14 May 2010

Seminex Cinema



If you have 25 minutes to kill, watch the video and see how royally messed up Seminex was. It seems this was a recruitment/fundraising movie. Check it out and notice Tietjen's sermon (also quoted at the end) that they train "community organizers"! They even got the guy from the Waltons to be the narrator. Good night John-Boy - enjoy studying the documentary hypothesis tomorrow and doing the ministry of nursing home ombudsman! Makes me wish I could have gone to school there for sure!

9 comments:

mlorfeld said...

Note, the cross shown behind him, and now residing at LSTC was the cross from the chapel at CSL that was stolen during the walkout.

Anonymous said...

Why wasn't someone ever charged with theft?

I saw a half hour movie on YouTube on the history of the ELCA. Over half of it was about the LCMS, AELC and Seminex.

Rev. Daniel A. Hinton said...

Not only the cross, but many, many important books and documents also "walked out" of CSL's library after 1974.

Pr. H. R. said...

"from inner city, to outer suburbia"

That was Dr. Tietjen's description of the whole world in his sermon. Perfect. For there you have it: a revolt of citified, intellectual elites against the rubes from the sticks who still believe the B-I-B-L-E.

Much more there of course - nasty, petty politics were not only on Seminex's side - but that core of mainline, secular university trained, Eastern urban elite Protestantism was very much at the center of that movement.

+HRC

mlorfeld said...

Begger...
You are right... in fact that theft severely hampered my independent study that I conducted Winter Quarter of my final year at the Sem. Nearly all the resources for the Buffalo and Iowa Synods were not there. I found it odd that I had to request though inter-library loan resources that should have been in CSL's collection.

The Rev. BT Ball said...

HRC-
you got it, no mention of the unwashed farmers of Missouri, Ohio and other states, that did not get with the program. Who needs to serve them? Their communities were unwilling to be organized by good folks of Seminex.

Pastor Peters said...

Not many on this forum went through this period. Having known many of the people on that video, having known many of those on the other side, I would caution against a black and white view of the events of Missouri. Sadly, the theology got lost in a sea of by-law and rule controversy. Not all associated with either side were victim or oppressor. I chose what I still believe is the right side to remain in Missouri and contend for the truthfulness and faithfulness of Scripture but I lost friends, saw people's lives left in ruins, and people broken on both sides because of this period. I would just caution against a cut and dried view of these pivotal events in Missouri's history. Interesting because some of those who left now believe they were betrayed by the agenda of some who led the walkout and some who believed they were right to challenge the theology still bear the deep scars of this conflict...

km said...

It may be of interest to anyone who watched this video that CSL currently offers a course entitled "LCMS Controversy in the 1960's and 1970's." No one thinks that this was a simple black and white thing, which is why we spend a quarter studying it. It was not just politics. It was not just theology. Unresolved bad theology led to nasty politics though.

But yeah... this is indeed messed up... but not quite as unfamiliar as I would like it to sound.

Scott Diekmann said...

Liberal theology doesn't change. Change the style of dress, get a haircut, and put on a pair of trendy glasses and much of it would look like an emerging church film.