ILT and Woman's Ordination

Over the past years, some have commented about ILT and the ordination of women because through ILT’s email newsletter and social media it is obvious ILT has students who are women. Let me start by saying that ILT does not have an official position, nor can it ever take an official position on women’s ordination. However, because we do have female students, it is understandable that we receive a question like “Why does ILT ordain women?”

There are two facts that need to be made clear. First, ILT has students preparing for pastoral ministry and who, when they graduate, serve as pastors in congregations. Second, ILT is an independent seminary and graduate school and does not belong to any denomination. This means ILT cannot ordain anyone into the office of pastoral ministry. Only churches and church bodies can do this. I can say clearly and with certainty, ILT does not practice women’s ordination, and it will not, because it cannot. We do, however, have many denominations who look to ILT to train their pastors and prepare them for ordained ministry. Each of these does ordain women.

At ILT we believe we have to think bigger than just this issue. Let me say that I am a formerly rostered LCMS Director of Christian Education (DCE) and a current LCMS lay person. I personally do not believe in the practice of ordaining women into the pastoral ministry. All of my students know this. I even teach the LCMS position to my students, not in order to convince them, but in order that they might understand my view and the view of my church body.

How can I as an LCMS member, holding to traditional LCMS views of women’s ordination, continue to work in an organization that promotes the ordination of women? I want to ask, how can I not? Issues concerning the ordination of women are just some among many issues dividing Lutherans in North America since the 18th Century. And this division goes back even further in some cases to our roots in Europe. The question I want to discuss is, “How can we begin to repair these divisions if we are not willing to dialog with each other, but simply want to condemn the other as lost and as abandoning the Word of God?”

During the four years that I have worked at ILT, I have had many discussions both with students and faculty members about the specific things separating us as Lutherans. Many times I have been confronted with the fact that I have fallen into straw man arguments concerning the other side of the issue. In the same way, I have had to tear down straw men so that the actual position I hold could be understood. I have found it to be true that the actual issues are deeply buried under years and years of rhetoric and the issues themselves cannot clearly be dealt with. At some point, those from each side have to come together in mutual respect and Christian love to address those things that separates us.

I believe that ILT is attempting something that has never worked among Lutherans, that is, to come together, to work together, to learn together, and to dialog about those things. Maybe ILT is doomed to failure because Lutherans are not capable of putting aside theological prejudice. Maybe ILT can be a powerful force of positive change in North American Lutheranism and the preaching of the Gospel to the lost. In either case, the discussion has to be bigger than one question: “Do you ordain women?” It has to be about understanding the other side and helping them to understand our side. It has to be about the bigger questions of secularism and the decline of Christianity in the West. It has to be about the gospel of Jesus Christ who is the only one who can unite us.