Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary

Last updated

Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary
MottoOne Thing Needful
TypeTheological seminary
Established1946
Affiliation Evangelical Lutheran Synod
President Rev. Timothy Hartwig
Academic staff
3 Full-time, 3 Adjunct
Location, ,
USA

44°10′6″N93°59′21″W / 44.16833°N 93.98917°W / 44.16833; -93.98917 Coordinates: 44°10′6″N93°59′21″W / 44.16833°N 93.98917°W / 44.16833; -93.98917
CampusSmall town
Website http://www.blts.edu/

Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary (BLTS) is the training school for pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

Contents

History

Founded in 1946, BLTS was essentially a department of Bethany Lutheran College (BLC), before the two institutions were officially separated in 1974. [1] BLTS is located adjacent to the BLC campus, which overlooks the Minnesota River valley in Mankato, Minnesota, a community of about 53,000. From 1946 through 1974, as a department of the college, the seminary was headed by the Dean of the Seminary. These deans included Norman A. Madson and Milton Otto. In 1974, the seminary was separated from the college and given its own president, thus the office of Dean of the Seminary was eliminated. The first president of the newly separated seminary was Theodore A. Aaberg, who was forced to resign due to health issues a few years later. Glenn Reichwald served as acting president for the 1979–1980 school year until Wilhelm W. Petersen was installed as the new president. Upon his retirement in 1997, Gaylin R. Schmeling was called. [2] He retired in 2022 and Timothy Hartwig was installed.

Academics

BLTS awards two different degrees. First and foremost, BLTS exists to train Lutheran pastors for parish ministry. Therefore, it offers a four-year course of study culminating in the Master of Divinity (M.Div.) that is the basic degree for most clergy in North America. Secondly, BLTS offers a Master of Arts (M.A.) in Lutheran Theological Studies for interested laymen who do not want to enter the public ministry but are interested in a deeper study of Lutheran history and theology. [3] The curriculum centers on the four basic divisions of theology: Biblical Theology, the study of the Bible in its original languages; Systematic Theology, the study of the doctrines gleaned from the Bible; Historical Theology, the study of the history of the Church in relation to the collected doctrines thereof; and Practical Theology, the study of everyday functions of the pastoral office such as preaching, teaching, and counseling.

Notable graduates

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod</span> Christian denomination in the United States

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), also known as the Missouri Synod, is a traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 1.8 million members, it is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. The LCMS was organized in 1847 at a meeting in Chicago, Illinois, as the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, a name which partially reflected the geographic locations of the founding congregations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod</span> Denomination of Lutheran Christianity in the United States

The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), also referred to simply as the Wisconsin Synod, is an American Confessional Lutheran denomination of Christianity. Characterized as theologically conservative, it was founded in 1850 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. F. W. Walther</span>

Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther was a German-American Lutheran minister. He was the first president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) and its most influential theologian. He is commemorated by that church on its Calendar of Saints on May 7. He has been described as a man who gave up his homeland for the freedom to speak freely, to believe freely, and to live freely, by emigrating from Germany to the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Association of Lutheran Churches</span>

The American Association of Lutheran Churches is an American Lutheran church body. It was formed on November 7, 1987, as a continuation of the American Lutheran Church denomination, the majority of which merged with the Lutheran Church in America and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The AALC offices were originally in Bloomington, Minnesota. The national office moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 2007. As of 2008, it had 67 congregations, with about 16,000 members. In 2020, the denomination listed 59 congregations. Its current Presiding Pastor is the Rev. Dr. Cary G. Larson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concordia Theological Seminary</span>

The Concordia Theological Seminary is a Lutheran seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It offers professional, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees affiliated with training clergy and deaconesses for the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bethany Lutheran College</span> Private Lutheran college in Mankato, Minnesota, US

Bethany Lutheran College (BLC) is a private Christian liberal arts college in Mankato, Minnesota. Founded in 1927, BLC is operated by the Evangelical Lutheran Synod. The campus overlooks the Minnesota River valley in a community of 53,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concordia Seminary</span> Lutheran theological seminary in Missouri

Concordia Seminary is a Lutheran seminary in Clayton, Missouri. The institution's primary mission is to train pastors, deaconesses, missionaries, chaplains, and church leaders for the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). Founded in 1839, the seminary initially resided in Perry County, Missouri. In 1849, it was moved to St. Louis, and in 1926, the current campus was built.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seminex</span> Lutheran seminary, 1974–1987

Seminex is the widely used abbreviation for Concordia Seminary in Exile, which existed from 1974 to 1987 after a schism in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). The seminary in exile was formed due to the ongoing Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy that was dividing Protestant churches in the United States. At issue were foundational disagreements on the authority of Scripture and the role of Christianity. During the 1960s, many clergy and members of the LCMS grew concerned about the direction of education at their flagship seminary, Concordia Seminary, in St. Louis, Missouri. Professors at Concordia Seminary had, in the 1950s and 1960s, begun to utilize the historical-critical method to analyze the Bible rather than the traditional historical-grammatical method that considered scripture to be the inerrant Word of God.

Rolland D. McCune was an American theologian and ordained Baptist minister. He was professor of Systematic Theology at the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary in Allen Park, Michigan, where he had been the President of the Seminary for ten years and then Dean of the Faculty for six years. He was active at the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary from 1981 to 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concordia Lutheran Conference</span>

The Concordia Lutheran Conference (CLC) is a small organization of Lutheran churches in the United States which formed in 1956. It was a reorganization of some of the churches of the Orthodox Lutheran Conference (OLC), which had been formed in September 1951, in Okabena, Minnesota, following a break with Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). It is the remaining successor of the Orthodox Lutheran Conference. The current president is the Reverend Edward J. Worley, pastor of St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Seattle, Washington. All members of the board of directors serve one year terms. It is in fellowship with seven mission congregations in Russia and Nigeria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaroslav Pelikan</span> American Christian scholar (1923–2006)

Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Jr. was an American scholar of the history of Christianity, Christian theology, and medieval intellectual history at Yale University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lutheran Churches of the Reformation</span> Association of Lutheran congregations

The Lutheran Churches of the Reformation (LCR) is an association of Lutheran congregations. The LCR has its roots among groups of Lutherans that broke with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) in the middle of the 20th century, and was formally incorporated in 1964. Church services are generally traditional and reverent in the style of the mid-1900s conservative Christians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concordia Publishing House</span> Publishing company owned by Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

Concordia Publishing House (CPH), founded in 1869, is the official publishing arm of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). Headquartered in St Louis, Missouri, at 3558 S. Jefferson Avenue, CPH publishes the synod's official monthly magazine, The Lutheran Witness, and the synod's hymnals, including The Lutheran Hymnal (1941), Lutheran Worship (1982), and Lutheran Service Book (2006). It publishes a wide range of resources for churches, schools, and homes and is the publisher of the world's most widely circulated daily devotional resource, Portals of Prayer. Its children's books, known as Arch Books, have been published in millions of copies. Concordia Publishing House is the oldest publishing company west of the Mississippi River and the world's largest distinctly Lutheran publishing house.

Jacob Aall Ottesen Preus II was a Lutheran pastor, professor, author, seminary president and church denominational president. He served as the eighth president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) from 1969 to 1981. He was a major figure in the "Seminex" theological/political controversy, which resulted in a schism in the LCMS during the early 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oswald Hoffmann</span>

Oswald Carl Julius Hoffmann was an American clergyman and broadcaster who was best known as a speaker for The Lutheran Hour, a long-running radio program affiliated with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). During his time on the Lutheran Hour, the weekly broadcast was heard on 1,200 stations in the U.S. and in thirty other nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Preus</span>

Robert David Preus was an American Lutheran pastor, professor, author, and seminary president.

Lutheran Brethren Seminary (LBS) is an institute of theological higher education of the Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America (CLBA), located in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. It shares its campus with the denominational headquarters of the CLBA and the denomination’s high school, Hillcrest Lutheran Academy. The seminary’s primary mission is to train and equip pastors, missionaries, and Christian lay workers for ministry in the Church of the Lutheran Brethren and other church bodies.

Robert Harry Smith was a Lutheran clergyman, theologian, prolific author and lecturer on the Bible's New Testament, and dean of a Lutheran seminary in exile in the early 1980s. Smith was one of 40 faculty members from the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod's Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri who walked out in 1974 in a theological dispute that ended with the ousting of Concordia's president, John Tietjen, who disagreed with a literal reading of the Bible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heritage College & Seminary</span> Canadian evangelical institution in Ontario

The Heritage College & Seminary is a Baptist theological institute in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. It is affiliated with the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North American Lutheran Seminary</span>

The North American Lutheran Seminary (NALS) is the seminary system of the North American Lutheran Church. The proposal resulted from the work of NALC's Task Force for Theological Education and recommended two components for the seminary system. The seminary describes itself as "not investing in bricks and mortar, but rather investing in people". As such it has no buildings of its own.

References

  1. "History". Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  2. "President". Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  3. "Catalog". Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary. Retrieved November 21, 2022.