Thursday, February 19, 2026

It is the 19th of February 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

I come to today’s show and topic with fear and trembling…. It’s the story of a theological civil war, many of you who either lived through or are living in churches shaped by the massive conflict. You may have a strong inclination to take sides immediately, you are free to do as you wish- but let’s tell the story, sometimes called “Seminex,” which began on this day 52 years ago.

 

The 1920s and 30s were the heyday of the so-called “Fundamentalist/Modernist” controversy- a partially true, partially contrived division of American Protestants between a “right” and “left”. Back then, it was the Presbyterians and Baptists. It took a little longer to make its way to the Lutherans.

 

Post World War II Lutheranism- like much of American Christianity- was booming. And the Lutherans wrestled with inter-Lutheran unity. Yes, the Wisconsin Evangelical Synod and the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Synod probably wouldn’t, but there was a question amongst the Missouri Synod Lutheran churches. By the early 60’s, we had an LCA (Lutheran Church in America) and the ALC (American Lutheran Church), which were bodies composed of smaller bodies.

 

The Missouri Synod, LCMS, was looking to cooperate with the LCA and ALC. But union can lead to charges of “unionism” (union without theological concord). In the early 70’s, some in the LCMS- anxious about a drift towards liberalism- began a fact-finding commission that created the so-called “Blue Book” that condemned, among other things, the “Historical Critical Method” that was seen as subverting the authority of Scripture.

 

So, the question came to a head at the 1973 LCMS convention in New Orleans. What to do? Should the District Presidents get the authority to decide? Could there be a vote? It was tricky- but the convention approved the adoption of new teachings, the presentation of a statement of confessional and scriptural principles, and then the vote on that statement, which would condemn the historical critical method and many at the LCMS Seminary at St. Louis.

 

The vote for the document and against the Seminary professors who taught the “historical critical method”… please ask for a mailbag show, and we can talk “historical critical” vs. “historical grammatical,” and I’ll try to stay out of trouble.

 

There is plenty of denominational inside baseball about who can fire whom and the like, but the result of the events in New Orleans led to the new semester beginning in 1974, and the already small seminary saw most of its professors and many of its students refuse to hold class.

 

An ultimatum was given by the Synod- return to class by the, the 19th of February 1974 or face the consequences. And so, it was on this day- the 19th of February that 40 of 45 professors and some 200 students both stood on their own principles AND caused a media storm with a staged “walk out” of the seminary. Singing “the Church’s One Foundation,” they marched through the quad of the seminary, planting crosses in the ground and boarding up the entrance to the quad with the word “Exiled” painted across the doors.

 

They would form the “seminary-in-exile” or “Seminex” that used the buildings of other institutions in St. Louis. The newly formed AELC (Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches) had some 300,000 members, but this was dwarfed by the almost 3 million in the LCMS. “Seminex” and the AELC would form the foundation for the ELCA- today the largest of the “mainline” Lutheran churches. It was an event tied to old divisions, but also new ones in light of the American division of “Fundamentalists” and “Modernists”. It was also part of the milieu of the 1960’s and 70’s- Seminex was part of the protest and walk-out culture prevalent in those decades. This is just the kernel of the story- but the division that was highlighted across the news media on this day- the division amongst the Lutherans- a walkout or seminary in exile dates from this, the 19th of February in 1974.

 

 

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary, and while noting the irony of a reading from Jonah, we hear from the 51st Psalm:

Have mercy on me, O God,
 according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion
 blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity
 and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,
 and my sin is always before me.

Against you, you only, have I sinned
 and done what is evil in your sight;

so you are right in your verdict
 and justified when you judge.

Surely I was sinful at birth,
 sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
 you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
 wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;
 let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins
 and blot out all my iniquity.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 19th of February 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a graduate of Ft. Wayne, which used to be Springfield, which was not St. Louis… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man on the loopy West Coast, where we aren’t sure that St. Louis and Fort Wayne are different places…Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.