# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S246
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 245

to allocate its income for the greatest possible achievement, under
the Lord of the Church, of the objects for which it exists. To say
that this is a key problem of Synod is to say also that it is the prob-
lem of every other synodical board and agency to the degree
that it expends any funds at all for current operations or disposes
of capital investment funds in any way.

The problem of adequate financing of ministerial and teacher
training is uniquely that of the congregations of Synod and of
the Districts of Synod, for neither the congregations nor the Dis-
tricts include regular items in their budget which are directly
assigned to the provision of ministerial and teacher training for
themselves or others. Not even our largest congregations have
the facilities to train their own pastors and teachers, and institu-
tions which were once begun as District ventures have rather
quickly been turned over to Synod.

Elements of the Problem of Finance

While our entire national history has been characterized by
steady, creeping inflation, the very periods in which Synod has
grown most rapidly in number and in strength have also been
periods when inflation has tended to be more rapid and acute.
As a result it has happened repeatedly that, when Synod has
embarked upon major increases in its annual budgets or on general
and major capital investment programs, it has been victimized by
an inflationary spiral and has been buffeted by the complication of
unconstant dollars.

If Synod’s colleges and seminaries today are compared with
schools of higher learning generally in the United States, one of
the most striking contrasts appears in terms of the virtually total
absence of endowment as a source of income for Synod’s schools.
They derive practically no support from this type of income in
contrast with most other schools, which derive up to 715 per cent
of their total educational and general income from endowment.
In its entire history, Synod has been reluctant to encourage the
schools to systematic solicitation of endowment and, as 2 result,
it has been generally unsought. The changing Federal tax struc-
ture makes it a relatively improbable major possible source now.

Tax support, another major source of stable income for public
colleges and universities, is unavailable to Synod’s colleges and
seminaries because of the nature of their relationship to the church
and of the purpose that Synod assigns to them in ministerial and
teacher training. Furthermore, on the basis of our long-standing
theological position on the separation of church and state, such
tax support — if available — would be generally unwanted and
unacceptable, except as Synod strives for customary tax exemption
on its real-estate holdings.

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