Concordia Seminary
The Concordia Seminary (Engl. Concordia Seminary ) is located in Clayton , Missouri , a suburb of west past St. Louis , Missouri. The primary task of the institution is the training of pastors , deaconesses , missionaries , chaplains and the training of forces for the church leadership of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS). The current president of the seminar is Dale Meyer.
history
The seminary is the second oldest Lutheran seminary and one of the largest in the United States. It was founded in 1839. Initially, however, it was still in Perry County , Missouri . In 1849 it was moved to St. Louis and in 1926 the current campus was established. The task of training the clergy for the LCMS is shared by the Concordia Seminar with the Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne , Indiana .
The St. Louis institution was once considered a "theoretical" ( or academic) seminary by the LCMS, and the Concordia Theological Seminary at Fort Wayne was considered a "practical" seminary. Nowadays, however, this distinction can hardly be used. The Concordia Seminar currently awards a Master of Divinity degree, which leads to ordination, as well as Master of Arts , Master of Sacred Theology , Doctor of Ministry and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. The seminar is theologically conservative. It does not train women for ordination and it teaches the historical-grammatical interpretation of the Bible . The seminar is an accredited member of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada and the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools .
The radio station KFUO-AM 850 has its studios and transmission tower on campus. For many years this LCMS radio station produced the nationally broadcast Lutheran Hour .
The chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus
The Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus was consecrated on November 15, 1992 and has served as a prayer room for the Concordia Seminary ever since. In addition to the actual prayer room of the chapel, there is also a choir practice room, a classroom, the dean's church office , the housefellow quarter and a smaller chapel for small church services and prayer exercises.
Concordia seminar library
The Concordia Seminary Library has space for 250,000 books and over 300 spaces for readers. It offers workplaces and study rooms for theology students, young academics and scholars. The book inventory consists of more than 245,000 volumes. This includes the personal book holdings of the founding fathers of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod and their theologians such as Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther .
Luther statue
Right next to the Founder Hall is the Luther statue, which had stood at the previous site of the Concordia Seminary on Jefferson Avenue in St. Louis since 1903. In 1926, when the new Clayton campus was inaugurated, it got its new location. The statue is an exact replica of the Luther statue that stands in Worms .
Luther Tower
The Luther Tower ( Luther Tower ) was designed by the architect Charles Klauder . The tower was completed in 1966. The base of the tower is the small Chapel of the Holy Apostles . At the top of the tower is a carillon , a carillon with 49 bells. The bells are dedicated to the memory of all pastors of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. The largest weighs 2.5 tons and the smallest weighs 17 pounds.
Concordia History Institute
The Concordia Historical Institute is responsible for the archives and historical research on the Missouri Synod. The institute located on campus has a reading room for users, a conference room, two exhibition levels and two air-conditioned archive depots. The institute also has two listed historic monuments in Perry County, Missouri . It publishes a quarterly journal ( Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly ) and supports congregations of the Synod in the preservation and processing of historical sources.
The Seminex controversy
The Concordia Seminar came under the spotlight of the US national media in 1974 when 45 of the 50 faculty members, along with the vast majority of students, moved out and established a rival institute called Seminex or Concordia Seminary in Exile . The move followed the maintenance of the suspension of John Tietjen , President of the Concordia Seminar. He was accused that he, by using the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation that sola scriptura would disregard. The remaining students and the remaining five professors continued teaching at the Concordia Seminary St. Louis with the support of the Concordia Theological Seminary. But the conflict in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod was not over. About 250 congregations split off from the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod and formed the Association of Evangelical-Lutheran Churches in America (AELC) in 1977 . In 1988 the AELC merged with the American Lutheran Church (ALC) and the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
Web links
- Official site
- Concordia Theological Quarterly Volume II 1898 in google book search
- Concordia Theological Quarterly Volume VI 1902 in google book search
- Concordia Theological Quarterly Volume X 1906 in google book search
- Concordia Theological Quarterly Volume XI 1907 in google book search
- Concordia Theological Quarterly Volume XII 1908 in google book search
References and comments
- ↑ the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (founded 1829) is older
- ↑ cf. What is a housefellow? ( Memento from January 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 38 ° 38 ′ 17.5 ″ N , 90 ° 18 ′ 40.7 ″ W.