Vanderbilt Divinity School

The Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion (usually Vanderbilt Divinity School) is an interdenominational divinity school at Vanderbilt University, a major research university located in Nashville, Tennessee. It is one of only six university-based schools of religion in the United States without a denominational affiliation that service primarily mainline Protestantism (University of Chicago Divinity School, Harvard Divinity School, Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Yale Divinity School, and Howard University School of Divinity are the others).

Early history

Vanderbilt Divinity School was founded in 1875 as the Biblical Department and was under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, one predecessor of the present-day United Methodist Church. In 1914, in concert with the university's severance of its ties with the MECS, the school became interdenominational and ecumenical, and in 1915, the school's name was changed from the Biblical Department of Vanderbilt University to the Vanderbilt School of Religion; it adopted its present name in 1956. The present physical plant of the school, known colloquially as the "quadrangle" or "quad," was completed in 1960; the Benton Chapel that abuts the quad is named for a mid-20th-century dean, John Keith Benton. In 1966 the Graduate School of Theology of Oberlin College in Ohio merged with that of Vanderbilt, increasing the faculty resources of both the Divinity School and the Graduate Department of Religion, as well as the holdings of the school's portion of the University Library.

Civil Rights era

In 1960, African-American Divinity student James Lawson was expelled from the university for his Civil Rights activism by Chancellor Harvie Branscomb. One of Vanderbilt's trustees, James Geddes Stahlman, published misleading stories in a newspaper he owned, '' The Nashville Banner'', which suggested Lawson had incited others to "violate the law" and led to his expulsion. The Divinity School dean, J. Robert Nelson, who initially believed the stories, eventually resigned in protest. Moreover, with three of his colleagues, Nelson "paid Lawson's $500 bail when he was arrested on charges of conspiracy to violate state laws the day after his expulsion." The school was placed on probation for a year by the American Association of Theological Schools, and the power of trustees was curtailed.

Denominations served

Despite having ended formal association with Methodism nearly a century ago, the United Methodist Church is the largest beneficiary of graduates from the Divinity School, with sizable numbers ordained in denominations such as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (which operates a seminarian apartment nearby the campus), the Presbyterian Church (USA), and African-American Baptist, Methodist, and Pentecostal groups. VDS, through the merger with Oberlin and an earlier absorption of Atlanta Theological Seminary, a Congregationalist seminary in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929, maintains a historical relationship (although no legal ties) with the United Church of Christ as well.

Students come from throughout the United States, representing numerous denominations and traditions.

Leadership

Yolanda Pierce, former dean of Howard University School of Divinity serves as the current dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School. Notable recent deans of the Divinity School include Emilie M. Townes, Joseph C. Hough, Jr., Sallie McFague, Walter Harrelson, and H. Jackson Forstman.

Vanderbilt Divinity School is a member of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada.

Notable faculty

* George Arthur Buttrick – English preacher, Minister of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church
* David G. Buttrick – Drucilla Moore Buffington Professor of Homiletics and Liturgies
* Collins Denny – Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South
* Jean Bethke Elshtain – Centennial Professor, ethicist, political philosopher, public intellectual
* Nels F. S. Ferré – Swedish-born theologian, Professor of Philosophical & Systematic Theology
* Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas – Associate Professor of Ethics and Society, Executive Director of the Society of Christian Ethics
* Langdon Brown Gilkey – Professor, Protestant ecumenical theologian, Guggenheim Fellow
* Elijah Embree Hoss – Chair of Ecclesiastical History, Church Polity and Pastoral Theology
* Gordon D. Kaufman – Associate Professor of Theology, President of the American Academy of Religion and American Theological Society
* Amy-Jill Levine – E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies
* Paul C.H. Lim – Associate Professor of the History of Christianity
* Sallie McFague – Carpenter Professor of Theology
* Wilhelm Pauck – Distinguished Professor of Church History
* Joerg Rieger – German liberation theologian, Distinguished Professor of Theology
* Jack M. Sasson – Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible