Well said Rez, and as for Becker, he is a prime example of why the other pastor’s post posted by valpopal needs to be viewed as old news. Becker himself was ousted from LCMS and will be serving ECLA congregations
I just don’t get it.
- at a big picture perspective, why is eliminating the German major such a big deal? How does this impact the survival of Valparaiso University?
- why is there so much animosity between folks being a Lutheran in the ELCA or LCMS? Can’t we get along?
The college scenario is obviously changing, and Valpo and its stakeholders need to reduce traditional stubbornness. These pastors are living as if Eisenhower was president.
Another perspective from a Lutheran pastor and VU theology professor for the past 20 years:
Although Valpo's administration recently announced that the theology major and minor will be spared discontinuation, those programs are nevertheless slated to undergo what will likely be a radical process of "reimagining." What will come from that process of revision is unclear to me, but it does seem to indicate that the institution will no longer favor the kind of Lutheran theology that once was crucial toward helping to make Valpo "Valpo."
After the administration announced in late March the possible discontinuation of our theology programs, I was told that if that discontinuation took place, I would lose tenure, I would no longer receive support for my research, I would have a larger teaching load, and I could be laid off "at any time." That announcement led me into a period of careful, intentional vocational discernment.
While Valpo's theology programs will not be discontinued, I have concluded that there doesn't seem to be much of a future at Valpo for the kind of theology I have enjoyed teaching and supporting for the past several decades....
Continued at the following: https://matthewlbecker.blogspot.com/2024/08/an-ending-and-beginning.html
This is more evidence of a university diminishing what has been part of its core mission, along with the very sad human impact of those developments. In terms of faculty, it hits at different levels, ranging from young scholars who opted to come to VU at least in part because of that mission, to senior professors who have devoted their careers to the institution. Their departure leaves a profound emptiness in its wake.
And the claim that programs will be "reimagined" (or similar language) is classic academic/non-profit code for let's make this sound like a positive development, with all sorts of amazing, gold dusty things to follow, rather than the gutting of something we once held dear. Believe me, been there, seen that, when it comes to such utterances.
I would argue that this is a school breaking away from tradition because that tradition simply doesn't put butts in seats anymore. I hope lessons have been learned from the law situation. The writing was on the wall years before the closure that the great lakes area was seeing a major decline in enrollees and demand for the legal profession. VU tried to be the "last bastion" of law, and it blew up in their face. Attempting to be the "last bastion" of Lutheran tradition will most likely have the same result. Like I mentioned previously, the lord himself was a breaker of tradition, why shouldn't VU be able to break tradition in order to seek opportunities for survival.
Rez - very well said.
VU tried to be the "last bastion" of law, and it blew up in their face. Attempting to be the "last bastion" of Lutheran tradition will most likely have the same result.
Could you clarify? I have no idea what "breaking away" from the Lutheran tradition means. The university's mission statement is defined by the following opening quote on its web page: "Valparaiso University, a community of learning dedicated to excellence and grounded in the Lutheran tradition of scholarship, freedom, and faith, prepares students to lead and serve in both church and society."
The current post just added to the Valparaiso University Facebook page boasts the following:
Are you wondering what “Grounded, we radiate” means? The answer is ingrained deep in the legacy of the "dear old Valpo" we all know and love. From the roots up, Valparaiso University has strived to reflect God’s light and the image of goodness in which we are all created. Our alumni and students alike are called to pursue truth, lead our communities, and discover their inner joy by reaching out. Through the generations, these shared values have anchored and grounded us – allowing us to shine brightly with and for all.
Many in this forum have expressed distain for the religious understanding institute and changes/discontinuances within the university. Degree programs such as German, Theology, and others which some hold to be "Valpo Tradition" or "Lutheran Tradition" undergoing cuts or reimagining being the key factors of distain as noted by the pastor and Professor Becker. However, these programs had not had a feasible number of degree seekers as noted by members here. While I am opposed to the outright stripping of tenure, as qualified staff are needed to ensure courses remain a great environment for learning, I see the need to take away these degrees, or restructure them to make them more inviting for prospective students. The Lutheran traditions of scholarship, freedom, and faith are what are mentioned in the mission statement, and these changes surely do not diminish those values within Valpo. These changes simply aim to adapt these values to the modern world. Why should VU be made to hold onto diminishing degrees simply because of "tradition" such is what caused the downturn from the law program being shuttered.
Shared values continue to be a driving force, but there are still values that are reborn and made anew within each generation of the human race. Without these differing mindsets and beliefs, the human race would never have advanced. Valpo still does have a deep legacy, but keeping programs on life support and claiming "legacy" and "tradition" does nothing to make better the current situation.
I also never claimed that Valpo should do away with Lutheran tradition, my claim was only that attempting to be a "last bastion" of Lutheran tradition would do the school no good and has proven not to do any good in the past. Lutheranism much like Christianity and the human race, is constantly evolving, why shouldn't VU evolve with the faith? Even then what is tradition, surely tradition means something different to each family, to each person, to each Christian, to each Lutheran. The views and traditions of the modern Lutheran are vastly different than the Lutherans of Martin Luther's time. Are modern Lutherans not true Lutherans because they do not align with the Lutherans of Martin Luther?
Rez, I think you're sort of putting a lot of your own assumptions onto these categories of "tradition" and "last bastions".
Just for the record, I know Becker and didn't ever have the impression that Becker was trying to be the "last bastion" of anything.
On the one hand, he was a historian who certainly cared about knowing what had happened in the past and thought it was important to have some sense of tradition (in the sense of knowing what has been said and done in the past, as it unfolds in the present). And he did really like German stuff, in the sense of translating a lot from German to English.
But as somebody mentioned, he actually got booted out of the LCMS for being too "progressive" on the issue of creationism/evolution (though of course, he would counter that historic Lutheranism had never been 7-day creationist and that it was a newly Baptist/Fundamentalist/Trumpist American Christianity taking over a certain far-right wing of the LCMS, since in fact historic European and American Lutheraninism didn't historically go in for anti-intellectual anti-science positions).
The point is that, like a lot of people from that former era in Valpo, Becker did care about the present/future and was trying to find an intellectual middle for the present. He was a centrist in the Lutheran world, and most of his concerns about past 'tradition' were ultimately contemporary. For instance, his popular course on Christianity in Nazi Germany wasn't like some quaint reification of German cultural kitsch or something. My understanding is it was asking students to think thru pretty 'live' questions of loyalty, nationalism, populism, media, Christian participation in both resisting and caving to the Nazis, etc. for our own times where mass-group think is a problem.
The university is worse off as these sorts of people leave. Another one was Ron Rittgers (came to us from Yale, to Valpo as a uni chair for 20 years, left during COVID layoffs to go to Duke now).
As these sorts of experts in the humanities bail on Valpo, it does seem like something is lost. I know there are some Lutherans still around (I'm not one) but are there any actual scholars of Lutheranism left? Seems kind of ironic and sad to me.
True, there is a lot of personal stances put into my post. That being said, tradition and last bastion has no real definition that can be agreed upon. We all have our own definitions of what tradition is. Wheter that definition included German, or includes the old Theology format is entirely up to that person to decide. All I can go off of was that the old format wasn't working to attract students to declare those majors. In the future, theology will most likely take the role of "required elective" rather than being a fully staffed degree program. I can only hope the plans to eliminate tenure of those professors are changed.
Some believe that the changes being made directly affect the core identity of the university. I am of the belief that the core identity is not being affected by these changes.
Lutheranism much like Christianity and the human race, is constantly evolving, why shouldn't VU evolve with the faith? Even then what is tradition, surely tradition means something different to each family, to each person, to each Christian, to each Lutheran. The views and traditions of the modern Lutheran are vastly different than the Lutherans of Martin Luther's time. Are modern Lutherans not true Lutherans because they do not align with the Lutherans of Martin Luther?
@rezynezy, you have (perhaps unknowingly) articulated the difference between the liberal wing and conservative wing of modern Lutheranism. The views of modern, conservative Lutherans still hold to the specifics of the Christian faith as outlined in the Book of Concord, which includes the Creeds, the Augsburg Confession and several related expositions of faith. Chief among these are a commitment to to the words of the Bible itself, and the whole of the Book of Concord has biblical roots. (Personally, I can be in near universal agreement with the Book of Concord, with some historical anachronisms in the Book of Concord because it is a human book yet the Bible is not. For example, I would not call the Pope to be the Antichrist as stated in the Smalcald Articles, and i would suspect most Lutherans today would not either- that is one of those historical anachronisms that made sense at the time of the Reformation but not now. Yet I digress.)
For conservative Lutherans, there is next to zero differences (and no practical difference) between the articulated beliefs in the Book of Concord and their current statement of beliefs. There is no way to say they are "vastly different than the Lutherans of Martin Luther's time" ; that is just not true, especially in the LCMS, WELS, ELS and other right of center Lutheran bodies.
For liberal Lutherans, the key difference is that the authority and primacy of the Bible as a rule of faith and life has been diminished. Although liberal Lutherans may keep some of the traditions, current practices are substantially influenced by modern culture, especially in the areas of social issues that would be entirely opposite of historic Christian faith and practice. For example, the ELCA leadership has not only permitted but embraced and encouraged same-sex marriage, and sometimes the main focus has been on social and racial justice initiatives rather than embracing law and gospel that Luther (and the other reformers) would recognize. Another example might be that conservative Lutherans would say that only Christian believers will go to heaven and those who follow other religions would not; naturally this position is viewed as divisive and exclusionary by many liberals yet would be exactly in line with the historical Lutheran teachings (and John 14:6 ). This may not be the place to go into all the details of these practices, and I am not the one to spell those out. Yet those are examples of where the traditions have been entirely flipped and are in fact vastly different than the Lutherans of Luther's time.
LCMS is”Trumpist”? That is deep man…
correct me if I’m wrong but the LCMS population is dwindling pretty fast. Maybe they do not evolve like other denominations but I’m not sure. If that’s the case why run a university stubbornly based on those traditions? Can’t Valpo be Lutheran as a whole and move on?
@valpo95 Seeing as this forum is not meant for politics, I feel as if commenting on the political matters of the church is not my place to discuss. I do however acknowledge your statement as a good read and very well said.
Valpo as a school shouldn't cater to specific denominations is all I will say.
The core of the the University was said well by O.P. Kretzmann in 1940 - even though he did not mention a particular denomination in his speech, he was an ordained LCMS pastor. I wonder what he would say today (this from his inaugural address):
We are committed to the principle that the destiny of a Christian University lies in the quality of the men and women who are graduated from its halls rather than in quantitative production. Our future lies in the development of men and women, perhaps relatively few in number, whose quality will be so high that they will exert an influence on society which cannot be measured in terms of numbers.
Above all, we are deeply committed to the recovery of the one great fact which our wayward world has forgotten: The reality of God and the individual's personal responsibility to Him, a responsibility which can be met only by the fact of the Atonement and the re-establishment of an intimate relationship with the Ruler of the Universe through Him who once entered the stream of time in order to tell men that they could know the Truth and that it would make them free. We can build here a school whose greatness is the greatness of freedom under God, the greatness of the free preservation and transmission of Truth, the greatness of an intelligent and dynamic application of a militant faith. It is our destiny "to enter into the labors and sorrows of the world in order to carry into it the flame of a faith truly free from the world."
https://library.valpo.edu/archives/presidents/kretzmann.html
Intra-Lutheran infighting aside...
VU 95's comments about all the social issues made me think it is ironic that higher ed (Valpo included) are jettisoning the humanities and natural sciences at a time when it seems all the really big problems and controversies in society -- questions gender essences or roles, class relations, race and history, the line between humanity and technology/AI, genetic modification and abortion, the value or survivability of democracy v. autocracy, the ever-turning representations of tradition/modernity, ethics of caring for aging populations, scientific reproducibility, etc -- are all traditional 'arts and sciences' issues.
Yet at this time when we need people who can think thru the critical issues with some blend of past/future considerations and nuance, Valpo's knee jerk response is "humanities and natural sciences are irrelevant!" -- let's make more Bachelors of Marketing!
Vu seems to be attempting to break away from the LCMS denomination in order to cater to a broader scope of Lutheranism it seems. As a catholic, I am not well versed in Lutheran denomination. I am simply is studier of christianity.
