Joshua Nelson - Reflections on the Convention
Regarding the failure to pass the Critical Theory memorials at the WELS Synod Convention
“One thing I hate about my character as a teacher is that accountability makes me better than I otherwise would be. Whichever lesson is the best one I taught last year, I’m convinced that if you could go back in time with a folding chair and sat in the back of my classroom with a yellow legal pad and I knew you were going to be giving me feedback; I would have taught that lesson more effectively.
Today we dismissed a memorial asking for written accountability of the specifics of how MLC is fighting the perpetual influx of critical theories and postmodernism in our flagship institution.
Earlier in the day at Convention, we discussed how our Confessional Lutheran methodology requires that we carefully examine doctrines with a series of thesis and antithesis. We carefully examine how what we believe and specifically what we don’t believe and how these can be defended by Scripture.
When considering fellowship with new church bodies in Africa and Eastern Europe, we watch doctrine lived out in practice and search for congruity. We recognize that words are important, and concepts have meaning.
Perhaps a way to frame the issue more concisely regarding the education side of ministry is that we are far less cautious about what we consume or promote to our teachers. One of the greatest challenges with modern educational ministry is that nearly all the materials have been authored by secular humanists who are not simply creating educational content with dispassionate altruism; they have an agenda that addresses the spiritual. Pearson, Harcourt, McDougal-Littell, Corwin, and ASCD are all major players in producing content that promotes the ethos of postmodern moral relativism.
As teachers and curriculum directors on the educational side of ministry examine options of which curricula to purchase and adopt, the menu comes almost exclusively from the secular left. We train our teachers to guard their doctrines carefully on the theological side of things, but when choosing curricula in practice we look for that which we can ‘sanctify’ and use. The fact that many of these curricula are specifically designed to promote an oppressor vs oppressed worldview or an ethos that promotes moral relativism / the notion that truth comes from the self means that an exceptional amount of training in discernment is needed.
We are better when we are held accountable; today was a mistake.”
Joshua Nelson is a high school chemistry teacher at Wisconsin Lutheran High School and served as a delegate to the WELS Synod Convention.
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