Westfield House’s History
In the early 1950s the two original congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England [ELCE] envisioned a bold missionary expansion throughout Britain. Between 1954 and 1972 fourteen mission congregations were founded, according to a plan that would see a confessional Lutheran church within reach of every part of the country. But churches need pastors. As the need was immediate, most of these congregations were provided with pastors called from overseas—primarily from the U.S.A., Canada, and Australia. But would it not be healthy in the long run for the ELCE to raise up pastors from within, teaching and moulding them in a British seminary?
The Lord provided for the need. In the mid 1950s, Professor Dr William F. Arndt was in Britain preparing his upcoming English edition of Bauer’s standard New Testament Greek lexicon. While in Cambridge, Dr Arndt was approached by the leaders of the ELCE and asked if he could help found a theological training programme through his contacts in the University of Cambridge. Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, graciously granted him leave to spend a year in Cambridge to begin the work. The foundation was laid. Then the Lord called his servant William home.
In 1957 Pastor Norman Nagel of Luther-Tyndale Lutheran Church, Kentish Town, London, was commissioned by the ELCE to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge. Included in his mandate was the continuation of Dr Arndt’s work. In 1958 he was appointed the first ‘Preceptor’—a venerable title for a teacher who heads a monastery. (Philip Melanchthon, Luther’s right hand man, was known as the Preceptor of Germany.)
In 1961 Preceptor Nagel approached the owner of a stately 19th-century home on Huntingdon Road, just opposite New Hall College, asking if it might be for sale. As a matter of fact, it was, as the doctor who lived and worked there was retiring. The house was purchased by the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod [LCMS] World Mission and gifted to the ELCE for the purpose of theological education.
On 22 February 1962 Bishop Bo Giertz of Sweden delivered the inaugural lecture, and Westfield House was born. In 1969, as the number of students increased, a Tutor was added to the teaching staff; in 1998 a second Tutor was added. Because of Arndt and Nagel, Westfield began with a very close relationship to the University of Cambridge. An agreement was struck with Fitzwilliam College (one of 31 colleges comprising the University) that Westfield should be considered an ‘attached house’. This relationship enables qualified Westfield students to matriculate through Fitzwilliam in order to take a three-year University degree in theology. It also allows all Westfield students to attend lectures in the divinity faculty (and other related departments), and to make use of the University’s many great libraries. This arrangement is uniquely valuable. Nowhere else in the world does a confessional Lutheran seminary have such a close working relationship with a world-class university divinity faculty. And the benefits run in both directions.
The presence of confessional Lutherans in Cambridge does not go unnoticed. Westfield’s well-chosen library, the only significant Lutheran collection in Britain, is also a valuable contribution. Today close to half of the pastors of the ELCE were trained wholly or partly at Westfield House. A significant number have also moved abroad and currently serve sister churches of the ELCE. But from the beginning it was also intended that Westfield should be a meeting place for worldwide Lutheranism. Each year a handful of students from the LCMS and Lutheran Church–Canada benefit from the close one-on-one supervision at Westfield and the top-quality University lectures. In recent years Westfield has become an important resource for other parts of the world, receiving students from Africa, Eastern Europe, and Russia—indeed every continent has been represented. God willing, Westfield House will continue to serve His Church for many years.
