Epistle Magazine Commemorative Issue

C OM M E MOR AT I V E IS S U E

SUMMER 2023

The magazine of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

LOOKING BACK+LOOKING FORWARD A NEW DAY DAWNS AT THE LUTHERAN SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CHICAGO

from the president

from the president

Will you still be there?

DEAR FRIENDS IN CHRIST:

I James Nieman

Being there for others is woven into our fabric, as old as the five founding schools who found themselves in Hyde Park so long ago.

magine moving out of your home after 50 or 60 years.

If you can, set aside the raw grief such leaving evokes. Set aside also the hope you hold for your next home, exciting as that may be. Live instead in this moment, the daunting task of all you have amassed and what to do with it now, the predicament that haunts with three questions: keep or give or throw? Some of you have known this torment even after just a brief residency. Others bravely faced it on behalf of someone no longer capable, so each little choice was layered with their loss. At this time for our school, we need not imagine such a move. It surrounds us every day.

Our days have gravity, but there is no pall. This is instead a time of energy, renewal, even strange humor. Who knew we might not need hundreds of fundraising tchotchkes from 1979? Who knew we could have kept fewer colors of copier paper or file folders or pens? Who knew all the gifts we received–books in unknown tongues, or coffee mugs, or books about unfamiliar places, or engraved paperweights, or books by obscure authors–would later be less treasured? And did I mention all the books? The curse of surplus space is exposed in the absurdity of what comes to fill it, the leftover detritus of bygone days we can never revisit.

Thank God we toil together. We are a community on the move in many ways, including the shared labor of sorting, packing, reducing.

This work shows us at our best, not denying our fears but also not letting them control, moving onward with the common task of becoming a new school. These are days of discovery–forgotten

spaces, clearer commitments, bold ideas. And as always, the offbeat humor to accompany it all. In homage to an ELCA slogan and the longtime staff leader overseeing our move, some now proudly sport a button that reads “Bob’s work, our hands.” Who wouldn’t want to be on a crew like that?

There is, however, one quite solitary part of this move that falls only to me, about which I have said little. It turns out that when you relocate a main campus, you must petition accreditors and regulators to approve of the move. No one ever hinted I would one day have to justify our most challenging decision to remote officials looking mainly for flaws. These petitions are not brief. Just one of them (so far there are four) involves narrative replies to dozens of questions, followed by hundreds of pages of supporting materials like minutes, agreements, floorplans, finances, and so forth. You would think we were applying for citizenship.

A friend said it sounded like the worst address change postcard ever, as if the post office merged with the Internal Revenue Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But if you wonder why this fuss about moving, it’s not so hard to grasp. Rules often confront a bad thing that happened long ago. They name our retching point more than our aspirations.

Sadly, there is indeed a long history in this country of seemingly reputable schools in business one day and vanished the next, leaving former students with useless transcripts and crushing debt. A relocation petition is really about one core question: Will you still be there?

Will you still be there? It’s not just a question of buildings or

books. It’s the deeper issue of who we are and what we represent, whether we will be faithful and reliable and true. It’s at the heart of institutional mission, how it becomes fragile or remains sustainable. It’s been the question nestled within every anxiety we have felt at our school since relocating was first put on the table four years ago. It’s also an ancient existential question, as old as Psalm 22 and our terror before ultimate abandonment.

Will you still be there–my God, my neighbor, my friend, my beloved.

Can I still count on you? It doesn’t get more basic than that.

What we have learned in these waning months at our nearlyformer address is that we are still here in all the ways that matter–not within walls but through vision, caring, hope. You see the positive answer in the many different people who work here for change, bearing a great legacy while embracing a bold future. That comes as no surprise. Being there for others is woven into our fabric, as old as the five founding schools who found themselves in Hyde Park so long ago. I once asked the adult daughter of a Seminex leader why she stayed so loyal to our seminary. “When we had nothing,” she simply said, “you were our haven.”

So on the verge of a great turning point for us, let me turn this deep question toward you. You who read this, who support us, who recall us, who ally with us and pray for us, let me ask: Will you still be there? We haven’t made a change like this in more than five decades, so we’re a little rusty and would welcome your help, your patience, your good will. As you answer that question, let me assure you that we will still be here, just like always, come what may – evangelizing, advocating, exploring, giving and forgiving, trying and stumbling and trying again. From where we stand, our students and our church and our wider world need nothing less.

table of contents

table of contents

SUMMER 2023 Vol. 54, No. 1 The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, forms visionary leaders to bear witness to the good news of Jesus Christ.

The Epistle is published three times a year by the Marketing and Communications team. Printed on paper from responsibly managed forests with soy-based inks.

MANAGING EDITOR Keisha T. Dyson COPY EDITOR Rhiannon Koehler DESIGNER Lorel K. Brown CONTRIBUTORS Erik Christensen Keisha T. Dyson James Nieman Lyndsay Monsen Mercedes Kane Rhiannon Koehler

LOOKING BACK

RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW

LOOKING FORWARD

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The place that brought us together

28 More fruitful than our expectations

46 Our new home

10

The people who came to this place

30

The promise of tomorrow’s leaders

52

12

Welcoming a seminary in exile

32

Faculty expressions

56 Lessons learned in a time of transition

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LSTC life through the years

34

A bittersweet farewell

57 Catholic Theological Union President welcomes LSTC

20 Finding a path to ministry

36

Library history

22 Racial+cultural+ denominational identity

38

Sanctuary of memories

24 Making global connections 25 2

Growing into our values

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Student expressions

40 The music will live on in Seattle 42 LSTC life through the years

Read personal reflections from LSTC community members on our website at lstc.edu/reflections.

ON THE COVER Photo illustration: Looking east from Promintory Point at sunrise.

PHOTO CREDITS Samantha N. Adindu Nikki Daily Tricia Koning Visit www.lstc.edu for more information about LSTC’s programs, conferences and special events.

LSTC BOARD OF DIRECTORS Mark Bartusch M. Wyvetta Bullock Susan Candea Kelly Chatman DeWayne Cook Yehiel Curry Matt Dietsche Kristi Ferguson Morgan Gates Terry Goff, chairperson Bridget Jones Greg Lewis, vice chairperson Karen McClain, secretary Harry Mueller Maryjeanne Schaffmeyer Janette Schum, treasurer Ginni Young Change of address? Please email advancement@lstc.edu. Please give the address as it currently appears followed by your new address.

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LOOKING BACK 4

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The place that brought us

By Keisha T. Dyson

TODAY, WE ARE A SEMINARY STANDING AT THE FRONTIER OF CHANGE—A PLACE THAT IS FILLED WITH EXCITEMENT, SOME TREPIDATION, AND EVEN GREATER POSSIBILITIES. Spurred on by the sale of our 57-yearold building in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, this cornerstone moment sets the stage for a new and more adaptable Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago that remains committed to forming visionary leaders who are grounded in the good news of Jesus Christ for years to come.

Over the past five decades, LSTC has become the institution that its founders imagined and more. Still, if the past predicts the future, then back in time we must go to fully understand the rich and complex history of our seminary; how

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it was formed; and the political, social, and cultural conditions that shaped it.

In this commemorative edition of the Epistle magazine, we plan to warp time— taking you back to our yesteryears and leaving you with a vision of our tomorrow.

We hope to tell stories that capture the broadest perspective and paint the most transparent view of our thriving institution. Tracing the history of our seminary through time, we will explore some of the most significant moments of our institution through the people who experienced them in the world and in the place we once called home.

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A SEMINARY BORN IN CHAOTIC TIMES

America in the 1960s was a country fraught with conflict. Political and ideological clashes that persist today reverberated throughout society then as the nation grappled with questions of equity and freedom. An era that began with the high hope of becoming a Golden Age ended in turmoil, marked by the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and antiwar protests, and political assassinations.

In this context,LSTC was born when five Lutheran seminaries officially became one under the newly formed Lutheran Church in America (LCA). At that time, Philip Hougen, former interim president of LSTC, was a seminary student at

TOGETHER Augustana Seminary. He recalls that period as a dynamic time, mixed with the emotions of overwhelm and excitement.

“It seemed like a great new venture,” remembers Hougen. “The overwhelming part for me, having grown up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was moving to the urban setting of Chicago. The exciting part was that we came as 13 students from Augustana Seminary in Rock Island.

And that was a small group related to the whole class, coming from five different seminaries.”

Before the merger, each of the the seminaries faced challenges.

Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary was remote and isolated due to its location in Maywood, Illinois. Augustana Theological

Seminary, Grand View Seminary, and Suomi Theological Seminary were located on college campuses but the communities desired further intellectual and cultural stimulation.

To compound these challenges, each was experiencing declining enrollment. There was no doubt that they would be stronger together.

“My sense is that the mission of LSTC, in the minds of its founders, was to put together these relatively small Midwestern seminaries—some of which were more viable than others—to form LSTC in an urban setting,” said Hougen. “In this new urban setting with its relationship to the city and university, LSTC became a presence for teaching Lutheran theology in the context of a major university and the city of Chicago.”

In 1958, an inter-seminary committee was formed to explore a merger among the institutions and to search for a new seminary location.

Holding the values of their European forebearers, committee members were convinced that a university setting was imperative for the training of pastors in modern society.

It was therefore decided that if and when the schools were to officially combine, they would be affiliated with a larger academic community to help sustain and challenge the academic life of faculty and students where LSTC could gain and give in an academic and civic environment.

The Chicago area presented the seminary with two prestigious institutions to consider for partnership: Northwestern

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In this new urban setting with its relationship to the city and university, LSTC became a presence for teaching Lutheran theology in the context of a major university and the city of Chicago.

Philip Hougen, former interim president of LSTC in one year less than it would take to earn them separately.

THE BUILDING’S DESIGN

When discussions began about the building’s design, President-elect Stewart Herman Jr. told the architects, “Everything about the new building should express the fullest possible communication between our theological training, the world around us, and God above us.”

University and the University of Chicago. As for the location, a case was made by members of the committee for the seminary to be located in Chicago. Proposed locations included Rock Island, Maywood, and locations on the North and South Side of Chicago.

Today, their decision to relocate to Hyde Park seems like the obvious choice, given the seminary’s goals.

But back then, the decision wasn’t so simple. The president of the Maywood campus was vying for the seminary to move to its existing location in Maywood, and, for a while, Augustana representatives supported this idea.

Eventually, all representatives agreed that the school should be located in Chicago or the Chicagoland area. Still, after a visit to the University of Chicago, the site committee was underwhelmed.

In a report about the visit, the committee said, “The sociological situation in the vicinity of the university is a recognized problem of enormous proportion. It is not an inviting prospect.”

The debate continued for more than two years without a solution in sight. Ultimately, pressure to 8

The public announcement of the new LSTC site in September 1964 sparked a petition and ongoing protests by U of C students and community members.

Opposition grew from the community with claims that LSTC’s construction plans threatened residential security.

arrive at a decision came when Augustana Seminary’s president, Karl Mattson, announced that the school was ready to merge.

Reinvigorated by this change, a new site committee was appointed to study Northwestern University and the University of Chicago locations. The new committee felt strongly that nothing should deter them from studying the University of Chicago’s location.

“Proximity to a university also means close involvement with city life,” the committee reported on February 21, 1961. “We heartily concur with your judgment that if theological students are to minister effectively upon ordination to the urban and suburban areas in which so many Lutheran churches are located, they should learn the problems of these churches while yet students.”

Finally, nearly a year after the schools merged, an announcement was made that the seminary would be located near the University of Chicago.

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PARTNERSHIP WITH U OF C

In April 1965, the cooperative agreement between the U of C and LSTC was approved by the LSTC Board of Directors. Through the original deal, students of both institutions would share access to library resources and would be allowed to enroll in courses on either campus. LSTC students were also permitted the use of the university’s fitness facilities with a quarterly fee.

Our affiliation with U of C continues to enrich the LSTC community today through access to its libraries, shuttle and food services, graduate housing, and academic and cultural programs.

It also provides opportunities for students to access unique academic opportunities. LSTC’s dual degree program with the U of C’s School of Social Service Administration, for example, makes it possible for LSTC master of arts or master of divinity students to complete both the AM degree (equivalent of a master’s in social work) and their LSTC degree

When discussions began about the building’s design, Presidentelect Stewart Herman Jr. told the architects, “Everything about the new building should express the fullest possible communication between our theological training, the world around us, and God above us.

Architecturally, it seems to me that this may be indicated by avoiding the usual cloistral or sequestered effect.”

When the architects returned with their drawings, they presented a design concept that envisioned a three-story, three-building complex with a curtain wall façade of glass and metal containing an interior open court. Each building was designed to rest on four concrete pedestals. This construction would permit a cut-away entrance at each corner of the building, providing an open view of the center court.

PROTESTS AGAINST THE BUILDING

Though the U of C was an eager and supportive partner, as the seminary began purchasing property, opposition grew from the community with claims that LSTC’s construction plans threatened residential security.

The public announcement of the new LSTC site in September 1964 sparked a petition and ongoing protests by U of C students and some community members.

To assist in the development of better community relations, the board

created a Lutheran Neighborhood Committee and announced its plan to relocate students into other apartments owned by the school.

Other residents were to be assisted in securing housing by the Department of Urban Renewal.

In a letter sent July 8, 1963, to the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference and other organizations, the board explained, “In the selection of the site and the formulation of our plans, we have sought to minimize any impact upon non-white families. Of the 199 units, only 31 involve non-white families.”

Despite the committees’ intentions, today we are aware of the impact of structural racism, which manifested itself through the urban renewal projects from the 1950s and 1960s, resulting in people of color disproportionately experiencing discrimination, redlining, and exclusionary policies.

CONVOCATION AND BUILDING DEDICATION

On June 24, 1967, three months before the seminary officially opened, Central Lutheran Theological Seminary became the fifth LCA seminary to enter the merger. Although the building was incomplete, the seminary opened as scheduled on October 1 and held a dedication ceremony later that month.

In his book, LSTC: Decade of Decision, Harold Skillrud writes, “From a make-shift podium, speaking to faculty, staff, and students and friends sitting on paper covered concrete risers, President Herman compared the design concept of the new school

in which they were gathered to the task it was built to serve. In a reference to the proximity of the University of Chicago, he pleaded that the seminary enterprise relates its theology to the knowledge explosion of the age.”

This was just the beginning for LSTC in its building located at 1100 E. 55th Street. Over the next several decades, the seminary would demonstrate there was much more to come.

When the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago held its first chapel service in Rockerfeller Chapel on Sunday, May 3, 1964, it was to inaugurate Stewart Herman Jr., the seminary’s first president, who had been guiding LSTC from its two locations in Rock Island and Maywood while planning, fundraising, and building the new campus.

In his inaugural speech, Herman set forth the school’s educational ideals in a room filled with more than 1,000 people. “LSTC comes into a complicated world of rapid social change,” said Herman. “Interaction between the church and the world must constantly be encouraged for the welfare of both. LSTC has no intention of avoiding such interaction.”

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THE PEOPLE

A STORY FROM THE FIRST CLASS

who came to this place I

By Keisha T. Dyson

ALUM WAYNE WALTHER

REFLECTIONS OF A FIRST SON STEWART HERMAN III REFLECTS ON THE LEGACY AND PRESIDENCY OF HIS FATHER, STEWART HERMAN JR., AND HIS OWN TIME AS A STUDENT AT LSTC You were in high school when your father became president of the Lutheran Schol of Theology at Chicago. What was your experience moving to Hyde Park?

My family moved to Chicago in 1964 because my father had been named the president of LSTC, which was in the process of being formed out of its five predecessor seminaries. At that time, I was a high school student, and we lived in Hyde Park, near the Illinois Central tracks down on 59th Street.

I saw the apartment buildings that were being demolished and had a view of the seminary being built from the ground up.

In fact, my father sent me out one day to pull nails from the old buildings, and he sent those bent, rusty nails around to all the contributing congregations and synods.

Some people in the community were unhappy about the building of the seminary because it involved the destruction of housing.

Students organized petition drives.

I remember a student stopping me on 57th Street and saying, “You’ve got to sign our petition.” I said, 10

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think that would be a good idea.” I didn’t want to face my father’s anger! So I never signed a petition to protest the destruction of housing in Hyde Park.

What was your father’s vision for the seminary?

My father was hired to merge four smaller, mostly rural seminaries into a new seminary in Chicago. He was committed to encouraging a more urban focus in Lutheranism.

He saw this very much as an experiment, and that’s also a reason for the architecture.

I once saw drawings for the seminary—a standard collegiate Gothic design like many universities have. He rejected that traditional look. He wanted the seminary to be open to the city and the community. It’s why all the first-floor walls are glass—to make it look urban and new.

During the 1950s and 1960s, he regularly flew across the Atlantic for various ecumenical meetings, specifically to encourage theological education and refugee resettlement. He was very

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interested, for example, in the way Latin America was developing and even wanted to write a book about it but had time only to write a long article about his hopes for Lutheran engagement with Latin America.

Around the time the building was being constructed, there was an effort by Martin Luther King Jr. to bring justice to Selma, Ala. My father was invited, and he went down with other white clerics.

Selma was a life-changing moment for him. He became acquainted with King and invited him to speak at the 1968 graduation of LSTC. King accepted, but unfortunately we all know what happened a few months before he could speak at LSTC.

What was your experience as a student at LSTC? I started LSTC in the fall of 1978. My father retired in 1971, but most of the faculty he recruited were still there. I had little trouble fitting in. The 1970s were a time of ferment.

I was very much an activist and thought the seminary should be directly engaged in activism too. I promptly got myself arrested at an anti-nuclear protest in Zion, Ill. President

In 1995, Stewart Herman III (left) and Stewart Herman Jr. traveled to Stuttgart, Germany, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Evangelische Kirche Deutschland—the German Lutheran church. The elder Herman had helped set up the 1945 conference in which the EKD was organized.

Lesher took it with a grain of salt. He was glad to see student activism.

Roger Willer, now with the ELCA churchwide office, and I organized a movement to get LSTC out of its current banking arrangements with Continental Illinois Bank because they were invested in South Africa. We thought it would be much better if LSTC invested with a local bank, so with the help of faculty and other students, we persuaded the seminary to move its accounts to South Shore bank. It was a pretty exciting time.

Do you have any words of inspiration for LSTC as it moves into its next location?

One reason I’m still Lutheran is that it is a very solidly grounded Christian denomination. It doesn’t change very fast, in ways that maybe it should, but it’s affirming of people, and it’s adaptive. LSTC is at the forefront of adaptation, and that’s a different and very vulnerable place to be, so the seminary has my support and will continue to have my support. I wish it the best in its new surroundings and with whatever new challenges and opportunities arrive in the future.

came to Chicago in August of 1967 to start seminary in the first class to matriculate at 1100 E. 55th Street. It was an exciting time to be in seminary, an exciting time to be in Chicago, [and] an exciting time to be at LSTC. We were in the midst of giants but didn’t know it. [Estonian theologian and church historian] Arthur Võõbus, [American Lutheran theologian and minister] Carl Braaten, [theologian and scholar] Wesley Fuerst, [Professor of Homiletics] Morris Niedenthal, [and the Rev. Dr.] Robert Tobias all opened the world of public theology to us in refreshing and challenging ways.

It was also the first meeting of students from the different traditions. This was my first experience of multiethnic Lutheranism, since I came from Texas with a pretty insular Germanic church (only later did I learn of the Texas Scandinavian traditions).

I gravitated toward the group (mostly from Maywood) who drank from the well of liturgical renewal, led by John Arthur (against his normal type) and Joel Albee from the Library. And since this was a time of student empowerment, we were given rein to experiment liturgically.

Daily Eucharist became the norm and fed us during some anxious days, from Vietnam protest to early social consciousness.

1967 was a tremendous growing year. 1968 was of course a pivotal year, for LSTC and the whole country. I was always happy to have been there at the beginning.

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On February 19, 1974, Concordia students and faculty process out of the seminary grounds and plant white crosses bearing their names.

WELCOMING

a seminary in exile

By Keisha T. Dyson

IN THE EARLY 1970S, A SIGNIFICANT DEBATE OVER THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE AND THE ROLE OF CHRISTIANITY IN SOCIETY WAS TEARING ITS WAY THROUGH THE LUTHERAN CHURCH-MISSOURI SYNOD (LCMS).

Central to the ecclesiastical conflict were disputes over the authority of Scripture, biblical interpretation, the distinction of law and gospel, the precise nature of the Lutheran confessional witness, and the ethical and social implications of the Lutheran Christian heritage.

These arguments divided the LCMS and Concordia Seminary in St. Louis particularly when a majority of the faculty members affirmed the use of the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation that investigates the origins, the historical contexts, and the original intentions of the biblical writers in order to clarify the meaning of the biblical texts and their relevance for the contemporary mission of the church.

For many church leaders and some of the seminary faculty members, this new method of biblical exegesis was 12

deemed unacceptable.

A tipping point was reached at Concordia Seminary in 1973 when President John H. Tietjen (1928-2004) was suspended for allowing the seminary’s faculty to teach what the convention of the LCMS and the seminary’s Board of Control called “false doctrine.”

When attempts to resolve the theological conflicts were unsuccessful, the majority of Concordia Seminary students and faculty decided to go into exile. This decision resulted in the establishment of Concordia Seminary in Exile, later Christ SeminarySeminex (Seminary-in-Exile), with Tietjen named Seminex’s president.

In these transformative moments, the members of the Seminex community who had forged a new path were supported

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Dr. Kurt Hendel was one of nine Christ Seminary-Seminex faculty who came to LSTC in 1983, 10 years after conflicts with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod resulted in the creation of the seminary in exile.

fiscally by the members of the Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM), and, after 1976, the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Congregations (AELC), a church body of former LCMS congregations that became one of the three church bodies that formed the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1988.

Seminex offered classes from 1974 until its final commencement in 1983. That same year, nine (continued on page 14)

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IN HER OWN WORDS RUTH ANN DEPPE

Ruth Ann Deppe moved to Chicago as the spouse of a Christ Seminary-Seminex faculty member in 1983.

She joined the Lutheran School of Theology staff nearly a decade later as an administrative assistant in the Office of Advancement. Here, she shares a few fond memories she experienced at LSTC.

W

hen Seminex came to LSTC from St. Louis, they brought the adoption of computers. At that time, LSTC was still doing everything with pen and pencil. The woman I replaced in the development office would record all the gifts on 3 X5 index cards. When I was hired in the early 1990s, I used an electric typewriter to produce acknowledgment letters.

There were three development officers when I came to LSTC. The development officer I reported to worked mainly with churches.

He would look for alumni in congregations, set an appointment to visit the pastor, and, while visiting the pastor, also identify congregants he could contact who might be interested in supporting LSTC. I typed many thank you notes to alumni and individuals he visited for LSTC. One development officer had a pickup truck. He would “hit the road” with a list of people from a certain area, pull into a gas station, and from the phone booth at the gas station, he might call the person or knock on their door. He’d cover a whole area with individual calls before returning to LSTC. Many good memories come from my nearly 25 years of working at LSTC. 14

Students and faculty stage a walk-out of Concordia Seminary on February 19, 1974.

faculty members of Christ Seminary-Seminex and a new faculty colleague from Minnesota relocated to Chicago and began to teach at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

On December 31, 1987, the two schools merged so they might enter as a unified seminary into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) as it officially came into existence on January 1, 1988.

Dr. Kurt Hendel, Bernard, Fischer, Westberg Distinguished Ministry Professor Emeritus of Reformation History, was one of the Seminex faculty members who came to LSTC. He says that when the group arrived in Chicago 10 years after leaving behind the conflicts within the LCMS, he was overwhelmed with gratitude because of the gracious hospitality that the LSTC community extended to Seminex students, faculty, and staff.

“LSTC’s building was much larger than the space we rented

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in St. Louis, and the windows that are a chief feature of the building consistently invited us to focus on the world which the church is called to serve.

My office faced north so I could enjoy the downtown skyline,” said Hendel. “The classrooms were spacious; the JKM Library was a marvelous pedagogical and scholarly resource; and the undercroft chapel, which served as the seminary’s chief worship space, became the new home of the small organ and the altar, built by one of the Seminex students, that had enhanced the worship of the Seminex community.”

Hendel noted that regular worship was an essential part of the Seminex experience, and this continued to be the case after the merger with LSTC. In Chicago, the worship services were often enriched by organist Paul Manz, the Seminex faculty member who came to Chicago from Minneapolis.

Manz was such a talented and influential musician that in the early 2000s, the new organ in

Augustana Chapel was named in his honor.

Hendel said that it was not difficult for the Seminex faculty to blend with the LSTC faculty. They shared many priorities, including LSTC’s attentiveness to diversity.

As a united faculty, they recognized that this commitment must be reflected in the institution’s curriculum, staff, and student body. Hiring a more diverse faculty was made a priority. Attention to issues of justice, civil rights, diversity, and women’s rights was woven into the curriculum.

Hendel identified Dr. Richard Perry, Professor Emeritus of Church and Society and Urban Ministry and Director Emeritus of the Urban Ministry Program, and Dr. José David Rodríguez, Augustana Heritage Professor Emeritus of Global Mission and World Christianity and Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology, as two faculty colleagues who personified the seminary’s commitment to build a more diverse faculty. He named these two colleagues specifically

because both are also graduates of LSTC. He also noted that Dr. Linda Thomas, who is still an active faculty member, is an example of both the ethnic and denominational diversification of the faculty.

As we transition to our new location and the next phase in the seminary’s history, Hendel continues to see LSTC’s mission as a dialectical one, namely, a mission of proclaiming Christ and the gospel and of striving for justice in the church and the world. He stresses that the two parts of the mission are integrally related.

“We have the promise that people’s hearts and priorities will be changed through the freeing power of the gospel,” Hendel said. “The proclamation of Christ is, therefore, an absolutely essential part of the church’s vocation since the gospel is the Holy Spirit’s means of creating and nurturing faith. Faith, in turn, frees God’s people to be loving servants of their fellow human beings and of the whole creation as they emulate Christ’s servant love by striving for justice in our world.

This is the message we need to share through everything we say and do.”

Hendel said he sees similarities between the Seminex community’s move to LSTC and LSTC’s move to CTU. Most importantly, the two transitions are clear indicators of God’s continuing presence among God’s people and God’s gracious preparation of a future for Christ’s disciples.

In 1983, the Seminex community was given the opportunity to continue its mission of preparing future leaders of the church who are faithful to the gospel, faithful to Christ, and eager imitators of Christ. Forty years later, the LSTC community has been given the gift by God of continuing its divine vocation of serving the church and the world as a community of teaching, learning, spiritual and vocational formation, and loving service for God’s sake, for the Church’s sake, and for the world’s sake. 1983 was clearly a time of gratitude for the Seminex community. That is surely also the case for LSTC in 2023.

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lstc life through the years

lstc life through the years

North view of construction on new building, October 4, 1966.

Grand opening ceremony at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, 1967.

Chapel services held outside at LSTC in 1985 or 1986.

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From left to right, Dr. Armin Weng, Dr. Harold Skillrud, Dr. Robert Marshall, Dr. Stewart Herman Jr., and Dr. Kenneth H. Arnold at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new building, 1965.

View of new building from the corner of 55th Street.

From left to right, Dr. Stewart W. Herman Jr., Dr. Robert J. Marshall, Dr. E. Theodore Bachmann viewing the architects new model of LSTC.

LSTC Class of 1966, Rock Island campus.

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lstc life through the years

lstc life through the years

Members of First Lutheran Church of East St. Louis, Ill.

First opening convocation at LSTC, October 1,1967.

LSTC and Seminex faculty, 1985-86.

Northeast view of the spiral staircase in the library, 1976.

Inauguration of President Wolvrecht at Rockerfeller chapel, 1972.

Dr. Robert Marshall hands the keys to LSTC to President Stewart Herman Jr.

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HELPING OUT STUDENTS OF COLOR

Bartley loved meeting the students when they entered LSTC— especially the students of color.

“There were very few minorities at LSTC at the time, and I shared a mission with the admission’s officer to help those students succeed,” she said.

Over the years, Bartley developed a reputation within the student community as someone they could trust. Students would come to her office to be advised and encouraged when their studies or life’s circumstances would become difficult.

“I had a sign on my door that said all are welcome, said Bartley. “It wasn’t just the students of color that would come to my office. It was everyone. They would come in and talk with me and ask me to pray with them, and I developed so many wonderful relationships. I was told that that was one of my ministries, and I came to believe it was.”

Finding a path to

MINISTRY

PAT BARTLEY FELT A CALLING TO SERVE GOD LONG BEFORE SHE ARRIVED AT THE LUTHERAN SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CHICAGO. It wasn’t the sort of

calling that would lead her to the pulpit to become a pastor, or the field to work as a missionary. Yes, she would know many people in her life who would go on to take such routes, serving in global ministries, 20

leading congregations, ministering to the sick, and feeding the hungry.

Even as a child, Bartley knew a traditional path in ministry was not what God had in store for her. Still, she also knew God was calling her to do something more. She had always felt grounded with a sense of destiny that one day her life would ignite change for many people on God’s great earth.

That inciting moment came for her one day in 1985 when she saw an ad in the Chicago Sun-Times for

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By Keisha T. Dyson a position at LSTC. For more than a year, Bartley worked as assistant registrar at the Keller Graduate School of Management, but felt her skills were being undervalued. She needed to move on.

The ad described a position at LSTC as secretary to the dean. When she interviewed and was offered the position, it was proposed that she work as secretary to the dean and

Studies Office, had an idea. What if they created a special program to celebrate Martin Luther King Day during chapel? How would this service be received in what was then a predominantly white community?

They invited two choirs from two black churches in the area to come and sing for the MLK service, but at the last minute, they both cancelled.

“It’s not a King celebration if there’s no gospel choir,” Bartley said. “So, we typed up a memo and put it in all the mailboxes of faculty, staff, and students asking if anyone else was interested in forming a choir for the MLK service. More than 50 people showed up, and it was a wonderful multicultural, multiethnic group of singers. That’s how the gospel choir began at LSTC.” More than three decades later, the LSTC gospel choir continues with an alumni base of more than 300 members. The gospel choir has toured in Tanzania and South Africa. Two student scholarships—

[We asked] if anyone else was interested in forming a choir for the MLK service and more than 50 people showed up and it was a wonderful multicultural, multiethnic group of singers. That’s how the gospel choir began at LSTC. Pat Bartley, retired in 2020 after 35 years of service assistant registrar.

Bartley wanted the position, but her history with the Lutheran church was tainted by a bad experience in her youth.

“My family was the first Black family to move into Englewood in 1959,” she said. “The night before moving into our home, the pastor of the Lutheran church that was five houses down from our home was with those who set our house on fire.”

Before accepting the position, Bartley said she had a long talk with God, and then she said, “Yes.”

HOW LSTC’S GOSPEL CHOIR BEGAN

Bartley loved the combination of working in academia and being able to go to a chapel service daily. Still, she felt something was missing during the service.

“I’m a Christian. I’m a church person,” she said. “However, I would go to chapel, and as an African American I just didn’t relate.”

Bartley and a colleague, Irene Connor, secretary for the Graduate

the Grover Wright Scholarship and The Rev. Carole A. Burns Memorial Scholarship—have supported the education of more than 45 students.

Bartley retired in 2020, but remains connected to LSTC through the gospel choir and special programs.

“It was a distinct honor and joy to work for this institution for 35 years,” she said. “It meant everything to me. Moving forward, I pray that LSTC continues doing the great work it started.”

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IDENTITY Racial+cultural+denominational

AFTER GRADUATING FROM CARTHAGE COLLEGE IN 1973, RICHARD J. PERRY JR. DECIDED IT WAS TIME FOR SOMETHING NEW.

He had been living in Kenosha, Wis., for several years while working on his bachelor’s degree, but now it was time for him to take a bold next step.

After speaking with an esteemed mentor about his career, he decided to enroll in the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, even though he knew he would be a part of a small minority at the school.

“I think the year that I started at LSTC, there were 10 or 15 other African American students,” Perry remembers, “but I was excited about that because I had some peers that were like me.”

While some LSTC students who moved to Chicago needed time to adjust to city life, Perry immediately felt at home. As a Detroit native, he was used to the sounds of city life.

The fast pace of urban life was his default speed.

Academic life at the seminary was a different story.

“I did not know a lot of the language in theology,” Perry said, 22

reflecting on his first semester at LSTC. “That was something very new to me. I would go to the library after class and look up the words used to understand some of the lectures. I honestly had some apprehension as to whether or not I would be able to master the language Lutherans use when they talk theologically.”

That anxiety didn’t last long.

Perry is a quick study, and his spirit is rarely deterred. With support from LSTC faculty, any angst he experienced about learning was eventually consumed by his curiosity, his love for helping people, and his passion for serving God. “There were professors at LSTC who helped me think critically, who helped me to express what I was thinking, and who supported me and challenged me in what I was thinking,” he said. “I think that contributed to my desire to dig deeper. It meant a lot to me as a young African American student who was going to be in the Lutheran church as a pastor.”

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PRACTICING URBAN MINISTRY

When LSTC moved to Hyde Park in 1967, it instituted a Teaching Parish Program. This gave students an opportunity to work in congregations in the greater Chicago area, particularly on the city’s South Side. Perry was assigned to Reformation Lutheran Church, a faith community he described as “still racially integrated but going through a racial transition.”

Perry was captivated by urban ministry and believes many of his classmates were too. It reminded him of his experience working as a youth director in Detroit after the 1967 race riots and some of the dilemmas still faced in African American communities nationwide.

After completing his degree at LSTC, Perry was ordained and called to Calvary, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Gary, Ind. In 1980 he received another call to a church in North Carolina to serve as Director of Minority Ministries, where he served for eight years.

By Keisha T. Dyson

Like most LSTC alums, Perry stayed connected to faculty, who often asked about his plans to earn a doctorate. In 1989 he decided to no longer put off his call to teach and returned to LSTC as a doctoral candidate in theology and ethics.

Perry was deeply influenced by Dr. Phil Hefner, who served as his adviser during his graduate degree and doctoral programs; Dr. Robert Benne; and Dr. Albert “Pete” Pero, the first African American Lutheran to join the faculty at a Lutheran seminary.

“Dr. Pero helped me out because he understood what it meant to be a black and Lutheran and how one could bring their racial and cultural identity together with their denominational affiliation,” Perry said. “The concepts he

introduced helped me make sense of my existence in the Church and also contributed to how I would teach Church and society or social ethics.”

After completing his doctoral degree, Perry was hired as faculty at LSTC and said he initially struggled to find his place.

“Like any new faculty person, you have to find your way in terms of your role within the organization, and so I became connected with a variety of people and organizations.”

Perry used his connections to benefit LSTC students. For instance, While serving on the board of the Urban CPE Consortium, Perry advocated for LSTC students to receive placement in city organizations

and institutions where they worked with the homeless, the jobless, and those addicted to substances.

Later at LSTC, he led the Urban Ministry program that provided some financial assistance to students attending a consortium on urban pastoral education.

“LSTC gave me the space to explore many ways of thinking about God and how I should exercise moral agency when entering the world, and how to exercise leadership in a diverse world,” Perry said of his time as a student and professor. “As a faculty member, I wanted to do the same thing for students so they felt and understood LSTC as a place to explore their own leadership model that they undoubtedly would have to exhibit later.”

Dr. Pero helped me out because he understood what it meant to be a black and Lutheran and how one could bring their racial and cultural identity together with their denominational affiliation.

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Making global CONNECTIONS

By Keisha T. Dyson

W

hen José David Rodríguez came to LSTC in 1971, his plans were set.

After completing his master’s of divinity degree, he would enter a doctoral program and then seek employment at an ecumenical seminary in Puerto Rico and become a professor like his father. He now knows, God had a different plan.

A year into his MDiv program, Rodríguez was invited to teach at LSTC in a new two-year theology program designed for laypeople in the Latinx community. At the time, there weren’t any Hispanic ministry programs in Lutheran seminaries. LSTC’s new initiative was the first of its kind within the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America, and it immediately became popular.

While earning both degrees, Rodríguez helped grow the initiative into what would became known as the Hispanic Ministry program. Although he still hoped to move to Puerto Rico, after completing his doctoral program in 1987, the job was filled. So when a faculty position opened at LSTC in 1990, Rodríguez applied for the role and was hired as a professor of systematic theology.

That same year, he was also promited to director of the Hispanic Ministry program, and it flourished under his leadership. It gained even greater strength in the early 2000s when the Rev. Dr. José R. Irizarry, now the president of Austin Seminary, joined the faculty at LSTC. The pair teamed up and added new dimensions to the program. For example, the doctoral program in ministry, which was offered entirely in Spanish, provided the formation of four faculty members of a theological community in Mexico and the formation for the Lutheran Bishop of Nicaragua, the Lutheran Bishop of 24

Bolivia, and several pastors in Puerto Rico.

Pointing back to the 1960s when LSTC established an agreement with the Lutheran José David Rodríguez, Augustana Heritage National Professor Emeritus of Church in Global Mission and World Christianity; Professor Argentina, Emeritus of Systematic Rodríguez Theology. said, “LSTC has been committed to programs for underrepresented communities, one of them being the Latinx community, from the very beginning.”

He has personal knowledge of this arrangement because his father, also José David Rodríguez, was a faculty member at a Lutheran seminary in Argentina.

“In 1959 my father went to Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary to do his advanced work in the School of Mission. And the connections that the School of Mission made were international, to Japan, China, Latin America, and many countries in Europe. So, the commitment of LSTC emerges from one of its predecessor seminaries and LSTC continues to carry out those commitments and those interests by forming visionary leaders worldwide.”

Looking forward, Rodríguez views LSTC’s move to Catholic Theological Union as a strategic decision allowing LSTC to continue its commitment to global mission and worldwide Christianity. He encourages LSTC leaders to continue thinking creatively about the future and anticipate change so that when it occur, LSTC is ready and able to enthusiastically move forward.

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T

he early 1990s was a time of significant change at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC). Many of the seminary’s legends were retiring or pursuing greater opportunities and as their positions opened, the seminary seized its chance to diversify the faculty and executive leadership even more.

For Dr. Kathleen “Kadi” Billman, being one of the first in a generation of new LSTC faculty was an exciting opportunity. In her 1991 interview for the position of professor of pastoral theology in pastoral care with former Dean Ralph Klein and former President Bill Lesher (1978-1997), the leaders painted an aspirational vision of LSTC. They imagined it as a diverse seminary that would become known for preparing people who wanted to go into urban ministry. That vision spoke to Billman’s heart.

“For as long as I can remember, LSTC has dreamt of being an open, welcoming, diverse community,” says Billman. “But it’s really hard work that takes tremendous courage and commitment.”

At the time, LSTC was still primarily white and male but the institution’s plan to becoming more diverse would soon be realized. For example, when President William Lesher announced his retirement in 1997,

GROWING into our values

By Keisha T. Dyson

Thomas to LSTC, our faculty’s first he was succeeded by President woman of color; Craig Satterlee, a James Kenneth Echols (1997white man who, as a legally blind 2011), who became LSTC’s first scholar and teacher, challenged African American president and LSTC to address disability as an the first person of African descent important aspect of inclusion; Dr. to serve as president of a Lutheran Antje Jackelén, a European white seminary in North America. woman and professor of systematic During Echols’s tenure, the theology/religion and science; and Center of Christian-Muslim José R. Irizary, a Latino professor.”

Engagement for Peace and Justice, This was a rock an endowed chair star line-up in the in Christianmaking. The faculty Muslim studies hired in 1999 and and interfaith 2000 would later relations, and the be named among Albert “Pete” Pero the Who’s Who in Jr. Multicultural the world of the Center were Lutheran church. created.

In addition to still It was also teaching at LSTC, Echols who Dr. Thomas is the nominated Billman director of the Albert for the role of “Pete” Pero, Jr. dean in 1999. In and Cheryl Stewart preparation for that Pero Center for position, the future Intersectionality dean interviewed Studies. Dr. Craig every member of Satterlee serves the faculty to hear Dr. Kathleen “Kadi” as bishop of the their aspirations for Billman, retired LSTC dean North/West Lower the school and how Michigan Synod they thought she of the Evangelical might help those Lutheran Church in America. Dr. come to fruition.

Antje Jackelén recently concluded her Billman said what became term as the Archbishop of the Church clear after her faculty talks was a of Sweden and is a Distinguished unanimous agreement to diversify Affiliate Faculty adjunct professor the faculty. There were four faculty of systematic theology/religion searches in the first full year of and Science at the Lutheran School Billman’s deanship. of Theology at Chicago. Dr. José “We brought Professor Linda

For as long as I can remember, LSTC has dreamt of being an open, welcoming, diverse community.

Irizary became President of Austin Theological Seminary in 2022.

After all the hard work of hiring those faculty members, Billman says her work was not done. She quickly learned more support was needed to make the environment as welcoming and open as it was in the dream—a commitment that requires continued learning and renewed commitment.

Noticing the difficulty of talking openly about race, Billman and registrar Pat Bartley started what became known as the first Women of Color, White Women’s Dialogue Group.

Efforts were also made to initiate conversations about sexuality with the LGBTQIA+ community.

“When I started at LSTC, students were almost one hundred percent in the closet if they were gay or lesbian because they would not have stood a chance to be ordained if they were completely open about their sexual orientation. Trying to open conversations about that was a long and very careful process.”

Over time, Billman has come to believe that we grow into our values. “I see the stories I’ve told about the challenges we faced as hopeful I see them as LSTC making progress, and that progress needs to continue. And I believe it will continue as we keep practicing the values that unite us, trusting the calling God gave us to become a beloved community of both justice and compassion.”

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RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW 26

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More fruitful than our

EXPECTATIONS

By President James Nieman

WOULD YOU BE SURPRISED TO LEARN THAT SOME PEOPLE WERE NOT EXACTLY HAPPY AT THE NEWS OF OUR RELOCATION? IF YOU KNEW OUR SCHOOL, YOU WOULDN’T BE. It wasn’t the majority view, but it also wasn’t a mild one. We are, after all, a place of big feelings and strong voices. So when this first came to light, I took the pushback as evidence of our usual scrappy charm – raising questions, testing decisions, seeking answers. This time, however, felt a bit more raw and edgy than usual. As I thought about it further, the reason for the reaction tells a story about this moment in our life together, what we’ve come through lately, and what happens next.

At the middle of this commemorative issue and the midpoint of our transition, my essay should surely offer reassurances. “We’ve been here before” might be one of those– previous experience has given us insight. “New vistas lie ahead” could be another–opportunity is just around the corner. “Boldness is needed now” would be one more assurance–so let’s summon the will to act. These three claims are to some extent true, and I’ve said them myself. But the reaction I noted earlier hints that we may not be as completely ready and eager and active as such bright boosterism tries to promote. Have we simply lost our nerve?

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Or maybe our nerves are frayed.

It’s been four years this spring since our board first discussed moving. Have we fully grasped what has happened since then?

Right here, right now, we still reel from the after effects of a global pandemic as well as a swirling storm of conflicts around the world. Within this country we are still buffeted by winds of political instability and social discord.

Churches of all kinds still rapidly slide into decline, leaving many of their schools endangered. I challenge you to name just one thing from four years ago that still stands unscathed. And even if you can, is it more than a triviality?

We crave a history with patterns, signs of stability and order that make sense of the mess around us, whether in the last few years or since the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago began. This essay is supposed to note such patterns in order to reassure you

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(again) that we’re ready and eager and active. But the fact is that LSTC’s history has always been one of profound, sustained, traumatic disruption. It’s not that we made good plans or had fine values and so weathered the storms. It’s more the reverse. Our institutional life was repeatedly disrupted in ways that exposed our proud values, reset our clever plans, changed who we thought we would become.

In some supposed calm, we like the idea of having a clear vantage point today, rising above sea level to make sense of the past and plot the future. But our present day is the direct product of the unpredictably disruptive. It is no stable place of serene pondering.

These times are not controlled but chaotic, where we do the best we can with what we have, still marred by error and misjudgment. This is what I see over and over at LSTC since its founding and even back to our predecessor schools a century before that. Disruption is the given, and acting as if it’s not, as if we’ve got it all in hand, is both false and faithless.

What’s this got to do with where we find ourselves today?

Our present day is the direct product of the unpredictably disruptive.

Well, one reason people lash out at institutions like ours in times like this is that we can never be what they want–a safe haven, a shelter in the storm. We live in a time of institutional mistrust like never before, which ironically shows how much we expect them to protect us. No wonder we’re so angry and scared when they change.

We imagine that institutions under stress are abnormal. If they struggle, then surely someone failed or something is broken. If LSTC sells its buildings and moves elsewhere, then anyone involved in that disruption must be called out.

But what if all institutions, including our school, were precisely where disruption is most fruitful, where we learn from whatever befalls? What if we truly affirmed the peculiar success of an institution as it was changing, since only then was it doing its best teaching? And what if by contrast we saw stable and safe institutions as disengaged from reality, failing to challenge our values or show us how to recover? We certainly cannot live in constant disruption, but making it more the regular fare at schools like ours would be better formation for ministry than nearly anything else. Besides, the present alternatives seem by now unhelpful.

On the night of his betrayal, Jesus called his followers to remembrance. He wasn’t avoiding the present in nostalgia of the past. As he washed their feet and fed the fearful and beckoned for remembrance, he called them to live in his way toward God’s new day. At his most disruptive moment, he bid them remember how he loved and forgave and served, so his followers might in turn so live and do forever.

Remembrance is what we do, the double work of telling the truth fully and then embracing others in mercy. That’s our mission, to form leaders with that dual vision. It’s the school we still are in disruptive days. Right here. Right now.

James Nieman, LSTC President, signs a stack of documents relating to the sale of the seminary property.

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THE PROMISE

of tomorrow’s leaders

By Rhiannon Koehler

BUSINESS LEADER AND CHAIR OF FOUNDATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES LARRY TIETJEN UNDERSTANDS THE IMPORTANCE OF PHILANTHROPY TO THE SUCCESS OF SEMINARIES AND FAITH COMMUNITIES IN A WAY FEW CAN CLAIM. “MANY PEOPLE THINK THAT A PASTOR’S EDUCATION IS FUNDED

BY THE CHURCH,” TIETJEN SAYS. “AND THAT’S NOT THE CASE. A VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THEIR EDUCATION IS FUNDED BY THE SYNOD AND THE CHURCH.” Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that there is a global shortage of well-trained, ethical, Christ-centered leaders. After all, congregations, faith-based communities, educational environments and nonprofits are all in need of the guidance and support that stems from training provided by institutions like the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

This financial need led Tietjen to answer the call of one of his friends, Board of Directors member Harry Meuller, 19 years ago when Mueller asked Tietjen to join him in philanthropic leadership at LSTC. For Tietjen, whose father—the Rev. John H. Tietjen—was the President at Concordia Seminary/Seminex and taught on the campus of LSTC for years while acting as a driving force behind the creation of the 30

ELCA, it was a homecoming.

Over the past two decades, Tietjen and his wife Christie have worked as a unit to support some of LSTC’s most important philanthropic efforts in the hopes of equipping future leaders in our church and world with the skills and support they need to thrive.

Tietjen remembers with great clarity when, many years ago, former LSTC President James Kenneth Echols asked Larry and Christie if they would be willing to chair a comprehensive campaign.

Larry feared he may be too busy.

“Dr. Echols made a smart move,” Tietjen said. “He picked up the phone and called Christie, my wife, and invited us to Chicago. We toured the seminary, we understood the needs, and when Dr. Echols asked if we would be willing to co-chair the campaign, Christie goes, ‘How can we say no?’”

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Larry and Christie were significantly impacted when the Kolschowski family made a commitment during the campaign to invest in and form LSTC’s Center of Christian and Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice. Larry and Christie recall being at a dinner with Jerry and Karen Kolschowski and reflecting afterword upon how great it would be if they could make a significant contribution in the form of a Chair in the future.

“Over the years, one of the things that we’ve felt that has been missing in different environments is the component of theologically based leadership training,” Tietjen said. It was a pivotal moment for the Tietjens.

Upon the sale of their software business, they created the Tietjen Family Foundation, thus enabling the creation of the Damm Chair in Leadership, named for the Rev. Dr. John Silber Damm, pastor, professor and seminary president, a close Tietjen family friend and mentor.

“Our vision for the Chair is that the associated leadership center becomes a funding mechanism for the seminary, not through contributions, but through delivering such value that churches want to send their pastors

to classes, non-profits want to send their leaders, schools want to send their principals to gain leadership skills and potentially even business leaders like myself would want to take advantage of a theologically based center of excellence for leadership,” Tietjen said.

The goal, writ-large, is to create a mechanism that will support creating leaders in the church.

Tietjen hopes, as do leaders like Mueller, that the philanthropic

value of LSTC will continue to become more evident over time.

“I think any giving to the school is an investment,” Mueller said in a 2020 address. “What you’re really producing is students and graduates who become pastors and church leaders who for many years will be the beneficiaries of whatever you gave.”

Today, Larry and Christie are working together in support of the upcoming Campaign for LSTC

as well as supporting the final development of the Damm Chair intiatives, and Larry continues to guide the Board of Trustees.

“I think the board of trustees has in the past made significant impact on LSTC in direction and support and will continue to do that,” he said. “Now we have an opportunity for people to connect more with LSTC, to be more involved and engaged, and I look forward to that.”

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faculty expressions

The most important thing about this move Partnering with Catholic Theological Union, while moving toward financial sustainability. CTU President is Sister Barbara Reid, a feminist biblical scholar, whose writings on the Gospels and New Testament stories of women are life-giving! I look forward to working more closely with her and others.

Dr. Barbara Rossing

[Remembering that] we have been a seminary on the move before, whether that is joining together multiple institutions, or in the Seminex march to stand up for the values that have shaped this place. It feels like we are doing a new and risky thing, and in some ways we are, but we are also doing something we have done before. God was with us then, and God is with us now.

Dr. Peter Vethanayagamony

Dr. Brooke Petersen Lecturer; Director of MDiv and MA Programs; Coordinator for Candidacy

We’re in no way abandoning the original vision of LSTC, which was to be urban (which continues to be a special gift and calling of the school), ecumenical (and we have opportunities of living that out in very close proximity), and university-related (and in fact, through the library and a variety of university services, we’ll be leaning into this in new ways). But we can do this in ways more suitable to present-day realities (including how we understand what it means to be the church) than those of the 1960s.

Dr. Mark Swanson Harold S. Vogelaar Professor of Christian-Muslim Studies and Interfaith Relations Associate Director of A Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice

The opportunity to build ecumenical collaboration with our CTU colleagues that better equips our students as leaders within theologically diverse communities.

Dr. Candace Kohli

Embracing my theological commitment that God’s creative work often appears to us as disruption.

Professor of Modern Church History

Dr. Marvin Wickware

That we are being faithful to our call and mission of “forming visionary leaders to bear witness to the good news of Jesus Christ.”

We can do our mission better without the albatross that requires us to put money into a building that is no longer serving our needs. It is in our best interest to move and have a remarkable new beginning in a location not far from our present home.

Seeing my faculty colleagues in and around our offices.

Dr. Linda Thomas

Dr. Candace Kohli

faculty expressions

How I am preparing for this change

Being in closer ecumenical partnership with the faculty, staff, and students at CTU. I also look forward to being in a fresh, new space that is designed for our present size and needs.

Professor of Theology and Anthropology; Director, Albert “Pete” Pero, Jr. and Cheryl Stewart Pero Center for Intersectionality Studies

Dr. Esther Menn

The opportunity it presents for our learning community to reimagine itself and more vigorously follow God’s call toward justice.

This time becomes an opportunity for generative thought and growth. There are still many challenges ahead, but I am excited to see how we learn to be the institution God is calling us to be in this new place.

Dr. Marvin Wickware Assistant Professor of Church and Society and Ethics

Dr. Brooke Petersen

The opportunity to carry forward what is distinctive about theological education at LSTC while being open to the new possibilities that this unique moment presents, especially in deepened collaboration between the LSTC and CTU communities.

Looking at how LSTC might best fulfill its educational mission of training leaders for the Church in its new space. It’s also essential to examine how the seminary can further optimize its impact on leadership and how it might model wise stewardship.

By focusing on the strengths of LSTC’s academic program and potential synergies with CTU. One example is in language acquisition for students with a first language other than English.

Dr. Esther Menn

Dr. Klaus-Peter Adam

Dr. Klaus-Peter Adam

Assistant Professor of Lutheran Systematic Theology and Global Lutheranism

Dean of Academic Affairs; The Ralph W. and Marilyn R. Klein Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible

Professor of New Testament

What I most look forward to with this move

Right-sizing my personal library and sorting through decades of paper files... I am also being intentional about taking every opportunity I have to get to know members of the CTU community better, by attending events such as the recent World Mission Institute sponsored by CTU, LSTC, and MTS. Dr. Esther Menn

A new beginning, new relationships, and new opportunities.

Dr. Peter Vethanayagamony

Being open to God doing something new! Getting to know our colleagues at CTU and being flexible.

Dr. Linda Thomas

Paying attention to the feelings that this brings up for me, my colleagues, and my students. There is such joy in doing something new, but anxiety and grief show up at the very same time. I know that as much as we will gain in this move, there are also things that will be lost, and it is okay to hold all of that together in our hearts and bodies.

Dr. Brooke Petersen

Closer collaboration with colleagues from other schools. I recently apologized to a CTU colleague when I learned that he has to move his office in order to make way for LSTC. He immediately responded that this was the wrong way to look at it: as a matter of hospitality, he was happy to make space for us to join them. I look forward to joining such colleagues at CTU. Dr. Mark Swanson

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Saying good-bye to a place full of so many memories, a physical site of 25 years of learning and teaching, laughing and crying, working and relaxing.

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Professor of Old Testament

Sorting through 29 years of files [and] remembering landmark events at LSTC and the ELCA. Most treasured are my files on the 2009 ELCA sexuality decision to affirm gay and lesbian partnered relationships. [That year,] Prof Ralph Klein and I authored a statement in support of gay and lesbian ordination, for which we organized signatures from hundreds of ELCA seminary professors and theologians. Our LSTC students were grateful for this policy decision to welcome full participation of samegendered partnered clergy, as were so many in the church!

Dr. Barbara Rossing

Participating in the LSTC building design committee and trying to think through attributes of physical space that will support a robust sense of community in our new academic home.

Dr. Candace Kohli

Embracing my theological commitment that God’s creative work often appears to us as disruption.

Dr. Marvin Wickware

That the diverse student bodies of both schools might inspire each other and hopefully engage in joint activities.

Students from both seminaries already organized a joint run/walk in early April.

That was great fun and it gave a foretaste of shared activities in the future.

Dr. Klaus-Peter Adam

Taking a deep breath, taking some pictures, walking through the hallways and stairwell and recalling all precious moments.

Dr. Peter Vethanayagamony

Seeing the view of Lake Michigan from the fourth floor of CTU every day! Truly, the Great Lakes’ beauty fills my soul with gratitude.

Dr. Barbara Rossing

Too much is happening too quickly to be able to speak of “preparing,” other than the immediate tasks of dismantling an office and sorting boxes! But I’m also thinking about other major changes in my life. Did I prepare for them—other than in a logistical way? I think, rather, that I simply dove in, trusting the Spirit— and grew, was stretched (painfully, sometimes), and found joy and satisfaction in ways that I couldn’t have anticipated.

Dr. Mark Swanson

Making new friends, creating new ways to be together as a community, and getting comfortable living in ambiguity.

Dr. Linda Thomas

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A bittersweet

FAREWELL T

he JKM Library has been a haven for knowledge seekers for nearly five decades.

Boasting a collection of more than 250,000 books and periodicals, the library is globally patronized for its robust collection of materials related to the Lutheran and Reformed traditions.

Since 1975, the JKM Library’s staff and its world-class collections have supported the academic, intellectual, and spiritual development of the students, faculty, and staff of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) and McCormick Theological Seminary (MTS), and theological scholars from around the country and the world through interlibrary loan.

Located on the west wing of the second and third floors of LSTC’s main building, JKM is a merged collection of libraries from the Jesuit School of Theology, which closed in 1981; the Krauss Library, the original name of the combined collection when LSTC moved to Hyde Park in 1967; and McCormick Theological Seminary’s library collection, which joined the Jesuits and LSTC in the Hyde Park neighborhood in 1975.

In 2004, in an agreement between the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus, the name Jesuit was dropped, and the library became officially known as the JKM Library.

Equally as impressive as its collection of books is the library’s staff, who have remained committed to making the materials accessible while

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helping students, faculty, and staff discover the resources they require, even through challenging times.

Barry Hopkins is the interim director of the JKM Library and has been helping LSTC and McCormick students, staff, and faculty “discover the thrill and joy of doing research” for 23 years.

Hopkins recalls a monumental effort in 2010 when he and Larry Alexander, who served as a maintenance worker at LSTC while his wife was in graduate school, managed to shift 250 volumes and reconfigure the library’s physical space into its present arrangement.

Another defining period for Hopkins was between March 2020 and August 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic closed the seminaries’ doors. Despite COVID-19, JKM patrons still needed to work with library materials in their personal and academic pursuits. Hopkins and his colleagues rose to the occasion and made a difficult situation work so that members of our community could retain access to much-needed materials.

Just as staff of the JKM Library has helped enrich the lives of countless students, faculty, and staff through the years, so too have they relished the scholarship produced using the library’s collections.

Emilie Pulver is the metadata specialist for the JKM Library. She says her favorite part of working at the library is cataloging the PhD theses from LSTC doctoral

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By Keisha T. Dyson

students.

“I enjoy seeing the results of their scholarship, reading their acknowledgments, and finding out who supported them on their journey,” she said.

Pulver adds that she’s spent nearly a professional lifetime cataloging for the library, having been there since 1980.

“At that time, the Jesuit Krauss McCormick Library served three schools,” Pulver said. “All three schools had classrooms in the LSTC building, and the library contained books and periodicals for all three faith traditions. It was an exciting time to see scholars from those three traditions mingle.”

In a bittersweet farewell, the JKM Library will not move with LSTC to its new location. As outlined in the sale agreement with the University of Chicago, a significant portion of the JKM collection will be absorbed into the University of Chicago’s library collections. LSTC students, faculty, and staff will continue to have access to the JKM collection once the sale closes. While leaving the collections behind is far from easy, members of the LSTC community are moving forward in gratitude, knowing that the collection will be well cared for in the future.

JKM Library staffmembers (clockwise from top left) Barry Hopkins, Emilie Pulver, and Burmaa Kaylin have remained committed to making materials accessible while also helping students, faculty, and staff discover the resources they require, even in challenging times.

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library history

library history 1995: The JKM Library Trust is formed, creating a new governance structure for the future, comprised of the presidents of both seminaries, two deans, two faculty representatives, and two representatives from the schools’ boards.

2010: JKM vacates the first floor of the west wing. The library stacks are closed, and staff goes into exile in the LSTC east wing. Library automation is completed, with all JKM’s holdings represented in the online catalog.

1962: The library collections of Augustana Theological Seminary, Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary, Suomi Theological Seminary, and Central Lutheran Theological Seminary are merged to form the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago’s library.

1975: McCormick Theological Seminary moves from the Lincoln Park neighborhood to Hyde Park, bringing with them the library resources of McCormick’s Virginia Library and Lane Theological Seminary (the ‘M’ in ‘JKM’)

1960

1977: The JKM Library takes the first step in a long journey toward library automation by joining OCLC, an organization created to share cooperative cataloging and resources among member libraries.

1970

1980

1974: LSTC dedicates its library in honor of the late Rev. Drs. Paul H. Krauss and Elmer F. Krauss (the ‘K’ in ‘JKM’).

1967: The library is moved into the west wing of the newly constructed Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

1970: The library resources of the Jesuit School of Theology at Chicago (the ‘J’ in ‘JKM’) are moved into the LSTC west wing.

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1990

1981: The Jesuit School of Theology at Chicago suspends operations. The three schools formulate a dissolution agreement of the joint library.

1980: LSTC, McCormick, and JSTC adopt ‘Articles of Agreement for a Unified Structure for the JKM Library,’ providing for a unified administration.

7/6/2021: JKM begins to (cautiously) reopen in conformity with state-issued COVID protocols.

2004: Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus formally cedes the ‘J’ portion of the library to the Trust, with the stipulation that the name ‘Jesuit’ be dropped from the name.

9/7/2021: JKM is fully open and resumes normal operations.

2000

2010

2020

2007-2008: Plans for renovating and reconfiguring the library space are developed, but abandoned due to the financial crisis.

2013: West wing HVAC replaced, and library space reconfigured.

JKM staff return from exile in east wing. JKM joins the Consortium of Academic Libraries in Illinois, and applies to join I-Share. First electronic resource purchased.

3/21/2020: JKM closes because of COVID-19 pandemic. Staff initiate online retrieval from the closed library stacks, and leaving materials in the LSTC front desk area for pickup.

2014: JKM goes live with I-Share borrowing and lending.

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SANCTUARY of memories THE AUGUSTANA CHAPEL’S ENDURING IMPACT ON SPIRITUAL FORMATION

By Pastor Erik Christensen

A

s you enter the Augustana Chapel there is, immediately to your left, a large glass plaque affixed over a metallic backing. It lists the names of major donors to the campaign that funded the massive renovation of LSTC’s south building and created the Augustana Chapel, the Roby Prayer Chapel, and sacristy. These spaces have served the seminary’s worship and spiritual life for nearly

20 years. It is not the feature that immediately grabs your attention.

That would be the magnificent Ruth and Paul Manz Organ along the chapel’s west wall, or the stunning stained-glass panels in rainbow hues along the south wall facing 55th Street, or the modern granite baptismal font with its flowing waters continually falling into the pool that became the threshold for students entering and leaving LSTC each year. Instead, these names stand behind and alongside those ushers and greeters who have welcomed people to worship, day after day and year after year.

Many who donated to the campaign are well known to the LSTC community because of their service on the faculty, names that are synonymous with a certain era of the seminary’s life: Marilyn and Ralph Klein, Kristi and Mark Bangert, Donna Skinner and James Kenneth Echols, Cathy and Craig Satterlee. Others are former board members, alumni and supporters of the seminary, and congregations The Rev. Erik Christensen is Pastor to the Community and Director of Strategic Initiatives.

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with strong ties to LSTC. Their names appear not as signs of ownership, but as witnesses to a vision for the community’s worship and its central place in the life of the seminary and the formation of leaders for the church.

Like any sanctuary, this space has held our community together in moments of ordinary worship as well as extraordinary joy and grief.

Here students, staff, and faculty have preached God’s liberating word and been fed at Christ’s table.

Children have been baptized in this font. Students have been married in this chapel. Pastors and deacons have been ordained within its walls.

Choirs and recitalists have filled its chamber with music. Beloved friends, family, and colleagues have been commended to God’s eternal care and accompanied with song on their journey through the grave and into new life.

In recent years, over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became increasingly common for us to hold memorial services in Augustana Chapel for family members of our international student community who were unable to travel home to attend services at the time of death.

Blending ancient ritual with modern technology, we have been able to host people in Augustana Chapel and

online so that the assembly could receive the eulogies and testimonies of those separated from us by great distances in real time. In these and so many other ways, this chapel has served the purposes intended by those who made its creation possible and has done so magnificently.

Of course, those who graduated from LSTC prior to the turn of this century have fond memories of a very different chapel and were formed for leadership within its walls. Likewise, it has been exciting to collaborate with the architects, engineers, and interior designers on the plans for the new chapel being built this summer in what will be LSTC’s new home on the fourth floor of Catholic Theological Union. It, too, will feature expansive windows looking south and west over Hyde Park and will incorporate elements of the existing chapel– like the beautiful stained-glass panels–into its design. As the seminary prepares for this next chapter in our story, our worship program is being redesigned to meet the changing needs of a community that is both residential and remote, onsite and online. What will not change is the central role of worship in the life of the seminary and the formation of new leaders for a renewed church.

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THE MUSIC

will live on in Seattle

I

t was announced in early February 2023 that the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago found a new home for the Ruth and Paul Manz organ, the glorious instrument that has graced the Augustana Chapel since 2004. The organ, purchased by a Roman Catholic parish in Seattle, Washington, will be relocated to the Church of the Blessed Sacrament before LSTC’s move in June.

The Church of the Blessed Sacrament is a faith community with an active and extensive church music program. The instrument will be one of three organs in its sanctuary and will be actively used in weekly liturgies and for musical instruction with children and University of Washington students.

The organ will continue to be called the Ruth and Paul Manz organ by the Church of the Blessed Sacrament community. They will also continue an organ recital series that honors Ruth and Paul Manz by name.

Regarding the organ’s purchase, relocation, and installation, Rev. Erik Christensen, Pastor to the Community and Director of Strategic Initiatives, said, “For nearly 20 years, LSTC’s worship has been supported and enriched by the Ruth and Paul Manz Organ. For many of our students, staff, and faculty— both past and present—it is a primary symbol of our life together

in this place. I am personally grateful for those whose gifts to the seminary made it possible for us to benefit from this extraordinary instrument for all these years, and I am delighted to know that

it will continue to support the assembly’s song in its new home in the community of The Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Seattle.”

We join Rev. Christensen in gratitude for the organ’s new home.

For many of our students, staff, and faculty—both past and present—[the Ruth and Paul Manz organ] is a primary symbol of our life together in this place.

Rev. Erik Christensen, Pastor to the Community and Director of Strategic Initiatives

Dr. Keith Hampton, cantor to the seminary, playing the Manz organ.

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lstc life through the years

lstc life through the years Authentic Diversity Summit chapel service, March 30, 2022.

LSTC spouse Maythee Kuhakatipob attends LSTC’s 2021 International Student Christmas party with his child and partner.

Pastor Erik Christensen preaching at a weekly chapel service.

LSTC student Arun Moses tours Chicago and visits the Bean during this first week on campus.

LSTC students and staff visit the American Islamic College and attend a prayer service in September 2022.

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Prof. Rev. Dr. Linda Thomas is installed as the New Director of the Albert “Pete” Pero Center for Intersectionality Studies in February 2022. From left to right, Marvis Hardy, Jessica Houston, Dr. Linda Thomas, Rev. Vickie Johnson, and MDiv student Tiffaney Hammond.

Bishop Yehiel Curry presides at holy communion during Black History Month in February 2022.

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LOOKING FORWARD 44

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OUR NEW HOME OUR NEW HOME AT CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL UNION (CTU) IN HYDE PARK IS A CUSTOM FIT FOR THE LUTHERAN SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CHICAGO CAMPUS COMMUNITY. Located on the fourth floor, this 25,000-square-foot space is designed to suit the needs of an agile 21st century seminary that recently expanded its residential degree program offerings to include distance learning tracks.

Leaning into our commitment to become a more sustainable institution, our new seminary 46

location reduces waste through a design concept that matches our practical use.

Central to its design concept, our new location is a space created to inspire students, faculty, and staff by promoting individual and collaborative learning and working.

Significant features of the design include three classrooms, 30 offices, various small meeting rooms, a recording studio, a rare books room, work rooms, a flexible chapel, prayer and wellness spaces, and public gathering areas, including a café and the grand hallway. All areas were designed with student accessibility

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in mind, in keeping with our community’s values of inclusion, equity, and justice.

WHERE WILL WE GO?

In the site selection process, campus leaders first established some essential criteria for the new location. For instance, LSTC needed to remain in Hyde Park to fulfill the seminary’s mission. It also needed to be near LSTC’s campus housing and accessible by public transportation and the University of Chicago’s free transit system.

When the options narrowed to

By Keisha T. Dyson

Dawn Newman of Charles Vincent George (CVG) Architects plans to incorporate parts of the old building that gave LSTC its character, such as furniture from the chapel and stained-glass windows.

two particular sites, LSTC looked closer to examine both prospective institutions’ missions, visions, ethos, and places where partnership opportunities might exist.

During town hall meetings and through other channels, students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the board of directors were invited to share their feedback regarding the seminary’s final location.

As Catholic Theological Union When designing the layout, Newman also saw an opportunity to tell a story. She says thinking about zones, or naming spaces, provides an optimal organizational framework to cultivate various experiences.

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OFFICE

OFFICE

STAIR D

STORAGE

RARE BOOKS

CONFERENCE ROOM

DN

RECORDING

STORAGE OFFICE

CORRIDOR

KITCHENETTE

CORRIDOR

OFFICE

HUDDLE

OFFICE

COPY

WELLNESS OFFICE

ZOOM

HUDDLE LOUNGE

STORAGE

OFFICE

OFFICE

OFFICE

OFFICE OFFICE

OFFICE

LOUNGE

FLEX ROOM CLOSET

CORRIDOR

OFFICE

EXISTING ATRIUM OPEN TO 3RD FLOOR

CORRIDOR OFFICE OFFICE

OFFICE

CORRIDOR OFFICE

CLASSROOM

OFFICE

OFFICE OFFICE

OFFICE

OFFICE OFFICE OPEN TO 1ST FLOOR

OFFICE COLLABORATION OFFICE OFFICE

CLASSROOM

OFFICE

STAIR C

RECEPTION

COPY STORAGE

CLOSET MEDITATION

CORRIDOR LOBBY

CRY ROOM

COATS TOILET

SOUND

TELE.

DN

STORAGE

JANITOR

ELEV. #1

CORRIDOR

COFFEE

STORAGE

TOILET

TOILET

WORSHIP

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LEARNING

SACRISTY

STAIR B DN

ADMINISTRATIVE

CARING

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ELEV. #2

COMMUNITY ROOM

IT CLOSET CHAPEL

ELEV. #4

ELEVATOR LOBBY

RECEPTION TOILET

There’s a huge trend for flexibility in the design of office and educational spaces....

So the question becomes how do you create spaces that could act as more than one thing?

OFFICE

OFFICE

ELECT.

STORAGE

DN

STAIR A

RESEARCH

COLLABORATION

CONVERSATION

UTILITY

Dawn Newman, CVG Architects (CTU) emerged as a promising location and later as the singular option for LSTC, the opportunity to renovate became a central selling point for some who recognized this unique chance to make the new location feel like home.

Bob Berridge, senior project manager for the seminary, along with other campus leaders, knew LSTC would need to hire the right architecture firm to bring their vision to life.

After the LSTC team met and interviewed Dawn Newman of Charles Vincent George (CVG) Architects, it was clear the seminary had identified the right talent to design its new space.

TELLING THE LSTC STORY THROUGH DESIGN AND SPACE As a designer and architect, Dawn Newman of CVG understands the value of weaving storytelling into spaces. She says that creating the right context with appropriate design elements helps shape how individuals associate with their environment.

“I’ve always loved designing educational spaces because you create the context where people will learn, experience, and grow,” Newman said. “I also love designing religious spaces, so the opportunity to work at LSTC was the perfect combination for me.”

For Newman, LSTC wasn’t

just another project. It was an opportunity to create a setting that would serve as a backdrop where ideas and innovation flourish.

Her design process started with listening to the campus community. CVG was particularly interested in learning how the campus used its space. The architects toured the building; listened to students, staff, and faculty; and scoured through the website and marketing materials to capture the essence of the seminary’s brand and character.

To keep the project moving, a small cross-functional core team began meeting weekly with CVG.

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This group, consisting of three staff, two faculty, and two students with the additional support of Berridge and President James Nieman. The team was available to offer immediate feedback to the architects related to design considerations and budgeting. A larger campus-wide feedback team participated in the design process through a series of presentations, discussions, and surveys.

Early on, the needs that Newman’s group heard from the LSTC campus community boiled down to a few key points. The community desired a flexible and adaptive space that could be easily reconfigured. They thought it should 50

be boldly constructed to encourage learning beyond tried and tested technologies and pedagogies.

LSTC also wanted the spaces to be creatively designed to inspire its community and inclusively designed to meet the needs of all learners.

This was a challenge Newman gladly accepted.

“There’s a huge trend for flexibility in the design of office and educational spaces. There’s more remote learning and work and less need for physical space,” said Newman. “So, the question becomes, how do you create spaces that could act as more than one thing? Can you have a chapel that could be used as a classroom space?

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Could a big meeting room be a conference or a Zoom room?”

Newman also saw the value of bringing LSTC’s rich and treasured history into its current space without making it look stodgy or dated. By using some of the design parts from the old building—art pieces, the rare books collection, furniture from the chapel, and the stained-glass windows—Newman was able to make a connection from LSTC’s past to its present.

When designing the layout, Newman also saw an opportunity to tell a story. She says thinking about zones, or naming spaces, provides an optimal organizational framework to cultivate various experiences.

The resulting layout is a colorcoded floorplan with interactive spaces where worship, research, learning, collaboration, conversation, and caring demonstrate who we are, what we do, and how our activities at LSTC intersect.

“From the beginning as a design team, we wondered, ‘What is the story about our school that this new design will tell?’” Nieman said, reflecting on the design process. “I think this portrayal of our common space starts to suggest an answer. It tells the story of a dynamic, interdependent organization, and how our shared service is varied and lively. It’s a richer story than any organizational chart could ever offer.”

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student expressions

student expressions

For me, individually, I don’t have strong feelings about the move as I participate mostly online. For me, a member of multiple marginalized communities, my feelings are much stronger. As a Chicago native, I have hard feelings about the sale of the building. I understand the need to sell, there is grace there for that, but the building of the school caused major displacement of the local community, and the University of Chicago continuously contributes to that displacement and the over policing of Black people, so selling to them, through my lens, is active participation in the harm of my people. Also, sharing space with a Catholic-affiliated institution, regardless of the values of the individual institution, is a major violation of consent of the LSTC queer community.

All that being said, I hope LSTC does some kind of reparations to the communities harmed by their decisions.

Moving and sharing space with CTU students and faculty is an opportunity to respond to the church’s call for theological and pastoral formation from an ecumenical perspective that responds to the challenges of today’s world, but it is also a clear sign of the commitment that both institutions have to continue working the path that leads us from conflict to communion.

I was skeptical about the move at first, I have a lot of opinions about our Catholic neighbors, having come from that tradition. However, I feel the sentiment with the move is that now LSTC can begin a new chapter alongside a Catholic institution that also has a better vision for the world.

Juan Manuel Arias Perea (he/him)

John Perez (he/they)

second-year MDiv student

second-year MDiv student

Sharei Green (she/her) part-time MDiv student

I’m excited and hopeful for my fellow LSTC students to get to see a side of Catholicism they haven’t necessarily seen before—one that can be progressive, social justice-oriented, anticapitalist, queer, and feminist. That’s the kind of Catholicism I love—and have found myself participating in, as of late—and I hope that our experience with CTU can demonstrate that.

Annelisa Burns (she/her) first-year MA student

I hope the move is a new chapter for LSTC where we can plan for a better future and be more intentional about the kind of institution we want to be.

While I recognize the need for the move, there are many traditions that I feel can’t be replaced; for example, I will be among the last class to walk through the baptismal font.

I feel the students continuing will need to work hard to establish new traditions that create memories and meaning.

Paul Willey (he/him) final-year MDiv student

Jackie Miller (she/her) first-year MDiv student

LSTC’s move has provided this community with a first-hand experience of what a church community in transition is like.

This provided an invaluable learning opportunity for our future ministry both as an institution and as ministerial leaders. Continual reflection on what worked and what did not honestly can make LSTC stronger than before and equip its students to better shepherd communities in transition throughout their calls.

Emily Moentmann (she/her) third-year Dual Degree MDiv/MSW student

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Though I’ll especially miss the incredible Augustana Chapel and had formative experiences in the old building, I’m actually looking forward to the opportunities the transition presents for LSTC. The relocation bears much grief and loss but is also a catalytic impetus for us to ask the necessary questions of who we are and who we want to become and provides a unique opportunity to reform ourselves even more in the image of Christ in our new space.

Kyle Duff (he/him)

I’m somewhat relieved. Chicago Theological Seminary went through a similar move through most of my time as a student there (2006-2012) and came out better for it. There’s no reason to think that LSTC won’t similarly blossom.

Francisco Herrera (he/him) PhD student

Honestly, I am sad to leave the LSTC building next semester, but I trust that God has prepared a good plan for LSTC in the CTU building. I hope LSTC keeps going to spread God’s love wherever we are.

Sweetry Noverlindra (she/her) first-year MA student

I feel sad to say goodbye to the LSTC old building.

At the same time, I feel excited for the move to CTU and getting a chance to experience the new shift of LSTC. LSTC has been, is, and will be moving. She is alive!

I feel like I actually don’t have a lot of experiences in the old building.

My class had one semester in person before the pandemic, and never fully resumed in person before we all departed for final year internship.

My fondest memories were in the chapel, but those were largely shaped by pandemic restrictions. I don’t have a strong connection to LSTC as a physical place and feel this has actually equipped me to be a leader in the contemporary ELCA—where questions of space and function during a time of decline will surely come up.

Kylee Bestenlehner (she/her)

Seng Tsin (she/her)

Kelsey Johnson (she/they)

second-year MDiv student

PhD student

final-year MDiv student

final-year MDiv student

I think moving into the freshly renovated space that will be well lit with natural light from the windows and atrium will bring new life into our community. I’m excited to see what will spring forth from this resurrection opportunity for LSTC!

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student expressions

student expressions Leaving a space that means so much to me personally and to our community certainly comes with a lot of sadness and anxiety. But I also think this is a great opportunity for LSTC as a community-it’s been exciting to work as a part of the design team that has been working with the architects to design a space that not only works well for our community but also reflects our values. I have a lot of hope for what this next step looks like for us!

Hannah Johnsrud (she/her) second-year MDiv student

There’s something refreshing about entering into a new space.

Although I have been visiting LSTC since my childhood (my congregation would use the space to host bible study and youth choir), I am excited about seeing something new. I hope we can preserve the memories of our old home and embrace the new ones that are about to be made.

And as a commuter student I am thankful we will have a parking garage at our next location, especially during the winter.

It will alleviate the stress around trying to find parking in Hyde Park.

Over my three years at LSTC, I have witnessed this community I love transform with its openness, creativity, vigor, and compassion for one another. While moving to CTU has created some anxiety for me, being with my peers as they passionately imagine what our learning community will look like in the coming years both humbles and excites me. I have deep faith that God is moving within us as our seminary ventures on to CTU. Katie Mueller (she/they) third-year MDiv student

I am excited to explore our new campus in CTU and look forward to seeing the LSTC community grow in faith and glorify God. At the same time, I feel sad to leave the LSTC campus where I used to go and study, and I will miss every memory of the LSTC community in this building.

Char Laywa (she/her) final-year MA student

Arun Mosses (he/him) first-year MA student

As an international student I actually feel a bit sad for this moving, there are many things I will miss from this LTSC campus. However, I think this moving will also give new experiences, such as meeting new friends and family, as well as a new environment.

Jepenri Tambunan (he/him) final-year MA student

It’s a strange but wonderful thing to spend so much time helping the design core team shape our new seminary home, even as I prepare to leave Chicago for internship.

However, seeing the strength and support within LSTC as we look to the future reminds me why I chose this seminary as COVID struck three years ago - we are a community determined to care for one another, the church, and our world.

Eric Jensen (he/they) third-year MDiv student

Change is hard, especially when that change is a place you call home. For me, as an international student who packed up her life to move to a different continent, it feels even harder and a bit insecure. However, I chose LSTC to be my school because of the way we see church as more than just a building.

Public church means being ready for change, and we are doing that, we are changing, and that’s exciting!

I believe LSTC wants the best for its students by meeting their needs and helping them to make better choices.

Sometimes things can seem to be [difficult], but consider the fact that we will have free transportation, and we can learn through each other on how we can adjust to the new change. Also, I understand that it might be hard for some students to cope with a new change, but God sent you LSTC and everything is alright. Read Proverbs 3:3-4, every day and watch what happens. This is my honest opinion about the NEW CHANGE. TRUST GOD!

As an international student living a few blocks from the current LSTC seminary building, I would like to take LSTC’s move to CTU positively. I also have taken a few inperson classes at CTU. Therefore, the space is also somewhat familiar to me.

I hope and pray this new space we will experience in the future can deepen our academic and ecumenical lives.

Although I will not be able to enjoy the new space at CTU as a student, I am super excited for my current peers and all the future seminarians who will benefit from an updated learning environment.

I am hopeful that this opportunity will foster a new and invigorated sense of community between students, staff, and faculty as we hold our grief and excitement hand in hand.

Veronica Mwakasungura (she/her)

Evelyn C. Taylor (she/her)

Luckmal Panditharathna (he/him)

Katie Linthicum (she/her)

PhD student

first-year MDiv student

final-year ThM student

third-year MDiv student

Shemiah Curry (she/her) second-year MDiv student

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Since coming to LSTC as an international student, this campus, especially the classrooms, the verandahs/hallway, the chapel & LRWC helped me to learn and experience a lot of different things. These are the places where I first shared my thoughts, met all my friends, and learned from other cultures and heard their experiences.

Therefore, I will definitely miss this seminary campus.

EPISTLE | COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE | SUMMER 2023

As the LSTC community explores the new campus at CTU, I hope and pray they forge new ecumenical partnerships that enhance the theological commitments of the communities on the CTU campus.

As an outgoing student, I will cherish the memories of the spaciousness of LSTC.

I am so excited to move to CTU and to share space with new neighbors! We must keep in mind the massive disruption this move is, especially as it effects the LRWC, JKM Library, the mailroom, and our student jobs as we know them, but we must move forward with a creative eye to care for our replanted community!

Helen Chukka (she/her) final-year PhD student

Erik Boss (they/them) third-year MDiv student

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Lessons learned in a time of

TIME OF TRANSITION

By Lyndsay Monsen

W

hen I consider what my ministry will look like as a pastor in the always-evolving ELCA, the idea of space comes to mind. Will I lead a congregation through a building sale? Will we share more space ecumenically with neighbors of different faiths? At some point in the next 30 to 40 years, will there be a fully online congregation?

While contemplating these questions, I become ever more grateful that I am witnessing the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in this moment of transition. I have learned from watching President James Nieman and the Board of Directors communicate this move to campus stakeholders and the wider community. They have taught me how to make the best decisions possible for an institution, even if

they might be difficult ones. I have also been inspired by some of the more behind-the-scenes work, such as the care that Senior Project Manager Bob Berridge and his team of students have put into getting rid of some physical belongings we will no longer need. I have learned that change is inevitable. It is what we do with that change that matters.

From a more personal perspective, I am excited about the opportunities this move will bring me as a student.

Our new campus space ... looks much better suited to our needs. It seems as though there are many more areas to gather, both formally and informally, and I hope this encourages even more collaboration and connection.

Lyndsay Monsen, first-year MDiv student 56

EPISTLE | COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE | SUMMER 2023

I have been sitting in on some of the design meetings for our new campus space, and think the layout looks much better suited to our needs. It seems as though there are many more areas to gather, both formally and informally, and I hope this encourages even more collaboration and connection. The classrooms are also better designed for our 21st century needs, as technology becomes more crucial to our learning.

I am also looking forward to getting to know other students studying theology in Chicago at Catholic Theological Union. It can be easy, as a candidate for ministry in the ELCA, to stay inside my Lutheran bubble.

Through the Association of Chicago Theological Schools, however, I have already had a few classmates of different faiths, and conversations with them have deepened my sense of religion and enriched my own faith.

What an exciting moment in time to be a part of!

Finally, of course, a move would not be a move without a bit of sadness. As I have asked fellow students how they feel about the building transition, I hear a lot of mixed emotions. Many of us have emotional connections to the current space of LSTC—whether that be because it is the space where we first met dear friends, felt the Holy Spirit stirring within us as we sat in Augustana Chapel, or gained crucial knowledge about scripture, ministerial leadership, and the ethics and history of Christianity that will carry us forward into our many different career paths.

There are also many traditions that will be lost as we move across Hyde Park, such as the ritual walking through the baptismal font at the beginning and end of one’s seminary journey. With these losses, though, come opportunities for new traditions and memories to be born.

I am enthusiastic about the future of LSTC—both for personal reasons and when I consider the institution as a whole—and cannot wait to return to our new campus this fall.

LSTC AND CTU IN VISIBLE

COMMUNION

By Mercedes Kane

A

s the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago staff prepares to move to the campus of Catholic Theological Union (CTU), the CTU team is also preparing to welcome faculty, staff, and students and start a new chapter together.

“We are tremendously excited about LSTC moving into the fourth floor of our building,” said Sr. Barbara Reid, president of Catholic Theological Union.

“One of the core values of CTU’s founders was ecumenical collaboration, which is why they chose to locate in Hyde Park. This is an important opportunity to strengthen this commitment.”

Over the months since the possibility of sharing CTU’s space with LSTC first began to be explored, discussions have taken place with all of CTU’s stakeholders: the Board of Trustees, Corporation, faculty, staff, students, and formation directors.

“Sharing our building with LSTC is an exciting step and a unique way of being together,” explained Reid. “The possibilities of deepening our partnership and making a stronger ecumenical commitment to one another will allow us to build on what already has been a very strong relationship.

“Some of the ways we could consider collaborating could include joint programming and shared worship. My hope is that in the years ahead ways of working together will emerge that we haven’t yet imagined.

“Both CTU and LSTC have experienced significant changes in the way we use our space since

the pandemic.

The ways we teach, interact, and develop relationships, have shifted,” she said.

“At CTU, 60 percent of the students attend class online now, and many professors teach remotely. It is a wonderful opportunity for both LSTC and CTU to be good stewards of our physical resources by making responsible adjustments to our space usage.

“Our new arrangement is not a merger; both CTU and LSTC retain our unique identities and mission. But we are very similar in our interests and our commitments,” Reid said. “As a union of religious communities with varying charisms, we’ve learned over the years that when we’re together with people who are not exactly the same as us, it helps to strengthen our own sense of our identity.”

Reid is aware that change can be challenging but feels confident that the new sharing between LSTC and CTU will positively affect both schools, and beyond.

“I am hopeful that the trust levels and bonds between us are deep enough that we can weather whatever challenges might come,” Reid said.

“But thinking even bigger, I hope that the outcomes of our new relationship will have a ripple effect in the church globally, drawing us even closer towards full visible communion.”

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5416 South Cornell Avenue, 4th Floor Chicago, IL 60615 www.lstc.edu Address Service Requested

A TIME TO | RE-IMAGINE | RE-INVENT | RE-AFFIRM | RE-NEW!

The Campaign for LSTC Our community is at a new beginning. As we embark on our next chapter and make our new home on Catholic Theological Union’s fourth floor, we look forward to creating opportunities for generations to come.

At this pivotal moment, we are asking you to make a gift in support of LSTC. The success of our students is at the heart of our next chapter, and we cannot do it without you.

Your gift will help fund scholarships, renovations, cutting-edge technology, and a house of worship equipped to meet the needs of our community today and in the years ahead.

Thank you for your dedication to LSTC. Our future is bright, our community is strong, and by coming together in this time of renewal we are ensuring that our next steps make a meaningful impact for past, present, and future leaders in faith who pass through our doors.

You can be a part of this historic moment.

Make your gift here: www.lstc.edu/reimagine