Yale Divinity School

Yale Divinity School
Established	1822
Type	Private
Location	New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Dean	Harold W. Attridge
Website	divinity.yale.edu/

Yale Divinity School is a professional school at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. preparing students for ordained or lay ministry, or for the academy. The nonsectarian school's mission is “To foster the knowledge and love of God through critical engagement with the traditions of the Christian churches in the context of the contemporary world.” The school grants the Master of Divinity (M.DIV.), Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.), and Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.) degrees. Both the M.Div. and the S.T.M. - being terminal degrees - earn the graduate the right to wear the Yale blue doctoral gown.^{[citation needed]}

History

The main mission of Yale College at its founding in 1701 was religious training, serving the Congregationalist churches of Connecticut. In its charter, it was designed as a school "wherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts & Sciences who through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church & Civil State." A professorship of divinity was established in 1746 and in 1822, a separate department developed, later known as the Yale Divinity School.

The Berkeley Divinity School affiliated with Yale Divinity School in 1971. While Berkeley retains its Episcopal Church connection, its students are admitted by and fully enrolled as members of Yale Divinity School. The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, a division of the divinity school, maintains a large collection of primary source materials about Jonathan Edwards, a 1720 Yale alumnus.

Recent years have seen the Divinity School develop a specialty in various aspects of narrative theology, or postliberalism. Many if not most leaders of this movement are YDS graduates.

Campus

The Georgian style campus, The Sterling Divinity Quadrangle, designed by Delano & Aldrich, was built in 1932, modeled, in part, on the University of Virginia. It was named after Yale Law alumnus and benefactor John William Sterling, name partner at the New York law firm Shearman & Sterling. The school formerly occupied East and West Divinity Hall (1870–1931) designed by Richard Morris Hunt. Since razed, this site is now occupied by Calhoun College.

Notable alumni

• Diogenes Allen
• Lyman Beecher
• Gregory A. Boyd
• Frederick Buechner
• Will D. Campbell
• William Ragsdale Cannon (Bachelor of Divinity, 1940; Ph.D., 1942), Professor and Dean, Candler School of Theology, Emory University; Bishop of the United Methodist Church

Former site of the Yale Divinity School bordering the New Haven Green in a postcard from about 1904.

• Donald Eric Capps, (B.D., 1963; S.T.M., 1965), scholar of Pastoral Theology
• Roy Clyde Clark, a Bishop of the United Methodist Church
• William Sloane Coffin
• Christopher Coons, US Senator from Delaware
• John Danforth
• Walter Fauntroy, Founding Member - Congressional Black Caucus
• David F. Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge since 1991
• Hans Wilhelm Frei
• Paul Vernon Galloway, a Bishop of The Methodist Church
• Leroy Gilbert
• Gary Hart
• Stanley Hauerwas
• Richard B. Hays
• Sen Katayama
• Ernest W. Lefever (1919–2009), foreign affairs expert and founder of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
• Otis Moss III Pastor of Trinity Church, Chicago
• Helmut Richard Niebuhr
• Reinhold Niebuhr
• Richard T. Nolan
• Edward S. Parsons, President of Marietta College; father to sociologist Talcott Parsons.
• William C. Placher, author and professor at Wabash College.
• Clark V. Poling
• Peter L. Pond (1933–2000), human rights activist and philanthropist who adopted 16 Cambodian orphans.
• Adam Clayton Powell, Sr.
• George Rupp
• Father V.C. Samuel, PhD (Yale U), Post Doctoral Research Fellow (U Chicago)- Indian Orthodox Church, Professor and Dean Haili Salasi University, Addis Ababa, Serampore College, Serampore India, United Theological College, Bangalore, Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam, India
• Ron Sider
• John Silber
• Amos Alonzo Stagg
• Anne Stanback
• Barbara Brown Taylor
• Roy M. Terry
• Krista Tippett
• R. A. Torrey
• John W. Traphagan, professor of Religious Studies and Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin
• Chester Wickwire
• Parker T. Williamson
• William Willimon

IRST

Yale's Initiative in Religion, Science & Technology (IRST) is an ongoing interdisciplinary program of the Yale Divinity School whose mission is to explore how religion and spirituality encounters and interacts with science and technology. Directed by Denys Turner, a professor at the School, it was co-founded in 2003 by the School's current dean Harold Attridge along with former dean Rebecca Chopp and then-professor of communication Wes Avram. Since then its programming, including nearly a hundred lectures and three international conferences, has been coordinated by James Clement van Pelt, a 2003 graduate of the School. Its programs and courses have been funded by Yale, the Metanexus Institute, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, and co-sponsored by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. IRST has hosted a weekly Science and Religion in Dialogue working group since 2004 and maintains an ongoing discussion of science-religion studies and issues via a Yahoo email group. IRST also co-directs the Synchro Project,which conducts programs and research concerning the phenomenon of meaningful coincidence from both spiritual and scientific perspectives.

External links

• Yale Divinity School website
• Berkeley Divinity School at Yale

IRST

• What is IRST?
• List of past IRST events
• Metanexus description of IRST