HDS - History and Mission

The origins of Harvard Divinity School and the study of theology 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:

Because of this desire of the founders to perpetuate a learned ministry, 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 non-sectarian 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. Its purpose is to educate women and men for service as leaders in religious life and thought—as ministers and teachers, and in other professions enriched by theological study. 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 strikingly diverse ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds engage in rigorous historical and comparative study of Christian traditions in the context of other world religions and value systems.

The curriculum of the Divinity School is designed to address the challenges that confront religious communities when commitment is considered in a global context. Perhaps the most critical of those challenges is the contemporary crisis in religious meaning and authority. This crisis strikes at the very heart of religious commitment and is central to a theological education that struggles to understand, evaluate, criticize, and then to affirm and act out of particular traditions. Because it aspires to embody this approach to theological education, the curriculum of the Divinity School asks students to shape programs that attend not only to required subject areas, but also to the methods, sensitivities, and competencies indispensable to leadership in contemporary religious life and thought.

Two further features are critical to academic life at the Divinity School. First, it is informed in each of its dimensions by the distinctive religious experience of women and African Americans, and the implications of gender and race as variables in religious life. Second, both the overall conception of the curriculum and the explicit requirements for the MDiv degree seek to integrate theory and practice, the academic and the applied. As a result, there is no separate division of the curriculum for practical theology. Instead, each part of the curriculum has an applied dimension that, together with supervised field education, supports the development of specific ministerial competencies.

Finally, the School recognizes and emphasizes the importance of self-direction both in theological education and in the professions for which it provides preparation. The curriculum is designed to allow flexibility in meeting degree requirements. Consequently, students are assured significant latitude in shaping their individual courses of study within a basic framework deemed essential to the preparation of ministers and leaders in religious studies. Students are encouraged to develop individual programs in terms of their own interests and vocational plans. In doing so, they may draw on the impressive range of resources not only of the Divinity School, but also of other schools within Harvard University and the member institutions of the Boston Theological Institute.

The study of theology at Harvard Divinity School thus enables men and women, enriched by theological understanding, to pursue diverse vocations in ordained and lay ministry, in scholarship and education, and in other professions such as the human services, journalism, medicine, law, and government.

Harvard Divinity School

About HDS

History and Mission