LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2023, Page 64

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64

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
resource them for this task, while also strengthening marriages and families.

CTSFW has served the Synod faithfully by making the blessings of the church available to a world in need of Christ’s salvation.
Our seminary’s seal bears the inscription “Preach the Word.” For
over 177 years, CTSFW has formed servants who proclaim Christ
and Him crucified. Maybe our Lord is calling you to be one of
those who will teach the faithful, reach the lost, and care for all.
Or maybe you know someone who you think would serve well but
you’re not sure how to encourage them. Get in touch with us. We
would love to start that conversation with you.
We invite you to get to know CTSFW. Visit our website at ctsfw
.edu or our campus, where you will find a vibrant, Christ-centered
theological community that engages and resources the church and
world, domestically and internationally, with distinctively Lutheran teaching, practice, and worship. Join with CTSFW in bringing
the saving Gospel into all the world.
Lawrence R. Rast Jr., President
R14

Concordia University System
The reason for being (raison d’etre) of the Concordia University System (CUS) is the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and
ascension of Jesus Christ. It is in Him that all knowledge can be
rightly ordered and understood: “He is before all things and in Him
all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). This truth flows forth from the
confession of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) that
grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone, and Christ alone are the
pillars of the Christian faith as articulated in The Lutheran Confessions and the Book of Concord.
The formal incorporation of the CUS in 1992 combined the historic ministry of Synod’s colleges and universities into a collaborative unit for the benefit and enrichment of all the schools. Each of
the schools, from their founding, was “owned and operated” by the
LCMS.
The years since the 2019 Synod convention have been especially challenging for institutions of higher learning across North
America. Societal and cultural forces that have created challenges
include a demographic decline in the historic pool of prospective
students, an increase in often intrusive accrediting and government
regulations, the complex impact of distance education on all institutions, increasing economic challenges for students, and the competitive presence of junior colleges and cognate institutions. One
overview suggests that between 2004 and 2020, some 826 colleges
and universities closed. Thirty-five institutions were shuttered in
2021.
The CUS was also impacted by these realities. Concordia University, Portland (2020) and Concordia College—New York (2021)
were closed by their respective boards of regents due to legal insolvency (cf. Bylaw 3.10.6.4 [i][7]) despite generous efforts by the
LCMS, the CUS, and the Lutheran Church Extension Fund to continue their ministries. Recruitment and financial challenges were
simply too great.
The CUS gives thanks for the long and distinguished histories
of both of these institutions. It is impossible adequately to thank
and recall the generations of dedicated administrators, professors,
parents, and students who made up these communities of worship,
2023 Convention Workbook

learning, music, sports, and camaraderie with the Christian and Lutheran faith at their center. Even as we mourn their closures, we
rejoice over their many achievements and the manner in which
impacted students were invited to transfer to sister Concordia universities.
Another cause for thanksgiving is the superlative manner
in which the Concordia universities navigated the crisis of the
COVID-19 pandemic. While many institutions suffered immense
setbacks, the Concordia university presidents, with very different
contextual challenges, deftly deployed both in-person and online
instruction to serve their students and minimize losses.
The ongoing health and vibrancy of our remaining institutions
can be largely credited to capable and gifted new presidents who
were installed in the last quadrennium: Dr. Eric Ankerberg at Concordia University Wisconsin and Ann Arbor; Dr. Bernard Bull at
Concordia University, Nebraska; Dr. Russell Dawn at Concordia
University Chicago; and Dr. Michael Thomas at Concordia University, Irvine. Thanks are also in order for the Rev. Dr. Brian Friedrich’s splendid leadership of Concordia University, St. Paul, after
his move from the presidency of Concordia University, Nebraska.
While many schools of higher learning were established with explicitly Christian convictions but over time have lost any vestige of
the Christian faith, these presidents promote and value the Christian and Lutheran faith by placing it at the center of campus life
and learning.
As evidence that the institutions of the CUS remain defined
by and embedded in the witness of the church, the presidents and
their boards of regents have expressed their solidarity with the
church’s mission in an identity statement. This identity statement
and supporting protocols will continue to define the universities in
the 2023–2026 triennium. The church can rightly rejoice and give
thanks for the following:

Lutheran Identity Standards for Concordia
University Institutions
As educational institutions of the LCMS, the colleges and universities of the CUS confess the faith of the church.
The Concordias uphold the teachings of sacred Scripture and
their articulation in the Lutheran Confessions. This includes the
biblical teaching that Jesus Christ—true God and true man—is the
sole way to God’s mercy and grace; that at the beginning of time the
Triune God created all things; that life is sacred from conception to
natural death; and that marriage between a man and a woman is a
sacred gift of God’s creative hand—over against the reductionistic
assumptions of many in our culture who view men and women as
only transitory and material beings.
As educational institutions of the LCMS, the Concordias are
committed to providing an excellent, robust curriculum in the liberal arts and professional studies, which together equip students
for various vocations of service to church and society. As C.F.W.
Walther wrote, “As long as and wherever the Christian church
flourished, it always and everywhere proved itself to be a friend
and cultivator of all good arts and sciences, gave its future servants
a scholarly preparatory training, and did not disdain to permit its
gifted youth at its schools of higher learning to be trained by the
standard products of even pagan arts and science.” Accordingly, the
colleges and universities of the CUS affirm and promise to uphold
these identity standards: