Accreditation

 

Following on the heels of the recent post on seminary accreditation, I received a copy of Knruxate, the annual magazine of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, which featured an article entitled Commendation From Outsiders offering Presidents Treptow's perspective on accreditation. The Lord's timing is fantastic as it offers me an opportunity to critique with the groundwork already laid (also, did you notice Let the Little Children Come to Me landed on Pentecost 20, which featured Mark 10:2-16? That wasn't planned, fam, but it gave me a smile during the Gospel reading. God is good!)

One of the reasons Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (WLS) decided to pursue accreditation was a desire to have outside eyes look at its overall program. The seminary’s governing board and the faculty, desiring to improve in their synod-assigned work of preparing men for service as pastors in WELS, sought out an accrediting agency to provide an objective assessment of the seminary’s work.

An objective assessment by what standard? Perhaps a nominally Christian one but as we noted, not without wokeness.

Before “outsiders” could ever assess the work being done at WLS, the “insiders” had a lot of work to do. The faculty and governing board needed to take a hard look at the seminary’s program on their own, evaluating the work being done in light of the association’s ten standards, which “articulate principles of quality for graduate theological education that all schools meet in various ways.” 

The ten standards are guided by ten principles. Number five is concerning:

Theological education demonstrates diversity. Graduate theological education values and demonstrates diversity in its many manifestations, including attention to intercultural competencies, global awareness and engagement, and underrepresented and marginalized groups.

As we noted previously, diversity and cultural contextualization is threaded throughout the accreditation standards document. Our faculty is entirely composed of straight white males and our student body is overwhelmingly white and exclusively heterosexual male. We hold to a strict view of the Bible guided by our Lutheran confessions. I'm curious how we demonstrate the required diversity.

From Standard 4 regulating M.Div degrees:

 ...cultural context, including attention to cultural and social issues, to global awareness and engagement, and to the multifaith and multicultural nature of the societies in which students may serve...

Now go back to the first paragraph - why are we seeking the approval of a group that sees contextualization in terms of culture, global engagement, and multifaith/multiculturalism as a good thing? Our "approval" should be found in Scripture.

Also of note: the accreditation statement for WLS notes that the school is limited to offering less than half of a degree via distance learning or at another location. This must mean that the Pastoral Studies Institute's program - which "provides pre-seminary and seminary training to North American students from a variety of countries and cultures" - lacks accreditation, as the program allows ethnically diverse students to remain "in their own cultural setting with their families." (The traditional route for a second career pastor who doesn't come from one of those 'variety of countries and cultures' would be uprooting the family to spend 1-2 years in New Ulm, MN at MLC prior to moving to Mequon, WI to attend seminary for three years, plus vicarage.)