Remarks by Stanley Olson, president of Wartburg Theological Seminary, for the Installation of the Rev. Dr. Kathryn Kleinhans as McCoy Family Professor of Lutheran Heritage and Mission. 

President Colson, Dr. Kleinhans, members of the McCoy family, and all, thank you for the privilege of joining you for this celebration and thanks for giving me the opportunity to offer comments apposite to the occasion.

Mike and Marge, I join the many who are grateful for your gift to Wartburg College and particularly for your use of that gift to sustain a heritage and mission that I also value deeply. I bring greetings and congratulations to all of you from the people of Wartburg Theological Seminary, this college’s sibling institution in Dubuque

In this matter of Lutheran heritage and mission, our schools are twins, separated at birth, more than a century and a half ago. We don’t have a football team and you don’t teach preaching, but both Wartburgs retain guiding convictions from our common forbears Luther, Loehe, Grossman, and the rest. We are team mates, playing different positions but with common impetus and common intent.

There are, of course, many ways to talk about Lutheran heritage and mission – your library and ours give witness to the great diversity and astonishing volume of helpful reflection. The language I offer as a focus this morning is a simple phrase, “passionate appreciation of the world.” I believe Wartburg College and Wartburg Seminary both seek to form graduates who evince a lifelong passionate appreciation of the world.

My good friend Kit Kleinhans is a superb choice as the first McCoy Family Distinguished Professor of Lutheran Heritage and Mission. Kit is, quintessentially, a Lutheran heritage and mission person! When President Colson invited me to speak, he described Dr. Kleinhans as “passionate about making Lutheran theological insights relevant….” In my decade of knowing her, I’ve seen that passion for sharing the heritage and letting it loose to work in the world.

Let’s be clear, this distinguished chair and this day are not about Lutherans only or Christians only. They are for the world. That’s the point. I’m confident Kit would agree that Lutheran heritage and mission drive us to invite everyone to passionate appreciation of the world. It’s a welcome that is nailed to our doors.

Martin Luther’s work was characterized by a fiercely gracious turning toward the world. Wilhelm Loehe was creatively and energetically compelled by the conviction that Christ cared about all people, in all their circumstances. Georg Grossmann and his colleagues caught that great vision and ventured forth when the world was much bigger and the Mississippi had no bridges. Kit Kleinhans is intrigued with a God who would engage the unfolding world—and with the world that God engages. Passionate appreciation of the world has many fine exemplars.

Appreciation of the world often includes a Wow!-factor. It is a gorgeous day. It’s great to be alive! It’s wonderful to be in love! Physics in fantastic! Literature is lovely! People are amazing! The world is astounding! Wow!

Some of you are students. Some of us remember being students. I hope your experiences and memories are like mine—filled with amazement at things learned. I hope you are learning world appreciation in classrooms, labs and dorms, in practice rooms, on playing fields, and in travel.

On my college transcript, there may be only one course that is accurately titled – spring semester, sophomore year, “music appreciation,” music appreciation with Dr. Cynthia Mork. From her we learned history of music, structure, elements, techniques, traditions – all with the goal of helping us appreciate music in its amazing variety.

I think those of you here who choose majors and those who design and name courses might want to think about this. My transcript likely should not say “chemistry 101, 102, 201, 202” but “chemistry appreciation” and “deeper chemistry appreciation” – not in dilatant sense of appreciation but as full engagement. How about “appreciation of Hispanic Language and Culture,” “appreciation of economics,” “calculus appreciation,” “appreciation of business fundamentals,” “appreciation of developmental psychology”?

Could the Wartburg BA stand for “Broadly Appreciative”?

The world is filled with great and complex wonders. But we need to be careful here – appreciation isn’t just cheerleading and clapping. It’s not only about the great and good. We also learn to appreciate the risks, the possibilities of perversion and loss. With many variations, good professors ask, “Do you appreciate what’s at risk here?”

Want to hear about risks? Take a biology course on infectious diseases. We ought all to know about antibiotic resistant bacteria and, even more, about the complex human psychology that may or may not give us openings to address the problem. Many more people need to understand monetary policy, derivatives and other intricate financial instruments, and even basic mortgages – to appreciate what these tools can do and what can go wrong, and to appreciate the implications of greed and of compassion.

The Lutheran heritage and mission we honor today call us to appreciation of the world in its wonder and in its dangers.

I have another word to ponder with you. The theme I named was not merely “appreciation of the world,” but “passionate appreciation of the world.”

In talking of passionate appreciation, I’m not only thinking of emotions and excitement, the Wow! of learning and the high tension of knowing that decisions matter—though I do think that the world is worth such visceral appreciation. Nor is passionate appreciation a reference to romance at college – though I’m in favor of it.

Rather, I want you to think about passionate appreciation in the root sense of the word passion–“being acted upon,” “being affected by,” even “suffering.” The goal of a college education is that you be engaged by the world. Let it change you. Let this wonderful, danger-full world shape your life.

Appreciation well done becomes passionate appreciation. The world well known engages us, affects us. As a whole and in its parts, the world places demands on us, and we accept. 

The Christian term for this is vocation, calling. God calls to all people through the world. In our close connections and at a distance, we see the needs of the world and its people—and we see our own possibilities for helping meet those needs.

Dr. Kleinhans is one of our most gifted advocates for seeing life as vocation—I commend to you her writing, her lectures, and her partnership in shaping and serving the college’s mission.

She would remind us that we have two kinds of vocations—one is much on the mind of college students – the vocations we choose. What’s my calling? What will be my work, my way to earn a living, my primary way to contribute to society?

There’s an equally important broader sense of vocation that Martin Luther brought back to attention—the roles of daily life. In Luther’s time, the language of vocation had gotten narrow – vocation wasn’t about everyone’s life. It wasn’t even about everyone’s job. Vocation meant church jobs. Only church leaders were thought to have real callings. Luther saw this narrow view as incorrect and destructive. Instead, Luther saw that God calls all people in the many places and parts of their lives—family roles, neighborhood roles, civic roles, work roles of all types, and institutional church roles.

To speak in 2013 of the vocations of all is not vestigial religious language nor careless use of old metaphors. Lutheran heritage and mission tell us that the needs of the world call to all people and that the more carefully one attends to the world, near and far, the more clearly one senses the call to act, to serve. Name God as the caller, or not, sensing that call is passionate appreciation. We acknowledge that we are engaged by the world. We seek that engagement. 

Passionate appreciation of the world – engagement with the world – is a core practice of Lutheran higher education—it’s a core practice at the two Wartburgs.

There’s a mission in this passionate appreciation approach to higher education, there’s a market for it, if you will. I am convinced that people desire healthy, hopeful, productive engagement with the world. Students and faculty will be attracted to a college like Wartburg that attends to vocation. And, those are the faculty and students that you want. Your mission statement says, Wartburg College is dedicated to challenging and nurturing students for lives of leadership and service as a spirited expression of their faith and learning. 

Students, when you go home for a break, do you get questions from older people like me, questions such as, “How’s college?” “What are you learning?” Or, with an edge, “What are they teaching?” Next time that happens, try this answer, “At Wartburg, we’re learning passionate appreciation of the world.” It will make people wonder, maybe even worry a little, and it has the added advantage of being true!

Dr. Kleinhans and all of you, it is a joy to share a purpose with you today and into the future — excellent, passionate appreciation of the world. Thank you all for being passionately part of the world’s good future.