Missionary theology and Wartburg Theological Seminary.

The word "missionary" is out. Due to manifest abuses in confusing Christian evangelism with Western cultural imperialism and denominationalism, particularly through the missionary efforts by European and North American churches in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this is not without good reason. (1) Attitudes of cultural superiority, ethnocentrism, claiming the "right" to impose Western views, and convictions about the inferiority and depravity of other cultures were normal. Negative examples of failing to carefully examine and identify the cultural assumptions on the part of missionaries are plentiful. This is not to discredit the faithful service of those who have served as missionaries in foreign lands. It is only to acknowledge that in the recent past, the church regularly failed to operate with a methodology that respected the need to incarnate the Christian message within the cultural matrix of other peoples.

On several occasions I have recently proposed the word "missionary" to describe the nature of the theological education needed for the church in the present historical moment. If we are indeed dwelling in a post-Christian era that can no longer take for granted even the most rudimentary familiarity with basic biblical and Christian teachings among the general population (to leave unmentioned church members), then we are living in an explicitly missionary situation like unto the first centuries of Christian history. (2) While the word "mission" is trendy (every organization seems to have a "mission statement") and the neologism "missional" is being employed more frequently, to utter the word "missionary" invites immediate misunderstanding, if not resistance.

This situation creates a dilemma for those interested in the history and theology of Wartburg Seminary, because from its very origin this seminary has been missionary to the core. Central to the genetic makeup of Wartburg Seminary has been its missionary character. This essay traces several factors that contribute to the missionary identity of the Wartburg tradition in arguing for the recovery and renewal of the missionary concept as we address the challenges facing the contemporary church.

The missionary theology of Wilhelm Loehe

The heartbeat of Wilhelm Loehe's theology is like that of the human heart. The diastolic moment is worship, and the systolic moment is mission. In worship the people of God encounter Jesus Christ in Word and Sacrament, confessing their faith, and are taken up into the missio Dei as they are propelled into the world as agents of the gospel's mission. The life of Loehe testifies how from his earliest engagement in public ministry to the very end of his life, his pulse beat with a passion both for liturgical renewal and for spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. Already during his time of university study and in his first parishes, Loehe became famous for organizing missionary circles and missionary societies. (3) Between the years 1826, when during his studies he became captivated by the pietistic theology of Professor Johann Christian Krafft, and 1837, when he arrived as pastor of the village church at Neuendettelsau, Loehe's missionary theology acquired new accents: that mission requires praxis, mission necessitates the church, mission entails confessional loyalty, and mission involves pastoral care.

All of his early involvements made Loehe ripe to respond when in 1840 he read an appeal by Pastor Friedrich Wyneken for help with the mission in North America. Almost immediately Loehe responded to this plea for financial support and volunteers in mission for the German immigrants in North America by writing an article, "The Lutheran Emigrants in North America: An Appeal to the Readers of the Sonntagsblatt." (4) Along with his partners, Loehe was faced with the task of organizing a strategy for disbursing the funds and preparing the volunteers that soon were made available for this missionary work in North America. After an initial period of offering support for the work of the Ohio Synod and its seminary in Columbus, Ohio, Loehe turned to the Missouri Synod as a mission partner more in line with his own confessional commitments. The missionaries sent by Loehe were instrumental in the formation of the Missouri Synod in 1847, and through his initiative and financial support a seminary was founded at Fort Wayne, Indiana. In 1849 Loehe founded the Gesellschaft fuer innere Mission im Sinne der Lutherischen Kirche to sustain this work among the German immigrants.

Of particular interest for the history of Wartburg Seminary, Loehe also helped to organize colonies in the vicinity of Saginaw, Michigan, sending colonists from Germany to populate them and religious leaders for their spiritual care. Loehe envisioned not only that these colonies would provide ministry to the German immigrants but also that they would develop missionary work among the Chippewa people who lived in the surrounding area. Among the religious leaders, Johannes Deindoerfer was sent as pastor to the colony at Frankenhilf in 1851 and Georg Grossmann as director of a teachers' seminary at Saginaw in 1852. When conflict emerged over the nature of ordained ministry between the Missouri Synod and the founder of the Buffalo Synod, Johannes Grabau, those who defended the mediating position of Loehe, chiefly Deindoerfer and Grossmann, found themselves accused of doctrinal error by the leaders of the Missouri Synod. This conflict eventually prompted those loyal to Loehe to leave behind the work begun in Michigan and seek out a territory not yet under development by the Missouri Synod. That destination was Iowa.

This brief sketch of Loehe's early out-reach to North America leaves unmentioned the other missionary impulses of his work in Neuendettelsau and other parts of the world. In 1853, the same year that Loehe's emissaries moved on from Michigan to a new mission field in Iowa, he founded the Lutherischer Verein fuer weibliche Diakonie (The Lutheran Organization for Female Diaconal Service). The organizing of an association of Lutheran deaconesses with their charitable work for the weakest members of society required an increasing amount of Loehe's attention in the subsequent years. Nevertheless, Loehe continued to support the work of mission in North America, especially through the efforts of the Iowa Synod, until the end of his life in 1872.

It is totally consistent with the pulse of Loehe's theology that two of the most impressive studies of his thought in recent time have emphasized the missionary character of his thought. Christian Weber's massive study is titled Missionstheologie bei Wilhelm Loehe: Aufbruch zur Kirche der Zukunft, and David Ratke's concise study bears the title Confession and Mission, Word and Sacrament: The Ecclesial Theology of Wilhelm Loehe (St. Louis: Concordia, 2001). Speaking at Wartburg Seminary in October 2001 at the event celebrating the founding of the Center for Global Theologies, Weber quoted Loehe in describing the church's call to mission:

It is very urgent for the church to start moving. The church must get
away from self-centered thinking and protecting its ownership. It needs
to find a global and missionary perspective.... In Loehe's words: "For
mission is nothing but the one church of God in its movement, the
actualization of the one universal, catholic church."

This is the vision of Loehe. He drew a picture with words. The church is
like a huge pilgrimage ascending a mountain. The first pilgrims have
already reached the top. But the top is covered with clouds and cannot
be seen from afar. At the end of the pilgrimage, people of all nations
and colors join in. The pilgrims are a unity because they share the
way. (5)

This momentum for mission found new expressions in the ministry of the Iowa Synod.

Missionary synod with a mission

The last coin that belonged to the estimated 22 persons who came to Iowa under the leadership of Grossmann and Deindoerfer was spent fording the Mississippi River. As they struggled to overcome a desperate financial situation, immediately the impulse toward missionary work took root in Iowa soil. While Deindoerfer and the lay leader G. Amman went to Clayton County, near Strawberry Point, to break ground for a settlement, Grossmann immediately went into action in Dubuque with the task of reestablishing the teachers' seminary. The missionary vision was to establish schools in cities and towns with significant populations of German immigrants. This would naturally lead as a second missionary goal to the formation of Lutheran congregations in those localities. This course of events rapidly unfolded, and almost immediately the teachers' seminary became also a theological seminary. Wartburg Seminary, which formally received its name in 1857, traces its origin to the expansion of the teachers' seminary to incorporate theological studies for the preparation of pastors in 1854. This was the same year that Sigmund Fritschel arrived to assist Director Grossmann in the instruction at the seminary.

The Iowa Synod was itself founded at St. Sebald in Clayton County on August 24, 1854, with four charter members: Deindoerfer, Grossmann, Fritschel, and a theological candidate, M. Schueller. The first missionary endeavor of the synod was in the area of "inner" mission, through the organization of preaching points that would be developed into congregations. While at its founding the synod consisted of only two congregations, at St. Sebald and Dubuque, one year later there were sixteen locations where the gospel was being preached. Friendly relations soon commenced with the Buffalo Synod, and the Iowa Synod began to provide pastors for vacant Buffalo congregations. In 1857 the Iowa Synod thereby extended its work to Michigan and Ohio. Fritschel himself went for two years to Detroit to serve as pastor, taking along the senior seminary class to complete their education there.

Pastors who had finished at the seminary went out to form and serve congregations at places as distant as Des Moines, Jonesboro (Illinois), and Pocahontas (Missouri). Meanwhile mission fields were extended to the areas surrounding both St. Sebald and Dubuque. By 1858 there were 17 pastors, 19 congregations, and 12 preaching points. In 1864 these numbers had increased to 41 pastors, 50 congregations in 7 states, and many more preaching points. Loehe continued to encourage and send candidates for ordained ministry for preparation at Wartburg Seminary throughout this and the subsequent period.

While the greatest gains of the Iowa Synod's early missionary efforts were among the steady stream of immigrants from Germany, the vision for "outer mission" in the form of outreach to Native American people continued to inspire its founders. Already in 1856 efforts were underway to organize missionary work among Indians in Canada through the leadership of Pastor John Jakob Schmidt. While these initiatives met insurmountable obstacles, Schmidt learned of an alternate possibility from a government agent named Redfield among the Crow tribe in Montana. Redfield led Schmidt to Montana in the spring of 1858, accompanied by Moritz Braeuninger from Wartburg Seminary. The two missionaries came to live for several months among the Crow, building relationships and learning the language. When they departed in November of the same year to return to Iowa to report on their findings, the Crow pleaded with them to stay.

The encouraging report given that winter generated contributions from supporters not only from the Iowa and Buffalo synods but especially from mission societies in Germany. In July 1859 Schmidt, Braeuninger, two other missionaries, and two colonists set out for Montana. The goal was to establish a colony as the base of operations for the missionary work. After suffering a difficult winter throughout which there was no contact with the Crow, Schmidt returned with one of the other missionaries to Iowa for additional provisions, while Braeuninger and the others erected a mission station on the banks of the Powder River. Here tragedy struck. Thinking they had built their log house in Crow territory, they instead were located in the border area between hostile tribes. According to the most likely reconstruction of events, Braeuninger was killed by representatives of another tribe that resisted the settlement of whites in the region. His death was a deep blow to the missionary efforts among the Native Americans.

Additional missionary work nevertheless did follow among the Cheyenne at a mission station constructed at Deer Creek, Wyoming. Between 1861 and 1863 various missionary ventures were explored, including preaching services for Native Americans near the Deer Creek station. Three orphaned Cheyenne boys were entrusted to the missionaries in 1863 and baptized shortly thereafter. Whatever encouragement this might have generated was soon dissipated through the irruption of a new wave of Indian insurrections. By January 1865 the entire missionary team had withdrawn. One further attempt to resume the Native American mission work was undertaken in 1866, but this was short lived. In 1885 the Iowa Synod transferred all remaining funds from Native American missions to the Neuendettelsau Mission Society for its work in Papua New Guinea. In this indirect way the Iowa Synod and Wartburg Seminary have participated since the late nineteenth century in the missionary work in PNG.

Many reasons can be cited for the failure of the Iowa Synod's mission to the Native American people. Gerhard Schmutterer and Charles Lutz name the following:

the involved chain of command from Bavaria via Iowa to the frontier; the
haphazard planning, lack of funds, and inexperience of the synod's
mission board; the faulty logistics and exhausting travel routes to the
frontier; the intertribal conflicts among the Indians; the dishonesty of
many whites with whom the Indians dealt; the routine violation of
treaties by whites in general; the untimely outbreak of the Civil War
and the concomitant withdrawals of military forces in the West; and
finally the inexperience, isolation, and naivete of the German-speaking
missionaries operating in a twice-foreign environment. (6)

Perhaps the most promising moment in this entire enterprise occurred in the summer of 1858 when the missionaries Schmidt and Braeuninger asked the Crow chieftain if they could travel along with the tribe and live as they lived. (7) The next six weeks were spent traveling among the Crow in the Powder River valley, learning the language, becoming familiar with Crow culture, and engaging in theological conversation with Indian leaders. As a result of this period of "accompaniment," the Crow were reluctant to let them depart and, as Schmidt reported, "A thousand times they asked us if we would really return when the winter had passed." (8) How might the history of Native American missionary endeavor by the Iowa Synod been different had the missionaries chosen to persist in this approach, rather than returning the next year to build the ill-fated mission station?

In the latter portion of the nineteenth century, the Iowa Synod continued its trajectory of steady growth in the number of pastors and congregations among its ranks. In 1896 the synod roster listed 334 pastors, 40 parochial school teachers, 534 congregations, and 149 preaching points. After its merger with the Texas Synod in 1896, the number of pastors swelled to 400 and congregations to 600, with a confirmed membership of nearly 65,000. Although its doctrine came under repeated challenge from representatives of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod involving issues as divergent as chiliasm, the anti-Christ, and predestination, the synod never wavered from its central purpose of extending the ministry of the gospel to the large number of German immigrants continuing to flow into the Midwest.

Wartburg Seminary was instrumental in serving the needs of the synod for pastors and teachers during this period. Twice the seminary was compelled to move because it outgrew its facilities, in 1874 to Mendota, Illinois, and in 1889 back to Dubuque. Whatever the seminary's location, it continued to initiate mission in the surrounding area and to graduate candidates prepared for ordained service in the Iowa Synod's congregations. During their years of service as the faculty of Wartburg Seminary, brothers Sigmund Fritschel (1854-1900) and Gottfried Fritschel (1857-1889) prepared hundreds of students for pastoral ministry, nearly all the pastors who belonged to the Iowa Synod. Their influence as teachers of the church was extended through their publications, including two books and the editing of the Kirchen-Blatt from 1858 to 1871 (by Gottfried) and many articles in various periodicals, especially the Kirchliche Zeitschrift. Besides their endeavors as educators, both brothers served the mission of the church as synod leaders, preachers, and "ecumenical" representatives to the General Council in the pursuit of confessional faithfulness and unity among Lutherans.

Throughout the next period of Wartburg's history, the strong relationship with the mission of the Iowa Synod continued under a new generation of faculty, including Max Fritschel (son of Sigmund), George Fritschel (son of Gottfried), and especially through the influence of Professor J. Michael Reu. Max Fritschel served on the faculty a total of 48 years and George Fritschel for 30 years. The preparation of pastors for service in the synod remained core to Wartburg's mission under their leadership. It was during their tenure that the construction of the present Wartburg Seminary building was undertaken, with the setting of the cornerstone in 1914.

Another significant venture during this period was the organization of a synod committee for foreign missions in 1917. This became a vehicle for supporting the work of the Neuendettelsau Mission in New Guinea, as well as other missions in East Africa. By 1930 the Iowa Synod had sent 23 persons to Papua New Guinea as missionaries, seven of them ordained ministers prepared at Wartburg Seminary. In addition five other ordained pastors had spent at least a portion of their studies at Wartburg prior to their setting out as missionaries to Papua New Guinea. This significant missionary connection has continued up to the present day through Wartburg's theological preparation of students from Papua New Guinea.

The teaching ministry of J. Michael Reu deserves its own chapter in this account of missionary theology and Wartburg Seminary. Reu was a teacher, scholar, and prolific writer who between 1899 and 1943 shaped not only the ministry of the students who sat in his classroom but countless others through his vast array of publications. Reu was deeply committed to preservation of the Lutheran tradition, as can be seen through his choice of topics for publication: the life of Martin Luther, Luther's German Bible, Luther's Small Catechism, and the Augsburg Confession. He edited the journal Kirchliche Zeitschrift for nearly 40 years and was its primary author, including 3,631 book reviews. His commitment to the publication of this journal and his role in founding the Luther Academy in 1937 underscore his concern for the continuing education of those serving as pastors. This is the very same Luther Academy that has evolved today into the Luther Academy of the Rockies.

Perhaps the greatest missionary contribution of Reu was his role as a Christian educator, not only for pastors but especially for the congregational members who employed the curricular materials he prepared on the Bible and catechism. Reu was dedicated to the biblical and catechetical literacy of the members of Lutheran congregations. To this end he stressed the retelling of the biblical story through a method of questions and answers that probed the meaning of those stories for the Christian life. In this way Reu not only fostered the mission of the church through his seminary lectures on dogmatics, homiletics, catechetics, ethics, and virtually every other discipline in the curriculum but also by his considerable influence over Christian education in the congregations of the Iowa Synod and beyond.

At the time of the merger with the Ohio and Buffalo Synods in 1930 at the formation of the "old" American Lutheran Church, the Iowa Synod had grown to consist of 9 districts including 915 congregations, 638 pastors, and approximately 212,000 baptized members. Wartburg Seminary had been a key partner in this development that began with two congregations at Dubuque and St. Sebald in 1854. While in retrospect we may criticize the limited focus on mission to German-speaking immigrants during this period, impulses toward foreign missions and outreach to Native Americans have been noted. When the history of the Iowa Synod was written in 1929 just prior to the merger forming the old ALC, it was particularly fitting that the author, Professor G. J. Zeilinger of Wartburg Seminary, selected this title for the book: A Missionary Synod with a Mission. (9)

Missionary impulses at Wartburg after World War II

How have the missionary origins of the first 75 years of Wartburg Seminary continued over the course of the next 75 years? An ongoing project for me involves examining the continuities and innovations that characterize the theology of Wartburg throughout its history. (10) For the purposes of this essay only sketchy reference is made to a number of missionary impulses that deserve further reflection. These are organized according to decades, roughly following the outline provided in William Weiblen's monograph, Life Together at Wartburg Theological Seminary.

A new openness to the world characterized the mission of the seminary in the decade of the 1940s. Seminary instruction in the German language ended in 1940, marking a new situation of preparing candidates to serve in predominantly English-speaking congregations. In the post--World War II years, the president of the seminary and his wife, Julius and Justine Bodensieck, accepted a call to Germany to act as liaison between the Allied Military Government and the churches. This service contributed in a tangible way to the recovery of Germany from both the material and spiritual devastation resulting from the war. For many years the Bodensiecks, and thereby Wartburg Seminary, have been remembered in Germany with gratitude for this ministry of mercy.

The decade of the 50s was marked by a significant increase in the size of the student body, due no doubt in part to the heightened search for meaning in the postwar era. Under the impetus of Professor William Streng, Wartburg Seminary was an innovator in the field of theological education as it introduced a required internship year into the curriculum in the 1951-52 academic year. Not until 1960 did the internship year become standard in the curriculum in all Lutheran seminaries. This highlights the continuing concern of the seminary for the preparation of leaders for congregational service. Later in the same decade Professor William Hulme introduced Clinical Pastoral Education as an integral component of the curriculum. Both of these impulses reflect the desire of the seminary to take seriously contextual realities in its preparation of ministerial candidates.

The decade of the 60s must be especially recognized for unprecedented forms of ecumenical cooperation and new impulses in connecting the link between the ministry of the church and society. The war in Vietnam and the civil rights struggle challenged both faculty and students to address in new ways the urgent justice issues of the day. By the end of this decade various expressions of liberation theology were emerging to hold theological understanding accountable by the criterion of orthopraxis. The new ecumenical climate emerging from the Second Vatican Council from 1962-65 gave impetus in Dubuque to once unimaginable ecumenical ventures in theological education. The incorporation of the Association of Theological Faculties in Iowa in 1965 and the concomitant organization of the Schools of Theology in Dubuque expanded Wartburg's missionary horizons to think in new ways about the mission of the one catholic church. Cross-registration and team teaching with the Roman Catholics of the Aquinas Institute of Theology and the Presbyterians and other Protestants of the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary increased the capacity of Wartburg's graduates to build the alliances necessary to address emerging social and theological questions. Out of this ferment one lasting curriculum change was implemented, the January term, giving students the occasion for immersions in contextualized learning.

The decade of the 70s was a particularly innovative time from the perspective of new mission impulses. First, the historic decision to ordain women after centuries of exclusion meant an influx of women students, and eventually women faculty members, who brought incredible gifts for ministry and expansive feminist perspectives on the mission imperatives facing the church. The life and mission of the seminary has been forever changed by the perspectives brought by these women. The 70s also saw the extension of the seminary's established focus on global partnerships, increasing the number of international students from the countries of Brazil, Ethiopia, Germany, Guyana, India, Korea, Namibia, Nigeria, Norway, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Tanzania. Students and visiting international professors from these and many other countries have contributed to Wartburg's participation in the globalization of theological education, opening new vistas in missionary awareness. One particular focus during this and the following period was the seminary's catalytic role in the cause of Namibian independence, finally achieved in 1990 (although many serious economic and social problems remain to be resolved). This decade also saw the formation of two innovative seminary programs in new contexts, the Denver House of Studies, which offered students the opportunity to connect their studies with an immersion in urban ministry, and the Lutheran Seminary Program in the Southwest, which had as its founding purpose the preparation of pastors for Hispanic ministry.

In the 1980s and 90s, the emergence of centers within the orbit of the seminary has accented new mission challenges. The Center for Theology and Land concentrates attention on the evolving challenges facing the church in rural communities. The Center for Youth Ministries has helped set the agenda for youth and family ministry, preparing lay and rostered leaders to address with integrity the complex situation of young people in a postmodern and post-Christian context. The Center for Global Theologies has most recently been established to anchor Wartburg's perennial interest and involvement in global issues and global mission. Never has there been an age when such concerns as interreligious dialogue and reconciliation between people of diverse cultures have been more urgent. The implementation of the Master of Arts in Theology, Development, and Evangelism furthers Wartburg's partnership with the global church in its concentrated focus on ministering to whole persons and whole communities. Each of these centering foci has contributed in new ways to the preparation of the graduates of Wartburg Seminary for mission through the ministry of congregations and other callings in church and society.

The missionary challenge of the present

Each generation is faced with the dilemma of faithfully appropriating the traditions of the past in order to address the mission challenges of the present. At the beginning of this essay I noted how the term "missionary" has for some very good reasons come to be severely criticized and fallen into disfavor. There are definite signs, however, that we have entered an age where the recovery and reinterpretation of the missionary concept is crucial. What is more, the characteristics of contemporary post-modern and post-Christian society necessitate the adoption of a missionary conviction, not so much with regard to relationships with people of other countries but primarily with regard to encountering the diversity of views in one's local sphere of influence.

One definition of the postmodern condition involves the disintegration of all metanarratives that serve to bind social existence together. (11) In a situation where there exist no universally valid truths that help the social fabric to cohere, the vacuum is filled by multiple versions of reality. Each of many subcultures operates within its own language game, values, rituals, and lifestyle. When these subcultures come into conflict, especially regarding their ultimate loyalties, the situation quickly becomes explosive. While in an ideal scenario cultural diversity offers the opportunity for the mutual enrichment of all parties, far too often tensions arise, leading instead to competition if not outright hostility. We are living in an historical moment where evidence for the volatility of "tribalism" is all too compelling.

At the same time the present age is regularly described as post-Christian or post-Christendom. The former arrangement of Western civilization, in which Christianity could be assumed as the religious presupposition of the culture, is no longer valid. Consider the widespread biblical illiteracy in the general population, to say nothing of church members. Allusions even to the most central biblical stories cannot be expected to convey meaning. Basic Christian practices, such as prayer, are infrequently transmitted from parent to child in the home. There remains no sacred time during the week, certainly not Wednesday evenings and not even Sunday mornings, when church activities are privileged over other priorities. The significance of important Christian holy days has been successfully subsumed under consumer interpretations at Christmas and Easter. The bifurcation of Christian faith from daily life is common.

Insofar as this analysis of our present era is accurate, it becomes imperative for church leaders to recover and reclaim their missionary identity. What are the central features of the missionary mindset I am proposing? First, it involves a deep understanding of the faith tradition in which we stand. It means conviction about the centrality and the efficacy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It entails a personal appropriation of the key theological doctrines of the tradition. It is important to add the qualification that this theological posture is characterized by a thorough appreciation for the diverse voices that have contributed to the formation of the tradition, both in Scripture and in Christian history. These serve as rich resources in the missionary enterprise of interpreting the faith. This includes an awareness of the value of dissenting voices and even heretical opinions in the Christian past.

Second, the missionary mindset I envision involves a profound capacity to listen. This means listening not only to the words that another speaks but to the way those words constitute a worldview. Careful and caring listening attends to the values and commitments expressed by the other. The other person is honored and not threatened by this manner of listening. One is attentive to the religious implications of what is spoken and seeks clarification of the ultimate concern in, with, and under what is said. An educated listening capacity employs methods of cultural and theological analysis to interpret what has been heard. Such an approach to listening takes much time--time to test one's emerging hypotheses in order that the other might be able to affirm their accuracy. One might think in terms of years rather than days as the time frame for building the trusting relationships in which such listening may occur.

Third, this form of missionary work understands itself in service to the holistic well-being of the other person and the community to which the other belongs. It imagines the world communally, not individualistically. Missionary service "is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful" (cf. 1 Cor 13:4-5). Missionary service is lived out in acts of love that attend to those things which contribute to the restoration of relationships in community. In interpreting a particular context, the missionary embodies the promise of the gospel by attending to those most in need and investing one's life in service to them. God's own partiality for the least is modeled by the missionary. Concern for the wholeness of the entire community, beginning with the most vulnerable members, reflects God's own concern for our salvation, the shalom of God, the kingdom. Missionary service is not a matter of weakness but of strength, at times requiring the risking of one's own well-being in order to challenge those structures that put one's neighbor at risk.

Last, this missionary approach necessitates the ability to interpret the faith tradition into other "languages." By languages I do not mean German or Spanish (although the mission of the ELCA is already seriously hampered by the inability of its leaders to communicate with the growing Hispanic population in the U.S.). Instead I mean the ability to speak multiple cultural languages (the languages of youth culture, Hmong, country music, or yuppie) and multiple religious languages (the languages of New Age, civil religion, Buddhism, or Jehovah's Witnesses). Rooted in the inherited Christian tradition, the new missionary must be a culture and religion broker who is creative in interpreting and translating the Good News into languages that are understandable to those whose lives are versed in other cultural and religious tongues.

The Mission Statement of Wartburg Seminary adopted in 1997 gives expression to these concerns, particularly where it states, "Wartburg endeavors to form students who claim a clear sense of their confessional identity as Lutheran Christians and a commitment to explore its meaning for our multi-cultural, religiously plural context." More recent faculty discussion has identified specific "practices" that we are seeking to instill in graduates, among them the practice of being rooted in the gospel, the practice of complex analysis, the practice of evangelical listening and speaking the faith to others, the practice of immersion in context, and the practice of sensitivity to cross-cultural and global dimensions. Each of these is a key component of the missionary disposition advocated here.

Wartburg Seminary lives in a tradition with a missionary identity that has evolved with each succeeding generation. Rather than abandoning the missionary concept, the time is ripe for its revival. Not only might we embrace the purpose of educating "women and men to serve the church's mission as ordained and lay leaders" (as it is stated in the Mission Statement) but even more propose that each graduate of this seminary goes forth from her/his studies formed by self-understanding and commitment in the calling of a missionary. In short, I propose this motto: Every graduate a missionary.

1. David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), 291-97.

2. For example, Douglas John Hall, The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1997).

3. Cf. Christian Weber, Missionstheologie bei Wilhelm Loehe: Aufbruch zur Kirche der Zukunft (Guetersloh: Guetersloher Verlagshaus, 1996), 44-161.

4. Wilhelm Loehe, "Die lutherische Auswanderer in Nordamerika: Eine Ansprache an die Leser des Sonntagsblattes," in Wilhelm Loehe, Gesammelte Werke, ed. Klaus Ganzert. 7 vols. (Neuendettelsau: Freimund-Verlag, 1951-1986), 4:16-19. Cf. also Loehe's sermon comments in Gesammelte Werke 6.2:640-41.

5. Christian Weber, "The Future of Loehe's Legacy," address delivered at Wartburg Theological Seminary at Dubuque, Iowa, on October 30, 2001, p. 7. A version of the address is published in this issue of Currents (see pp. 96-103).

6. Gerhard M. Schmutterer and Charles P. Lutz, "Mission Martyr on the Western Frontier: Can Cross-cultural Mission Be Achieved?" in Church Roots: Stories of Nine Immigrant Groups That Became The American Lutheran Church, ed. Charles P. Lutz (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985), 140.

7. Schmutterer and Lutz, "Mission Martyr," 132f.

8. Schmutterer and Lutz, "Mission Martyr," 133.

9. G. J. Zeilinger, A Missionary Synod With a Mission: A Memoir for the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa and Other States (Chicago: Wartburg Publishing House, 1929). The membership statistics given in the preceding section are chiefly taken from this book.

10. The last thematic account was Samuel F. Salzmann, "The Theology of Wartburg Seminary," Wartburg Seminary Quarterly 17 (Nov 1954): 11-23.

11. Cf. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1993), 39-41.

Craig L. Nessan

Wartburg Theological Seminary