relationship between the college and the BHE revealed itself
surprisingly quickly, as the college’s Board set about the first task that lay before
them, choosing a name for the institution. Through the process, the Board of
Control discovered how little “control” of this institution they might actually yield,
as “Synod’s interests and objectives” were interpreted and enforced by the BHE’s
executive staff and elected members.

The minutes of the Board of Control’s inaugural meeting note that the
responsibility to select a name for the college had been directly assigned to it by
the BHE: “The Board was charged by Dr. WolbreCht to select a name for the new
college at the next meeting, if possible.”20

The minutes also include a brief statement of the working assumption from

which the new Board members approached the task:

Although “Concordia” is a part of the names of all other similar synodical
colleges in America, it is not necessary that it be [chosen]; in fact, it might
be refreshing and imaginative tO break from this tradition.21

At its next meeting, the seven board members came up with a Slate of six

possibilities and soon decided to limit its Choices “to the name of a saint or great

doctrine.” Pastor Krieger, whose efforts had been pivotal in winning the college

 

”8 Ann Arbor Board Of Control minutes, March 7, 1961. The minutes are in typed manuscript,
19 bound and archived in the President’s office, Concordia College, Ann Arbor.
20 {ii-LE Minutes, March 1961, item 60.

I .

 

 

 

 

 

for the region, pushed for “St. Andrew.” But even his renowned abilities of
persuasion were unable to overcome the Objection (noted in the minutes) that the
name might cause confusion, since it was already used by a large Episcopalian
congregation in the area. Eventually, the vote was six for “St. Matthew” and one
for “St. Andrew.” Thus, the minutes note for posterity, “The new Lutheran College
will... be known as St. Matthew Lutheran College, subject to final approval by the
Board for Higher Education.”22
And that, as they say, should have been that. But the BHE apparently
wasn’t entirely comfortable with this new, inexperienced board’s first efforts at

decision making. The minutes of the BHE’s April meeting one week later

succinctly note:

The [college’s] Board of Control suggests to name the college “Saint
Matthew Lutheran College.” The Board for Higher Education recommends
that the school be named “Concordia Lutheran College.”23

The Board of Control, however, did not seem to get the message. The
minutes of its next meeting note Dr. Ahlschwede’s report of the BHE’s

recommendation for “Concordia,” but go on to report:

The new name [of Concordia], however, did not find favor with this Board,
since it did not give sufficient individual identity to the college... It was
moved, supported and carried that the name for the new college be
“Trinity Lutheran College,” subject to approval by the Board for Higher
Education.”4

The BHE took note Of that action, and shot right back:

 

2‘ 22lbid

2:Board of Control minutes, April 11, 1961.
2 ”BHE minutes, April 1961, item 19

Board of Control minutes, May 15, 1961

90

 

 

 

 

 

The Board of Control Of the New College in Michigan has proposed that
the college be named “Trinity Lutheran College.” The Board for Higher
Education declined the suggestion and recommends the name Concordia
Lutheran College.”5

The decision-making process was ended ten days later at a joint meeting
of the BHE and the school’s Board of Control, held to work out a number of
issues related to the campus’s design. In the midst of those discussions,
according to the BHE minutes, “[BHE] Vice-Chairman Heidemann explained the
decision of the Board for Higher Education in naming the new school Concordia
Lutheran College.”26 NO explanation is noted regarding the shift in the issue’s
status from a “recommendation” to a “decision” of the BHE. Nor is the response
of the college’s Board of Control members noted. It is not, however, difficult to

guess what it may have been.

A PATTERN ESTABLISHED

The January 1964 minutes of Concordia’s Board of Control meeting (in the
fourth month of the college’s first year of operation) records the following item of

some excitement for the young college:

This was an official visit of the college by one of the Vice-Presidents of the
Missouri Synod. Vice President Nitz, in his report of the administration,
faculty, student body, and physical facilities, gave high commendation...
With regard to the College expanding tO a four year program he stated this
was in harmony with the thinking of the [Synod’s] Board of Directors. He
further suggested that this concept and goal be pursued with the Board for

Higher Education.27

 

”5 BHE minutes, May 1951. Item 15.
2” BHE minutes, May 1961. Item 26.
27 Board of Control minutes, January 17, 1964.

91

 

 

The college did so, requesting permission to add a senior college level
program in teacher education repeatedly. The Michigan District conventions also
repeatedly Offered its support and encouragement for the request. Perhaps not

surprisingly, it would be fourteen years before Concordia would award its first

four-year degree.”8

 

28 Merlin Pohl, “Report of Concordia College, Ann Arbor,” 1975 Proceedings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Five

DEFINING AND LIMITING ROLES FOR THE COLLEGES

 

Classrooms and labs! Loud boiling test tubes!
Sing to the Lord a new song!

“Earth and All Stars”
Herbert F. Brokering

 

 

At the inaugural meeting of the Michigan school’s Board of Control, LCMS

President John W. Behnken spoke of his vision for this, the church’s newest

 

college. His comments were reminiscent of C.F.W. Walther’s hope, written a
century earlier, that the Lutheran Church would Offer both professional training for
its Church workers and Christian higher education for all of its children. Dr.

Behnken told the first leaders of the institution:

This historic meeting is both a Challenge and a demonstration of the
serious intent of The Lutheran Church to meet both the Church’s need and
America’s urgent call for the training of competent and dedicated leaders
for our Church and civic life. If this youngest of our Church’s institutions of
higher learning trains a select group Of ‘ambassadors of Christ’ to our
modern world, its cost in resources will be a worthy expenditure.’

This was an exciting Charge to the infant institution, prominently quoted in
the following month’s issue of The Michigan Lutheran (the Michigan District’s
monthly newspaper), alongside a photograph of Michigan District President

Krieger and the other new Board of Control members witnessing the signing of

 

 

 

 

the purchase agreement for the Earhart estate. Behnken’s comments suggested
and promised many things: the training of church workers, of course, but also the
preparation of Lutheran men and women for Civic and church leadership.

It is worth noting that Dr. Behnken’s hope for the college, expressed to the
college’s first Board of Control, continues receiving notice forty years later. Dr.
James Koerschen, Concordia’s current president, quotes it Often in
presentations to constituent organizations and supporters.2 Though it speaks well
to a long-held vision regarding the Synod’s role in higher education, however,
Behnken’s comments did not represent the intent of those who oversaw the
college’s development - the staff and elected members of the Synod’s Board for
Higher Education.

In their view (and theirs was the view that most mattered), the institution
was to serve as a “School of the Prophets,” entirely focused on providing pre-
professional preparation for future generations of Church workers. The founding
of Concordia Junior Lutheran College in Ann Arbor represented a capstone in the
BHE’S plan to craft a Closely articulated, intentionally administered system of high
schools, junior colleges, and professional training institutions with the Single
purpose Of preparing workers for the growing Synod.

Eventually (in fact, in the not very distant future), the limitations of that
single mindedness of vision became the source of great frustrations, both in
finances and enrollment. But in view Of the realities facing those directly

responsible for providing a supply of workers for the Church, and in light of the

 

 

 

; Quoted in “New Prep School in Ann Arbor.” The Michigan Lutheran, April 1961, p. 1.
James Koerschen, interview with the author, (audio taped), Ann Arbor, MI, June 12,2000.

94

 

 

 

 

seriousness with which these men sought to fulfill that responsibility, their vision

of a Synodical “System of Higher Education” undoubtedly made good sense.

DETERMINING NEEDS AND CHOOSING DIRECTIONS FOR THE SYSTEM

In May 1957, in response to a mandate from the 1956 Synodical
convention,3 the BHE adopted an intentional planning process for its upcoming

decisions regarding the expansion Of its System of preparatory schools, colleges

and seminaries:

It was agreed that the determination of the number and kinds Of pastors,
teachers, and other professional Church workers that the Synod’s System
needs to deliver is the desirable end product of this long range planning
program... It is [then] possible to work back in order to select the proper

and adequate means [for producing those workers]...4

 

The basis for their study of future needs was a report prepared that same
year by Walter Gast, secretary Of the BHE. That report assumed that the growth
rate recently experienced by the Synod (both in membership and financial
contributions) would continue at a steady rate through the mid-19805.5 Gast’s
projections, formally adopted by the 1959 synodical convention as “conservative”

figures to be utilized in the BHE’S planning, were astonishing and the coming

shortage of church workers they suggested was deeply worrisome.

lf Gast’s numbers held true, communicant membership (congregational

members who had gone through the rite of confirmation, usually at the age Of 13)

 

:LCMS Proceedings, 1956, Resolution 25.

:BHE Minutes, May 1957, item 6
5,Gast W. (1957/58) “A Forecast of the Operating Income of the LCMS." Cited In T. H. Langevin,

“-Long -Range Planning Project Report to the BHE, December 1964.” (Paper presented to
BHE Plenary Group Meeting, December 1964). Manuscripts Of papers presented at the BHE
Plenary meeting are bound and archived in the LCMS International Center library.

95

 

would grow from 1,500,000 in 1960 to over 2,230,000 in 1970 and to nearly
3,900,000 by 1980. This would be more than a 230% increase in only 20 years.
Based on the average Size of the Synod’s congregations and schools, this meant
that the number of pastors and teachers needed by the Synod would jump from
9700 to over 22,000 within two decades. To meet this need, the BHE estimated
that its System of Higher Education would have to more than double its
enrollment of Church-work students, from its 1957 enrollment of slightly less than
5000 students (high school through seminary) to nearly 14,000 in 1977.6

These exciting yet troubling projections were reinforced by recent growth
in the System itself. Though the number of general education (non—church work)
students enrolled in the colleges and seminaries had remained relatively
constant (rising only from141 to 148 between 1952 and 1958), the number of
students preparing for the pastoral ministry had grown from 1684 to 1923 (a 14%
increase) and the teacher education enrollment had exploded from 1104 to 1989
(an increase of 80%) in just six years. Total college enrollment had grown nearly
40%, from 2929 (in 1952) tO 4060 (in 1958), already creating a strain on facilities
and programs.7

Likewise, startling growth was being seen in the number of junior
confirmands (twelve- to fourteen-year-Olds going through the rite of confirmation)
in the Synod’s congregations, from below 35,000 in 1955 to over 41 ,000 just two

years later. Based on the historic ratio between junior confirmations and college

 

: LCMS Convention Handbook: Reports and Memorials 1959, 120,122.
“Total enrollments in all colleges and seminaries for years indicated.” (Report presented to the
BHE Plenary Meeting, April 29-30, 1966).

96

-———

 

 

 

enrollments Of church-work students four years later, substantial growth in the
System’s enrollment seemed not only necessary, but imminent.8

This projected need to substantially increase the System’s capacity was
further reinforced by several other developments. In 1956, Concordia College in
River Forest had been granted permission to introduce both a program of
secondary teacher education (to meet the needs of the rapidly growing number

of Lutheran high schools being opened by regional associations Of

 

congregations) and a Masters of Art degree in education.9 Further, the 1959
convention had recognized rising teacher certification standards by increasing
requirements for the church’s female teachers from three years of college to a

four-year Bachelor’s degree.10 The delegates had taken this action in spite of

 

having received a troubling report from Concordia, River Forest that over 150
students had been denied admission for the 1958-1959 school year due to
insufficient space.11
The picture seemed clear, the needs critical. The present structure of the

Church’s system of high schools, junior colleges, and professional training
schools, with a total capacity of less than 5000 students, did not provide nearly
enough desk or bed space for the coming increase in enrollment.12 The
construction of the new campus in southeast Michigan was but part of the

necessary solution. President Behnken’s vision notwithstanding, the BHE could

 

8 “Junior confirmands and freshman college ministerial and male teacher enrollments four years

9 later" (Report presented by the BHE staff to the BHE Plenary Meeting, April 29-30, 1966).
O.LCMS Reports and Memorials 1959 p.25.

OLCMS. Proceedings 1959. P. 137.

".LCMS Proceedings 1959p 26.

BHE, (1964) The World, The Work, The Workers. (Fund raising brochure prepared for

distribution in LCMS congregations. Included in the bound BHE Plenary papers from 1964. )

12

97

 

 

 

not afford tO utilize this new institution’s enrollment capacity for any purpose

other than the production Of new workers for the Church.

ANSWERING THE NEED FOR ADDITIONAL CHURCH WORKERS

Solution One: Opening Additional Campuses

The BHE’s primary answer to the projected needs was to pursue the
construction Of additional campuses for the System. Southeast Michigan would
be the first. Convinced that the moment represented a particularly “opportune
time tO build because Of reduced building costs,”13 the Board planned that its
construction would soon be followed by others, as noted in this recommendation

formally endorsed by its members in July 1958:

It was agreed that the Synod should be asked to establish a junior college
in southeastern Michigan as a two year school enrolling pastoral training,
male teacher training, and female teacher training students. It was a greed
that a junior college should be established in Southern California for the
same three classifications... It was agreed that a third teachers college
should not be envisioned at this time, except possibly later in California on
another site In the San Jose area. It was agreed that a West Coast
Seminary combining practical and theoretical theological training should
be proposed and that St Louis also should Offer combined practical and
theoretical training, with the possibility to be explored as to whether [the
seminary in] Springfield can be moved to the West Coast and its existing
campus used for anotherjunior college or as a lay training institute... The
possibility of locating some unit of training in or near Denver should not be
overlooked.”4

In 1960, in the midst of preparations for opening the Michigan campus, the

BHE’s members were still believing in the possibilities. The Board’s minutes from

’3 BHE Minutes, May 1958, item 25.

 

 

 

 

June noted its consensus that “the present Oakland [high school and junior
college in California], the Lake Chabot site [under consideration for purchase in
California], and another location in California, are likely to be the minimum of
what we will need in years to come.”15

Of these dreams, only one would become reality — Christ College (later
renamed “Concordia”), located in the rolling hills of Irvine, California. lts long-
delayed opening in 1976 filled a gap created by the 1973 Closure of the Synod’s
urban campus in Oakland, California.

Other exciting possibilities presented themselves. In 1958, the Chamber of
Commerce in Sarasota, Florida, Offered the BHE 500 acres and $1,000,000 in
order to establish a Synodical college there. A year later, a member of an LCMS
congregation in Eustis, Florida, offered 500 acres in his community and up to
$3,000,000 for the same purpose. Both were turned down, because the BHE
members were uninterested in providing the ”liberal arts college or university type
of structure” desired by the donors.16 The Board kept its focus exclusively on the
need for training increasing numbers of Church-work students.

Also in 1958, the BHE participated in the acquisition of an 80-acre,
African-American academy in Selma, Alabama. This was purchased jointly with
another Lutheran church body as an Opportunity for mission outreach into the

Black community and with the hope that it might attract minority students for the

:BHE minutes, July 1958, Item 64.

:BHE minutes, .June 1960, item 44.

6BHE minutes, October1958, item 33; January 1959, item 8, August 1959, item 39; October
1959, item 54; January 1960, item 64.

99

 

 

 

teaching and pastoral ministries.17 But after its ownership and control was turned
fully over to the Synod and its Board of Higher Education in the early 19605, the
school created a confusing and difficult status, since its student body generally
demonstrated little interest in following the Church-work preparation course laid
out by the BHE for its institutions and because its facilities were sorely
inadequate. By 1977, the only thing keeping the BHE from pursuing a Change of
Selma’s status from “church owned and operated” to “church affiliated” was fear
of the “certain... heavy opposition” to the move by the Synod’s Black Ministry
Caucus.18 Although its acquisition and operation required both significant
resources from the BHE, it provided little at the time in way of answer to the crisis
faced by the BHE which led to Concordia, Ann Arbor’s founding. Other sites -

new sites without pre—existing baggage or limitations - were the BHE’s goal.

Response of the Presidents to the Plan to Add Campuses: Reactions of
the college presidents to the BHE’s expansive plans were varied, although public
statements sounded guardedly supportive of the proposal to add several new
junior colleges. It is important to note that the presidents submitted frequent
requests for additional funds (for repair and expansion of their own campuses)
and for authorization to expand the number Of church-work (and, in some
instances, non-church-work) programs they could Offer.19 The addition Of three or
four new institutions into the‘System would inevitably mean that the subsidy

dollars received by each institution from the Synod’s treasury would be impacted.

 

I; BHE minutes, November 11-13, 1958, item 7.
19 BHE minutes, March 1977, item 19.
See, for example, BHE Minutes, March 1959, item 19.

100

 

 

Since those subsidies provided over 50% of each institution’s Operating budget at
the time plus all Of the capital expenditures, the Board’s proposal could represent
a serious threat to existing programs.20

Nonetheless, President William Poehler of Concordia, St. Paul noted that
it was “most commendable that the BHE is purchasing plots Of grounds at
various areas Of the United States for possible development.” His support came
with a caveat, however. AS the System grows, he argued, it was also “gravely
important that the existing colleges be given the necessary encouragement to
expand at the level of which they are now as well as becoming four year
colleges.” He was convinced that such growth and expansion Of the institutions
“would not... necessarily [negatively] influence the others.” He argued, for
example, that his own institution’s requests to expand to a full four-year teacher
college would not impact enrollment potential at River Forest, Seward, or
Milwaukee, based on the regional nature of their recruitment processes.21

The president Of St. Paul’s College in Concordia, Missouri, (an institution
which historically struggled for adequate enrollment numbers) foresaw quite the
opposite happening. “We shall inevitably be affected by the opening of new
schools,” he argued. “Competition with existing schools for the available student

population will of necessity continue.”22

 

20 “College Costs Rising; Parents Urged to Save.” (Editorial). The Lutheran Witness, 79, no.12
(1960): 311.

21 William Poehler, “My Institution’s Role and Function in the Synodical System of Colleges and
Seminaries (1962-1987).” (Paper presented to the BHE Plenary Meeting, October 8-10, 1961).

2 Samuel Golterman, “My Institution’s Role and Function in the Synodical System of Colleges
and Seminaries (1962-1987).” (Paper presented to the BHE Plenary Meeting, October 8-10,
1961)

 

 

The President of Concordia College in Austin, Texas, was less concerned,
believing, “The [Synod’s] population growth will put increasing enrollment
pressures on [each of] our institutions.”” That being the case, a concern over
competition for students seemed to him an unnecessary worry.

Not surprisingly, the confident views were, in quite a short time, proven
false. The struggle and competition for students and programs would soon

become a major force in the collapse of the System.

Solution Two: Limiting High School Enrollment

In addition to granting approval to proceed with the Michigan college’s
construction, the Synod’s 1959 convention approved several “guiding principles”
for the BHE’s future planning in dealing with the increased need for ministerial
training. One called for the gradual elimination of CO-education at the synodically-
owned high school programs.” The expectation was that this would make
additional space available within the System to be “used for high school boys in

ministerial and teacher education programs.”25

The Role of High Schools Within the System: The high school
departments were critically important to the System, both in enrollments and in
philosophy. In 1961, each of the ten junior colleges had one. Among them, high
school enrollment represented one out of every three students (1387 of 4061

total). At Oakland, high school girls enrolled in the teacher preparation track

 

” Ibid
24 Proceedings 1959, Resolution 50.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

represented 23% of the total institutional enrollment, and at Seward, they made
up 44% of the 140 high school students.”
Philosophically, the elimination of coeducation was highly symbolic of the

BHE’s intent to refine the focus Of the Synod’s educational institutions into a
Clearly articulated and coordinated training program for the ministry. Prior to the
professional training provided at the System’s three senior colleges, students
were expected to have attended one of the junior colleges for a Classically-based
liberal arts education (considered by the Church to be the most appropriate
educational background for the ministry)” Based on over 100 years of tradition
and experience (and with obvious roots in the founders’ embracing of the
German gymnasium), it was also an oft-stated expectation that the “significant
core” of males preparing for the teaching and preaching ministry would begin
their preparation even earlier, by enrolling at one of the ten Synodical high
schools at the start of ninth grade.” The fact that females were not included in
this expectation was based on the widely-accepted premise that since women’s
tenure as teachers tended to be short, it would be poor stewardship to dedicate

significant resources towards their preparation.” Accommodating them was fine

 

” BHE Minutes December 1961, item 11.
26 Enrollment figures reported to the May 1961 Plenary Meeting of the BHE. The figures do not
7 note how many of the “general education” high school students were also female.
See Able Ministers of the New Testament: The Normative Curriculum for Ministers in Training.
St. Louis: The Curriculum Commission for the Board for Higher Education, The Lutheran
8 Church - Missouri Synod, 1964. Mimeographed.
See as an example of this expectation: Martin Koehneke, “My Institution’s Role and Function
in the Synodical System of Colleges and Seminaries (1962-1987).” (Paper presented to the
29 BHE Plenary Meeting, October 8-10, 1961).
As an example of this argument see Walter Stuenkel, “Notes on Ministerial Recruitment.”
(Paper presented to BHE Plenary Meeting, September 1962)..

103

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

when space wasn’t an issue, but in 1959 they represented a significant cost
rather than wise stewardship of precious resources.

The BHE embraced a Clearly paternalistic vision of nurturing those who
would serve as the Synod’s pastors and teachers, reinforced by generations of
successful implementation. It was assumed that those who would eventually
serve the Church as its pastors and teachers should begin their training at the
boarding high schools, away from their families, under the care and guidance of
the Synod’s faculty. The high schools’ critical role in the training process was
repeated often by the BHE, its Plenary members, and by the Synod itself in
convention.” The 1962 delegates formally reaffirmed the conviction that any
weakening of the high school programs would inappropriately “inhibit the stirring
of the Holy Spirit or postpone commitment to the ministry and its demands”
among those who felt at a young age God’s call into the ministry.31

In 1963, as part of an impassioned defense Of the ministerial preparation
system, President Neeb of the Fort Wayne theological senior college explicated
the prevailing philosophy: the extended, intentional nurturing provided by the
System provided, more effectively than any other possible approach, a “profound
psychological and spiritual impact and competence inherent in a program and a

way of life specifically designed to prepare a man for the unique Office of the

ministry. ”32

 

30 See, for example: Albert E. Meyer, “Inter-school Relations in Recruitment." (Paper presented to
the BHE Plenary Meeting, February 1963), and Walter Stuenkel, “Notes on Ministerial
31 Recruitment.” (Paper presented to BHE Plenary Meeting, September 1962).
32 Proceedings, 1962, p. 77.
Martin J. Neeb, “Response to ‘Higher Education in the Missouri Synod: A Critical Inquiry into
its Cost and Value by Ralph L. Moellering.”’ (Paper presented during a panel discussion at the
BHE Plenary Meeting, October 1963.

104

 

 

 

Ann Arbor’s Departure from the High School Paradigm: It is interesting
and initially surprising that, although Michigan’s campus was founded during this
period when the BHE was striving to reinforce the high schools’ role in ministerial
training, there was never an intent to include the pre-college years at Ann Arbor.

President Albert Meyer of Concordia, Bronxville pointed out to the BHE and his

fellow presidents:

Since the Ann Arbor college enrolls only at the freshman college level,
Michigan will become a sort of testing ground for the idea of beginning
ministerial training at [the college freshman] level.33

He apparently was not entirely comfortable with the idea, as he went on to
remind his listeners, “Yet we should continue to Offer [ninth grade] boys... an
opportunity to enter training,” and pointed out that this lack in the new college
probably will “require that [Concordia] Milwaukee... be kept before the eyes of
the Church in [the Michigan] district.”3" In other words, although the BHE tried to
clearly define recruitment areas to eliminate institutional competition for
students,35 the new college’s lack of a high school department was serious
enough a deficit to make the Michigan District, Ann Arbor’s own backyard, fair
game for Milwaukee’s continued recruitment efforts - at least at the early high
school level. This request had already been formally communicated to Ann

Arbor’s Board of Control in December 1962, which resolved that Milwaukee’s

 

33 Albert E. Meyer. “Inter-school Relations in Recruitment. ” (Paper presented to the BHE

Plenary Meeting, February 1963).

34 .
Ibid.
35 ” Minutes of the Recruitment Commission, August 28, 1961.” (Report distributed to the Plenary

Group, October 8-10, 1961).

105

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

president “be informed, through Chairman Krieger, that such action would be in
violation Of regulations governing such activities and is not to be approved.”36

The fact of the matter, though, was that southeastern Michigan already
enjoyed a strong Lutheran high school program. By the late 1960s, the Lutheran
High School Association of Greater Detroit Operated two high schools in Detroit.
These were leaders in a rapidly growing movement to open and operate
congregationaliy-owned institutions, wholly separate from the high schools
operated by the Synod through the BHE. Although the BHE explored possibilities
for intentional recruitment of church-work candidates within these “community”
Lutheran high schools,” Bronxville’s president’s comments reveal the concern
that they did not — could not — truly provide the early nurturing desired by the
Synod for its pastors and male teachers.

In light of that expectation, it made obvious sense to many within the
Synod to do away with females in the System’s high schools, providing additional
openings within the extended route of male ministerial preparation, at no added
cost to the Synod. To its credit, early on, the BHE proposed that this
disenfranchisement of females “might be accompanied by the... development of
an acceptable substitute, perhaps here and there a special dormitory might be
established in proximity to community Lutheran high schools.”” But after that

initial mention in 1959, the idea was never noted again.

 

:: Concordia Board of Control minutes, December 12, 1962.
38 BHE Minutes, July 1958, Item 62.
BHE Minutes, March 1959, item 19.

 

 

 

 

 

A Secondary Benefit: Though never mentioned in the BHE’s reports to
Synod’s conventions, there was a second concern which drove the discussions
about removing girls from the System’s high schools. Many leaders worried that
females tended to be a distraction to the young men who ought to be focused on
their preparation for God’s work. It was widely accepted among the System’s
leaders that the presence Of coeds on campus Often and inappropriately led the
young male’s heart towards thoughts Of love and marriage and away from the
ministry. Concordia, Ann Arbor’s first catalog stated the prevailing sentiment
explicitly: “Early engagement or marriage is not in harmony with Concordia’s
objective Of preparing consecrated young men and women for full-time service in
the church.”9

The seriousness with which this concern was discussed is seen in
President Neeb’s comments in 1964 regarding the problems implicit in enrolling

married students, even at the seminary level:

The advancing academic and physical maturation of the new students, the
number Of married students enrolled, and the number of working
students... All of these make it difficult if not impossible to develop a
Closely-knit campus life where the close association of students and the
interactions of students with faculty might be expected to make effective
contributions toward strengthening the spiritual life and the sense of
joining together for service to God through the Church.40

Neeb particularly worried about how the “frivolities that characterize the

 

average American junior college” had become more and more a part of the

Synod’s college campus:

 

39 Concordia Lutheran Junior College, 1963-1964 College Catalog, p. 24.
0 Martin Neeb, “Concordia Senior College, The Junior College - Seminary Bridge.” (Paper
presented to the BHE Plenary Meeting, February 1964).

107

 

 

 

 

 

King and queen of the campus contests; home-coming extravaganzas,
most popular boy, most popular girl selections, and a host of other
varieties Of campus activities, none of them harmful in themselves but
most of them making it correspondingly difficult for the ministerial student,
part of a minority group in the first place, to keep his eye on his goal.”1

While not expressing Neeb’s level of dismay, Concordia, Portland’s
president echoed an acknowledgement that the intermingling of males and
females at the lower levels led to a marked decline in the number of young men

who continue their preparation for the ministry:

At the preparatory schools... boys mingle with girls. Cupid is active. The
delay in marriage [required by the ministry’s twelve year training program]
prompts some to shift vocationally.

But this is a problem only if engagement or marriage forces students out
of the ministerial preparation programs. Since females were an important part of
Portland’s enrollment (which President Weber would not wish to lose), he pointed
to another solution: that the seminaries drop their reluctance to accept married
students.”2

President Golterman of Concordia, Austin also acknowledged the concern

about the influence of females, but argued that little would be accomplished by

removing the temptations from the campus:

Although a desire for early marriage occasionally dissuades an individual
from continuing on the long route to the pastoral ministry, we have no
reason to believe that coeducation on synodical campuses is the sole
reason for this phenomena. In other words, the Object of the student’s
affection may just as likely be resident Off campus and even out of the
City.”

 

4’ lbid.
”2 E.P. Weber, “Direction & Retention of Ministerial Students.” (Paper presented to the BHE
Plenary Meeting, February 1963).
Samuel Golterman, “Retention and Direction of Ministerial Students” (Paper presented to the
BHE Plenary, February 1963).

108

 

 

Among the recorded discussions of the issue between 1958 and 1964,
only Paul Zimmerman, formerly Of Concordia, Seward and recently appointed
president of the new Ann Arbor college, suggested that the argument against
coeducation was, perhaps, ill advised: "[It is my] opinion that coeducation on the
high school level is important for the normal social development of the male
students.”4 His additional comments reveal (and seek to dismiss) what was likely
a deeper, though othenNise unstated concern of those ultimately responsible for

the behavior of the students:

The “fears” associated with having high school girls on the same campus
with male college students are ungrounded so far as [my] experience."5

The intent to do away with the female high school population was
marginally successful. By the 1967-1968 school year, only 320 girls were
enrolled in the high schools, out of a total enrollment Of 1301."6 Eventually, the
coveted bed and desk space previously taken up by high school girls was gained
for the college programs, but the gain came through a development quite
contrary to the vision embraced by the BHE towards the full fruition of the
System. Other than a single high school program which continues being
operated by the Synod in the rural community Of Concordia, Missouri, the
System’s entire high school program disappeared. Ironically, this happened at a

time when it exacerbated rather than helped solve the System’s difficulties,

4‘” Paul Zimmerman. “My Institution’s Role and Function in the Synodical System of Colleges and
5 Seminaries (1962-1987).” (Paper presented to the BHE Plenary, October 1961).

lbid.
Female enrollment was 320, out of a total high school enrollment of 1301. Enrollment figures
reported to the BHE Plenary Meeting, October 1968.

4
46

109

 

 

during a period of severe enrollment decline which began only several years after

Ann Arbor’s campus Opened.

Solution Three: Expanding the Present Institutions

With ten colleges and two seminaries already in existence, it would seem
Obvious that the most immediate and efficient way to increase the System’s
capacity would be to add dorms, Classrooms, and additional church—work
programs to a number of the current campuses. In fact, the 1959 Synodical
convention had directed the BHE to establish additional four-year teacher
terminal colleges."7 With this directive ringing in their ears, most of the junior
colleges quickly came fonivard with plans for doing so.

In late 1959, for example, Concordia, St. Paul discussed plans that would
enable the campus to accommodate an enrollment of 1100 students, nearly
double its existing enrollment. The proposal drew a terse caution from the BHE to
scale back the dreams.48 At its March 1960 meeting, the BHE received a request
from Austin that the Board proceed “as rapidly as feasible in carrying out" the
convention’s directive by allowing the junior college in Texas to add the junior
and senior years of teacher preparation. The BHE's minutes simply reflect its
promise to begin considering the issue at its next meeting.49 Eight months later, it
was still putting off a serious discussion of the convention’s directive,

sidestepping a similar request from Concordia, Bronxville and noting its intention,

43 47LCMS 1959 Proceedings, Resolution 50.
49BHE minutes, November 1959, item 44.
49BHE minutes, March 1960, item 82.

110

 

 

 

“as a means of attack on the larger problem of providing additional senior college
level teacher training... to convene a representative gathering from the teachers
colleges, the junior colleges, and from the membership of the Board and staff
with possible neutral parties represented also.”50 The only expansion which
would come out Of this triennium would be a closely limited expansion of

Concordia, St Paul’s programs.

BHE Control over Programs and Campus Expansions: In 1962, the
administration and faculty Of Concordia, River Forest offered an aggressive
solution to the Synod’s problem of inadequate campus capacity, the addition of a
second campus location to its institution. In their proposal, they pointed out that
such an expansion would also allow the institution to add programs for Director of
Christian Education preparation (a new ministry position gaining popularity within
the Synod), the freshman and sophomore level pre-ministerial program
(previously unavailable at River Forest), and a program for the “preparation of
future teachers for colleges and seminaries of the Church.” But the 1962
Synodical convention affirmed the BHE’S refusal of this expansion, sending a

pointed message to the various institutions to remember their place:

Whereas such an expansion of the function of Concordia Teachers
College seems to weaken its primary function of preparing Lutheran
elementary school teachers; therefore be it Resolved, that the Synod
reaffirm its desire that the teachers colleges at this time concern
themselves with their primary functions.51

In its printed report to that convention, in answer to the previous

 

convention’s directive to increase the number of four-year teacher programs and

 

5° BHE minutes, November 1960, item 40.

 

 

 

 

the various institutions’ assertive interpretations of that directive, the BHE
expressed its belief that it must not “overextend. . .the existing four-year teacher
education programs,” while reaffirming its “balanced campus” philos0phy,
through which no institution would be allowed to grow at “too fast a rate in
comparison with the development Of the rest of the System of schools or of
individual schools in the system.”52
Throughout this period of time, the BHE was adamant that each institution
would have a clear and distinct function within the System and its members were
cautious, at best, about expanding or significantly altering those institutional

roles. Thus River Forest, for example, was expected to continue its limited

historic role as a teacher preparation junior and senior college. Allowing the

 

institution to add a freshman and sophomore level pre-ministerial program would
draw students away from the junior colleges which were authorized to Offer that
program and cause confusion to the Board’s efforts to more Clearly articulate the
roles each institution would play in its grand vision. Likewise, the BHE feared that
allowing the junior colleges to add more terminal (four year) programs to the
System would make it ever more difficult to ensure uniformity of the Synod’s
approach to the training of ministers. It is, after all, easier to control and direct
two or three teacher education degree programs than nine or ten.

So, in response to the 1959 Synodical directive to develop additional
terminal teacher education programs, the BHE brought only one such proposal,

of limited SCOpe, to the next convention: that a four-year teacher preparation

 

:2,LCMS Proceedings 1962, Resolution1 5-8.
52LC,MS Reports and Memorials 1952,59.

112

 

 

 

program for females only be added at Concordia, St. Paul. The proposal,
adopted by the 1962 convention, contained a clear proviso that the addition
would “in no way be interpreted as a precommitment to develop Concordia, St.
Paul into a general four-year college,” nor that it would “be allowed to act to the
detriment or gradual decline of the [System’s] present ministerial program.” This
refusal to allow males to complete their final two years at St. Paul reflected
concern from River Forest and Seward, who would have been worried that their
own source of students (juniors transferring into their senior college programs
from the two-year colleges) might be cut out from under them. Likewise, the limit
of St. Paul’s program to females only reflected concern that if males were
allowed to spend four years at St. Paul, they would be less willing to transfer to
the pre-seminary senior college in Fort Wayne. The result of such an
arrangement - to be avoided in all ways possible - would be a reduction in the
number of men entering the pastoral ministry.

This effort to control the path of males, however, lasted only one
triennium, as the 1965 convention authorized St. Paul to expand its teacher

preparation program to also include males.” Some floods cannot be held back.

Solution Four: Eliminating General Education Students

The remaining option for increasing the System’s capacity for students in
church-work programs was Obvious: the elimination of general education

students at all levels. In 1950, The Lutheran Witness had reported that with an

 

53 LCMS, Proceedings 1962, 78. See also Proceedings 1965, 145.

113

 

 

 

increase in pre-teacher training students at the junior colleges, enrollment of
general education students in the college and seminary programs had been
“forced... to a new low of 14.6%” Of the student body.54 Although this figure
ignored the significant number of non-Church-work students in the high school
departments, its positive presentation in a public relations article in the Witness
reflects the BHE’S move towards devaluing a Christian liberal arts education
within the Church.

By 1957, general education students were being charged “synodical
tuitions,” additional fees collected and utilized by the BHE for scholarships “for
use of professional training students only.”55 This was designed to serve as a
disincentive to general education students and to ensure that the Synod’s
resources were not being spent on students who would not eventually serve the
Church. In Concordia, Ann Arbor’s first year of operation, this additional fee for
non-ministerial students was $235, a doubling of the annual educational fees
charged to those who indicated an intention to enter a full-time profession within
the LCMS.56

In 1964, the BHE boasted to the Synod that the System’s “nonprofessional
enrollment has decreased from 28% of total enrollment in 1947 to 8% in 1961
This was reported as good news, as it “indicates a more effective utilization of

our synodical facilities.”” A report submitted to the BHE Plenary Group in April

 

5" 5"‘Synod s College Enrollments Top 4000." The Lutheran Witness 69 (1950): 353

55 5BHE Minutes, June 29, 1957, item. 22.
Concordia Lutheran Junior College, Ann Arbor, MI College Catalog, 1963-1964, p. 17.

7BHE, The World, The Work, The Workers. (Fund raising brochure prepared by the Board for
Higher Education for distribution within LCMS congregations. Copy attached to BHE Plenary

Meeting bound papers, 1964).

114

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1966 indicated that the number of general education system at all the Synodical
schools (excluding the seminaries) had drOpped by 50% in the ten years
between 952 (15% of the 3314 total enrollment) to 1961 (just 7% of a total
enrollment of 5421).

Of course, these were averages for the entire System. Not all institutions
fared so well in achieving the BHE’s expectation. In 1962, 25% of Austin’s
college enrollment had declared general education, while fully 33% of
Bronxville’s continued to be made up of those not preparing for a life of service to
the church.

But were these general education statistics accurate reflections of reality?
Students declared their intent to go into full time church work by signing a
“Declaration Of intent” at the time of application.” Since at the freshman and
SOphomore levels all students studied general liberal arts programs (with perhaps
4 to 6 credits per year in religion and requirements in Biblical or classical
languages) and Since there was no penalty for signing the Declaration and later
reneging on it, the question of the accuracy of the statistics reported by the
colleges to the BHE at that time needs to be considered.

This is true particularly in light of the fact that there was potentially great
penalty for the institution in allowing its reported church-work population to drop
too low. In 1959, efforts by the Synod’s junior college in Winfield towards regional
accreditation were suspended by the BHE as questions regarding its future were

raised in response to the troubling report that its ministerial enrollment had

 

5” See CJLC 1963-1964 College Catalog, p. 15.

115

 

 

 

 

 

declined from 82 to 67 students since the previous year.59 It is difficult to imagine
that within that climate, a college administrator would examine very Closely a
student’s motivation or thoughts in signing the form. Besides, by signing the form,
students could cut their fees by half!

At several institutions, a significant number of church-work students did
not continue on to one Of the senior colleges, meaning their declarations Of intent
were not accurate reflections of their eventual actions. At Portland, for example,
forty—seven percent of those who began the college freshman year as ministerial
students between 1950 and 1958 failed to go on to one of the System’s the
terminal institution.60 Concern and suspicion naturally ran high. At the BHE’S
January 1961 meeting, Executive Secretary Wolbrecht “reported on rumors
concerning the ‘drOp—Out’ situation at several of the synodical schools.” The
minutes noted that “Factual information regarding such rumors will be given in
the plenary session.”61

Austin’s President Golterman was thus asked to present a paper
responding to the BHE’s pointed question of “whether an abnormally large drop—

out rate of ministerial students is ‘a common affliction of the junior colleges.” He

 

argued that the drop was neither surprising nor necessarily a bad thing:

When the admissions policy is generous (as we at Austin readily admit), a
moderate drop-out rate cannot be considered serious, but rather natural
and, properly understood, desirable.62

 

BHE minutes, October 1-3, 1959, item 99.
E.P. Weber. “Direction 8 Retention of Ministerial Students.” (Paper presented to BHE Plenary
Group, February 1963).

BHE minutes, January 1961, Item 9.

Samuel Golterman. “Retention and Direction of Ministerial Students” (Paper presented to the
BHE Plenary Group, February 1963).

116

   

 

Golterman’s evidence that the situation Should not be interpreted
suspiciously was simple: “The greater portion of the drop—outs occur after a
relatively short experience in the school.” If students enrolled without intending to
continue in the System, they would stay for the full two years. Golterman claimed
that the drop out rates indicated that many students entered with “initial
weakness of vocational decision or a lack of awareness of the aptitudes and
skills needed for the preparation.” Rather than cause for concern, he described
the pre-ministerial drop out rate as “normal and natural,” indicating a valuable

process of weeding out unqualified candidates.”

A WELL-PLANNED, WELL-COORDINATED SYSTEM

All in all, in 1960 the Board was so confident of the design and eventual
success Of the carefully laid out “system” for ministerial and teacher training that
it did a bit of bragging and self-congratulations at its October meeting. At that

meeting, the minutes report,

The Board examined with interest a report from the United States
Department of Health, Education and Welfare indicating that the present
trend is toward the gradual and orderly organization for administration of
higher education in a state having nine or more public colleges, without
loss of local strength, by the establishment of a statewide board to
coordinate separate governing boards for each institutional unit
possessing sufficient identity for classification as a separate institution,
through major duties and powers for programming and making long range
plans and providing budget coordination. The parallels with the synodical
situation are obvious.“

 

 

”4 BHE minutes, October 1950, Item 33.

117

   

 

 

 

 

A Theoretical Sidebar Considering Market Research

All things considered, the BHE’s efforts leading to the opening of
Concordia, Ann Arbor represented careful efforts to identify future needs and
determine cost efficient solutions. The Board’s plan, which was both stated and
carried out in conscientious detail, would suggest that this particular college
offers a notable exception to Jencks and Riesman’s finding that “the
entrepreneurs who setup [America’s private] colleges seldom did anything like
market research before opening their doors.”65 This college, once opened, would
be the end product of a well-researched process of determining institutional
mission and market. If Jencks and Riesman are correct in their contention that
the lack of such research was an important factor in institutions’ readiness to
“redefine or blur their initial aims” in order to survive, one would expect that any
such struggle over the Missouri Synod’s institutions’ purposes and programs
would be a long time in coming.66 The immediacy and severity of crisis, however,
that would be faced by the System’s colleges (including Concordia, Ann Arbor),
suggests that even the “market research” commended by Jencks and Riesman
may miss something important, at least as it was carried out by the Synod’s

visionaries.

 

65 Christopher Jencks and David Riesman, The Academic Revolution. (Garden City NY:
Doubleday, 1968),3.
“5 Ibid.

118

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six

FROM CONFIDENCE TO CRISIS: CONCORDIA’S FIRST YEARS

 

Cure your children’s warring madness, Bend our pride to your control;
Grant us Wisdom, grant us courage Lest we miss your kingdom’s goal.

“God of Grace and God of Glory’
Harry E. Fosdick

 

Concordia, Ann Arbor got Off to a great start. With a crowd of 15,000
participants and a massed Choir of 2,000 voices, the newjunior college was
formally dedicated “to the glory of God and the service of His church” on
September 29, 1963.1 Two weeks earlier, the 240 members Of the newly-formed
student body, twenty-four faculty members, and staff had gathered in the

gymnasium for the college’s opening service of prayer and praise.2

The campus’s Chapel Of the Holy Trinity was still under construction. Once
finished, it became the physical and spiritual center of the campus, its design
visually expressing both the institution’s doctrines and purposes. At 110 feet tall,
the chapel towers over the campus, a three-sided pyramid reflecting the Lutheran
doctrine of the Triune God, the paradoxical conviction that God is three persons

in one being. The structure’s two and one half ton cornerstone is inscribed with

 

1 “Massed Before the Central Building.” The Lutheran Witness 82 (1963): 506.

119

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the institution’s motto: “That In All Things, Christ Might Have the Preeminence.”
The interior is filled with color and imagery, wrapped entirely by fractured glass
and Clerestory windows. Soaring over the eastern doorways (the traditional entry
point into the 850—seat chapel) is a depiction of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan
River. A second mural rises behind the altar, showing the triumphant Christ with
symbols of his three-faceted office — Prophet, Priest, and King. The western
doors, intended to serve‘as the primary exit, brings worshipers through a
depiction of the Great Commission, at which Jesus spoke his final instructions to
his disciples: “Go into all the world, making disciples of all nations, teaching
them...”3 In the imagery of these three murals (initially conceived by W. Harry
Krieger), the worshipper is reminded of the central tenets and mission of the
confessional Lutheran Church (and thus this college): that faith is a gift received
through the Sacrament of Baptism; that the One worshipped is Him whose words
are truth, whose death grants eternal life, whose rule is everlasting; that the
Church’s foremost mission is to Share these truths with those who don’t yet
believe.”

The Clerestory windows stretch like a ribbon along the three walls and
depict another complementary purpose of the institution. They are emblazoned
with a variety of abstractions depicting the Arts and Sciences: a painter’s palette,
a mosquito, the scales of justice. These, along with the central location of the

library directly across from the chapel, were designed to illustrate the Synod’s

 

2 A. W. Galen, “Concordia Lutheran Junior College — Ann Arbor, Michigan.” The Lutheran

3 Witness 82 (1963): 510-513.
Matthew 28:18-20.

120

 

 

 

 

 

 

intention that this would not be merely a Bible college, in the tradition of so many
other evangelical Protestant denominations. Concordia, Ann Arbor would be a

liberal arts college in which both the beauty and mysteries of God’s creation

would be taught and explored.

 

The campus’s construction, equipment, and start up costs were funded
entirely by the Synod, excepting the $510,000 cost of the chapel (which was
provided by the congregations and schools of the LCMS’s Michigan District).5 NO
loans were taken out to finance the school. Federal funds were, as a matter of
BHE policy, disavowed.6 The institution was debt-free when it opened, and an
ongoing annual subsidy from the Synod provided nearly fifty percent Of the total
operating budget.7 I

Expectations were high. At his first Board of Control meeting, the college’s
president, Dr. Paul Zimmerman, urged that the faculty housing community
planned for the northeastern edge of the campus be designed with future growth
in mind, expecting that enrollment would grow to 1200 students.” The first year’s
enrollment of 238 easily met initial goals, as did the second year’s. 9 Future

enrollment looked equally bright. The initial success was achieved (as noted in

 

 

4 Concordia Board of Control minutes, November 12, 1962. Bound and archived in the

5 President’s Office, Concordia College, Ann Arbor MI.
6 Paul Zimmerman, telephone interview with Tim Frusti (audio taped), April 17, 2001.
Board for Higher Education minutes, October 1958, item 40. Bound and archived in the library
7 at The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod International Center, St. Louis MO.
Self-Study Report of Concordia Lutheran Junior College, 1967. I nstitutional report submitted to
North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, 20. In Concordia College - Ann

Arbor (CCAA) Archives, Zimmerman Library.

3 CCAA Board minutes, November 15, 1961.
Zimmerman interview. Also see CCAA Board minutes, September 12, 1963

121
———_

 

 

 

 

the Board of Control’s minutes) even though the “large fertile field of recruitment

in Ohio and Indiana” was as yet “virtually untapped.”1O

But the successes led to immediate difficulties. Although the anticipated
full enrollment of the second freshman class would exceed available dormitory
space by nearly 150 students, only one additional thirty-two bed dormitory could
be built, using leftover funds from the original $6,000,000 appropriation. Any
additional construction would require approval of a future Synodical convention.11
And although $1,500,000 was thus appropriated in 1965, the funds would not be
available until after a special Synodical fund drive in 1967. It would be at least
four years before more dorms could be built. In the meantime, over 100 students
would have to be housed in the newly constructed faculty homes and several

small houses (in serious need of renovation) that were part of the original Earhart

estate. ’2

A CLEAR PURPOSE

That the institution accepted the limited role assigned it by the Board for

Higher Education was clearly indicated in the mission statement published in its

first catalog:

Concordia Lutheran Junior College offers a two-year Christian liberal arts
curriculum with the purpose of providing pre-professional training for
students preparing to enter the service of The Lutheran Church- Missouri
Synod. The primary purpose of Concordia College, therefore, is to recruit,
equip, and pass on to other schools of the church body a select and able

:0 CCAA Board minutes, January 17, 1964.
CCAA Board minutes, October 15, 1963; February 27, 1964.

12 Se/f Study Report 1967, pages 21, 161.

122

———

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

group who will be prepared to lead in the work of the church in the years
ahead.”3

The catalog also included an invitation to those not intending to prepare

for Church work:

Concordia Lutheran Junior College will consider for admission any man or
woman of character who is in sympathy with the objectives of the college
and who shows evidence of ability to benefit generally from college
educational experiences and life. The college reserves the right to give
preference to those students Whose intent is to serve the Church which
has established the institution for the purpose of training full-time

workers. ’4

However, the college’s Self Study Report prepared several years later for
the college’s initial North Central Accreditation visit downplayed that invitation:
“This provision is not a purpose Of the institution, but represents a policy of
providing such service on a limited basis.”15 Dr. Paul Zimmerman, Concordia’s

first president, remembers that it “was mentioned, but it was always secondary.

We didn’t even use it in recruitment.”16

Nonetheless, it had been an important consideration in the months leading
up to the college’s opening. The Board of Control’s minutes note the critical
report by President Zimmerman that the University of Michigan had Offered

assurances it would accept Concordia’s transfers without loss of credits.17
But there were very few students who accepted the invitation. The first

year’s enrollment included only seven students who did not sign the “Declaration

 

”3 Concordia Lutheran Junior College Bulletin Announcements for 1963 - 1964. (College

14 catalog): 4.
15 lbid., page 16.
Self Study Report 1967, 7. (Emphasis added).
7 Zimmerman interview.
CCAA Board minutes, March 14, 1963.

123

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

of Intent,” used to register as a church work student.18 In its third year of
Operation, only twenty—two students, (out Of over 500), registered as “general
students” (the term used by the BHE and institutions to denote all non-church
work enrollments). The following fall, due to lack of space, there were only six,
none of whom lived on campus.19 In the first two graduating classes, 369
Associate of Arts degrees were granted; fully 348 of them, nearly ninety-five
percent, were in the college’s ministerial, teacher education, or deaconess
programs.” Seventy-one and seventy-five percent, respectively, of those two
graduating classes matriculated to one of the System’s senior colleges within the
following year to continue preparation for Church work.21

The numbers validated an institutional lack of interest in offering its
programs to students not preparing for a profession within the Synod. The only
concern noted in Board of Control minutes regarding enrollment trends in those
first years was the “relatively low number of ministerial [i.e., pre-seminary]

students” compared to the number of female teacher applicants. But this was

 

considered a situation which “could be improved through a little
encouragement.””

In its 1967 Self Study Report, the young college projected an enrollment of
950 within ten years, claiming the goal reflected “a realistic view of recruitment

possibilities... based on three years of experience.”” Of course, the projections

 

18
19

CCAA Board minutes, September 12, 1963.
20 Self-Study Report 1967, 7.
21 lbId., 77.

lbid., 178.
CCAA Board minutes, January 17, 1964.
Cited in Self Study Report 1967.

22
23

 

   

 

 

were based on several significant assumptions. The projections assumed, first,
that the “needs of the Church for full-time workers will continue to grow [as per]
the Board for Higher Education’s [projections],” and that “the church body will
continue to support the college on the same basis as previously with the annual
operating budget.”” Also central to the college’s continued health and growth
was the underlying structure of the Synod’s carefully articulated System of
ministerial training.
None of these, however, would hold true for long. Within ten years of its
opening, Concordia, Ann Arbor would see much of the Synodical infrastructure

necessary for success within its assigned role disintegrate.

DWINDLING SYNODICAL FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Pattillo and Mackenzie identified the “generous appropriations” provided
by the Synod as one of the great strengths of the LCMS institutions.” In the early
1960s, nearly fifty percent of the operating expenses for the institutions was
covered by a subsidy directly from the annual Synodical budgets. Coupled with
the largesse, however, were strict limits on seeking additional support.” In the

first few years of Ann Arbor’s operation, any borrowing against the value of the

campuses (by the colleges or the Synod) was unthinkable. The 1964 Synodical

 

2“ Self Study Report 1967, 188-189.

5 Pattillo and Mackenzie, Six Hundred Colleges Face the Future: A Preliminary Report of the
Danforth Commission on Church Colleges and Universities. (St. Louis: Danforth Foundation.
1965), 22.

125

 

convention reaffirmed the longstanding refusal to allow the acceptance of federal
loans, fearing it would be accompanied by governmental intrusion. Even direct
solicitation of gifts (immediate or deferred) by the colleges was Closely limited,
out Of concern that any successes would ultimately hurt stewardship (that is, fund
raising) efforts by congregations and the Synod itself. The presidents were

pointedly reminded of that concern at the 1964 Plenary Group planning retreat:

While... institutional fund-raising activities doubtlessly service good
incidental needs of the schools and moral interests of neighboring church
members, certain problems - if not dangers - are nevertheless involved...
One is that Synod’s own stewardship program could gradually be
undermined... in that its unified budget plans for equitable treatment of all
institutions is put under psychological question in the people’s (if not in
institutional administrations’) minds, and that the integrity and unified
impact Of its appeal to our people for support of Synod’s whole program
tends to suffer damage through fragmentation, distortion, and distraction
of their interests and abilities.”

The System was founded and continued on the expectation that the
Synod’s congregations, through donations to their regional district offices, would
provide the funds needed by the national Church organization to support all of its
various areas of ministry, including the maintenance and expansion of the
colleges and seminaries.

Those expectations had appeared both realistic and exciting in the early
1960s. The Synod’s budget (based almost entirely on congregational and district

contributions) had more than doubled from 1954 to 1958 (from $7.6 million to

 

26 Each of the following issues is identified by Fort Wayne’s president in AC. F uerbringer,

“Finance. ” (Paper presented to the BHE Plenary Meeting, July 23-24, 1965). In his
presentation, he argued that these restrictions were no longer necessary and causing much
difficulty. Papers and reports presented to the BHE Plenary Group Meetings are bound and
archived in the LCMS Library.

126

 

 

 

 

 

 

over $14 million). This astonishing growth was the basis for the Walter Gast’s
1958 projections which provided the impetus and support for the decision to Open
a college in Michigan and the plans to open several others in California.” The
growth in Synod’s budget continued, though not as dramatically, during the years
Of Ann Arbor’s planning and construction, reaching nearly $23 million by 1963.29
Gast’s dramatic projections for continued long term growth proved true in
one important aspect: member contributions to their local congregations enjoyed

a steady climb upwards, doubling from $120 million in 1957 to $240 million in

 

1971 and doubling again to over $530 million ten years later. But contrary to
expectations, contributions supporting the Synod’s budget hit a plateau in 1964,

never going higher than $25 million over the next 16 years (See Figure 6.1).

 

The System grew, but the Synod’s resources for supporting its colleges
and seminaries did not. In 1963, the BHE’s total subsidy to the institutions
(slightly less than $6 million) represented nearly 50% of the $12 million budget
for operating the entire System. Twelve years later, the subsidy had increased
only, to about $9 million, while total institutional expenses had ballooned to $28
million. The institutions were left having to find ways to finance over 75% of the
fast—increasing operating expenses, within the strict programmatic and financial

boundaries established by the BHE and the Synod (See Table 6.1)

 

27 W. E. Wessler. “Special Fund Raising activities Of Synodically Owned Institutions.” (Paper
presented to the BHE Planning Seminar, April 24-25, 1964. Bound with Plenary Group

23 papers).

9 See chapter 5.
All financial data are from various volumes of the LCMS’s Statistical Yearbook, which was

compiled annually by the Synod’s Bureau of Statistics and published by Concordia Publishing
House, St. Louis. The Synod ceased publishing the Statistical Yearbook in 1992.

127

l_——

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 6.1 Institutional expenses provided by BHE subsidy, 1963-1977

 

Year Total institutional BHE subsidy to Portion provided

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

expenses institutions by subsidy
1963 $ 12,055,000 $ 5,788,000 48%
1965 14,820,000 6,882,000 46%
1967 18,604,000 8,150,000 44%
1969 21,029,000 8,811,000 42%
1971 23,165,000 8,975,000 39%
1973 25,197,000 9,150,000 36%
1975 27,825,000 8,792,000 32%
1977 33,314,000 9,142,000 27%
600,000 Tmfiw fl——————~—~——~¥A%\
l .- I
500,000 I— _L___ 2_2,_fi_~_m-x~__l
a l .r' I
O i .'
2 400,000 _[_-_A , , ~ ”I
3: l ‘1’
E l x"
g 300,000 4 a — —-——-— i _____.*______f-,,__- ”I
.I'
Z .-- l
g 200,000 I. , . ,-,_,.:,. -_ -- We, ,L- e l
8 l ‘ I. . —l' ' l
..I" j
..
100,000 - _- J, -- .- - - a 2-2-- . W)- _______ _.
W A s s s s s
O I ’ "— l" l l l " l T 'l_"'_""l7__"l' _'—l._filq'—’Tl‘ '
57 59 61 63 6 67 69 71 73 75 77 79 81
Year - - I - -To congregations;
TTO Synod

 

 

 

Figure 6.1 Financial support of congregations and Synod, 1957-1981

128

 

 

 

—_— ' ”......n._._.'.-. ~. -

Attitudes and restrictions regarding solicitation of gifts and use of loans
and federal funds were subsequently slowly and tentatively loosened. But the
institutions and BHE had little experience and Uncertain faith in the pursuit of
such sources of funds. In 1972, for example, the BHE had found it difficult to
endorse a proposal directing the colleges to establish comprehensive fund
raising and development plans. Two years later, Concordia, Portland was
rebuked for having asked local congregations to include its programs in their
congregational budgets. And in 1976, the Synod’s legal counsel once again
reminded the Board that “a Significant number of complications can result when

the schools are interpreted as-being eligible for federal funds and yet being

 

owned and operated by the LCMS.”30

Thus, the colleges became increasingly dependent on student tuition for

 

day-to-day operations. As a result, enrollment drops, even small ones, brought
with them potential financial crises. The need to maintain existing student bases,

as well as build new ones, became a critical driving concern.

A SYSTEM WITH “MORE THAN ENOUGH CAPACITY”

The Missouri Synod had committed itself in the late 1950s to its
aggressive expansion of the System of Higher Education based on an
assumption Of continued strong growth in its churches and congregational

schools.”1 TO accommodate the increased number of professional Church

 

30

31 BHE minutes, July 1972, item 5; September 1974, item 8; November 1977, item 6.

“Report of the Board for Higher Education.” 1959 Convention Workbook (Reports and
Memorials), 99-171.

129

 

 

—: k

workers required to meet the projected growth, four campuses were added (Ann
Arbor, Fort Wayne, Irvine, and Selma), and some dormitories and classrooms
were added to existing campuses. Between 1964 and 1979, the System grew
from a capacity of fewer than 5000 resident students to nearly 9500.32 During the
same period, most Of the high school departments were spun off, providing an
additional 1300 beds and desks for college enrollment.” Through these various
moves, the BHE made strong moves towards meeting its 1964 goal of providing
physical facilities for up to 12,250 annual professional enrollments by 1977.”

But the System’s 1977 enrollment was only 7200, more than two thousand

students short of campus capacity. Of those, less than 4400 were enrolled in

 

church-work programs.

 

The BHE’S formal report to the 1979 Synodical convention accordingly
noted, with an astonishing display of understatement, that with little realistic
expectation of synodical growth in the foreseeable future, the system provided
“more than enough capacity” for the preparation of church workers into the
foreseeable future.”

The System was severely overbuilt for the professional needs of the

Church. Undoubtedly, some would not have been surprised by the situation.

 

32 BHE, (1964). The World, The Work, The Workers. (Fund raising brochure prepared for
[distribution in LCMS congregations. Included in the bound BHE Plenary papers from 1964).
Also, BHE Biennial Report, published in 1979 Convention Workbook (Reports and Overtures),
164.

High school enrollment in 1964 was 1465. It had dropped to 174 fifteen years later. See
LCMS Statistical Yearbook for 1964 and 1979.

3: BHE, The World, The Work, The Workers.
Ibid.

33

130

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Already in 1965, President Mehl of St. Paul College” in Concordia, Missouri, had

acknowledged concerns being raised in that enthusiastic decade:

In order to gain better support, perhaps we should give some attention to
our image before our people. Why is higher education in Synod criticized
so frequently? Is it possible that some of us really have slipped into
“empire building”? Is it possible that we really are guilty of spending too

freely?”7
The grim reality faced by the BHE was that the Synod’s growth never

reached the projections. Gradual, steady growth between 1960 and 1970 had
brought membership from 1.5 million to slightly more than two million, but the
19703 saw little additional growth. The church body’s actual 1980 membership of
2.1 million fell breathtakingly short of the 3.9 million that had been projected in
1959.”

Nevertheless, the System expansion that had been put in place in 1958
became self-perpetuating and the BHE was now caught in a financial and
philosophical squeeze of immense proportions. The severity of the struggles it

faced were reflected in the introductory words of the Board’s Report to the

Synod’s 1977 Convention:

If it had not been for the realization that our Lord’s promises are sure, that
He has everything under his control, and that all things work together for
good for His children, the Challenges (of the previous biennium) might well

have seemed too great.”

 

36 Several of the colleges had names other than “Concordia”: St. Paul College in Concordia,
Missouri, St. John College in Winfield, Kansas, and - opening in the 19703, Christ College in

7 Irvine, California. In the early 19903, all took on the shared name Of Concordia.
L.J. Mehl, “The Long Range Planning Effort as It Affected My School” (Paper presented to

3 BHE Plenary, July 1965).
Statistics taken from various volumes of the Statistic Yearbook. The 1959 projection was Cited
39 in the BHE’S 1959 Triennial Report, published in the 1959 Reports and Overtures, 120.
“Report of the Board of Higher Education,” 1977 Reports and Overtures, 207.

131

———_

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ON PAPER, A FINE SCHEME”

A harbinger of Concordia, Ann Arbor’s impending difficulties can be found
in the growing discontent among the junior college administrators and students
during the 19603 over frustrations faced by graduates in transferring to the senior
colleges. President Mehl (of St. Paul high school and junior college in Missouri)

highlighted the problem in a letter to the BHE’s executive secretary:

We feel that rather serious problems do exist and that for the good of

Synod’s total educational program, they ought to be given serious
consideration... In the area of teacher education [it appears that] much
autonomy must exist on the senior college level in view of the widely
differing programs and requirements currently prevailing at the two
terminal institutions. [But] can such luxury be offered in view of the fact
that several of Synod’s junior Colleges “feed” both institutions and in doing
so find it to be most difficult if not impossible to meet the separate
demands of each? Would it not be possible to develop a single unified
program equally applicable to all teacher training college freshmen and

sophomores on all Synodical campuses?

Closer coordination of course Offerings and requirements between the two
terminal schools or else a willingness on the part of both schools to waive
certain requirements are essential if the synodical junior colleges who

send students to both schools are to provide satisfactory backgrounds for

both groups.40
Mehl’ 3 comments represented a serious charge, reinforced by his biting

remark, “If we pretend to have a system, it ought to be one which works.” The
transferring of students from one institution to the next was fundamental to the
educational design Of the BHE’s “system” of ministerial training. In reality,
however, students found that the upper-level teacher education programs each

held different standards regarding the transfer credits they would accept from the

 

4° L.J. Mehl. Correspondence to Dr. Arthur Ahlschwede, dated September 16, 1964. Bound with
the 1964 Plenary Group papers.

132

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

junior colleges. In addition, there was serious concern about the transfer
students’ experience of being made to feel like “second class citizens” and
frustrations regarding courses that were already filled when they arrived at the

senior colleges to register for the start of theirjunior year."1

The BHE’s influential Curriculum Committee claimed that its work allowed
for the careful coordination Of the System’s programs, downplaying the possibility
that such difficulties might deveIOp.“2 The reality of the problem, however, is
evidenced by graduation requirements published in Concordia, Ann Arbor’s 1963
college catalog, which lists one set Of requirements for education students
planning to transfer to Seward and another for those heading towards River

Forest.”
As the 19603 progressed, the problems worsened with the addition of the

third terminal program at Concordia, St. Paul. In 1968, Bronxville’s president

described growing difficulties encountered by the junior colleges caused by a
reluctance of students to enroll in their programs:

The Synodical junior college is being hard pressed to maintain enrollment.
Students preparing for a profession prefer a four year college to avoid the
inconvenience of transferring... The two senior colleges place themselves
in continuous competition with the junior colleges... On paper this makes a
fine scheme... but it runs into the desire of many students to have greater

choice.“4

 

41 .
Ibid.

42 See, for example, “Report of the Curriculum Commission to the Plenary Meeting of the Board
for Higher education and the College of Presidents.” (Report presented to the BHE Plenary

43 Meeting, February 1963).
44 Concordia Catalog, 1963, 35.
Albert E. Meyer, “General Considerations." (Paper presented to the BHE Plenary Group,

October 1968).

133

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem’s seriousness was finally acknowledged by the BHE
executive staff in Its 1968 report to the Plenary Group, which sought to lay the

blame on the senior colleges tendency to go their own way:

The Bayer Study seems to indicate rather clearly that the current transfer
student inherits significant... problems, a good share as a result of the
senior college programs. It is evident that the system cannot long endure
under the current local program determination policy.45

BHE staff member Delbert Schultz proposed several solutions to the
presidents as “food for thought.” The first was that the BHE could “exert greater
control” of the senior colleges’ programs in order to assure uniform requirements
and acceptance of transfer credits.

The Board was soon reminded, however, that greater centralized control
was becoming increasingly difficult. Two months after Schultz’s remarks, the
BHE received reports that the seminaries risked losing their accreditation due to
“policies being unduly determined by others than the trustees or faculties of the
seminaries.” The accrediting agency noted that the BHE’s authority over the
seminaries “may create some vulnerability for the schools” and warned that it
would “investigate immediately if the appropriate autonomy Of trustees or faculty
appears to be threatened.”6 An increasing incidence of similar concerns by the
colleges’ accrediting agencies undermined BHE efforts to impose curricular and
program direction or coherence.

The BHE’s role over the institutions was further Challenged by the

institutions’ growing financial difficulties. Bronxville’s president made the case for

 

45 Delbert L. Schultz, “Factors Influencing the Future of the Synodical Teachers Colleges."
(Paper presented to the BHE Plenary Group, October 1968).
BHE Minutes, March 1972.

46

 

 

 

 

 

a fundamental shift towards institutional autonomy in a 1968 Plenary Group
presentation, arguing, “The purpose of shifting to independent lay boards is
Obvious: to qualify for federal and state assistance.” He also, however,

acknowledged risks associated with the move:

The change would be severe in a Church body which has exercised
complete control over its colleges. How such a Change might affect the
character Of the colleges and their support by the Church body cannot be
spelled out in advance. We must, however, face the issue and make a
decision. In a swiftly changing setting we can ill—afford to enclose
ourselves in a rigid educational pattern."

The BHE’S unwillingness to consider such autonomy at this time, even in
the face of severe institutional difficulties engendered by its continuing
centralized control, was well illuStrated in BHE member Schultz’s 198 comments
to the presidents. What is necessary to make the System work, he stated, was “a
commitment by each school to a policy of subordinating institutional planning and
programs to total system development and the Synod’s needs.”48 Trusting
institutions to make their own decisions was not an Option. The design and intent
of the System demanded coordination, even though it come at the cost of
individual institutional desires or needs.

Schultz’s second option for solving the “transfer problem” within the Synod
was to restrict the teacher colleges to enrolling only juniors and seniors, following
the pre-seminary model developed for the Fort Wayne college.” The teacher
colleges were crowded and asking for permission to expand physically. The

junior colleges were struggling for enrollments and begging to Offer expanded

 

47 (l a . ”
Meyer, General ConSIderatIons.

: Schultz, “Factors.”
Ibid.

135

 

 

 

 

 

 

programs. Removing the freshman and sophomore classes from the senior
colleges and forcing those students to matriculate at the junior colleges could
solve both problems without putting the carefully designed and now doggedly
defended System at risk.

It is impossible to know whether Schultz intended these as authentic
options, or whether he presented them to the Plenary meeting as thinly-veiled
threats in hopes of forcing the senior colleges to become more cooperative. The
fact that the junior colleges considered them to be inadequate answers to their
concerns is revealed in the request by Concordia, Ann Arbor, published and
presented the following year (1969), to add the upper level teacher education
program to its Offerings.50

The 1965 convention had directed the BHE to find ways to expand the
System’s teacher education programs. Ann Arbor’s proposal opened by
questioning the financial wisdom of accomplishing this by adding capacity at the

existing senior colleges:

The combined requests of River Forest, St. Paul, and Seward for more
than $44,000,000 in [new capital] funds at the [Synod’s] convention in
1967 dramatize the need for another solution.

The proposal then made its most telling point, by illustrating the absurdity
(from the junior colleges’ perspective) of continued reliance on a System which
expected students to transfer across the country in order to complete programs.
Noting that the rural area surrounding Seward, Nebraska, Offered few sites for

student teaching, Ann Arbor’s proposal argued:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It strains one's sense of the right order Of things to see a Detroit student
graduate from Ann Arbor, transfer 820 miles to Seward where he is then
assigned his student teaching experience in Albuquerque, when he left a
concentration of Lutheran parishes in Michigan which operated 635
Lutheran elementary classrooms within a short distance of his home.51

Though its request was rejected, the proposal illustrated clearly the
difficulties which were becoming increasingly apparent in the System’s design. It
was, in many aspects, a house of cards, hoping against hope that nothing would

bump the table.

THE SYNODICAL CRISIS OF 1973

In his introductory remarks to the 1973 Convention Workbook, LCMS
secretary Herbert Mueller noted, “There are those who say that some of the sons
of Missouri will be coming back to New Orleans [the site Of the upcoming
convention] to reenact in their own way the Battle of New Orleans.”52 But his
worry was tempered by his expression of confidence that “the Gospel Of Jesus
Christ will drive out whatever unworthy motives are mixed with godly zeal.”
Whether or not his prediction regarding motives was accurate is impossible to
say, but the convention became an eight-day-Iong political war which left Mueller
asking the Synod afterward, “Perhaps it’s time for us to look once again deep into

the eyes of Jesus Christ and to listen - really listen - to his searching question:

 

5° Paul Zimmerman, “Concordia Lutheran Junior College: Its potential in the preparation of able
ministers of the New Testament. ” (Proposal presented to committee 6 of the LCMS Board of

51 Directors. July 1, 1969. Bound in BHE Plenary Group papers, 1969).
lbid., 4.

52 Herbert Mueller, “Back to New Orleans." 1973 Convention Workbook (Reports and Overtures)
iii.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Simon, lovest thou me?”53 It was also a war which dramatically changed the
landscape for the Synod’s colleges and seminaries.

According to most accounts, the battle was over doctrine. A key resolution
brought before the convention asked delegates to confirm that Article II of the
Synod’s Constitution be understood as both justifying and “requiring the
formulation and adoption of synodical doctrinal statements.”5" Dr. J.A.O. Preus,
Synod’s president, argued in support Of the resolution. He noted that the Church
faced many disputed doctrinal issues including the historicity of Adam and Eve
and of Jesus’ miracles, the reality of original sin, the correct use of God’s Law in
the Christian’s life, and — underlying them all - the origin, nature, and authority of
the Scriptures.” The resolution was a defense of the right and responsibility of
Synod to define its answers to doctrinal questions in published statements and to
demand that its clergy and, most importantly, its faculty members hold and teach
the approved answers. Following two days of tumultuous debate and numerous
efforts to derail or defeat the resolution through parliamentary procedures, the
delegates adopted it by a vote of 653 to 381.”

A subsequent resolution brought the controversies to a head: the
delegates were asked in Resolution 3-09 to “declare that the majority position of
the St. Louis seminary faculty was in violation of Article II of the Synod’s

Constitution.” The resolution, over seven pages in length, cited a Fact Finding

 

Herbert Mueller, “And Then?” 1973 Convention Proceedings, 5.

Resolution 2-12, 1973 Proceedings. See pages 26, 31, 114.

Preus’s comments to the convention are summarized in 1973 Proceedings, 26.

These discussion and votes are summarized on pages 26 and 31 of the 1973 Proceedings.

 

138

I; _ Z

 

 

 

 

Committee’s charge that St. Louis faculty members held or allowed the following

heresies:

. false doctrine regarding the nature of the holy scriptures,
. a substantial undermining of the confessional doctrine Of original sin,

. permissiveness towards false doctrine,

. a tendency to deny that God’s Law is a normative guide for Christian
behavior,

. a “conditional” acceptance of the Lutheran Confessions,
. the claim that the seminary faculty need not teach in accord with the

Synod’s doctrinal stance.57

The heart of the resolution was its condemnation of the seminary faculty’s
formal responses to the Charges. Those responses had argued, first, that the
charges were not true, and secondly, that the Fact Finding Committee’s methods
and conclusions revealed the committee member’s lack of a “basic
understanding of the nature of the Gospel itself.” The Fact Finding Committee,
however, represented the views of the Synod’s conservative majority. Thus, the
seminary’s rejection of its findings and the questioning of the committee’s
understanding of the proper use of Scripture and the Gospel became evidence in
itself of the “false doctrine” harbored by the faculty. The resolution quoted the
Lutheran Confessions’ stance that false teachings “cannot be tolerated in the
church of God, much less be excused and defended.” The resolution, affirming

the charges and directing the seminary’s Board of Control to act accordingly, was

adopted by a vote Of 574 to 451.

 

57 The Fact Finding Committee’s report, including excerpts of the Seminary faculty’s response, is
included as part of Resolution 3-09, published in the 1973 Proceedings, 133-139.

139

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Six months later, that Board took action by suspending the seminary’s
president, Dr. John Tietjen, while it addressed the charges of false doctrine and
administrative malfeasance. The action set off a firestorm drawing national media
attention. Nearly all of the seminary students walked off campus in symbolic
support of Tietjen and the faculty. A day later (January 22, 1974), the faculty
majority declared that they “regarded themselves as subject to the same
doctrinal charges” as Dr. Tietjen, that they believed they all stood “under a cloud”

by the accusations Of Convention Resolution 3-09, and that they were
“suspending themselves” from their positions as instructors until such time as
they were “dealt with individually and found guilty or exonerated.”58

A standoff ensued in which most of the student body and all but five

faculty members set up a “seminary-in-exile” (quickly dubbed “Seminex”) several
blocks off campus, awaiting a Synodical outcry of support. The Board of Control
responded with the ultimatum that faculty members either return by February 18
or be considered to have terminated their employment. Only one complied. The
boycotting students were likewise informed that unless they returned to complete
the semester on campus with the faculty members still under the legal
employment and supervision of the seminary’s Board of Control, they forfeited

the right to certification and placement into the LCMS ministry. Most refused.”

 

:: BHE minutes, March 1974, item 25.

The events surrounding Seminex and ELIM are summarized from several sources, including
“Report of the Board for Higher Education,” in the 1975 Convention Workbook. Helpful
documents tracing the crisis were also found in August Suelflow’s Heritage in Motion:
Readings in the History of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, 1998, St. Louis: Concordia

Publishing House.

140

 

 

 

 

 

Within two years, the seminary’s enrollment plummeted from nearly 700 to
under 200. Of crucial concern to the Synod was the fact that the Springfield
seminary picked up only a small part Of the loss. The Church had lost the annual
production Of nearly 400 new pastors.

The enrollment devastation was not limited to the Synod’s premiere
seminary. Suddenly, the entire traditionally “preferred” route of ministerial training
(from a junior college, to the Fort Wayne senior college, and on to the St. Louis
Theological Seminary) became the repudiated route that had produced the
seminarians willing to follow the “liberal” faculty members to their Seminary-In-
Exile. The controversy decimated the pre-ministerial enrollment across the
System, which fell thirty-four percent in just three years (See Figure 6.2). The
senior college, in particular, lost credibility, as its enrollment plummeted forty
percent. With only 174 pre-ministerial freshmen registered system—wide in 1975,
there was little chance that a financially viable enrollment at the senior college
would be forthcoming.”0 The numbers signaled the senior college’s death knell as
a separate institution. The 1975 synodical convention moved its entire program
to the Ann Arbor campus and 'relocated the “practical” seminary program from its

aging campus in Springfield to the modern, 18-year—old campus in Fort Wayne.

 

6" BHE Minutes, May 1976, item 17.

141

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1200
1000 —
800 _ +Springfield
% g _ —E——Preseminary enrollments
o
+Ft Wa ne Sr Colle e
g 600 ~ l Y 9 --__
o
L. _______________________________________
t:
u.I
400_ .. ,-.. .. a.
, ‘1- _____
200 , .
0

 

 

1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976

Year

 

Figure 6.2 System-wide pre-seminary enrollments, 1971-1976

 

Steps taken over the following few years restored the St. Louis seminary’s
enrollment numbers and its future. The turnaround was accomplished largely
through admission policies which became much more aggressive in recruiting
students from outside of the System, who lacked the specialized pre-ministerial
training offered at the junior and senior colleges. These Changed admissions
criteria at the seminary, however, proved to be disastrous to Ann Arbor’s hopes

for significant new enrollments through its newly-acquired senior college
program. Thus, the seminary’s admissions policies precipitated Ann Arbor’s most

important steps towards significantly changing its role and mission.

142

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven

DISINTEGRATION AND REDIRECTION

We are still as in a dungeon living,
Still oppressed with sorrow and misgiving;
Our undertakings are but toils and troubles and heartbreakings.

“Oh, How BIestAre You”
Simon Dach; tr. Henry W. Longfellow

It was somewhat surprising that Ann Arbor won the Synod’s upper level
pre-theological program in 1975. The BHE’s Task Force which had developed
the Board’s proposal for relocating the Fort Wayne program recommended that it
be moved to St. Paul, “unless clearly compelling reasons not recognized by the
Task Force dictate an alternate location.”1

The published Proceedings of the 1975 convention gave no indication Of
what “compelling reasons” set aside the BHE’s initial recommendation and
awarded the program instead to Ann Arbor. It may be safe to surmise, however,
that the decision was influenced by a second resolution faced by the convention
delegates. In response to the aftermath of the 1973 explosion over the St. Louis
seminary, the convention now was asked in Resolution 3-06 to address the issue

Of “ELIM,” a dissent organization that had formed protesting the 1973 actions

 

1 “Report of the Board for Higher Education,” 1975 Reports and Overtures.

143

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

against the St. Louis seminary.2 By a vote of 601 to 473, the 1975 convention

resolved that:

The Synod, with great anguish and regret, declare that the way in which
ELIM functions is schismatic and therefore in violation of the first object of
the Synod: “The conservation and promotion of the unity of the true faith...
and a united defense against schism and sectarianism...”3

The resolution further declared that Synod and District officers and faculty
members who supported ELIM were guilty of “giving offense in their conduct,”
and were to be dealt with “on the basis of the synodical Handbook.” Several
highly visible supporters of ELIM were members of the faculty at Concordia, St.
Paul. Within several weeks of the convention’s adjournment, the college’s Board
of Directors directed its president, Harvey Stegemoeller, to carry out the
Resolution’s directives against one of those faculty members. He responded by
submitting his resignation. It is difficult to imagine that the convention might have
even considered locating the struggling pre-seminary program onto a campus
which was recognized as an imminent battleground in the Synodical upheaval.”

Ann Arbor, however, was doctrinally and politically safe. President
Zimmerman had served on the Task Force which brought forward the
accusations against the St. Louis faculty in 1973. Dr. Merlin Pohl, Zimmerman’s

successor at Ann Arbor in 1974, had served as the elected BHE chair.

 

2 ELIM was a shorthand term for Evangelical Lutherans in Mission. Many of the Missouri Synod
members, officials, and congregations aligned with ELIM eventually broke away from the
LCMS and became a part Of the Evangelical Lutheran Church In America [ELCA].

:Proceedings,1975 Resolution 3- 06.
”BHE minutes, September 1975, item 28. See also Ken Kaden, A Century of Service: A
Centennial History of Concordia College, St. Paul, 1992, St. Louis. Concordia Publishing

House, 25.

144

%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So the convention passed Resolution 6-95A granting the pie—theological
senior college program to Ann Arbor. Delegates refused amendments to the
empowering resolution which would have allowed Concordia, Milwaukee to also
Offer the pre-seminary program.5 Ann Arbor therefore gained exclusive recruiting
rights for the premiere undergraduate program within the Synod. Along with the
program came the Fort Wayne college’s library holdings, much of campus’s
equipment, and the promise of a renewed and continuing source Of students.

Ann Arbor was in need of such an opportunity. After the college’s
promising start, church work enrollments had in 1970 entered a five—year slide,
from 455 to 316, representing a thirty percent drop (See Figure 7.1). The drop
was particularly troublesome for the teacher education program. Between 1970
and 1974, enrollments in this, the college’s largest program, had fallen nearly 40
percent. With no foreseeable signs of a turnaround, Concordia needed a new
source of students in order to achieve its promise. The opportunity to offer the
Synod’s only upper-level pre-seminary program seemed an answer to prayer.

Results were immediate and dramatic. Enrollment climbed from 465 to
615 in the two years following the convention’s action. The Michigan District
provided $400,000 towards an expansion of the library and a request was made
to build additional dormitories. The troubling increase in general education
students began dropping, following its peak in 1977. There was reason to hope
that the college was back on track towards the fulfillment of its primary purpose

of preparing workers for Christ’s church.

 

5

1975 Proceedings, 147.

 

 

 

700

 

600 '1
500 . ~ 5 1 , r F ‘1
400 IElTotal Ending? T7

El Lutheran School Teacher
300 . I Pastoral

200 l
l
l

 

Enrollment

100

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

0 , , , , .
63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77
Year

 

 

Figure 7.1 CCAA’S pre-seminary and teacher enrollment, 1963-1977

 

But the surge proved to be surprisingly short-term. In 1978, after only two
years of growth, enrollment in the pre-seminary program began a precipitous
drop (See Figure 7.2). Although enrollments at the Synod’s seminaries were
starting an upswing, fewer students were choosing the “preferred route” of
ministerial preparation through the Synod’s approved program, with its heavy
requirements in Biblical languages. More and more, those planning to continue
on to one Of the seminaries elected to bypass the program that would have
brought them to Ann Arbor’s Campus. (Included among these were my brother --
one year ahead of me at Concordia, St. Paul at the time -- and two of my
roommates.)

Initially, pre-seminarians had been able to avoid the heavy academic

requirements of the senior college by matriculating to the “practical seminary”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(originally in Springfield, and moved to Fort Wayne in 1975.) By long-standing
design, the practical seminary held lower entrance requirements than the
“theological seminary” in St. Louis. Students could come to the practical
seminary without proficiency in Biblical languages and no expectations were held
regarding German or Latin. Language requirements could generally be met
through intensive summer courses upon arrival at the seminary. These
requirements had been designed for nontraditional students who, for whatever
reason, had not enrolled in the System and later decided to study for ordination.
During the 19703, however, many students within the System began taking
advantage of the fact that they could graduate from any of the four-year colleges
and complete the Springfield/Fort Wayne program in the same amount of time
and with the same credentials as their classmates who chose the more
strenuous pre-theological senior college route towards St. Louis.
This trend was reinforced by the growing availability of state-funded
scholarships granted to their resident students, if they studied at an in-state

institution. Already in 1973, the BHE had warily noted the situation:

The state of Wisconsin provides a rather generous tuition grant to
students from the state who attend higher ed institutions within the state Of
Wis. Consequently, when students... transfer to Concordia Senior College

or the other four year colleges... they are not able to avail themselves of
the tuition grant money... It is reported that ministerial students have been
and plan to circumvent (the pre-theological) Senior College in order to

benefit from the state tuition plan.”

b

6 BHE minutes, May 1973, item 18.

147

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

700

 

 

 

600------*~ '--_-~«~—-—— .__.____ _,,,.____ -._-._ _-._.,__
- 111 1
500- _______ r- “1- _1_rI--fl__W ________ ---- _ ~1-1-_
l l i
I“
I r- _
5 400“" ‘1“ “ ““- ‘ ‘ ‘ “L - ‘ ‘ ‘:" - ' ‘ WESTERN
% EPastoralw _ 1:
Esoo~--— — — - - - - - _ _ - _
LU
200---- — — — —— — —- — ---_.- _ - _aL_ - _ - _.,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10011 LL 1 11 1 1 thbh 1 1
01., ,.,,.. . . L DELL
73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93
Year

 

 

 

Figure 7.2 CCAA’s pre-seminary enrollment, 1973-1993

The St. Louis seminary attempted for a while to defend and buttress its
position as capstone of a “preferred route,” asking the 1975 convention to
reaffirm its status as such.’ But its own enrollment crisis led it to more
aggressively open up its admission criteria and recruitment policies to students
from outside the prescribed route. To the chagrin of the BHE, the two seminaries
began looking more and more alike, becoming highly competitive with each other
for students and resources.”
From the BHE’s perspective, the developments were a threat to the
necessary level of training for the Synod’s future pastors. The approved pre-

theo/ogical program, the pride and purpose driving the development and

148

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

maintenance of the System, appeared to be crumbling. Taking its place was a
hodgepodge system which ensured that increasing numbers of seminarians
would begin the post-baccalaureate stage of their ministerial preparation with

less and less preparation and background in Scripture, Lutheran doctrine, or

Biblical languages.
From Concordia, Ann Arbor’s perspective, the developments presented a

far more immediate crisis, the loss of an important source of students. President
Pohl and Ann Arbor’s Board of Control began pushing the BHE to do something
to correct the problem.9 They complained particularly that the shift in St. Louis’s
requirements (and the accompanying modification Of the seminary program to
accommodate students with little pre-theological training) meant a duplication of
courses for Ann Arbor’s graduates, who were given no advanced standing upon
entering the seminary. The actions of the St. Louis seminary were creating a
disincentive for students to enroll in Michigan’s program.

The BHE acknowledged the problems but, as noted in its January 1976
minutes, also recognized the situation’s inherent difficulties:

It seemed necessary to do what can be done to safeguard the ministerial

senior college enrollment at Concordia, Ann Arbor, although a student

who wishes to circumvent Ann Arbor can easily get all of the Hebrew

courses he needs at practically every state university and also at
Valparaiso, and then be admitted to either seminary.1O

The BHE’s Committee on Theological Education held a series of meetings

to address the problems, but reported reaching consensus on only one item: “A

87 See Overture 6-110 in 1975 Reports and Overtures.
BHE minutes, September 1976, item 24.
BHE minutes, January 1977, item 20; March 1977, item 11; May 1977, item 13.

‘1 BHE minutes, January 1976, item 14.

149

 

 

 

 

 

 

problem of considerable magnitude exists.” Actually, it identified several

problems The first was, “How can the schools of the LCMS system particularly
the seminaries provide the incentive necessary for the student to take his pre-
semlnary preparation in system schools and at Ann Arbor?” A second was the
question surfacing with increasing seriousness across the Synod as the
.. utilize most

denomination’s financial difficulties grew: “How does the Synod

effectively two seminaries with largely similar programs?”11

In answer to the first, the BHE considered several options, each asking
the seminaries to find a way to recognize and grant advanced standing for Ann
Arbor graduates. Towards that end, in September 1976, the BHE directed the
administrators of Ann Arbor and the seminaries to meet together In order to
develop a jOlnt proposal. But four months after the request, only PreSIdent Pohl
had brought fon/l/ard any suggestions. (He asked the BHE to mandate that the
seminaries highlight in their catalogs the “close correlation” between the
seminaries and Ann Arbor’s curriculum).12 The seminaries were Silent about even
acknowledging that any problems within the System exrsted

Two months later, the BHE noted a request from Ann Arbor 3 Board of
Control that the BHE itself convene the mandated meeting between the three
schools Since the seminary presidents continued refusing Ann Arbor s efforts to

schedule It ’3 Finally, in May, the BHE simply noted that the dISCUSSIon had never

 

18HE minutes, September 1976, item 24.
:BHE minutes, January 1977, item 20.
3BHE minutes, March 1977, item 11.

150

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

taken place, politely thanked the three presidents, and formally “relieved” of them
of the task.“ Then the BHE mandated its own solution:

A statement shall be made as to the basic professional entrance
competencies needed by the Church of today’s seminary graduate; The

seminary curriculum... shall be designed so as to achieve [those]

qualifications... [The Synod’s] pre-seminary curriculum... will be
established so that the pre-seminary student is adequately prepared to
begin the seminary program... Pre-seminary entrance requirements will be

established so as to assure the integrity of the pre-seminary program.15

In reality, this solution offered little to Ann Arbor or to the integrity of the
ministerial training program. It is difficult to imagine how admission requirements
could be established that would provide the necessary incentive for in-System
students to choose Ann Arbor’s program without closing the seminaries to
applicants who had not gone through the System. Neither the seminaries nor the
Synod could afford the loss of seminarians that such a mandate would bring
about. In particular, revoking the recently-established flexibility of St. Louis’s

seminary admission requirements would make it difficult for it to compete for

students.
lncongruously, at the same time it was asking the seminaries to offer

some type of advanced standing to Ann Arbor’s graduates, the BHE rebuked the
seminaries regarding “rumors” that their recruitment representatives were
“proposing ‘deals’ with graduates of Ann Arbor, whereby they can reduce their
study time at a given seminary by an academic year or more, if the appropriate

seminary is selected.” The right to determine program and graduation

requirements for pastoral training, the BHE insisted, belonged only to the BHE.

 

14 BHE minutes, May 1977, item 13.

151

 

 

 

 

 

The seminaries had no authority to alter them in this or any other way. Ann Arbor
graduates, the BHE decreed, would face the same four-year requirement as any
other seminarian.16 In light of this rebuke, perhaps it is not surprising that the
seminaries did not bother meeting with President Pohl in order to work out any
other possibilities.

All in all, protecting Ann Arbor’s pre-seminary enrollment was increasingly
difficult. The BHE had tried, with little success. It tried prohibiting “the introduction
of or the teaching of Hebrew” at Bronxville, Irvine, River Forest, St. Paul, and

Seward, in hopes of forcing students to recognize Ann Arbor as the appropriate

 

route for pre-seminary training.17 In July, 1976, the Board resolved to require all

Synodical colleges to include in their catalogs a statement indicating that “the

 

pastoral education student is expected to continue his program of study in the
third and fourth years at Concordia College, Ann Arbor, where the preferred
preparation is offered for entering one of Synod’s two seminaries.”18 One year

later, it took another stab:

The BHE resolved that since the Synod in convention had determined that
the senior college level program for pastoral studies will be offered at Ann
Arbor, the following is expected:

a) That no other college will advertise nor offer an upper level pastoral
program.

B) That administrators and faculty members on other campuses will
actively encourage all pastoral students to spend the junior and senior
college years at Ann Arbor.

BHE minutes, May 1977, item 32:
BHE minutes, March 1977, item 12:
BHE minutes, January 1976, item 14.
BHE minutes, July 1976, item 26.

 

 

 

 

 

 

.
w ha... . A .

C) That no courses (e.g., Hebrew) will be offered either as regular class
or on a tutor basis which might imply that an upper level pastor program is
available...

d) That no transfer credit in Hebrew can be accepted by the synodical
seminaries from any synodical college other than Ann Arbor.19

But the other colleges refused to hear the message. The case of

Concordia, St. Paul, noted in the BHE’s September 1977 minutes, is illustrative:

Concordia, St. Paul has advertised a pre-seminary program which
includes spending the junior and senior years at St. Paul. [President] Hyatt
has been reminded that [his college] is not authorized to solicit pre-
seminary students for the junior and senior years.20

In the meantime, Ann Arbor tried another approach to making the pre-
theological program more attractive, particularly to transfer students. Early in
1977, it proposed that the requirement of four semesters of either German or
Latin be waived. The BHE refused to go along. It lowered requirements slightly
by deciding that juniors transferring into the program “from non-LCMS schools”
would be expected to take “as much Greek and Hebrew as possible,” along with
“such Latin or German courses as their program of studies will allow.” For
students transferring from another junior college within the System, however, the
language requirements were to be maintained.21 The BHE was searching ways to
protect and maintain the integrity of its pastoral training. Lowering requirements
in order to get more students to enroll in the program was counterproductive.

By the end of 1977, the inability to protect Ann Arbor’s program was
impossible to ignore. The BHE could try to impose curricular decisions on its

colleges, but it could not force students to follow the route it wished them to take

 

;: BHE minutes, July 1977, item 6.
BHE minutes, September 1977, item 35.

153

 

 

 

 

 

 

when other -- more attractive and/or less challenging -- options were available.
And it certainly could not force the presidents to demand that their students
(along with their tuition and subsidy dollars) transfer to another school. Continued
efforts to deny the advanced language and religious studies at colleges where
students obviously intended to stay only made it impossible for those students to
achieve the preparation the BHE hoped to see in its seminary enrollees. In a
move acknowledging the futility of such policies, the Synod’s president urged the
BHE to add upper level pre-seminary programs on at least two additional
campuses.22

In January 1978, any vestige of optimism for maintaining Ann Arbor’s

 

exclusive right to enroll upper-level pre-seminary students disappeared as Ray

 

Halm, chair of the BHE’s Planning Committee, suggested a new rhetoric for
discussing the issue. He argued that the question needed to be shifted “from
‘How do we get pastoral training students to Ann Arbor’ to ’How can we prepare
him to be the best pastor possible?”’23

Halm’s new question opened the door, and two months later the BHE
granted the pre-theological program to Portland and, shortly after that, to the
System’s new college in Irvine, California.24

But Ann Arbor kept trying. Several months after the BHE authorized the
two new pre-theological programs, the school’s Academic Dean, Dr. Erich

vonFange, asked the BHE’s Curriculum Committee “for its continued help in

 

BHE minutes, May 1977, item 28.

BHE minutes, November 1977, items 27 and 28.
BHE minutes, January 1978, item 24.

BHE minutes, March 1978, item 13.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

providing for students in the ‘preferred’ pastoral program.” He complained

particularly that

There seems to be no desire on the part of especially the St. Louis
seminary people to recognize a preferred program and the seminary
people seem very sensitive to any implication that their program needs
improvement.25

According to its subsequent report to the BHE, the Curriculum Committee
agreed that there was a problem and, like Ann Arbor, disliked what the seminary
was doing, but the meeting’s outcome was not particularly supportive of Ann

Arbor’s efforts:

It was suggested that formal feedback from students at the seminaries
should be gathered... If the Ann Arbor graduate is superior in some areas
of preparation, specific evidence should be gathered to demonstrate the
areas of superiority.26

The statement’s clear implication was that the BHE would no longer be
Ann Arbor’s defender in protecting a presumed “preferred” training route. In this
telling change of rhetoric, the Board laid the onus on Ann Arbor’s administration
to convince the seminaries (and, in fact, the rest of the Synod), that it offered
what should be considered the program of choice.

That the Board itself was not convinced of the superiority of Ann Arbor’s
offerings was made clear before the end of the year, as it voted to grant approval
for additional pre-theological programs at Bronxville, River Forest, St. Paul, and

Seward.27

25 The report of the July 1978 Curriculum Committee meeting attended by Dr. vonFange is noted
26 in the BHE minutes, September 1978, item 30.

Ibid.
27 BHE minutes, November 1978, item 45.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By 1981, Ann Arbor’s pre-theological enrollment dropped from 242 to 150
students. An outside consultant’s study suggested that this was the level at which
the college expected it would be able to maintain itself, although it held out hope
for “possible growth” as a result of student “backlash from [the] inferior programs
at [other Synodical] schools with inferior pre-ministerial programs...”28 No growth
took place. Rather, the program went on to lose yet another half of its enrollment
within three more years. By 1992, it was down to only twenty-two students.29

The fallout of the situation was serious for Concordia, Ann Arbor. But the
fallout for the Synod was even more significant. For all practical purposes, the
System had disintegrated. The articulated, aligned plan for moving students
through a prescribed course of study at specific institutions no longer existed.
The System was little more than a collection of closely-related institutions in
fierce competition with each other for students, for BHE approval to offer new

programs, and for shares of a shrinking pool of subsidy money.

“THINK CREATIVELY”

The expectation of the early 19605 that church-work students would fill
and stretch the System’s capacity had faced criticism from the start and by the
late 19703 proven impossible. Likewise, expectations that a growing Synod’s
growing resources would provide substantial financial support had left the

institutions and the Synod in dire financial straits. By the time of the 1979

 

28 R. R. Lackey, Concordia College Survey Report (Ann Arbor MI: Samborn Steketee Otis &

29 Evans, Inc., 1981).
Statistics taken from various volumes of the annual LCMS Statistical Yearbook.

156

 

 

 

convention, the Synod was struggling with a $2.9 million dollar annual deficit.30
Efforts to consolidate or close campuses, however, proved nearly impossible in
the face of fierce opposition within various segments of the Synod .31

The Synod had tried addressing the growing difficulties through a series of
convention-mandated studies of the System.32 But the problems continued and
the specter of financial disaster loomed larger. It was eventually obvious that the
20-year—old dream of a large, focused, well-financed System of ministerial
training could no longer be defended. A new approach was needed, quickly.
Ironically, it would be found by returning to an old idea.

The description of “general education” as a valued part of the System’s
mission had never fully disappeared from the BHE’s rhetoric or planning. In his
report to the 1975 convention, Dr. Ahlschwede, the Board’s executive secretary,
began efforts to bring it back to a position of some prominence and respectability.
“Contrary to what many seem to believe,” Ahlschwede wrote, “the Synod has a
long history of general education offerings.” While the trend over the previous
twenty years had been to describe this reality in negative terms, Ahlschwede now

offered a far more positive spin:

The [historic] expansion of the Synod’s professional schools into general
education was unquestionably motivated by the ideal of serving Lutheran
members by educating their children in a Christian environment and of
serving the Church by training a consecrated laity.33

 

30 Summary of President’s Report to the Convention, Proceedings, 1979, 22.

President’s Report to the Convention, Proceedings 1979, 68.
These studies are cited and briefly described in the BHE Report, 1979 Proceedings, 164.
“Report of the Board for Higher Education,” 1975 Reports and Overtures, 283.

157

 

 

 

 

 

He seemed to take pains, however, not to denigrate prior efforts to rid the
LCMS institutions of non-church work enrollments. Rather, he noted the

decision’s historical and philosophical roots:

BHE survey results reported to the 1944 convention had clearly indicated
that [Christ’s] command to teach or to educate was [directed] to the
Christians gathered in local congregations. The human organization, the
Synod, as a voluntary organization of congregations is organized to do
those things jointly that cannot be done more effectively or efficiently by
individual congregational efforts. Consequently the Synod’s efforts in the
area of specialized education are solely dependent on the support and
authorization of its member congregations.“

Hidden in those few sentences was an interesting theological claim. It
says, in essence, that the God-given responsibility to “teach” all nations (as per
Matthew 28:18-20) lies within the congregation, which represents the
organizational and fellowship structure founded and commanded by God for the
carrying out of His ministry. The decision of individual congregations to organize
themselves into associations (such as the Missouri Synod) is of human design
rather than divinely instituted, and thus does not bring with it any divinely-
determined responsibilities or division of labor. If the congregations making up
the Synod choose to use their association to provide for the higher education
needs of its ministers, it is appropriate for them to do so. Likewise, a decision to
jointly provide higher education opportunities for its laity is neither mandated nor
denied them by God. Therefore, the Synod’s higher education institutions could
become anything the congregations wanted them to become.

In that theological argument, Ahlschwede was laying a foundation for the

System to become something new. The convention responded by authorizing the

158

 

 

 

 

 

BHE to prepare a new “system wide model of higher education,” which the Board
interpreted as “an opportunity for creative thinking and planning.”35 The Board
moved quickly and the results of the study were discussed and refined by the

BHE less than a year later. The ideas included in the new model were, in many

ways, startling:

The board spent a considerable amount of time on refining its proposal
that the synodical schools should expand their thinking in a creative way
of proposing appropriate programs to be added to the curriculum.

The BHE resolved to solicit program proposals from each synodical
school. These... may be designed to provide for students in traditional
church work prep programs, new church-work prep programs, new
church-work programs, and also non-church-work programs that will serve
the school’s area constituency.

The colleges are encouraged to use their imagination, be as creative as
they wish to be, suggest whatever they feel may be of value to the school
and its constituency36

This new direction was communicated to the colleges in the weeks
following that meeting. Their responses, as reported at the next BHE meeting,
“were varied: joy, surprise, disbelief, enthusiasm, etc.”37

One voice of dissent to the new direction, however, was Ann Arbor’s
President Pohl, who “expressed disappointment” over the direction these
discussions were going. While others saw long—sought permission to find new
enrollments through non-church-work programs, Pohl saw in the new model a

continued disintegration of the desired “unified and coordinated system of

operation.” In apparent reference to his institution’s frustrations over the Board’s

 

 

3" Ibid.
35 Resolution 6-06A, 1977 Proceedings. Report of Board for Higher Education, 1979
36 Proceedings, 163.
37 BHE minutes, March 1978, item 58.
BHE minutes, May 1978, item 15.

159

 

 

 

 

handling of its pre-theological program, Pohl was not ready to support a so-called
“System” which left “each college to promote its own programs."38

Nonetheless, the final recommendations presented to the 1979 convention
by the BHE fully embraced a central role for providing Christian higher education
for the laity and a greater voice for the colleges in determining their programs.
The proposals were accompanied by a variety of supporting statements,

including the following “Realities” and “Postulates:”

o The projected synodical rate of growth has not taken place;

. The Synod and its Districts have provided... more than enough
capacity to produce all the professional church workers the
Synod. will need in the foreseeable future;

0 The Synod is faced with a serious stewardship challenge to
recruit students in sufficient numbers to utilize the available...

resources efficiently;

o The colleges have had increasing success in recruiting students
for professional ministry after they enroll as general education

students;

. The schools... are gifts from God and need to be nourished and
nurtured;

- Christian stewardship dictates that the schools need to be used
to capacity. In many cases this will provide the opportunities for
the introduction of creative programs not only in the church-
worker category but also for the Lutheran laity.39

The convention accepted the report and directed the BHE to “act
immediately on the principles [it] articulated.” It stipulated, however, that
Synodical subsidy dollars were to be utilized for the support of church-work

students. General education programs would need to come from other funding

 

38 BHE minutes, March 1979, item 7.
39 Reports and Memorials, 1975, 164-165.

160

 

 

sources. Likewise, the final version of the approved resolution stressed the
“determination not to ‘turn schools loose’ to pursue their independent interests.”"°
In reality, the resolution simply endorsed a movement that had long been
under way. But it also gave it new impetus by formalizing as one of the BHE’s
objectives the responsibility to “encourage the maximum contribution of each
synodical school as it attempts to meet the needs of the Synod and of its local
constituency.”"1 With the convention’s adoption of this resolution, the Missouri
Synod once again formally embraced an idea that had, for a while, been'denied

and denigrated, and in the process laid a tentative foundation for a new definition

and purpose to its System:

Making Christian higher education available for all its young people is a
valid objective for the Synod and an appropriate purpose for the synodical
schools... When our schools provide sound Scriptural and confessional
teaching together with excellence in all areas of instruction to the benefit
of the greatest number of Kingdom workers - professional and lay - that’s

the system! “2

 

40 . . . . . . 1)
Resolution 6-O1A, Proceedings, 1976. (Emphasrs in origina .
41 Report of the Board for Higher Education, 1979 Convention Workbook, 163. (Emphasrs added).

’2 lbid. (Emphasis in original).

161

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eight

CONCORDIA TODAY

Children of God, learning and living,
With Christ as the centennost part...

“Christ First in Everything”
Jeffrey N. Blersch & Kun’ E. van Kampen

So how, after all these twists and turns of history, has Concordia, Ann
Arbor turned out? The following description is a snapshot; the college’s identity
and sense of mission continues to be a moving target. Over the past five years,
Concordia has completed its first-ever major fund drive, which accomplished a
number of new goals and directions, particularly a commitment to technology and
a campus environment of stately elegance. The second major fund drive has
already begun, designed to steer the institution in significantly new directions for
its future, including a move towards “student-centered learning.” The college’s
admissions department developed a new strategic philosophy three years ago
which is changing both the image the college presents of itself and the
expectations of the students who enroll. What follows is a broad-stroked portrait

of the institution these and other shaping influences have created, as it has

revealed itself in the 2000-2001 academic school year.

162

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STUDENTS AND STUDENT SATISFACTION

Concordia, Ann Arbor is a very small institution, having never come near
its goals of 900 to 1200 students. At the start of the 2000-2001 school year,
enrollment included only 501 fulltime and 103 part time students. About 300 live
on campus. This small enrollment, though, represents the largest student body in
ten years.1

Of the 111 freshmen, 67% indicate they are Lutheran. Only ten percent
report no affiliation with a Christian religious body. Thirty-one percent of the
freshmen came from Lutheran high schools, 11% were graduates of other
Christian high schools, and 58% graduated from public schools. Nearly 80% are
Michigan residents.

The total student headcount includes 407 full time students in traditional
programs, 94 full time students in non-traditional (adult degree completion)
programs, and 97 part time students (split between traditional and non-traditional
programs). Of the 472 full and part time traditional students, 334 (that is, 71%)
reported that they are members of the Missouri Synod. Twenty-one others claim
membership in another Lutheran denomination. Thus, only about twenty—five
percent are non-Lutherans.

One hundred ninety-three of Concordia, Ann Arbor’s 472 traditional

students are registered as church-work students. That represents 58% of all the

LCMS students, 41% of the entire traditional student body, and 32% of the total

163

 

 

 

 

 

headcount (See Figure 8.2). In Fall 2000, only 141 LCMS students are enrolled
at Concordia for the traditional, non-church related programs offered, while 168

non—LCMS students have done so.

 

100
90- ————————— — —————————————————————————
30-L eeeeee __--_--_--,----,, ........ -_--
70, ______ ,,__-,,-- ..... , ..... ,z,,,,,_____
60%-~- , - - -
50”--- eeeeeeee - ----- - ———————————————
40—
30—
20—
10-

Percentage

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 8.1 Church work enrollment as a % of total headcount, 1990-2000

 

As part of its formal assessment process, in each of the past three years
the college has used the Noel-Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory to determine
current student attitudes regarding a variety of issues. On the Noel-Levitz,
students use a seven-point scale to indicate how important the various assessed
factors are to them and how satisfied they are with the college’s success at
addressing that factor.

Results indicate that students considered “a quality spiritual life” to be
among their highest priorities in their choice of college. Current students rated

this concern at a level of 6.33 on the scale of 1 to 7. Their satisfaction level

 

1 Enrollment data comes from “Concordia College, Ann Arbor, Census Report for Fall Semester,
2000-01, September 14, 2000,” prepared by Dr. William Mahler (CCAA registrar); and from
"Litany of Success,” a report distributed to CCAA’s Strategic Action Council, October 11, 2000,
Prepared by Kathleen Rowe (Director of Admissions).

164

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

regarding what they have found on campus regarding the quality of the spiritual
life was scored at 5.83. The college’s 2001 Self Study Report interpreted this
difference between levels of importance and satisfaction as being “very low,” and
concluded that in this aspect of campus and institutional life, the students’
“experience nearly matched their high expectation.”

A recent telephone survey of 380 potential students (half Lutheran and
half non-Lutheran), carried out for the college by an outside consulting firm,
indicated that among students who might consider enrollment at an institution like
Concordia, a college’s “Christian environment” is most often defined by three
criteria: involvement in worship services, growth in personal values, and
opportunities for mission and service-oriented activities. The published summary
of the findings suggests several areas in which Concordia might strengthen its

attractiveness:

0 Need to create more inclusive worship services and activities

0 Campus leadership positions should be open to both Lutheran and non-
Lutheran

. Work with LCMS faculty and students to embrace other Christian
students.3

By implication, these are areas identified by the consultant that are not yet
characteristic of Concordia’s campus life. However, their implementation would
require serious rethinking of the college’s identity as a confessional Lutheran

institution.

 

: Self Study 2001 chapter 6.
Jean Christensen, “STAMATS Telephone Survey Results," March 16, 2001. Provided to the
author by CCAA’s Director of Admissions.

165

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By longstanding tradition, evening devotions (times of Bible study and
prayer) are scheduled for all dormitories three times a week. They are organized
by each dorm’s “Spiritual Life Representative.”4 These are appointed volunteer
positions which, along with seven other official “student ministry leader” positions
on campus, are expected “in most circumstances” to be filled by students who
are members of the LCMS.5

Daily “Spirit Break” activities are organized (and most often conducted) by
Concordia’s full time campus pastor, the Rev. Dr. Randall Shields. They are held
in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity from 11:00 to 11:25 AM, Monday through
Friday. No classes are scheduled during that time, although the practice of
closing the library during chapel time was discontinued several years ago.

Generally, one day each week, Spirit Break incorporates a formal liturgy
(order of worship) including chanting of Psalms and singing of traditional hymns
and liturgical songs. Another day each week generally features an LCMS pastor
from the area preaching the sermon. Each Wednesday, Spirit Break includes the
Sacrament of Holy Communion (the ritual eating and drinking of bread and wine,
in which Lutherans believe they are receiving Jesus’ body and blood). By
Synodical stance and practice, non-Lutherans may not participate in that rite.
Non—LCMS Lutherans need special permission to participate.

The expectation that worship activities become “more inclusive,” and that
student leadership positions "be open to... non-Lutheran(s),” as recommended in

the summary of the consultant’s findings, suggests that the manner in which

: CCAA 2000-2001 Academic Calendar and Handbook, 6.
Article Vll.2.A, Constitution of the Spiritual Life Committee, CCAA, revised 4/28/99.

166

 

 

 

 

 

these activities are currently being carried out may make non-Lutherans feel like
outsiders, impacting efforts to recruit and retain them as students. But it also
carries a certain sense of threat to the Lutheran identity of the campus. This
would certainly be true regarding chapel activities, particularly as the Synod’s
doctrinal stance that the Sacrament of Holy Communion is required to be “close,"
in direct contrast to being “inclusive.”5 It would also be true regarding student
leadership of spiritual activities on campus. The Synod’s Constitution demands
“renunciation of unionism... of every description,” and “exclusive use of
doctrinally pure... hymnbooks... in church and school.”7 To recruit and appoint
non-Lutheran students for responsibility over dormitory Bible studies and
devotions would strain the understanding of those mandates among various
constituent groups of the college. Such steps could not be taken lightly.

The consultant’s identification of these issues may explain an area of
“concern” identified in the college’s Self Study Report 2001. That report noted
that recent student retention rates (those who return from one semester to the
next, excluding graduates) have been markedly lower for non-Lutheran students
(only a 50% retention rate, between 1993 and 1998) than for the school’s
Lutheran enrollees (76%). But the Self Study also reported that over the past

three years, the admissions department has instituted a new approach intended

to ensure a “better fit:”

First, the Office of Admission has a different philosophy driving its activity.
It is more intentional about cultivating students who are of high academic
quality and who are a good "fit" for the institution. The staff defines "fit" as

 

6 See Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the LCMS, Inter-Christian Relationships:
7 An Instrument for Study, 1991. (No publisher cited).
LCMS Handbook 1998, Article Vl.2 and 4

167

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a student whose academic, social and spiritual goals align with
Concordia’s mission and core values. Such a philosophy is more likely to
sustain a stable and growing enrollment in the years ahead.”

Of course, the consultant’s survey was initiated as one way to explore how
to make the “fit” more effective. The question of whether recruitment and
retention of more students requires an effort to become “spiritually” more
inclusive (changing the college in order to create a better fit with a broader range
of students) hits at the heart of the college’s sense of identity. Thanks to the

consultant’s report, that discussion probably lies in the near future.

RECRUITMENT PHILOSOPHY & STRATEGIES

The admissions department’s new philosophy of striving to ensure a “fit”
between student and institutional culture reveals itself in its recruitment strategies
for traditional students. The strategies strive to intentionally place the institution’s
religious mission and character directly in front of potential students and their
parents. For example, the Director of Admissions’ formal welcome at the start of
on-campus “Discover Concordia Day” events includes the encouragement that
those considering Concordia be “prayerful about the decision,” and trust that ”the
Lord has already decided what college you’re going to.” Likewise, the admission

department’s recruitment brochures and literature includes statements like,

God knows what is going to happen tomorrow and five years down the
road. He knows what we’re going to be when we grow up, and when we

 

8 Self Study 2001 chapter 4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

are going to die. Therefore he knows where you should go to college. So
our advice to you: ASK HlMlll.9

Director of Admissions Kathleen Rowe describes this approach as “a good
way for a Christian college [to be] putting our mission right up front.” A similar
message is shared again as a part of the private interviews with potential
students at the follow-up campus visits scheduled by those whose interest in
enrolling has moved beyond the “first look” level.10

The admissions department identifies “LCMS students from Michigan” and
four other north central states as its primary market, with high priority also given
"to other Lutheran congregations and Christian congregations as well as public
and private high schools in lower Michigan.” Its secondary market includes “other
Christian constituency in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York
and Florida.”11 As the admissions staff shares its pointedly Christian perspective
with recruits within these markets, they take care to also say, “If you don’t know
about Jesus, that’s okay too.”’2 Director of Admissions Rowe notes the possible
role of an “evangelism opportunity for the college” among non-Christian students
who may choose Concordia, but has no intention that such students be surprised
by the character of the college and their classmates once they arrive.

That this philosophy may not have always been followed is suggested by

a startling letter to the editor in a 1992 issue of the college’s student newspaper.

The anonymous writer Claimed:

 

9 “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” Recruitment brochure, CCAA Office of Admission. (No

date).
11? Kathleen Rowe, interview with Timothy Frusti, April 11, 2001.

The Office of Admission, Concordia College, Ann Arbor, “Admissions Philosophy," September
2 28, 2000.

Rowe interview.

169

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am an atheist, who was never informed as to the Lutheran standards of
the school at the time of my application. When I later learned the Lutheran
nature of the school, I was not concerned, because I felt they must be
Opening their doors to different kinds of people in conformity with the law.
What I have encountered since admission is an unspoken policy of
prejudice... If Concordia wants to be a Lutherans-only institution, it should
have the decency to warn applicants ahead of time. I do not necessarily

want to Change the school, I would just like the school to stop trying to
change me.13

Recruitment materials now shared with potential students are designed to
avoid such an occurrence. A piece entitled “Good Stuff to Know...” begins with
the bold statement, “Concordia is one of the best Christian liberal arts colleges
around.”“’ Another opens with a quote from President Koerschen: “As a Christian
institution, Concordia College prepares its students to be sensitive to the needs
of society.”15 Another recruitment brochure includes the question, “Is [Concordia]

too religious?” Its answer is pretty direct:

You decide: Concordia is a Christian liberal arts college where the
Lutheran understanding of the scripture and the Good News of Jesus
Christ is a big part of our culture and is shared with everyone. In fact, we
hope your spiritual growth will be as much a part of your four years here
as your academic and social growth. On the other hand, we’re not a Bible
college. Attendance at chapel, for example, is encouraged but not
requfied.

GOVERNANCE

The LCMS continues to wholly “own” its colleges. This is made Clear in the
Synod’s constitutional description of the duties of the various institutions’ Boards

of Regents:

 

’3 Anonymous. Letter to the editor. The Cardinal Truth, 4:7, December 14, 1992, page 4.

“Good Stuff to know...” Recruitment brochure. CCAA Admissions Department.

170

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Regents] will Operate and manage the institution as the agent of the
Synod, in which ownership is primarily vested and which exercises its
ownership through the [Synod’s] Board of Directors as custodian of the
Synod's property, the Board for Higher Education, and the respective
Board of Regents as the local governing bodies.16

The BHE is still alive and functioning, now serving as the Board of
Directors of the formally incorporated "Concordia University System.” It continues
to take seriously the 1979 convention’s directive that the Board continue to
“review and approve [all new] programs, both church work and nonchurch work,
both undergraduate and graduate, in the interest of the institutions and the
constituency.”17

Concordia, Ann Arbor is currently seeking final Synodical approval of a
new church work program (a major in “Family Life Ministries”) and recently added
a masters degree in Administration and Leadership. Both required BHE approval
before formal introduction in the catalog, although the process now moves those
types of decisions through a review board made up of several of the presidents
and academic deans. Thus, the colleges have gained a greater say in the
approval process, although Ann Arbor’s academic vice president, Dr. Wayne
Wilke, finds the continued limitations of institutional autonomy in such matters to

be a “bureaucratic hurdle” with questionable value.18

 

15 “Here’s what you need to know about...” Recruitment paper for 2001-2002. CCAA Admissions
Department.

’6 LCMS, Handbook of The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, 1998 Edition. (St. Louis: LCMS,

7 1998), Bylaw 6.03 i-
Resolution 6-01 A, 1979 Proceedings; LCMS Handbook, 3.409 c.

8 Wayne Wilke, interview with the author, April 6, 2001.

171

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FACULTY AND STAFF

Concordia has thirty—three full time faculty members, plus eight
administrators who hold faculty status. In addition, fifty-seven part time faculty

members held contracts at Concordia in the Fall 2000 semester.19

Twenty of the full time faculty are rostered by the Synod as certified
Lutheran teachers or ordained pastors, meaning they are either graduates of one
of the LCMS System schools or have completed the Synod’s colloquy process
through one of the Concordias. It is interesting to note, however, that none of the
four Academic Deans (overseeing the Schools of Education, Arts and Sciences,

Business, and Continuing Education) are included in that number.

Only four of the full time faculty members are not Lutheran (including one
of the Deans). Thus, Concordia meets the Synod’s mandate that the Concordias’

full time faculties be at least 90% Lutheran. Synodical Bylaws describe the

expectations regarding this area of concern:

Ordinarily candidates for full—time teaching positions shall be rostered
members of the Synod. When laypersons are employed in full time

teaching positions, they shall pledge to perform their duties in harmony
with the Holy Scriptures as the Inspired Word of God, the Lutheran

Confessions, the Synod's doctrinal statements, and the policies of the
Synod?"

The Bylaws also stipulate the process by which potential faculty members’

readiness to meet that criteria is to be determined:

The Board for Higher Education shall require certification of theological
and professional competency. All initial appointments to seminaries and to
college/university theology faculties Shall require the prior approval of the
BHE. All other initial full-time appointments shall require prior approval of

’2: Self Study 2001, Chapter 2.
LCMS. Handbook, Bylaw 6.23 c.

172

 

 

 

 

the [college’s] Board of Regents and shall include a thorough theological
review involving the District President and selected members of the Board
of Regents.21

The contract which Concordia’s part—time instructors are asked to Sign
includes the stipulation that the instructor "agrees to respect the mission and
purpose of Concordia College and the theological position to which it
subscribes.” It closes with the statement, "May we in our work, conduct and

attitude, remember that we are about the Lord’s business.”22

The contract used by the college for full time faculty is even more explicit:

Because of the religious nature and purpose of the College, academic
freedom is limited by Article II of the Constitution of The Lutheran Church
— Missouri Synod and by the Faculty Member’s obligation to honor,
uphold, and teach in accordance with synodically accepted doctrinal
statements. Therefore, the Faculty Member expressly agrees to adhere to,

be bound by, and act in accordance with the attached statement of
Theological Agreements...23

The contract includes a list of causes for which a faculty member may be
terminated by the Board of Regents, including “Conduct unbecoming a Christian
(including, but not by way of limitation, personal or professional conduct not
morally exemplary of a Christian teacher),” and "Advocacy of false doctrine.”

Expressly included are either “disregard of or opposition to” the Synod's doctrinal
stands.

The faculty’s code of ethics, published in the Faculty Handbook, states an

explicit expectation of Christian conduct and teaching:

We, the faculty of Concordia College, affirm our commitment to the
purpose for which Concordia was founded, and to the Concordia motto:
"That in all things Christ might have the preeminence." In this context we

:‘2 LCMS Handbook, Bylaw 6.23.a.

“Concordia College, Ann Arbor, Michigan Academic Services Agreement: Part-Time.”
“Concordia College, Ann Arbor, Michigan Faculty Term Employment Agreement.”

173

 

 

affirm our belief in the worth and dignity of each child of God. We
recognize the importance of the pursuit of truth, the encouragement of
scholarship, and the promotion of democratic citizenship. We regard as
essential to these goals the protection of freedom to learn and to teach.
We affirm and accept our responsibility to practice our profession
according to the highest ethical Christian standards.24

MISSION

In the 1963 edition of its catalog, Concordia’s statement of purpose
referred directly to its primary role of preparing Church-work students to continue
on to one of the Synod’s senior colleges.25 The college’s Self Study Report for
the North Central Association four years later described that purpose as its
exclusive role; allowing general education students was not, the report stated,
“the institution’s purpose.”26

That original mission statement was modified in 1976, reflecting the
addition of the four-year pre-theological program. In 1980 it was further revised,
shortly after the BHE and Synod’s directive that the colleges embrace the task of
serving also their “local constituency." This revised mission statement put forward

a broader role for the institution:

Within its distinctly Christian environment and its academic community
dedicated to excellence, Concordia College will prepare men and women
for a life of service in the church and in the world.27

Four years later, this was revised slightly, as noted by italics:

Within its distinctly Christian environment and its academic community
dedicated to excellence, Concordia College will serve as a liberal arts

 

2" CCAA Faculty Handbook, Policy 3400, The Concordia Faculty Code of Ethics.
25 1963 Catalog, Concordia Lutheran Junior College, 4.

25 Self Study 1967, 7.

’7 Self Study 2001, chapter 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

college of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, preparing men and
women for a life of service in the church and in the world.

With only a subsequent Change of verb tense (from “will serve as” to
“serves as,”) this twenty-year-old statement continues identifying the publicly-
Stated mission and role Of the college.28 It is accompanied by seven goals for all
students, including a specific statement regarding religious growth: “...to
graduate students who have... grown in faith and in the expression of the
Christian way of life.”29

The college’s statement of mission is broad enough to allow a broad range
of programs, traditional and non-traditional, Church-work and non-church work,
graduate and undergraduate. It is intended to reflect the Lutheran doctrine of
“Christian vocation,” which holds that “any occupation in which a Christian can
serve God and exercise optimum stewardship of his talents under circumstances
into which he has been legitimately directed can be termed his vocation.”30

Reflecting thisLutheran doctrine, both former President Schmiel and
current President Koerschen believe that the preparation of students for service
as Christians within non-Church work professions is appropriately a central and
defining mission of the college. They both argue that it was, in fact, a part of the
institution’s mission from the start, in addition to being the mission of the Synod’s

higher education efforts from its start.” While they continue embracing church-

work preparation as an equally important role, they do not feel the college’s

 

:2 See Concordia College, Ann Arbor, 2000-2002 Catalog, 8.

Ibid.
This quote summarizing the Lutheran view of Christian vocation comes from Walter Stuenkel,
“Notes on Ministerial Recruitment.” (Paper presented to the BHE Plenary Meeting, Sept 30-
Oct 2, 1962).

30

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

success should be measured by the numbers of church professionals it
graduates. In fact, Koerschen argues that it is not even the college’s role to
recruit the next generation of pastors and Lutheran school teachers. Concordia’s
responsibility is to provide excellent training programs for those who come. The
primary task of enlisting potential church-work students belongs to the Synod’s
congregations?2

The President’s view, however, is not a universally held view among its
constituents. The Self Study Report 2001 describes the current differences of

perspective and its potential negative implications:

There appears to be widespread agreement among our constituents that
Concordia's primary purpose is to prepare professional Church workers.
There is less agreement among our constituents that Concordia should
offer programs in the disciplines outside the arena of professional church
work. From the support documents mentioned [earlier in the Self Study
Report], this appears to be the major area in which Concordia's
constituents either do not understand the college's mission, or we have
not communicated it adequately... Some see [the growth of non-church-
work programs] as a breech and compromise of our mission.”

INSTITUTIONAL CORE VALUES

Three years ago, President Koerschen Challenged the faculty to develop
and embrace a set of core value statements, as an expression of the under
girding beliefs which will serve as constants through the potentially radical
Changes facing higher education institutions in the near future. Through the year-

long process, the faculty reached consensus on three statements, which were

 

31 James Koerschen, interview with the author (audio taped), June 12, 2000. David Schmiel,
interview with the author (audio taped), March 2, 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

then further defined by narrative descriptions of the faculty’s s“shared commitment
towards living out” those values. These are shared with prospective employees
of the college and published in the college catalog. They have also been noted
by the Academic Vice-President in the “Presentation of candidates for diplomas”
at all subsequent commencement ceremonies.“

The core value statements explicitly identify a strong and continuing

commitment towards the institution’s Christian purpose and Lutheran heritage:

Core Value 1: Concordia College is a Christian educational institution
where the Lutheran understanding of Scripture and the Good News of
Jesus Christ permeates the culture and is shared with everyone.

Core Value 2: Our primary enterprises are learning, teaching and
scholarship grounded in faith.

Core Value 3: We are a community that expresses concern and care for
every individual.

The extent to which these values are actually honored and expressed in
campus life is a question beyond the scope of my study. They provide, however,
a revealing insight into the ways the faculty continues talking about the
importance and place of the college’s religious roots and denominational
Character.

These values are reflected within the college’s programs in both implicit
and explicit ways. Concordia’s School of Education faculty developed a

published Conceptual Framework, for example, which defines its philosophy of

 

32 For an earlier example of this claim, see Walter Stuenkel. “Notes on Ministerial Recruitment.”

3(Paper presented to the Plenary Group, October 1962).

:2001 Self Study Report, chapter 3.

:4Wayne Wilke, “Presentation of the Candidates.” May 6, 2000. Manuscript provided to Tim
F rustl by Wayne Wilke.

177

 

 

 

 

 

 

teacher preparation and the type of teachers it hopes to produce. The
Framework includes the following definition of the expectation that candidates will

be prepared to serve as “servant leadersz"

As a Christian institution and faculty, we strive to strengthen the
disposition towards caring service, justice, and ethical leadership through
an understanding of and response to the work and teachings of Jesus
Christ. Within the college’s context of faith-grounded scholarship, the
Scriptural mandate to “make known among the nations what God has
done (Isaiah 12:4)” provides a foundation for servant leadership as it calls
to mind God’s love for his fallen creation, moving us to lives of caring
service to others.

Embracing Martin Luther’s definition of “Christian vocation” as including
whatever work or career an individual might undertake, we espouse the
teaching profession in all settings, whether in Lutheran, public, or other
nonpublic schools, as an opportunity to serve both God and community.35

The Framework also specifies the expectation that Concordia’s teacher
graduates will “espouse each student as a unique Child of God, full of potential.”

That program outcome is defined by the following paragraph:

While discussions about the relationship between Children and God are
not appropriate in many schools, we believe that viewing each student as
the child of a loving Creator leads to a greater acceptance of each
student’s unique potential and of the moral obligation to help each one
succeed. This belief lies at the heart of Concordia’s mission, and is one
we gladly embrace, particularly as it leads to a strengthened awareness of
teaching the whole child - physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.36

The published Framework is distributed to all teachers and administrators
with whom the college’s student teachers work. Thus, the college’s explicit
Christian orientation and expectations are explicitly shared with a wide

constituency, including public school educators.

 

:: CCAA School of Education. Conceptual Framework, revised January 2001, 3.
lbid., 6.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FINANCES

The Synod’s direct financial support of the college through the BHE
subsidies continues dwindling. The 1999-2000 school year’s subsidy to Ann

Arbor was less than $340,000, only about three percent of the college’s total

 

revenue for the year.

Development efforts and successes, however, have been growing. In
1998 the college concluded its first-ever major fund drive with strong results,
surpassing its three-year goal of $13 million by an additional $1 million. A
comparison to previous years’ donation levels clearly illustrates the new-found
success. During the years of 1986 to1990, the college received $5,254,087.
Between 1991 and 1995, gifts equaled $5,671,403. But from 1996 through 2000,
Concordia received gifts of $16,453,621 through its development efforts, largely i

through the efforts of the "Roadmap 2000" campaign”7 (See Figure 8.2). I

_x
(I)

 

$16.5

.44.;
NAG)

Dollars (x 1,000,000)
8

 

 

 

86-90 91-95 96-00
Years

 

Figure 8.2 Donations to CCAA, 1986-2000

 

 

 

 

 

Likewise, the college’s endowment fund is enjoying substantial growth,
doubling in size from 1995 to 1999 after five years of rather stagnant growth. At
the end of 1999, the college’s endowment was $6.2 million, the highest in the
institution’s history38 (See Figure 8.3).

The composition of the college’s donor base is somewhat unusual.
Donations from alumni amount to only about two percent of all gifts.39 This is not
necessarily surprising, in view of the short period in which the college has
graduated its students into the work force. Until the teacher education program
graduated its first students in 1982, the vast majority of the alumni continued on
into a senior college or one of the seminaries. The college has less than twenty
years’ worth of graduates who would consider Concordia their true alma mater. A
great number of those have entered professional Church work, which in the
LCMS tends to mean low salaries.40 This does not represent a formula which
leads to significant alumni financial support.

The institution’s donor base does, however, clearly represent the college’s
constituency and heritage. The Institutional Advancement staff estimates that
95% to 98% of all individual donors are Lutheran. Jason Valente, Concordia’s
Director of Planned Giving, describes these as “faithful Lutherans who are
supportive of higher education and therefore support ‘their’ Concordia College...

It is a matter of [Biblical] stewardship to them, and they do not take it lightly.”1

 

37 Self Study 2001, Chapter 4.
33 Ibid.
39 Jason H. Valente, CCAA Director of Planned Giving. Email correspondence with Tim Frusti,
40 April 10, 2001.
Joe lsenhower, Jr. “Study: Compensation key to keeping teachers.” Reporter, March 2001, 1+.
Personal correspondence from Jason Valente, CCAA’s Director of Planned Giving, dated April
18, 2001.

180
¥ __ _

 

 

 

 

 

Dollars (x 1 million)
[\J (a) h 01

_\

 

 

91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99
Year

 

Figure 8.3 Total endowment, 1991-1999

 

NEW EFFORTS AND DIRECTIONS

Details and specific financial goals for Concordia's new strategic plan,
approved by the faculty and the Board of Regents in April and May, 2000, are
under development. Underlying the plan are several “mandates,” Including the
expectation that “Concordia College will continue to be faithful to the college
motto, That in all things, Christ will be preeminent.” It also assumes that the
college will “continue to function within the current mission statement” and states
as one of four vision statements that Concordia will be “committed to faith and

values formation.”
The initiative's goal is to raise the funds necessary to enable the institution
to achieve five new “strategic directions” within the context of the plan’s several

‘mandates and assumptions. The five strategic directions are:

181

 

 

 

 

o Concordia College will make learners and the achievement of their
academic goals the primary focus of its educational enterprise.

0 Concordia College will select and develop programs that are both
excellent and market driven.

o Concordia College will strengthen relationships and enhance service
among key stakeholders and important external entities.

o Concordia College will become the best CUS school at which to work.

0 Concordia College will become less tuition dependent and more
efficient to help ensure the financial health of the institution.“

The Synod is also at the initial stages of a major new initiative, designed to
provide greatly increased endowment support for its colleges and seminaries.
The intent of this twelve-year $400 million campaign (named “For the Sake of the
Church,”) includes the goal of doubling the number of Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod students studying at a Concordia while providing adequate scholarship
support to allow them to graduate relatively free of student loan debt. The
campaign is still in the major gifts phase. Concordia, Ann Arbor was the first
campus to receive a major gift of $1 million toward its minimum campaign goal of

$30 million over the next twelve years for endowment."3

 

”2 "Strategic Plan - February 2000.” Attached to “Agenda, Faculty Meeting #458,” February 16,
2000.

43 Self Study 2001, Chapter 4.

182

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nine

FACING THE NEW BY EMBRACING THE OLD

 

Change and decay in all around I see;
0 thou who changest not, abide with me.

"Abide with Me”
Henry F. Lyte

 

King Solomon, in his sad, cynical, and somehow encouraging book of
Ecclesiastes offers a profound insight into the human experience. There is, he
proclaims, nothing new under the sun.1

In many people’s eyes, Concordia, Ann Arbor has embraced a new
mission which seems contrary to the intentions of those who first undertook the
struggle to make the college a reality. Dr. W. Harry Krieger, a driving force who
made the college possible, expressly wanted a “school of the prophets.”2 As the
Board of Control’s first chairman, his formative influence in putting into place that
single-minded vision of church-work preparation can still be seen and felt
whenever stakeholders question the purpose or value of other programs of study.
Likewise, in the earliest version of the college’s catalog, and in the institution’s

first Self Study Report for North Central accreditation, and in the college’s first

 

; Ecclesiastes 1:9.
Paul Zimmerman, interview with the author (audio taped), April 17, 2001.

183

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

formal proposal for expanding to a senior college, one clearly sees the
convictions of Concordia’s first president, Dr. Paul Zimmerman, insisting, “We
hold that the original Character of our institutions as schools of the Church must
be preserved at any cost.”3

But are the changed directions -- the embracing of such diverse, non-
religious programs as aviation and criminal justice -- evidences of institutional
“disengagement” from the church’s work and mission? Is Ann Arbor’s experience
an example of yet another college turning its back on the purpose for which a
Church founded its institutions of higher learning?

“

I don’t believe so. Concordia’s new” direction is not particularly new, in
light of the longer story of the Synod’s visions and efforts regarding the role of
education within God’s work. I believe that Solomon’s dictum -— that there is, in
fact, nothing new under the sun -- provides a useful theoretical perspective (at
least in this case) for this complex issue of determining a church-founded
college’s changing character.

Rather than turning its back on its “one thing needful,” Concordia is now at
a place of having embraced an expanded mission as an arm and agent of the
church. This vision was most clearly brought to Concordia by its third president,
the Rev. Dr. David Schmiel. In some ways this seems surprising. Dr. Schmiel
came to Ann Arbor in 1983 from a position with the BHE in St. Louis, where he

was the full time executive for its Standing Committee on Pastoral Ministry. He

would eventually serve as president of the Fort Wayne seminary. One might

 

3 Paul Zimmerman, Concordia Lutheran Jr. College, Ann Arbor, MI: lts Potential in the
Preparation of Able Ministers of the New Testament, 8. (Proposal presented to Committee 6

184

—+

 

 

 

 

expect he would have brought a strong commitment to rebuild the pre-ministerial
program as a primary thrust. But during his tenure at Ann Arbor, he espoused a
vision of moving away from a single-purpose institution devoted to the church—
work preparation and toward “trying to have Concordia be a college which would
maintain a very strong Lutheran sense and prepare people for really active lives
of service, whether they were in the Church vocations or other vocations.”4

The Synod was sidetracked for years by the conviction and fear that it
could not afford to offer higher education programs outside of those needed to
provide the professional workers needed for its congregational and missionary
work. But the LCMS is now at a point where its colleges and universities, each
functioning with little demand on the synodical budget for support, can achieve a
broader purpose and better assist the Church In its larger mission — to make and
teach disciples.

The fact that so many are convinced that the “true” purpose of the Synod’s
colleges is Church-work preparation is an accident of history, reflecting a
willingness to first accept and then embrace the limitations placed by historical
realities which are now past. It was not the dream nor goal of the founders of the
Synod’s first institution Of higher learning to create an institution only for Church
workers. Its founders’ bigger dream was revealed in the preamble of its 1853

chafien

Whereas, the members of the “German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of
Missouri, Ohio, and Other states,” and their friends, are desirous of
building up and endowing a college in this State, to be called the

 

 

 

of the LCMS Board of Directors, July 1, 1969). Archived in CCAA’S Zimmerman Library
4David Schmiel, telephone interview with the author (audio taped), March 2,2001.

185

—+

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Concordia College, for the purpose of aiding in the dissemination of
knowledge, including all branches of academic, scientific, and theological
instruction in general, and giving, moreover, to suitable persons desiring it,
instruction in the creed and tenets of said denomination in particular...5

It has taken much time to begin achieving that mission in intentional ways,
as it became increasingly hidden behind the costs and anxieties associated with
operating a far flung system of independently-natured schools out of a central
office in St. Louis. The BHE’S conviction in the late 19503 and early 19605 that
Church-work preparation would soon become a massive undertaking requiring all
of the System’s resources became a powerful myth which continues echoing
today. Once a story like that comes to be accepted, it is difficult not to see other
uses of a church’s colleges as evidence of the faculty’s and/or administration’s
readiness to leave the needs of the Church behind.

Concordia, Ann Arbor was founded within the heat of that myth. President
Koerschen is convinced that arguments pointing to the high church-work
enrollment in those early days as evidence of its truth fail to recognize the reality

of what was going on at the time:

From a curricular stand point, as a junior college, this institution offered a
very straightforward, classical, liberal arts education, which was designed
to prepare students to go anywhere... Now there was an assumption, I
think, made in those early days on the part of the administration and on
the part of the Church at large that everyone who came here was going
into church work. At least, that is the perception that seems to exist among
our constituency [today]. But as junior college, there was no
differentiation between those who wanted to go into the medical world, or
the business world, or any other world outside of being a pastor or
teacher. When we look at the reality [of] what the alumni of that first class
are doing today, I would say it’s no more than 50% are involved in a

5 Translated and published in Carl S. Meyer, Moving Frontiers: Readings in the History of the
Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,1964), 215.

186
—+

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

professional church work program, or even finished at one of the senior
colleges in the Synod.6

But as reality became apparent -- as the System’s overcapacity for its
church-work requirements became a financial crisis -- many continued to believe
the myth.

Of course, large ships turn slowly. Budgetary realities and limitations
already in place demanded continued financial support from the Synod at a time

when it was unable to provide it. But new sources of funding and changing

 

paradigms of purpose require time to develop.

Such shifts require thought, discussion, assessment and intentionality. But
when an intentional, focused reconsideration of the System’s design and intent
was most essential, the Synod’s attention was ovenlvhelmed by the theological
crisis of the 1970s Several colleges did not survive the ensuing decade (the pre-
seminary senior college in Fort Wayne and St. John College in Kansas.) But as
the Synod’s leadership struggled to resolve the theological, political, and financial
crises engendered by the St. Louis debacle, the remaining colleges found their
own ways to ride out the storm and prepare for their future. The complementary
task of convincing Synod that the solutions they found are the right solutions,
however, has proven problematic.

Dr. Schmiel, who presided over Concordia, Ann Arbor’s transition away

from the single—minded vision, says it wasn’t for lack of trying:

There were many people who just never did understand. We presented it
to the public with as much push as we possibly could. We publicized it.
We sought to encourage churches to send their students to Concordia if

6 James Koerschen, interview with the author (audio taped), June 12, 2000.

187

 

 

they wanted to go into other programs than church vocations... But I’m
sure many people didn’t hear us, because that’s the way things are. it
takes a long time to get people to understand when Change is taking
place.7 '

The uncertainty over the changes was, of course, also faced by the
colleges themselves. This reality was expressed with a sense of both honesty
and wit by Dr. Schmiel through a rhetorical question he asked during his

inaugural sermon in 1983:

We who work in the system of LCMS schools face the rather unique
situation of a radically changing system, in which a once tightly-organized
group of colleges with the almost exclusive function of preparing
professional church workers... is in the process of evolving into - what’.78

VVhatindeed?

I remember in the early 19903 a discussion I had with colleagues (the
Lutheran teachers with whom I taught) about our shared concern that the System
was no longer producing the sort of teacher candidates needed by the Church,
and our belief that this failure was caused by the insidious expansion of the
colleges’ program offerings into areas far beyond their “real” purpose. In one
particular lunchroom discussion, I and several other alumni of the System’s
“truer” era discussed our agreement with a recent Lutheran Education article,
identifying the expansion of degrees and programs within the System as a
mistake which the Synod needed to find ways to undo.9 We feared that the

System would fail (bankruptcy, the Closure of most campuses, the loss of

 

7 Schmiel interview.
David Schmiel, "Concordia's Third Decade: A Design from the Chapel." (Sermon delivered on
the occasion of his inauguration as president of the college, February 27, 1983.) Archived in
Zimmerman Library, Concordia College, Ann Arbor.

188

 

 

 

Synod’s financial and political support) if the trend were not reversed. Through
those discussions, I decided that God was leading me to become actively
involved in an effort to somehow stem the tide, a task which I could best
undertake as a professor within the System. Presumptuous, perhaps, but
heartfelt nonetheless.

l have changed my mind about whether the changes are really a problem.
Many in Synod have not.

I continue membership at the Lutheran congregation I once taught at.
During a 1999 congregational voters’ assembly meeting, I listened as the
Michigan District’s president spent a few minutes answering questions from the
church’s members. One of my good friends, who continues teaching at the
congregation’s school, rose and asked the president, “So when are our colleges
going to get back to what they are supposed to be doing?”

Several months later, I was in St. Louis gathering data for my study. I
began my teaching career at a Lutheran school in the St. Louis area, so the trip
provided a chance to visit several old friends. As I explained my research
question, one of them -- a System graduate from the early 19705 -- immediately
launched into a litany of where the Concordias had gone wrong and asked if I
thought my research might help get them back to their real job.

Merrimon Cuninggim’s description of the struggles Church colleges face in
defending what they are doing offers a valuable explanation for those concerns

raised by faithful members of the church. First, he offers an insightful metaphor

 

9 David O. Berger, “Whither Higher Education In Missouri? Part II.” Lutheran Education, 128,
no.2 (1992):64-80.

189

 

 

 

 

 

 

for what has happened: “Parents lead the way for their offspring until children can
first catch up, and later carry on alone. It is surely a good thing that life is like

that.”’° He then surmises about the cause of the questions those colleges

eventually encounter:

When some [Church] leaders began to misunderstand their growing up,
and when they sought compliance with churchly rules and interpretations,
the colleges’ reluctance and even refusal to abide by all such expectations
did not mean they were no longer Church-related. It meant that the
colleges simply did not always fit the Churches’ prescriptions for them.11

It is helpful to note that at the time of Concordia, Ann Arbor’s opening,
both the Synod and the Michigan District were also demonstrating strong
commitments regarding Christian higher education for laity. One example is
Valparaiso University, a Lutheran institution which has received strong support
and encouragement from the Synod’s and Michigan District leaders.12 Although it
never received BHE subsidy funds and its president was pointedly not invited to
participate in the BHE Plenary Meetings,13 it was assisted by special Synodical

fund drives, often featured in Synodical publications, and annually included in the

 

Church’s Statistical Yearbook.14
There is a second important example, which seems to be little known ‘
among Concordia’s constituents. In the same year the Michigan District was

celebrating the opening of the college in Ann Arbor, it also acquired its own

 

Merrimon Cuninggim, Uneasy Partners: The College and the Church (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1994), 40.

Cuninggim, Uneasy Partners, 50.

See, for example, the resolution entitled “Valparaiso University,” 1963 Proceedings Michigan
District, page 37. Also see “Memorial No. 10 re: Valparaiso University, ” in 80’” Convention -
The Michigan District, 1963, page 122

BHE minutes October 1961, item 28.

See, for example, “Valparaiso... A Strong Arm of the Church,” The Lutheran Witness 78, no.7
(1959):158-9.

190

 

 

college in Detroit. President Krieger’s report to the District’s 1963 convention
urged positive action on the opportunity to accept the proffered gift of Great
Lakes College (which was then renamed Michigan Lutheran College). He said it
was important to do so, “if only because it would represent our District’s first
determined effort to provide college training in a Church—related school for those
who have not elected full-time service in the Church as a life’s vocation.“5 The
delegates agreed, adopting a resolution which spoke clearly of the value of

Lutheran colleges for laity:

Whereas, there is a need for additional colleges willing and able to teach
the Word of God in a quality program of practical and vocational education
to anyone with motivation and potential to profit from it...and

Whereas, the Lutheran Church has always concerned itself with the
spiritual welfare of its people also in education, therefore be it

Resolved, that the Michigan District... accept the Charter of Michigan
Lutheran College, its property and its assets.16

The college was Closed by 1970 in the face of its own financial crisis. In
his report to the District convention explaining the closing, Edward Westcott
echoed yet again the recurring theme regarding the high importance given by
confessional Lutherans to Christ-centered education as a part of the Church’s

essential mission:

I realize that this is debatable, but I feel very strongly that our venture into
the college level of education for the inner or central city of Detroit was
the most worthwhile, productive and rewarding program we have
undertaken as a District. There is certainly nothing more urgently needed
than to provide education, particularly education with a Christian
emphasis...17

 

15

W. Harry Krieger,‘ President’s Report,” 80'” Convention, p43
7 61963 Proceedings Michigan District. August 25- 29, 1963., p. 38.

Edward A. hWe,stcott Jr. “Report on Michigan Lutheran College.” In Proceedings, Michigan
Dlstrlct 84 Convention, 1970, 15-17

191

 

 

 

 

 

This effort to provide for such an education, like many others in the
Synod’s history, failed. Interestingly, it failed at the same time that the
Concordias were facing their own crisis, as the experiment to operate a System
of integrated colleges and seminaries exclusively for Church-work preparation
was revealing itself to be beyond the means of the Synod to achieve. The natural
question thus emerges: Could not the two different goals be accomplished side

by side? The present efforts of Concordia, Ann Arbor suggests that they can.

CONCLUSIONS

 

The question of institutional goals and purposes becomes particularly

interesting in light of the unique overriding mission which the confessional

 

Lutheran Church brings to its work. In addition to goals typically expected of

higher education institutions, within the Lutheran setting there is an additional

goal which must be considered: the command of Christ to his followers: “Make

disciples of all nations... teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.”18
In Article III of its Constitution, the LCMS embraces this goal as the

primary purpose and identity of all of its work and agencies:

The Synod, under Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions,
shall...Strengthen congregations and their members in giving bold
witness by word and deed to the love and work of God, the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, and extend that Gospel witness into all the world.19

Interestingly, though, the Synod has historically compartmentalized this

goal of “making disciples” into several distinct tasks. As their part in supporting

:: Matthew 28:18-20
LCMS Handbook, p. 9

192

the Synod’s objectives, the colleges and seminaries were given the singular task
of preparing the Church’s ministers (pastors, teachers and others) for their work,
ensuring that they know and embrace the “true faith” and can recognize and
confront heresy. The task of presenting the Gospel to non-believers in hopes of
winning them for Christ was not expected of the colleges. Rather, as explicitly
noted in Article III, that task has been designated to the individual congregations
and (because it represents the collective work of its congregations) the Synod
itself. It does so by calling and supporting missionaries throughout the world.

Perhaps surprisingly, neither were the colleges given the task of “teaching

 

them (i.e., those who are already believers) to obey everything.” This, too, has

been given by constitutional definition to the congregations, to be carried out

 

through the preaching of sermons, through day schools, and through part-time
educational agencies (Bible classes, Sunday Schools, confirmation Classes). In
sharp contrast with the Roman Catholic colleges’ intent to provide non-heretical
higher education to their laity,20 the Synod refused its colleges permission to
aggressively open their programs to its lay members.

Through a variety of means and for a variety of reasons, the Synod’s
colleges eventually expanded beyond the tasks assigned them. Even Concordia,
Ann Arbor, whose President Pohl challenged the BHE’S increasing moves
towards opening the colleges’ roles and offerings, has relied heavily on general
education enrollments since the early 19705. The moves have received the

Synod’s formal blessing, although by and large after the fact. (The 1979

 

2° Philip Gleason, Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth
Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

193

—+

 

 

 

convention encouragement to the colleges to meet the needs of local
constituents is a key example). For all practical purposes, the colleges and
universities have embraced both tasks.

The question remains whether they can do both successfully, or whether
they are somehow in conflict with one another. The 1992 Lutheran Education
article which helped move me towards my present work was based on the
author’s concerns regarding “the difficulty -- even impossibility -- of providing a
strong liberal arts education in settings pervaded by careerism, multiculturalism,
and other current agendas.” Since the Synod’s tradition is to utilize a strong
liberal arts perspective as the foundation for church work preparation, adding
training programs for other careers seemed to introduce these inappropriate
distractions.21

This was not, however a new concern. (There is nothing new under the
sun!) David Berger’s 1992 article mirrored the concerns of Fort Wayne’s
president (raised eighteen years earlier) about the “frivolities” of typical college
life interfering with the proper training of future pastors.22

This claim is countered by a long-running argument that theological and
ministerial training is poorly served by Cloistering future church workers from
those whom they will eventually serve. Concordia’s former President Schmiel

goes so far as to question the type of student who would choose such a school

today:

 

2’ David o. Berger, “Whither Higher Education In Missouri? Part II.” Lutheran Education, 1992.

128:2, 64—80. Quote from page 74.
Martin Neeb, “Concordia Senior College, The Junior College - Seminary Bridge.” (Paper
presented to the BHE Plenary Meeting, February 16-18, 1964).

194

———

 

 

 

 

In the world in which we live, if you were to create a church work school
that would prepare only preachers and teachers, you would have a whale
of a difficult time to recruit any contemporary young people other than the
most narrow minded... I don’t think that would serve the future ministry of
the church.23

This argument was voiced clearly at the 1969 LCMS Convention, in

Overture 6-44:

Whereas, it is uncertain whether or not our preparatory high schools, pre-
ministerial colleges, teacher colleges, and seminaries are presently the
best and/or most economical ways to fulfill our total synodical tasks in
especially higher education; e.g.: We have no synodical institutions of
higher education for the bulk of our young people who are not entering
full-time church work. And...

Whereas, it seems most reasonable and helpful not to Cloister theology
today but rather to provide a ripe Climate wherein theology can have
healthful and Challenging intercourse with the other disciplines?"

 

It was a provocative argument which called into question the direction the

Synod had adopted for its colleges. The convention delegates voted to decline

 

the overture. But it offered a rhetoric which, ten years later, would be cited by the
BHE itself in defense of the proposal to encourage the colleges to “think
creatively” in developing programs for its local needs and constituency.

It is also the argument that newly-installed President Schmiel brought to
Concordia, Ann Arbor’s discussion of the uncertainty over the new directions

circumstances were forcing it to take in the early 19805:

I am convinced that the mini-melting pots which our colleges have become
are a better milieu in which to prepare people for ministry than the
homogeneous groupings which they once were. It is good for future
pastors, parochial teachers, parish assistants, directors of Christian
education, directors of evangelism, deaconesses and lay leaders to spend
their college years together. They will spend the rest of their lives

 

23 . . .
Schmiel InterVIew.

4 Resolution 6-44, LCMS Reports and Memorials, 1969.

195

 

 

 

 

 

together. And it is good for them to learn to know and respect people who
do not share their commitments. They will Spend the rest of their lives
reaching out with the Gospel to such people.”

Concordia has embraced the argument. But the questions remain.

Selling Out or Answering a Call?

John Hardin Best, echoing many other educational historians, points to the
“new revolution” which took place in American higher education in the 19705
through the 19805. ” The revolution was the result of the “increasing influence of
free market forces” in institutional policy formation. The revolution’s impact,
generally portrayed in negative terms, was the creation of a system forcing
“every institution of higher education, whether publicly or privately controlled and
supported, to compete for students and their tuition dollars.” More to the point,
institutions were forced to compete against institutions of their own submarket.
Thus, small Lutheran colleges owned by a conservative denomination might
have to compete for support and enrollment against other small Lutheran
colleges owned by that same conservative denomination!

While an obvious answer would be the closure of institutions, within the
free market world of higher education, Best argues that “the overriding
consideration for any institution must be, as it perhaps has always been, the
continuity and vitality of the institution itself.” There Is a certain cynicism inherent

in such a description, made Clearer as Best quotes Laurence Veysey’s

 

25 . .
Davrd Schmiel, Inaugural sermon.

John Hardin Best, “The Revolution of Market and Management: Toward a History of Higher
Education since 1945.” History of Education Quarterly 28, no. 2 (1988): 176-189.

196

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

description of the institutional mindset at times of trouble: “In a crisis, only the

ship mattered.”

The crisis clearly manifested itself within the Missouri Synod’s System of
Higher Education. The BHE’s and conventions answer in 1979 emphasized the
need to protect and maintain each of the individual institutions, in a dramatic shift

from the earlier commitment to creating a Closely articulated System of

campuses working in harmony.
“Market pressure” theorists and “secularization” theorists might view that

shift cynically, as somehow contrary to the Gospel. But within the context of the
religious convictions of the Missouri Synod, such cynicism may not be a fair

reflection of the various leaders’ motivations. To them, these were not merely

 

colleges that were in danger. They were arms and agents of Christ’s Body, the

Church. The BHE and presidents were called to protect and build up the

Kingdom of God. To declare retreat was contrary to the faith which shaped and

led those who had been charged with the care of these institutions. Note the

BHE’s rhetoric used in support of the 1979 proposal:

The schools of the Synod are gifts from God and need to be nourished
and nurtured according to the Scriptural principles of stewardship...
Christian stewardship dictates that the schools need to be used to
capacity. In many cases this will provide the opportunities for the
introduction of creative programs not only in the church-worker category

but also for the Lutheran laity.”

 

7Laurence Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: UniverSIty Of Chlcago

Press, 1965), 403. Cited by Best, The Revolution.
8Report of the Board for Higher Education. 1979 Convention Workbook (Reports and

Overtures), 165.

197

 

_——

What Has Taken Place

In review, what has happened Is this: The original dream of the Synod to
provide Lutheran higher education institutions for its members was never truly
realized, out of concern that the Church could not afford to provide any training
other than for its Church workers. This conviction reflected not only practical
concerns, but also theological concerns, as the Synod sought to be faithful to
Scriptural mandates that God’s people be good and wise stewards of the gifts
they enjoy. Today, in an ironic twist on that historic reality, the only way the
Synod appears able to provide training for its future church workers is by offering
it alongside higher education Opportunities for its laity and others not otherwise
associated with the Synod.

In essence, the market pressures that have led many Church-related
institutions to leave the faith behind in their search for students, faculty, and
financial support brought about the opposite result at Concordia, Ann Arbor. For
most of their 150-year history, the Synod’s colleges have strained against the bit,
intending to offer their Lutheran, Christ-centered educational opportunities to a
broad spectrum of the Synod’s sons and daughters. During the 19705, in a
repeat of the experience of the Great Depression, crumbling enrollments and
strained finances once again became the crowbar that pried loose the restrictions
imposed by the Church, an event no other arguments or efforts managed to so
fully accomplish.

But freed to do what? Might the increased flexibility now enjoyed by Ann

Arbor be the first step towards the slippery slope? Perhaps it has hung on so far,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but what is to keep the college involved in distinctively Lutheran purposes in
educational and service experiences?

It seems reasonable to argue that once again market pressures may play
a role towards that end. Concordia is a very tiny and relatively expensive college
surrounded by giants, most specifically Eastern Michigan University (seven miles
to the east) and the world-renowned University of Michigan (four miles to the
west). Its future does not lie in trying to become more generic in an effort to
attract students who might othenNise go to a larger school. Market pressures
demand that it cultivate its niche. Located in the largest, most densely populated
(by Lutherans) District of the Synod, it has a ready market if it can sell itself in a

convincing and truly distinctive manner.

 

THE NEED FOR ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS

Prevailing theories state that a variety of forces —- market pressures, the
desire for status, rejection of sectarian tendencies, distrust of the influence of
faith over reason - a variety of such forces tends to lead faith-based colleges to
dilute, downplay, and eventually abandon the faith. In the literature, it’s generally
called “secularization.” George Marsden calls it the “loss of the soul” of
academia.” James Burtchaell calls it the “dying of the light.”0 And William

Ringenberg calls it a “remarkably uniform” process among church colleges.31

 

29 George Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to
Established Nonbelief (New York. Oxford University Press, 1994)
:OJames T Burtchaell, The Dying of the Light (Grand Rapids. Eerdmans Publishing Co. M1998)
31William C Ringenberg, The Christian College: A History of Protestant Higher Education in
America (Grand Rapids: Christian University Press, 1984),121.

199

¥ ___.

 

 

Alternative approaches, offered, for example, by Richard Hughes and
William Adrian, point in different directions. Rather than asking, “What is going
wrong,” (which tends to be the tenor of the discussion among secularization
theorists), they start from the assumption that it is “possible for Christian colleges

and universities to weave first-Class academic programs from the very fabric of

their faith commitments.”32
When I first started exploring my question, I expected I would be writing a
case study illustrating and further defining Marsden, Burtchaell, Ringenberg, et

al. But my data didn’t fit. The tiny Missouri Synod Lutheran college in Ann Arbor

 

has suffered huge losses of denominational financial support and the near
collapse of its traditional student base (men and women preparing to be pastors

and teachers in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod). It has faced the

 

continuing disappearance of its church—trained and certified faculty and the
disintegration of its denominational governance and coordination among the
other Synodical colleges. It has largely, as charged by Burtchaell, “lost its
capacity to fulfill” the mission once assigned to it -— the exclusive task of training
Church workers. Concordia College seems a classic study of the forces the
theories portray as so powerfully and inevitably leading to loss of faith and
Christian mission.

But secularization? Disengagement from the Church? The current
institutional portrait painted by my data makes such a conclusion seem silly at

best. Something else Is going on here. An alternative explanation is needed.

 

32 Richard T. Hughes and William B. Adrian, eds. Models for Christian Higher Education:
Strategies for Success in the Twenty-first Century (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 1.

200
_; _ _

 

I am intentional in my Choice of wording. An alternative explanation is not
just suggested, or possible, but needed. The significance of my study lies in the
possibility —- I would say the probability -- that left unchallenged, secularization
theories become self-fulfilling, actually helping create the homogeneous, faith-
rejecting face of American higher education that their proponents tend to warn
against.

The sorts of market-pressures faced by all institutions of higher learning
do, of course, create grave Challenges for faith-based colleges. Their ability to
maintain a distinctive worldview and educational mission requires continued and
increasing support from constituents and supporters who believe in that mission.
My strong hunch is that efforts to cultivate the necessary support are made far
more difficult by the pervasive assumption that Changes in program, faculty, or
student demographics nearly always point toward disengagement from the faith.
Constituents see changes. They are led to believe that such changes mean,
automatically, secularization. And so they withdraw support, concerned faculty
members and administrators give up, and the institutions are left weaker and
scrambling. Secularization theorists suggest a slippery slope away from religious
aims and purposes. They fail to address the extent to which they themselves
help lubricate the hill.

Providing alternative explanations, equally valid and increasingly told
within the literature, is appropriate and warranted.

Frederick Erickson worries about research which “presumes that history

repeats itself; that what can be learned from past events can generalize to future

201

 

 

 

events, in the same setting and in different settings.”33 In the same line, H.
Becker argues that theories developed through qualitative research ought to
reveal how similar processes, in different situations, may lead to different
results.”4 The point of my research has been to explore, through one particular
case, the possibility that prevailing theories have failed to take such diverse
possible outcomes into account.

Perhaps it’s not very surprising. Bad news sells newspapers. Sarah
Lightfoot points to what she terms “a liability common to social scientists,” that is,
“the tendency to focus on what is wrong rather than search for what is right, to
describe pathology rather than health.”35

It is In the doctrinal nature of Christian fundamentalists and conservative
evangelicals to call to repentance all who would engage in the idolatry of placing
anything on an equal footing with the proclamation of the centrality of Jesus
Christ within history and reality and knowledge. Their faith commitments demand
that they shine a light on the darkness, thus focusing on what is wrong. That’s
not quite the same thing as what Maurice Punch refers to as the impact of the
“researcher’s personality” on one’s intellectual approach to a question or
analysis, but it seems close.”5 And so Punch’s position that such subjective

factors be acknowledged and weighed helps one realize that Marsden’s and

 

33 Frederick Erickson, "Qualitative Methods in Research on Teaching,” In Handbook of Research
on Teaching, ed. M.C. Wittrock (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 129.

H. S. Becker, “Generalizing from Case Studies,” in Qualitative Research in Education: The
Continuing Debate, ed. F. Eisner and A. Peshkin (New York: Teachers College Press, 1990),
240.

35 Sarah Lightfoot, The Good High School: Portraits of Character and Culture (New York: Basic
Books, 1983), 10.

Maurice Punch, “Politics and Ethics in Qualitative Research,” in Handbook of Qualitative

Research, eds. Norman Derzin and Yirma Lincoln (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), 86.

202

 

 

_; _ .

 

 

 

 

Burtchaell’s secularization theories are framed by their own assumptions and
analytic tendencies. Beginning with different assumptions may lead to changed
conclusions and theories. That possibility itself suggests that alterative
explanations ought to be explored.

The alternative explanations I offer seem to do a better job of explaining
what is going on at Concordia College, Ann Arbor. Market pressures have placed
great strains on the institution. For a long time, the only thing enabling the
college’s survival was the ability and readiness of the Missouri Synod to cover
the school’s debt. That support is now almost entirely gone. Interest among
young people to pursue full time ministry as a career has seen a sharp decline.
The regional draw of the college is uncertain. The fact that Concordia is so close
to home for so many potential students is likely to become more of a recruiting
liability than an advantage, as young adults increasingly see studies far from
home, even overseas, as the assumption rather than the exception.

But the college’s survival does not seem to lie in the direction of trying to
compete with the secular institutions which surround it. Down that path lies a
precarious future. The college has little chance of gaining students by claiming
prestige or status, lying as it does within several miles of one of the nation’s most
prestigious higher learning institutions. The college’s best chance of survival, in
face of market pressures, may very well be its continued embracing of a
specialized niche -- the effort to attract and serve the small population of students

(young and old) who wish a distinctly Christian campus and faculty. That is, in

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fact, the strategic philosophy at the heart of the college’s recent efforts in both
fund raising and student recruitment, and it seems to be working.

This explanation defies the basic assumptions of the secularization
notions of what happens in a “remarkably uniform” process to church-founded
colleges. It can reasonably be expected that similar things are happening at other
places.

My explanation can be coupled with several other counterarguments to
the prevailing theories. For example, Protestant practices tend towards
congregational autonomy rather than centralized denominational control. It
seems strange, then, to accept assumptions implicit in secularization taxonomies
that the decrease or rejection of denominational control is evidence of a college’s
slide away from the faith. (After all, a key issue in the Lutheran Reformation was
Luther’s questioning, and then rejection, of the authority of the Church’s papacy).
An alternative explanation seems appropriate. Likewise, unlike the Missouri
Synod, many Christian denominations specifically reject confessional statements
of doctrine or prescribed interpretations of Scripture. Within that context, it is
problematic to accept the secularization argument that the hiring of a doctrinally
diverse faculty indicates a move away from the supporting denomination.

These are the sorts of questions that support my emphasis on considering
the supporting denomination’s cultural and theological context when trying to
understand how a faith-founded college is dealing with market pressures, or
accreditation demands, or Changing student desires. To miss or dismiss these

types of shaping factors as significant data runs the risk of inappropriate

204

 

 

 

 

 

 

conclusions. To do so falls prey to the situation Frederick Erickson warns
against: of undertaking analysis “by observing only the warp threads and ignoring
the woof threads,” and running the risk of “misrepresent[ing] fundamentally the

process” one is trying to explain.37

SO WHAT OF THE CONCORDIA SYSTEM?

The question of whether Concordia, River Forest or any of the other
Concordias has remained faithful to the Synod’s larger mission is beyond the
scope of my research. My data collection has focused primarily on only one of
the Concordias, and unlike James Burtchaell, I am not ready to extrapolate my
findings to nine other institutions, spread far apart by both distance and context.

There have been many claims that the Concordias have lost sight of their
calling. But based on the evidences Cited in Chapter 8, it seems unreasonable to
argue that Concordia, Ann Arbor is not deeply engaged in the discipling work of
the church. It is a mistake to confuse reconfiguring of programs, roles, and
“intended Clientele” with an abandonment of faith-centered purposes.
Concordia’s core curriculum objectives, the School of Education’s Conceptual
Framework, the faculty’s statement of Core Values -- all speak explicitly about
the impact of faith on both learning and service.

This is not necessarily surprising and Concordia should not be considered
an odd exception that somehow proves the rule. While secularization theories

appear obvious and explain much, they are also countered by the essence of

 

37 Erickson, “Qualitative,” 128.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

many of the manifestations of religious faith. By definition and by nature the
religiously motivated will often be moved to rise up and fight when faced by
“worldly” pressures of market and status. They may succumb for a while, but the
whole point of many religious faiths is repentance —- turning around -- when
adherents see themselves slipping. A theory which overstates the power of the

“seducer”38

in the face of a theological desire or expectation to do God’s will
demands to be challenged.

But I don’t know about how the other Concordias have fared. To know with
any level of confidence would require a Close look at their own histories, their
own struggles to embrace and/or survive in spite of the BHE’s directives and
limitations. It is not enough to look at changing student populations, expanded
program offerings, or increasingly diverse faculties to judge an institution’s
continued adherence to the “one thing needful” which can justify Its continued
claim to be truly church—related. The “marks” utilized by Pattillo and Mackenzie to
describe an institution’s Church-relatedness and then by secularization theorists
to scold and cajole institutions seem inadequate to the analytic task they are
often asked to accomplish.

Certainly, secularization theories are useful tools for considering the
trends and challenges which have shaped and troubled many of the nation’s
colleges. But separate from a deep understanding of each Church body’s way of
thinking about the faith —- about the role of Scripture and teaching, about a

commitment towards or avoidance of proselytizing, about the division of labor

among members, congregations, and other agencies -- separate from such

 

3” Burtchaell, Dying of the Light, 851.
206

 

 

 

understandings, the theories can reveal only a part of the story. And separate
from a commitment to hear each school’s own explanation of its efforts to
embrace or depart from the church’s mission, such theories run a great risk of
skewed findings. An insider’s perspective may be an essential element within this
field of research, at least to provide an interpretive voice as researchers attempt
describe what is going on in such places.

Ultimately, among the astonishingly diverse settings and contexts of the
nation’s religious organizations and denominations, any effort to judge all church-
related colleges through a lens which believes that there is, in fact, “one thing

needful” is difficult to defend, at best.

207

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