On Tuesday, 27 October 2020, the CLTS Board of Regents interviewed candidates for the seminary faculty. After prayer and extensive deliberation they resolved to extend divine calls to Dr Thomas Korcok and Rev. Stephen Preus.
The faculty has been operating with a vacancy in the area of dogmatics since Rev. Esko Murto accepted a call back to Finland in 2019. His shoes were temporarily filled by visiting professors, Dr Werner Klän in winter 2020 and Dr Thomas Korcok in fall 2020. Expressing great delight in the work Dr Korcok had been doing this semester, President Winger heartily recommended to the board that he be called permanently to the position.
The board looked to the future in their decision to extend a second call to Rev. Stephen Preus. A second faculty vacancy will soon open as Dr John Stephenson, Professor of Historical Theology, approaches his retirement. The existing senior faculty members are also overdue for sabbatical leaves. Bringing in a young pastor with solid parish experience and academic credentials will ensure the seminary can operate without interruption through the next few years and into the next stage of its history.
Please join with us in imploring the Lord to grant these two men wisdom by His Spirit as they deliberate and seek His will.
Rev. Dr Thomas Korcok is a 1987 graduate of CLTS. He served as pastor of congregations in Barrie and Locksley, Ontario, for twenty years. He taught Catechetics as a guest instructor at CLTS (2004-08) and served as Director of Advancement (2007). He holds an MPhil from the University of Glasgow (2005) and a PhD from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (2009), focussing on classical Lutheran education, and is author of Lutheran Education: From Wittenberg to the Future (CPH, 2011). He taught religion at Niagara University, Niagara Falls, NY (2010-13). He has been a reserve chaplain in the Canadian Forces since 2009, and since 2014 has been a professor of theology at Concordia University, Chicago, and recently established their Center for the Advancement of Lutheran Liberal Arts. He resides in Niagara-on-the-Lake with his wife Doreen, with whom he has two grown children.
Rev. Stephen Preus, a native of Minnesota, is a graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne (MDiv, 2011). Before ordination, he stayed at CTS to complete a Master of Sacred Theology degree (2012). His research thesis addressed Luther’s understanding of the “fear of God”. He has been pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Vinton, Iowa, for eight years. He is a skilled public speaker and writer, and taught a course on biblical interpretation at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Pretoria, South Africa, in March 2020. Over the years he has had close connections to CLTS through his wife, Margaret, a native of St. Catharines, with whom he has three young children.
Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary 