LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2023, Page 108

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A few years later and 400 miles to the northeast, Wilhelm Sihler
made the vision of Wilhelm Löhe and Friedrich Wyneken a
reality when “The Lutheran Seminary at Fort Wayne” began
operations in October 1846. 4 “It has pleased the almighty and
all gracious God,” Sihler wrote, “to revive our precious
Lutheran Church on both sides of the Atlantic, despite the false
influences of the ‘unionists’ of our times, therefore faithful
members of the church in the German fatherland lovingly
worked for their brothers-in-faith here in America.” Sihler
continued: “Because of the current need, and in anticipation of
increased future need, they have decided to establish a
seminary in Fort Wayne, so that faithful, qualified young men
can receive the necessary training to take over the holy office of
the preacher in the Lutheran church.”
Curricula at the two seminaries were constantly assessed and
revised, though the basics—Scripture and the Lutheran
Confessions—always remained at the center. In these days
before accreditation, neither St. Louis nor Fort Wayne required
exceptional students to complete the entire course of study.
Either President Walther or President Sihler might walk into
class any given day and inform a student, “your studies are
complete.” Typically, in cases like these a divine call from a
congregation had been received and the president made the
determination to place a student into that setting. The
seminary through the president had certified that the man was
“apt to teach.” Next steps were ordination and service as a
pastor.
The Catalog of synodical institutions of higher education for
1876 shows that both institutions were seen as “preachers
seminaries.” Further, both had a “three-year course” of study
and required preparatory work before seminary. The two
institutions differed mainly with respect to language

requirements—though as time passed, this distinction
disappeared. Bottom line: A student could anticipate spending
from six to eight years in preparation for pastoral service
whichever seminary he attended.
II. Where Are We Now and Where Might We Be Going?
Over the course of the twentieth century both LCMS seminaries
reflected a changing climate in theological education in the
United States and in the world. Once the seminaries received
recognition from the Association of Theological Schools—CSL
in 1963 and CTS in 1968—curricula and faculty development
were increasingly responsive to accreditation requirements.
But the Synod remained at the center of the seminaries’ work.
Needs within the church body led to the addition of classes in
areas like pastoral psychology and counseling, administration,
and leadership, as well as an increasing emphasis on the
centrality of missions “contextualization.”
Most recently, the emergence of information technology as a
useable tool in education has raised questions about the
possibility and the desirability of distance education for
pastoral and diaconal formation. Some have even questioned
the necessity of residential theological education. Yet, a
sustained and compelling argument for the importance of
residential theological education appeared in the late 1990s in
the book titled Being There, published by Oxford University
Press. Authors Jackson Carroll and Barbara Wheeler, among
others, studied two seminaries, one “liberal” and the other
more “conservative.” 5 They concluded that for students to be
formed by the culture of an institution—specifically if they
were to internalize and synthesize the institution’s theological
commitments and practices—it is necessary for that student to
“be there,” to spend time on campus learning and living in the
midst of the community. My colleague, President Egger, will
have more to say on this in just a few moments.
So, what can we learn from this historical snapshot? While we
tend to view our seminaries as static, the historical record
shows that over the course of their histories our seminaries
have been incredibly dynamic and responsive to changing
contexts and the needs of the church in the fulfillment of its
mission.
This creates a healthy tension for confessional Lutherans. We
believe that there is the faith—the fides quae, the faith once
delivered to the saints. This faith is captured in phrases like
Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura. The Scriptures teach and
the Lutheran Symbols confess this one, true, catholic, and
apostolic faith—and as such, this faith is as true and
unchanging as the God who revealed it in the Scripture. The
faith does not change. At the same time, we all know that the
church today exists in dynamic circumstances. The
theological/religious questions of today are framed differently
than those voiced by Luther in the sixteenth century; just as the
questions Luther framed differed from those of Augustine in
the fourth and fifth centuries. This means that we must
constantly strive—as did Augustine, Luther, and the faithful

4
Wilhelm Sihler, “Birth Announcement of Concordia
Theological Seminary: The Lutheran Seminary at Fort Wayne,”
Concordia Theological Quarterly 85 (2021): 99. Wilhelm Sihler, “Das
lutherische Seminar zu Fort Wayne,” Der Lutheraner 3, no. 5 (October
1846): 29–30. This text was translated for Project Wittenberg

108 | PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2023 (68TH) LCMS CONVENTION

(http://www.projectwittenberg.org/etext/cts/ctsborn.txt) by Erika
Bullmann Flores in 1994 and edited by Nathaniel Jensen in 2020.
5
H. Jackson Carroll, et al., Being There (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997).
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