LCMS Inc. – Please Stop Touting the Pagan Growth of the Concordias, by Pr. Rossow

The sprawling headline across the top of the most recent Reporter (November 2014), the official newspaper of the LCMS, brags “CUS Enrollment Hits Record 36,250 Still Climbing after 22 Years.” What do you suppose my 86 year old mother in rural Iowa thinks when she reads that headline? She is proud that the university system that she sent her son to almost 4o years ago is still a great source of pride for us LCMS’ers.

Sorry Mom, it’s just pagan growth. No reason for pride in this statistic. No doubt there are a lot of good things going on in the Concordias but this number is not one of them. The brightest light lately was the election of strong confessional leader Dr. Daniel Gard as the president of Concordia Chicago. He has a huge hill to climb and adding students is not helping. It is only making the universities more pagan. Here are just three of the reasons why I say that.

First is a story of a former principal from our day school here at Bethany Lutheran in Naperville, Illinois. About 15 years ago he decided to earn his masters of education. He wanted to get it from a Lutheran institution so he enrolled at Concordia Chicago. In his entire program he had one Lutheran professor and he was not even LCMS. He was ELCA. A Lutheran principal takes the high road to get his masters in education from a Concordia, despite the numerous opportunities he had in the Chicago-land area, and he does not get a Lutheran education even though CUC was started and operated for most of its history as an LCMS teachers college.

Secondly, there was the discovery a few years ago of the 8 CUC professors who signed the petition in favor of terrorist and fire bomber Bill Ayers. It is noteworthy that the petition was not just a personal endorsement but was an endorsement of the pagan humanist philosophy of education taught by Ayers and his students. You can see the BJS story on this and related stories by clicking here.

In the third place there is the professor up for tenure at Concordia Chicago who endorses the transgender life. BJS writer Scott Diekmann gives that chilling account of paganism thriving at the Concordias. You can read it by clicking here.

Just for good measure we can throw in the support for the LBGT agenda at Concordia – Chicago. You can read about it here.

My mother would not approve of all of this. Imagine sending your child off to a Concordia for an education and having all of these issues and not being sure how many pagan professors they will have. We can never be insulated from the world but this is not what Walther and the boys had in mind when they started the Concordias.

Did I mention that despite the big headline on the 22 years of growth at the Concordias, buried on page 8 of the Reporter is the fact that church work student enrollment continues to shrink.

Is it worth celebrating that the CUS is growing in enrollment? Not in the least. The CUS is growing in paganism. The Concordias are growing their enrollment by growing their program so that they can grow their income. They are not only growing pagan they are doing it for money.

I have hope for CUC in the long run thanks to its new president but please LCMS Inc., in the meantime stop touting this pagan growth.

It’s OK to be small if it is for the cause of being faithful.

Fear not little flock, for it is your Father’s will to give you the kingdom (Luke 12:32).

No man can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24).

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