Seminary impressions (the second time around)
And the church of today and tomorrow

A conversation with visiting lecturer and former
ELCA Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson

PHILADELPHIA (June 23, 2003) -- When the Rev. Dr. H. George Anderson welcomed seminarians to his course this spring on "Lutherans in North America" he began by asking each of the students where they had been born, where they had gone to college and what they had done since.

"The answers were really varied," recalls Anderson, a 1956 graduate of The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (LTSP). He went on during his career to teach on the college and seminary levels and to be president of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary before becoming presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

"When I came to seminary, almost all of us were unmarried men who had attended Wagner or Muhlenberg Colleges," he remembers. "We were a kind of closed circle. Now I think the seminary has to work harder at being a community." An example of the challenge, he says, came when his students broke down into teams to work on class projects. "Those who lived on campus decided to develop resources for the project using the Library," he says. "Those from each team living off-campus wanted to do their research on the internet." Since the 1950s, even the options for doing research have become more complex.

Anderson spent 10 weeks at LTSP this spring as the St. John’s Summit Visiting Professor. He taught seminarians, was keynoter for the Magnet Church event and for the Lutherhostel program, an event involving 28 older persons in continuing education on campus this month. And he could be seen in many other settings too – attending special events, doing library research himself, or conversing over lunch or elsewhere with seminarians and faculty members.

"I’m proud of the seminary and its continuing leadership role," Anderson says. "I think it practices more than other schools the values of being inclusive and having a diverse faculty. At the same time the seminary has maintained a strong Lutheran core and perspective. I say perspective because it prepares future church leaders to look at the whole of Christian life and the entire church and world of faith."

"I think the seminary has quite successfully reinvented itself for a new century and maintained its qualities of scholarship and leadership." Anderson recalls that in his seminary days the student body lived in one building. The seminary didn’t have resident commuters, commuters and seminarians from a wide variety of Christian backgrounds, plus the Afro-centric teaching program known as the Urban Theological Institute. "The seminary had a commonality and outlook that couldn’t be duplicated today," he says. "The seminary today has a wider variety of experience in its students and faculty. It’s able to draw upon a richer group of talents and personal histories. I’m really impressed with the students, faculty and staff, the quality of the food service and the levels of technical and Library support, the work of the LTSP Foundation."

Anderson also took some time to talk about the present and future church. He noted that as presiding bishop, a critical concern for all kinds of people across the church has been in developing leadership.

Anderson: The practice of "idolatry" by Christians impedes the mission of today's church.

"That means different things to different people," he says. "But I think people are usually thinking about providing pastors equipped to cope effectively in these difficult days." A particular preoccupation across the church is conflict in congregations. "Pastors are really facing issues of conflict. Christians are bad at dealing with it because they often think we shouldn’t have it in the church. Because they think we shouldn’t have it, they tend to ignore it and hope it goes away." Not dealing with it usually makes matters worse, he says.

"Conflict is the way the church adapts to changing situations," Anderson says. "It’s the way the church reforms itself." Differences about how to deal with change have been part of the whole history of the church, he notes, whether the change has involved the New Testament or the creeds. "Differences of opinion and disagreements are how the creeds and the canon of the church were developed. Conflict is not a mortal illness. It’s treatable and it can lead to new and healthier situations. The main poison in conflict comes from demonizing the ‘other’ side, suggesting that the motives of others are less than honorable." He acknowledged that sometimes the motives are less than honorable.

But he said it is critical for all parties to remember that all are sinners. And it is possible that all sides in a conflict may have good intentions and constructive ideas to be discovered mutually if conflict is dealt with openly and not out of fear.

"It’s important for church leaders today to look for constructive ideas out of dealing with conflict and not dwell upon each others’ personal failings," Anderson says. "When believers work to truly understand all the factors involved and listen to each other, they make better decisions." A complication arises sometimes when some individuals embroiled in conflict are not articulate about why matters are important to them. And so time may be required to arrive at the best decisions. "Time is on our side," Anderson says, "if we put our future in God’s hands."

Anderson then turned to a few points about the mission of today’s church. He said he believes idolatry is a major impediment to that mission. And the use of time is at the heart of the matter. "Many people do not have time for the church," he says. "They put their trust in other things – work, image, success of their children and themselves. They do not see that they are relating to ‘lesser’ gods," he says. "The First Commandment is to love God above all things."

He said he had spoken recently to a pastor who had difficulty scheduling two appointments for pre-marital counseling for a couple. "They had other concerns, a condominium they needed to take care of. These things seemed to be more important than working on their marriage! The priorities people assign to their use of time are often idolatrous." The idolatry applies also to people’s use of money, he says, when people are more concerned about applying their resources to secular interests than to the church. "The question comes down to this: Is God a central part of my life or not?"

He advises church leaders that worship is central in establishing the importance of God in the lives of today’s Christians. "The experience of worship is when people stop to think about experiencing and relating to God," he says. "Prayer and sacraments and preaching help worshipers determine how God relates to other parts of their lives." Explicating the Christian message well through worship helps believers focus on the value of faith as they struggle through life. But without the confidence of a faith perspective, he says, people "live under judgment that is tragically self-imposed." They become preoccupied with their body type, looks, parenting skills, and jobs, he says. As a result, "they find it hard to forgive themselves, and they internalize a kind of legalism and harsh judgment on the way they live their lives and the way they look at themselves."

Anderson has many warm memories of his seminary days nearly 50 years ago. "I fondly recall the relationship between the faculty and the students," he says. "They were the best known and finest in the church at that time. They were friends as well as teachers of the students." He recalls informal conversations held at the home of Professor Theodore Tappert and how Professor Martin Heinecken played tennis with students "and usually beat them." Theodore Doberstein "was a consummate pastor. I had a really warm relationship with the Doberstein family." He was far less fond of on-campus differences over high and low church liturgical practices.

Anderson recalls that Professor Robert Bornemann was a new scholar on campus in his student days. Bornemann taught a form critical analysis process for reviewing psalms, and Anderson recalls writing a spoof of the process in The Seminarian, a publication written and edited by students. And Bornemann and Professor Edmund Steimle wrote critical reviews of his essay. "It was all part of the good spirit about the place," he recalls.