The "Bethany Discussion Forum"

Unk's denomination has a non-regionally accredited seminary, used primarily for the training of the denomination's ministers (IIRC, from Unk's previous posts). Another case of substantive ministerial training from an unaccredited religious school.

 

Hi Craig.

Vladica Russell is correct. Our seminary is not accredited and is solely for the training of our own future pastors. Occasionally, a seminarian from a church body in full doctrinal agreement (called "altar and pulpit fellowship") will attend for some practical reason. The training is not fluff; Hebrew and Greek are required of entering students; the additional requirement of Latin and German, regrettably, is no more.

I use the term confessional Lutheran to refer to those church bodies and their adherents which require a strict subscription to the doctrinal statements developed by the Lutheran movement in the 1500s. These are contained in the "Book of Concord".

Most persons will regard the 2.6 million member Missouri Synod as a confessional Lutheran church body. We no longer do so for a variety of reasons, which might be placed under the general heading of the LCMS's accommodation to generic evangelicalism. The LCMS still requires confessional subscription, but in our opinion does not enforce this in practice. (I have no wish to get into arguments with Mo Synod folks,who will doubtless regard things differently.)

The chief strictly confessional Lutheran bodies in the US include the Wisconsin Synod (400,000); the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (20,000)--not the same as the enormous, liberal ELCA (5.5 million); the Church of the Lutheran Confession (8,000); and various quite small groups which have broken with the Missouri Synod and adhere to a very rigorous congregational polity.

There are also a few groups of Scandinavian Pietist leanings (AALC, AFLC, Lutheran Brethren, Apostolic Lutherans) and two ethnic-diaspora branches of foreign Lutheran Churches (Estonian and Latvian).

The Wisconsin Synod maintains two high-school level minor seminaries at Saginaw, Michigan and Watertown, Wisconsin and a college at New Ulm, Minnesota. These serve as training schools (coed) for future parochial school teachers and future pastors. There is a semi-independent liberal arts college in Milwaukee. The two colleges are now RA, IIRC. The seminary, which is not accredited, is located in Mequon-Thiensville, Wisconsin.

The ELS (often called the "little Norwegian" synod) maintains Bethany (!!!) College and Seminary in Mankato, Minnesota. The CLC--sharply more conservative than WELS or ELS--has Immanuel College and Seminary in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. These schools are not accredited, likely because of their small size and strictly in-house character.

None of these schools offers DL, regrettably.

If you have other questions, I'll be happy to answer them via private messages.

 

Uncle janko,

From what I was told, the doctrinal variance of the Bethany forum administrator was a surprise to them.

 

Bill,
I have a question for you, since I am relatively new to the board. What do you do as far as ministry/vocation?

Since I am telling you I better be willing to answer myself.
I am a part-time assistant pastor (youth, some preaching and teaching), part-time student (S.A.T.S.) and hope/need to be part-time employed at something else (I just have not been able to find the something else yet that works with all the part-time above and other concerns).

 

Hi Uncle: Thanks. That is what I thought. I find conservative/liturgical Lutheranism attractive.


Craig

 

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Even when the Unk baptizes his desk with Pepsi and licks it off?

 

Bill, that is an excellent question, and one (along with others) I have been pondering myself. From my experience with Bethany as a student (a somewhat dark spot on my educational history), I can not imagine how they would not know. I think one would have to declare such to be a student and graduate from Bethany. Could someone keep it hidden if they wished? I guess so. Is that what happened? I don't know.
My source is from within Bethany, and one that should know if this was news to them. Now, I do not know this person very well, having little experiece with them, so do not have cause myself to doubt their truthfulness. Thus, I have to take the word of this Christian leader at face value.
What I do have, it seems, is 2 stories that I am having trouble harmonizing. Maybe they can be harmonized and the problem is with me, and maybe not.

 

I don't get it, either. How could they not know? Either creative assertions were made to BofD, or all parties involved are cynical, or they're irretrievably stupid at BofD.

If they were really that stupid, how could they stay in business basing their appeal to a group which, no matter how limited their educational attainments might be, is composed of people who do not waver in the least in their commitment to Trinity and Incarnation? Wouldn't their constituency notice the defalcation and cause a stink? If Shuemake were that uninformed, why take action now? I have trouble believing this possibility.

Maybe they just didn't care out of cynicism until "caught". BofD has made things up in the past and may have been laughing all the way to the bank. But then why not just brush this off now? I would think that cynics would simply brazen it out (unless the removal is merely a feint).

Maybe they really truly didn't know because creative assertions were made to them, creative assertions not made in other fora, and *conspicuously* not made. Could this be a case of the foolers fooled? Could it be that this discrepancy only just now became public knowledge due to theological belligerence, maybe even here on degreeinfo? Could that account for some things posted on this thread?

Wow. My little mind boggles. Wiser heads must sort this out.
________________________________

Also, it's diet pepsi, not pepsi. It was not a baptism because it lacked proper form, matter, subject, and intention.

 

uncle janko,
With the quote above, I could almost think you are a Baptist!

 

My Jesuit training at Torquemada helps, too. Thanks for the compliment, Alan.

 

element - baptizand - mode - purpose/effect - baptizer

With just 5 parts, one would think Christians could agree on how they fit together .

But that just is not our way

 

TR and KJV

Craig and others,
Yes, I lean toward the TR myself and thus have a comparitively high regard for the KJV (the version I currently use in ministry, although at one time I used the NKJV, and would not rule out using it in the future).
However, in recent years I have been, little by little, checking out the Marjority text position.

Can you elaborate more on this, with some examples. This is interesting.

 

KJV

BTW, I often like to refer to the KJV as the AV (Authorized Version), this throws off some KJVonly folks, and irritates others.

 

Alan: The idea is common in textual criticism where the texts are scribal. The scribes use a copy text, of course. One would assume they use the text that is most commonly accepted. Therefore when a great many exeplars (manuscripts) descend from one copy text, or family of copy texts, it may be because the copy text in question was considered superior. In other words, the copy text is the "received" text. The older text might still exist, but the fact that there are few more modern manuscripts based on it suggests scribes rejected it. An example from printed texts: The first folio edition of Hamlet is newer than the "bad" quarto but is clearly the better text. If one were editing Chaucer, one would select from variant readings the most common descent version, unless it is otherwise clearly in error. There are many such examples in medieval literature, where the newer manuscripts actually preserve the better, and ultimately older reading. Such is the case with the Bible, where the older manuscripts, like the vaticanus is older but does not agree well with the received text or even other manuscripts of its era. The older manuscript might represent simply an accidental survival of a manuscript line that was ultimately rejected. The majority text, for example, has far more common readings with the Vulgate than with the Alexandrian manuscripts, which while older, are not as clearly in the line of common descent. One rule that is common is to favor the "harder" or more complicated reading, because scribes tend to simplify. Most contested readings are harder (longer or more specific) in the majority texts. All of these rules are of course very soft, and are subject to change by circumstance. For example, would the scribe have a reason to add something to a text?

Blessings

 

Thanks Craig,
I was aware of the general argument for why the majority text would have been the recieved one and the one felt to be more accurate. However, I cannot remember people using non-biblical texts to demonstrate such. Very interesting.

 

Re: KJV

Woe unto those who promote strife among the brethren!!!

 

Majority text

For what it's worth, David Alan Black's _Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism_ contains several essays defending each of the major positions in NT textual criticism. I believe that Maurice A. Robinson's essay is the best articulation yet of the majority text argument. It's an excellent little book, and it is refreshing to see proponents of different views discuss them without the rancor so common in this area.

 

Anybody else notice this thread has nothing to do with BofD anymore?
Aw, why fight it?
I got my church to get rid of the NIV last week. Glowry!