Monday, November 10, 2014

John H. Tietjen

The Rev. John H. Tietjen, president of Concordia Seminary in Clayton from 1969 until his suspension in 1974. Tietjen grew up in New York and graduated from Concordia Seminary in 1953. He earned a doctorate in theology from Union Theological Seminary in New York, served a parish in New Jersey and worked for the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. before being hired by Concordia. He opposed Rev. Preus' efforts to censor the Concordia faculty, which he defended publicly. To the charges of heresy, he said, "I am not a teacher of false doctrine." After the Concordia board endorsed by Preus voted to suspend Tietjen on Jan. 20, 1974, the seminarians quickly voted to strike and most of the faculty refused to teach. After a one-month standoff, the board fired most of the faculty, who departed with a majority of the students to form Seminex. Tietjen became president of Seminex in 1975, and still held that job when the seminary moved to Chicago in 1983. Tietjen joined the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a less conservative denomination, and died in 2004 at age 75. (Marilyn Yee/Post-Dispatch)
President John H. Tietjen


For those who know anything about the history of the Seminex episode in LCMS history, the following excerpts may be of some interest:

"Concordia, St. Louis... has a new president. John H. Tietjen is the sixth president of the 130 year-old school founded by C.F.W. Walther in 1839. (During the same period there have been seven presidents of the Synod, including two who also headed Concordia Seminary, and nine popes of Rome - the latter office revealing thereby its relative instability.) Since Pastor Tietjen could serve 24 years before reaching mandatory retirement age, his presidency is probably no passing phenomenon and deserves comment at its start....

"Tietjen is well liked by almost everyone who knows him. He has shown an ability to deal with controversial issues and to emerge from the accompanying conflicts unscathed in the estimate of allies and opponents alike. This ability will be tested severely in his new office.... Hopefully... President Tietjen's tenure can be marked by something more creative than protecting the seminary from the assaults of the apostles of discord....

"We believe that John Tietjen can lead Concordia to a role of excellence in American theological education and wish him well in that endeavor."

Quoted from "Concordia's New President." Una Sancta 26, no. 1 (July, 1969): 12-14.
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