Official Workbook PDF page source text

LCMS 2026 Convention Workbook: Reports and Overtures, PDF page 105

2026 Convention Workbook
70 
OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
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Student Body 
Of the “25 to 26” students currently enrolled in CMPL, “between five and six” are not in The Lutheran 
Church— Missouri Synod. The remaining students “have a connection” with the LCMS and identify their 
congregational and synodical membership as LCMS, but when queried on the ILT application regarding 
the church body in which these students wish to serve, many put down a question mark.33 Four to five of 
the 26 students in Kloha’s Biblical Interpretation class in Fall 2025 are from other [Lutheran?] church 
bodies, and at least one is an ELCA woman seeking ordination in the Canadian Association of Lutheran 
Congregations, whose official seminary is the Institute of Lutheran Theology.
34 CMPL leaders express 
hope that their graduates may be rostered in the LCMS, despite Bylaw 3.10.2.4. 
Is CMPL Distinct from ILT/Christ School of Theology? 
(1) Since the CMPL link on thecenter.info directs to the Christ School of Theology site, CMPL and Christ 
School of Theology share a curriculum, even as CMPL faculty have had a hand in re-shaping some 
coursework.35 (2) Because of (1), there is no evidence that Christ School of Theology and CMPL courses 
are different courses. (3) Because of (2), the only conclusion one may reach is that the courses CMPL 
students enroll in are those that Christ School of Theology students enroll in. (4) Finally, because of (3), 
the only conclusion one may reach is that CMPL students, notwithstanding the advertisement of four 
LCMS clergy as “Center Contributors” (namely, Ben Haupt, Jeff Kloha, James Marriott, and Todd Jones), 
may or will be taught also by ILT faculty members.  
Indeed, the statement on the CMPL FAQ in response to the question, “How does the [CMPL] program 
balance deep theological learning with practical application in daily life?” that “the faculty of ILT and 
CMPL have years of experience” gives every indication that it is the intention of CMPL that its students 
will, indeed, learn from ILT faculty.
36 Finally, in a CMPL Newsletter 1:7 dated May 8, 2025, Kloha directs 
prospective CMPL students to ILT courses that were on queue for Fall 2025. Along with LCMS instructors 
Kilcrease (non-rostered), Kloha, Kolb and Schumacher, the instructors for those courses include Robert 
Benne and Dan Lioy.37 
There is a certain amount of opacity regarding the roster status of ILT faculty, though with some 
investigation one may discover members of the ministerium of the LCMS (Rynearson), the NALC (Sorum), 
CALC (Kwok) and the LCMC (Hillmer). One member of the faculty holds dual roster status in the NALC 
and the Evangelical Church Alliance (Lioy).38 That said, of the nine teaching faculty, a couple (Benne, 
Kilcrease) are not ordained and others’ ordination status is unclear (Hackman, Vestrucci), at least calling 
into question assertions by CMPL that “the faculty of ILT … have years of experience serving as pastors, 
missionaries, and church planters…”39  
Like the LHOS program, the CMPL/Christ School of Theology/ILT program is inadequate for the purposes 
of cultivating a ministerium in and for the LCMS that is faithful to the Holy Scriptures and our Confession. 
The affiliation of numerous faculty with the North American Lutheran Church (NALC), a church body 
 
33 Zoom meeting with Jeff Kloha, Sept. 22, 2025. 
34 “Training Clergy,” calc.ca, accessed Feb. 9, 2026.  
35 Note that thecenter.info/cmpl directs users to cst.ilt.edu/cmpl; accessed Feb. 9, 2026.  
36 “Frequently Asked Questions,” cst.ilt.edu/cmpl, accessed Feb. 9. 2026.  
37 Jeff Kloha, “Fall Courses Announced!” in https://thecenter.info/cmpl-notes1-7, accessed Feb. 9. 2026.  
38 The Evangelical Church Alliance denies the efficacy of the Sacraments, confessing Baptism merely to be a symbol 
and for believers only and the Lord’s Supper merely as a commemoration. See “Tenets of Faith,” 
ecainternational.org/images/uploads/ECA_Standards/Tenets_of_Faith_15_July_2020.pdf, accessed Feb. 9, 2026.  
39 “Frequently Asked Questions,” cst.ilt.edu/cmpl/, accessed Feb. 9. 2026.  
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which, contrary to the Scriptures, ordains women — indeed, affirms the ordination of women 40 — 
betrays the unfaithful stance on Scripture shared or tolerated by numerous of the faculty.41 
A concluding word on online theological education 
There is clearly not no value in online education (yes: the sentence reads “not no”). It has been widely 
effective in helping students earn certifications for various professional specialties. It helped, albeit 
limpingly and with significant negative downstream impacts, sustain U.S. education through the recent 
pandemic. And, in the absence of other modes of learning, it is one way to learn.  
Indeed, numerous studies uphold the value of online education. Truly, students come out of online 
education knowing more than when they entered. But no one measures the value of education that way. 
The measure of educational goodness must always be of the relative value of one mode of education 
versus another, one curriculum over against another, this teaching method in comparison to that. Thus, 
the question before the church is not whether online is of some value — we readily concede it is. The 
question for the church must be of its value relative to that of face-to-face, in-the-flesh, residential 
seminary education. Nor is the church’s question limited merely to education and knowledge; it must 
also extend to the formation of a man personally, spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and pastorally. 
The answer to the question of the value of online education is more sober and sobering when 
considered in relation to face-to-face, in-the-flesh, residential education, as numerous studies 
demonstrate.
42  
One study frequently cited by LCMS advocates for online theological education is titled “(Not) Being 
There: Online Distance Theological Education.”43 A closer look at the study, however, reveals significant 
flaws: It deals with only one year of data and asks no longitudinal questions on issues such as attrition 
from the ministry. It also works with a data set that asks only students whether they feel they are 
prepared for the ministry, with no objective evaluation of their preparedness. One alarming statistic 
 
40 Andrew Ames Fuller, “An Affirmation of Women in Ordained Ministry,” thenalc.org/en-us/2020/07/23/an-
affirmation-of-women-in-ordained-ministry/, accessed Feb. 9, 2026.  
41 The NALC’s “The Bible as the Word of God,” p. 8, shows this weakness. See thenalc.org/en-us/2018/11/28/the-
bible-as-the-word-of-god, accessed Feb. 9, 2026.  
42 A good study on the impact of screen culture, including online education, is Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious 
Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing Mental Illness (New York: Penguin, 2024). Most studies 
of online education are undertaken by advocates of online education. The following studies were undertaken by 
people who are genuinely interested in the most effective and cost-effective way to educate: William T. Alpert, et 
al., “A Randomized Assessment of Online Learning,” American Economic Review 106, no. 5 (May 2016): 378–82; Eric 
P.  Bettinger, et al., “Virtual Classrooms: How Online College Courses Affect Student Success,” American Economic 
Review 107, no. 9 (Sept. 2017): 2855–75; Cassandra Hart, et al., “Online Course-taking and Student Outcomes in 
California Community Colleges,” Education Finance and Policy 13, no. 1 (2018): 42–71; Nick Huntingdon-Klein, et. 
al., “Selection into Online Community College Courses and Their Effects on Persistence,” Research in High Education 
58 (2017): 244–69; Stephanie Cellini and Hernando Gueso, “Student Learning in Online College Programs,” AERA 
Open 7, no. 1 (2021): 1–18. These studies indicate significant deficiencies with online education. Most interesting, 
perhaps, is the California Community Colleges study. The State of California clearly has an interest in maximizing 
outcomes and reducing costs. The study found that students who take the same course online as peers in person 
lag in learning, and that the lag in learning only builds over time. Deficient learning in a fundamentals course leads 
to greater deficiency in a mid-level course, which leads to even greater deficiency in an advanced or capstone 
course.  
43 Sharon L. Miller and Christian Scharen, “(Not) Being There: Online Distance Theological Education,” Auburn 
Studies, no. 23 (Fall 2017). Available at auburnseminary.org/reports/as2017-distance-education. Accessed Feb. 9, 
2026.  
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cited in the study indicates that overall seminary enrollment among schools accredited by the 
Association of Theological Schools declined by 11% from 2006 to 2016, even as online enrollment grew 
by 195%. In other words, the expansion of online theological education coincides with an overall drop in 
enrollment in theological education.  
In fact, in the online game, there are a handful of huge “winners” and a mountain of “losers.” In a study 
of 14 prominent seminaries who offer the M.Div. online, 3 show a gain in M.Div. enrollment (both online 
and residential) after introducing an online option for the M.Div.: Midwest Baptist Theological Seminary 
posted a gain of 358%, Reformed Seminary, a gain of 22%; and Palmer, a gain of 2%. But they are the 
outliers. The remaining 11 seminaries posted an average loss of overall M.Div. enrollment (both online 
and residential) of 32%. The average length of time it took to achieve that loss of enrollment was 8.3 
years — a 4% decline per year. The same seminaries have lost 31% in their M. Div. enrollment since 2016, 
a time during which the two LCMS seminaries have enjoyed a fluctuating but stable enrollment in their 
M.Div. and Alternate Route programs.44 While some M.Div. programs have seen astounding growth, that 
is coupled with global and extra-denominational expansion. But if the most pressing need LCMS 
seminaries fill — indeed, if this is their only charge  — is supplying pastors for LCMS congregations and 
missions, both domestic and overseas, the surest route to meeting that need is through the residential 
M.Div. and Alternate Route programs. Inflating enrollment numbers through overseas and non-LCMS 
enrollments does not help the LCMS. And the surest way to decrease the number of theological 
candidates is by offering online M.Div. and Alternate Route programs.  
But even such studies are insufficient. The charge given pastors is of eternal consequence: They must 
give an account, before God, for those in whose midst they are called by the Lord God to proclaim the 
Word and administer the Sacraments (Heb. 13:17). At every turn they encounter troubled consciences, a 
world set against the Lord and His Chosen One, and a cacophony of false teaching meant to deceive and 
mislead the believers, jeopardizing their eternal salvation. Yet, it is specifically in this context where they 
are called upon by the Lord and their solemn charge to shepherd the flock of Christ, to be ready in 
season and out, with patience and persistence, to reprove, rebuke, exhort (2 Tim. 4:2–5). For that 
reason, Paul instructed Timothy not to lay on hands hastily. It takes time, concentrated, intense time, to 
instill in a man in the theological, pastoral, personal and spiritual qualities that make a pastor.  
Nor is the church’s long-standing insistence on residential education a historical hiccup, as if the only 
hurdle to be cleared for non-residential, dis-enfleshed theological education and formation was the lack 
of online delivery. The word has been technologized and available for broad dissemination since before 
the time of Jesus, since the invention of papyrus. It was enhanced with the development of the 
minuscule script; the minuscule’s impact was multiplied many times over with the advent of scriptoria; 
printing press followed scriptorium; voice recording succeeded printing press; the wide dissemination of 
video superseded even that feat. And yet, at no time throughout those two millennia did the church use 
those means to replace the face-to-face, in-the-flesh, residential formation of pastors.  
That’s because residential education and formation of the future pastorate of the church are rooted in 
the Lord’s own enfleshment among us (John 1:14). The reflection of His enfleshment among us cast itself 
over the education and formation of His emissaries, who stand vice Christi (in Christ’s stead), in both the 
Old and New Testaments. The Levites, charged with teaching the people the things of God, dwelled in 
 
44 Statistics available at ats.edu/Data-Visualization - DVT. Schools included in the study: Midwest Baptist 
Theological Seminary, Reformed Seminary, Palmer Theological Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary in 
Philadelphia, Luther Seminary, Fuller Seminary, Denver Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Asbury 
Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Bethel 
Seminary, Talbot School of Theology, Northern [Baptist Theological] Seminary.  
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their own cities, where their business was the transmission of the things of God so that every new 
generation of Levite could faithfully teach it to all Israel. The “sons of the prophets” located in Bethel, 
Jericho, Gilgal and Ephraim gathered, lived, slept and ate together as they learned to become prophets in 
Israel (2 Kings 2–6). The apostle Paul was educated and “raised up” in his own rabbinic training far from 
his home, Tarsus, at the feet of Gamaliel in Judea (Acts 22:1–3). And the Lord Christ called His disciples, 
the future apostolate of the holy Christian church, to drop their nets and follow Him (Luke 5:1–11; John 
1:35–51). To those unwilling to leave behind nets, parents, plough and livelihood, the Lord Jesus had 
words of rebuke (Luke 9:57–62; Matt. 8:18–21): he cannot stand in loco Christi who must have a place to 
lay his head. Indeed, in one of the few educational-formational scenes we get in the New Testament 
after Christ’s ascension, Apollos, the teacher, has gathered around himself “about twelve” disciples 
(future pastors) in Ephesus, where together they were instructed and grew in the grace and knowledge 
of the Lord Jesus Christ so that they might in turn bring this message to church and world (Acts 19:1–10).  
O Lord, grant unto Your church faithful pastors who shall declare Your truth with power and live 
according to Your will. Send forth laborers into Your harvest and open the door of faith unto all 
unbelievers and unto the people of Israel. Amen.