Harvard Divinity School : 2006 Seminar
Participant Information
Institution Name: Harvard Divinity School
Address:
45 Francis Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-495-5761
Key Contacts:
Francis X. Clooney, S.J. - Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology
Mark U. Edwards, Jr. - Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
David C. Lambeth - Associate Professor of Theology
Anne E. Monius - Professor of South Asian Religions
Stephanie A. Paulsell - Houghton Professor of the Practice of Ministry Studies
Donald K. Swearer - Distinguished Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies
Address:
45 Francis Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-495-5761
Key Contacts:
Francis X. Clooney, S.J. - Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology
Mark U. Edwards, Jr. - Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
David C. Lambeth - Associate Professor of Theology
Anne E. Monius - Professor of South Asian Religions
Stephanie A. Paulsell - Houghton Professor of the Practice of Ministry Studies
Donald K. Swearer - Distinguished Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies
Description of Institution
The origins of Harvard Divinity School and the study of theology and religion at Harvard can be traced back to the very beginning of Harvard College. From 1636, when it was established by vote of the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony, Harvard has had a commitment to educating religious leaders:
After God had carried us safe to New England and wee had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, rear’d convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the civil government: One of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.
Because of this desire of the founders to perpetuate a learned ministry, Christian theology continued to hold a position of importance as Harvard grew. For example, the first professorship in the College and the oldest in the country was the Hollis Professorship of Divinity, endowed in 1721. In 1811, the first graduate program for ministerial candidates was organized. In 1816, the Divinity School itself was established, the first nonsectarian theological school in the country, to ensure that “every encouragement be given to the serious, impartial, and unbiased investigation of Christian truth.”
Today the concerns of the founders of Harvard remain at the center of the School, albeit expanded to encompass not only the Christian traditions of early American Protestantism but also the wider world of Christianity, Unitarianism, and the other religious traditions of the world. The school’s purpose is to educate women and men for service and leadership in religious life and thought—both as ministers and religious professionals of all kinds and also as scholars and teachers of religious and theological studies, not to mention as members of other professions enriched by theological and religious studies. The setting is an academic community characterized by continuing commitment to serious and impartial investigation of truth. Here, students and faculty representing over fifty-five denominations and religious traditions and strikingly diverse ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds engage in rigorous historical and comparative study of the world’s religious traditions with a special emphasis on the various Christian traditions.
The origins of Harvard Divinity School and the study of theology and religion at Harvard can be traced back to the very beginning of Harvard College. From 1636, when it was established by vote of the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony, Harvard has had a commitment to educating religious leaders:
After God had carried us safe to New England and wee had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, rear’d convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the civil government: One of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.
Because of this desire of the founders to perpetuate a learned ministry, Christian theology continued to hold a position of importance as Harvard grew. For example, the first professorship in the College and the oldest in the country was the Hollis Professorship of Divinity, endowed in 1721. In 1811, the first graduate program for ministerial candidates was organized. In 1816, the Divinity School itself was established, the first nonsectarian theological school in the country, to ensure that “every encouragement be given to the serious, impartial, and unbiased investigation of Christian truth.”
Today the concerns of the founders of Harvard remain at the center of the School, albeit expanded to encompass not only the Christian traditions of early American Protestantism but also the wider world of Christianity, Unitarianism, and the other religious traditions of the world. The school’s purpose is to educate women and men for service and leadership in religious life and thought—both as ministers and religious professionals of all kinds and also as scholars and teachers of religious and theological studies, not to mention as members of other professions enriched by theological and religious studies. The setting is an academic community characterized by continuing commitment to serious and impartial investigation of truth. Here, students and faculty representing over fifty-five denominations and religious traditions and strikingly diverse ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds engage in rigorous historical and comparative study of the world’s religious traditions with a special emphasis on the various Christian traditions.