• • President
• • Associate Professor of Systematic Theology
•  

Biography

Dr. Jon S. Bruss joined the faculty of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne (CTSFW) as an associate professor of systematic theology in 2022, teaching courses including Confessions, Dogmatics, and Greek Readings. In May 2024, he was elected to serve as the seventeenth president of CTSFW.

Bruss came to CTSFW with extensive experience in higher education and pastoral ministry. He earned his MDiv in 1995 from Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary (Evangelical Lutheran Synod) in Mankato, Minnesota. From 1991 through 2002, Bruss taught languages, ancient history, and world literature at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, during which time he pursued an MA and PhD in classics at the University of Minnesota.

After completing his PhD in 2001, Bruss taught classics at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He colloquized into The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) in 2006 and took a pastoral call in 2013 to St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Topeka, Kansas, where he served as assistant pastor (2013–2015), then senior pastor (2015–2022), until his call to join the faculty at CTSFW.

Bruss’s many scholarly contributions in the areas of theology and classics include co-editing Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram (Brill, 2007) and translating various works of Martin Luther, including sermons and the Annotationes in Matthaeum, for Luther’s Works (CPH). His dissertation, Hidden Presences: Monuments, Gravesites, and Corpses in Greek Funerary Epigram, was published in 2005 (Leuven: Peeters, 2005). Other research interests include Northern European Christian Humanism and the Reformation

From 2019 to 2022, Bruss served on the board of directors of the Concordia University System (CUS) as well as the synod’s 2019 Resolution 7-03 Task Force, which was charged with proposing a new governance plan for the CUS. As president of CTSFW, Bruss serves on the LCMS Commission for Theology and Church Relations, the Pastoral Formation Committee, and the Colloquy Committee for the Pastoral Ministry.