No Repentance at Concordia this Easter

Rev Gregory P Schulz, DMin, PhD

Professor of Philosophy in Exile

Previously I spoke about the worship of Wokeness in our country:

When Jesus tells us, “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and give unto God that which is God’s” (Matthew 22:21), He certainly does not mean that we should give our children to the government.

This is crucial to remember during Lent in this Year of our Lord 2022: The church regards Lent as a time for worshipping Christ by repenting; by contrast, the government regards Lent 2022 as a time for defying Christ by not repenting of its worship of Wokeness.

Concordia University Wisconsin continues to mimic the government by not repenting of its worship of Wokeness.

My wife and I just received a computer-generated personal letter from the President of my university’s Concordia University Foundation asserting, “the truth of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection permeates our life on campus and in our classrooms… this message is shared with our students so that they are equipped to ‘Live Uncommon.’” The letter is dated April 1, 2022 and assures us “as an alumnus/a of Concordia, one of our many friends and supporters” that CUW is “an overtly, unapologetic, Christian university that is part of the LCMS.”

Since the author of this letter is one of the five or so pastors in the administration or staff of the university who report directly to the university’s president, and since his preferred pronoun for pastors at the university is “employee” (see the online “Townhalls” with CUW’s interim president in which this author refers to a certain suspended pastor-professor as “an employee”), I shall refer to him as “this employee.”

This employee is not speaking the truth. As even a thoughtful, fair-minded pagan would know, “To say that what is not the case is the case, or that what is the case is not the case, is to speak a lie” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 4). What this employee asserts is demonstrably untrue. Any thoughtful, fair-minded “alumnus/a, supporter or friend of the university” can tell, even after LCMS President Harrison’s official visit to campus for the purpose of investigating what is being taught on campus and in our classrooms – neither the university’s administration (which includes this employee) nor its board of regents has indicated any repentance whatsoever over its Wokeism. By their fruit you shall know them.

What does “life on campus and in our classrooms” actually look like at Concordia as we head toward Easter 2022? Briefly put, the university is clearly not interested even in discussing repentance (for which, see the first of Luther’s 95 Theses). Instead, the leadership and some professors at CUW are determined to continue their adulterous affair with Woke / Social Justice / Cultural Marxist, academically and programmatically.

Here is what this employee is not telling us in his April Fool’s Day letter:

1. When Dr Beverly Yahnke, an LCMS psychologist and Executive Director of DOXOLGY: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel, presented a professional and biblical view of human sexuality on our Lutheran campus recently, a number of faculty and students publicly objected to the application of Christ’s authority to the issues of transgenderism, etc. You may wish to contact members of the university’s Psychology Department, for example, to learn for yourself what they teach regarding sexuality and marriage in their classrooms and on campus more widely. Or check with our Theology Department for the reasons why they officially requested Harrison’s visit to campus.
2. The Black Student Union, the only administratively supported ethnic union on campus, continues its program. This despite having been identified as openly promoting the Liberation Theology of Ibrahim Kendi. See Joy Pullmann’s article at The Federalist online, as well as Kendi’s rejection of “Savior Theology” and his social justice crusade for Black Liberation Theology on YouTube. No repentance.
3. The Board of Regents has surreptitiously muted its online mentions of its desires for a Woke university president who “believes in and is committed to” “diversity in all its myriad forms” and “inclusion and equity,” but there has been no repudiation of their goal or of the means by which they are going to do what they (not the LCMS) want to do to the university. No repentance.
4. The university remains committed to it anti-biblical and Marxist “Bias Reporting System.” Whereas our LCMS Bylaws require Concordia university presidents to be the spiritual leader of the campus who is himself responsible for supervising the teaching of professors in their classrooms and beyond, for the past several years and with today’s interim president as well, this has not been the case. Instead, in recent years, the CUW president has neglected this responsibility in favor of this biased system, from which academic supervisors can pick at will anonymous and subjective claims of “hurt feelings” with which to assess professors they feel need assessing. No repentance.

Two months ago, in “Woke Dysphoria at Concordia,” I wrote,

[Institutional and individual repentance at CUW] will further suggest a detailed report from, and perhaps a forensic audit of the university’s Initiatives and the funding practices of Concordia University Wisconsin Foundation Board as listed on our cuw.edu website. Whence the funding for the Woke agenda at our university? Apart from the headline mentions of our Lord’s name, exactly how does DIE-ing fulfil the university’s churchly and Lutheran educational mission?

You may wish to contact this employee at roy.peterson@cuw.edu in regard to the trustworthiness of his April 1 letter asking for financial support on the basis of the university’s “truly ‘Uncommon’ message” of non-repentance this Easter in light of Christ’s resurrection. You may also want to ask this employee, since he is the President of the Concordia University Foundation, about funding practices supporting Wokeism in regard to items (2-4) above.