Strangers to Sisters - Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library: Essays

accepted a call to serve his sister synod. Problem solved, that is, until the Minnesota State
Draft Board ceased to exempt male parochial school teachers from military service.
John Brenner, then president of the Wisconsin Synod, had already helped the
Norwegian Synod with its parochial school teachers in Wisconsin who found themselves
1-A. In a letter dated February 1, 1942, he offers his assistance to Norman Madson of the
Norwegian Synod for his Minnesota problem. 151 In addition to Brenner, President Carl
Schweppe of DMLC also wrote to Madson offering his support during the draft issue and
his shared mutual disgust of “that Swede” Nelson. 152
In 1927, the Norwegian Synod would purchase Bethany Lutheran College. Under
the influence and leadership of S.C. Ylvisaker, the college would fill a unique niche in
Lutheran education for the church, providing laity with a Christ-centered, solidly
Lutheran education for their first two years of college. Bethany would also help the
Wisconsin Synod by helping train its second career men from 1962-1988, in what was
lovingly referred to as the “Meq-Beth” (Mequon/Bethany) program.
The educational institutions of these two synods were seed bed for the first real
fraternal relationships between the WELS and ELS. It was on the campuses of Bethany,
DMLC, Northwestern and Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary where the synods really got to
know one another for the first time directly, synod to synod, and it would prove valuable
in the practical and doctrinal conflicts of the coming years.
151 John Brenner to Norman Madson, letter, October 11, 1941, John Brenner Collection, File #156.
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archives, Mequon, WI.
152 Carl Schweppe to Norman Madson, letter, February 9, 1942, ELS Presidential Files: 1940s. Evangelical
Lutheran Synod Archives, Mankato, MN.
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