Concordia Seminary
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Concordia Seminary is located in Clayton, Missouri, an inner-ring suburb on the western border of Saint Louis, Missouri. The institution trains clergy for the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS).
Concordia Seminary is the oldest seminary of the LCMS but not its first seminary: that distinction goes to Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, formerly in Springfield, Illinois. The St. Louis institution is also the largest Lutheran seminary in the United States. Concordia Seminary was at one time considered the "theoretical" (i.e., academic) seminary of the LCMS while Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne was considered the "practical" seminary, although those distinctions are no longer widely agreed-upon.
Concordia Seminary became a focus of national media attention in 1974 when 50 of its 55 faculty members, together with the vast majority of students, walked out to form a rival institution known as Seminex, or Concordia Seminary in Exile. The Seminex walk-out was undertaken in protest of the suspension of the seminary's president, John Tietjen, who faced charges from the more conservative LCMS president, Jacob Preus, of allowing the teaching of false doctrine. More specifically, the charges alleged that Tietjen had permitted the teaching of Historical-Critical Methods that aimed to interpret scriptural text and the process of canon-formation with reference to historical and social context, rather than as the inerrant word of God. This controversy is discussed more fully in the wikipedia Seminex article.
Concordia Seminary has since returned to its former status as the largest Lutheran Seminary in America. As of October 2004 (http://sake.lcms.org/LCMSNewsEnrollments.htm), enrollment stands at 827 students.
Further Reading
- Board of Control, Concordia Seminary, Exodus From Concordia: A Report on the 1974 Walkout (St. Louis: Concordia Seminary, 1977).
- First-person account of the Seminex controversy: John Tietjen, Memoirs in Exile: Confessional Hope and Institutional Conflict (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1990).
- Marquart, Rev. Kurt E., Anatomy of an explosion: A theological analysis of the Missouri Synod conflict (Fort Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 1977).
External links
- Official site (http://www.csl.edu/)