Comment from Walther Theological Seminary

[2017-11-12 - updated hyperlinks to WTS]
A comment came in on a previous blog post that I must publish in a new blog post.  In that old post, I pointed out that I missed seeing any mention of UOJ (Doctrine of Universal, Objective Justification) in the materials for the new Lutheran seminary in America, the

Walther Theological Seminary

of Decatur, IL.  A pastor and professor at this institution evidently noticed my challenge and was moved to confess:

"As a professor at Walther Theological Seminary I can say that yes, we do teach UOJ."  – Rev. James R. Shaw

Prof. Shaw:

Dear God! how precious was your notification, that your dear Walther Theological Seminary does indeed teach "UOJ" – Universal, Objective Justification.  How wonderful it is to hear this confessed.  And might I add how thrilling for me to see the name chosen for your Seminary, the name of Walther!  What a leap of faith it was to separate from today's LC-MS and even start a seminary!  Surely your detractors in today's LC-MS are legion.

I hope that this name given to your seminary does not become like the statue of Luther at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, which stands in front of a seminary where the term "plastic text" is now not only used for the Bible, but defended by its leaders and spokesmen.

I also hope that the temptation by one of your faculty members to use his training as a "clinical therapist" is set aside in favor of the teaching of UOJ, especially also for "Pastoral Theology".  I hope the promise in your Catalog (on page 49) that your teacher of Biblical Counseling "will only use secular Psychology when it can be a servant to what we know is truth" is kept.  But that is only a hope, for I have seen first hand how this promise is broken in practice in a thousand different ways, as the teaching of UOJ (i.e. the Gospel) is pushed into the background.

Not only did the Lord raise up a C.F.W. Walther for our modern world to re-ignite the memory of Martin Luther, but do you also realize that the Lord compounded that gift by granting a Second Walther to His Church?   His name was Franz Pieper.  I hope your dear Walther Theological Seminary makes heavy use also of this greatest theologian of the 20th Century in your training of truly Lutheran pastors.

Signed,

BackToLuther