Seminex

Now, here's one caveat that we have to say is a difference of probably what he's seeing in the wider church versus what we're seeing in the LCMS.

Our story is Seminex, right? And so we had a story of some of that happening in the 70s, 1974, actually, the year I was born.

And, you know, there was a reaction to that, kind of a closing in on being very clear about what we mean when we say that, you know, we believe in the Bible, we believe in the confessions, right? And, you know, as a result of that, there was a changing of a guard, a massive changing of the guard that happened already in the 70s for the LCMS.

And I would say I would argue that since that time, the progression has been the opposite away from liberalism, much more towards conservatism in the LCMS expression.

In the wider church, it was.

So I think of how in the 1970s, 80s, the faculty at St. Louis in particular, it kind of had to reboot.

Jack, I don't know if you know, in those years post-Seminex, I mean, we were calling in pastors.

I've heard it was hard

So we can look back at the boomers, and we can see the excesses of the church growth movement.

We can recognize... at least on the surface, some of the problems that were happening in Seminex and all that sort of stuff.

But then to have discernment on what are the errors, what are the temptations of our own age, that's where this gets difficult.

And I think one of the, I was thinking about this at convention this summer, is that by time you get to a convention and you're fighting about something, the fight is almost over.

She's world-renowned, and someone asked in this, uh, conference, "What does the rest of America think about the Missouri Synod?" And he goes, "They don't." [laughs] He's like, "You're, like, a small people, but you have a beautiful theology that you need to let into the world, and, and you need to figure out how to do this and multiply it." And that's what's keeping us from doing that.

What's the fear? What are we gonna afraid? N-n-now we have our blemishes in the past, Seminex, all that type of stuff, but, like, I live in a place where liberal theology runs rampant.

The, some of the changes we're praying for and talking to are not gonna lead us down that path.

They just aren't.

However, that doesn't mean that Jonah didn't actually spend three days and three nights in the belly of the whale.

I find that ironic, by the way, because the liberal s- Lutheran scholars in the, uh, during the Seminex era, they would be like, "Jon- Jonah didn't literally get swallowed by a whale.

We should read that only spiritually." But then they would also say about Jesus that his resurrection wasn't a literal resurrection either- Yeah ...

but just a spiritual resurrection- Right ...