The Pacific School of Religion (PSR) is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

. It maintains covenantal relationships with the

United Church of Christ The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximatel ...

, the

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelica ...

, and the

Disciples of Christ The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...

, ensuring the school provides the necessary requirements for candidates to seek

ordination Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...

within these denominations. These three denominations account for approximately half of the student population of PSR. The school has also maintained close relationships with the

Unitarian Universalist Association Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is a liberal religious association of Unitarian Universalist congregations. It was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America, both ...

, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, the

African Methodist Episcopal Church The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal ...

, as well as other denominations. Over the years PSR has provided training for clergy and leaders from a wide range of religious traditions including

Buddhists Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Pagans Pagans may refer to: * Paganism, a group of pre-Christian religions practiced in the Roman Empire * Modern Paganism, a group of contemporary religious practices * Order of the Vine, a druidic faction in the ''Thief'' video game series * Pagan's M ...

Pentecostals Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement

, and

Roman Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

History

Pacific School of Religion-Holbrook-bldg

The Pacific School of Religion was founded in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, in 1866 as the Pacific Theological Seminary, making PSR the oldest

seminary west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

. It moved to

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...

shortly following its foundation, and then to Berkeley in 1901, where it has remained since, at its current location since 1926. In the early 1960s, the school helped found, and then in 1964 joined, the

Graduate Theological Union The Graduate Theological Union (GTU) is a consortium of eight private independent American theological schools and eleven centers and affiliates. Seven of the theological schools are located in Berkeley, California. The GTU was founded in 1962 ...

(GTU), a consortium of nine seminaries in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...

. Also, throughout its history, the Pacific School of Religion has cooperated and reciprocated with two neighboring Berkeley institutions, the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

and the First Congregational Church of Berkeley,

(UCC). The school was one of the first American seminaries to focus on both pan-denominational issues as well as the importance of the world's religions. In 1971 it graduated its first openly gay student and has remained a leader in advocating for

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

(lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) people within the religious community. As part of this commitment to LGBT issues, in 2000, the Pacific School of Religion opened the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS), the first center of its kind, which focuses on scholarship and education in the realm of sexuality and sexual orientation/identity in areas of faith and religion. In 2000, PSR also founded an institute specifically devoted to the study of Pacific Asian religion (the PANA Institute), but PANA was placed on indefinite hiatus in 2009 due to budgetary concerns. Pacific School of Religion also is the home of the Center for Swedenborgian Studies, which is certified to train students for ordination in the General Convention of Swedenborgian Churches. The SHS owns the assets of the former Swedenborg School of Religion in Newton, Massachusetts.

Academics

The Pacific School of Religion offers master's and doctoral degrees as well as certificates.

Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology

The Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology is housed on the campus of the Pacific School of Religion and contains a sizable collection of artifacts. The museum is named for the past Professor of Old Testament literature and Semitic languages at PSR,

William F. Badè William Frederic Badè (January 22, 1871 – March 4, 1936), perhaps best known as the literary executor and biographer of John Muir, was a versatile scholar of wide interests. As an archaeologist, he led the excavation of Tell en-Nasbeh in Pale ...

. The largest portion of the permanent collection was excavated under the direction of Dr. Badè at Tell en-Nasbeh, believed to be the site of the Biblical city of Mizpah, from 1926 to 1935. Artifacts recovered from Tell en-Nasbeh encompass the entire life of the community, including lamps, jewellery, and pitchers found in the town's houses and tombs. The permanent collection of the Badè also include a selection of over 300 rare Bibles and other books, collected by John Howell in the early part of the 20th century.

Doug Adams Gallery

The Doug Adams Gallery at the Badè Museum is a fixture of the Center for Arts, Religion, and Education, an academic Center in the GTU. The gallery presents quarterly exhibits in an effort to help augment the curriculum of the GTU consortium through works which span the spectrum of religious and spiritual focus.

Notable alumni

* Lynda Goodsell Blake – missionary and educator in Turkey *

Vernard Eller Vernard Marion Eller (July 11, 1927 – June 18, 2007) was an American author, Christian pacifist and minister in the Church of the Brethren. Born in Everett, Washington, and raised in Wenatchee, Eller graduated from the University of La V ...

– author and

Christian pacifist Christian pacifism is the theological and ethical position according to which pacifism and non-violence have both a scriptural and rational basis for Christians, and affirms that any form of violence is incompatible with the Christian faith. Chri ...

Georgia Harkness Georgia Elma Harkness (1891–1974) was an American Methodist theologian and philosopher. Harkness has been described as one of the first significant American female theologians and was important in the movement to legalize the ordination of wome ...

–

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

theologian *

William R. Johnson William R. Johnson is an American businessman and is the former president, CEO and chairman of H. J. Heinz. He worked at Drackett as an assistant product manager for Behold furniture polish, starting at $13,000 a year. He worked at Ralston Pu ...

– first openly gay minister to be ordained in a historic Protestant denomination *

Victoria Kolakowski Victoria Kolakowski (born August 29, 1961) is an American lawyer who serves as a judge of the Alameda County Superior Court since January 2011. Kolakowski is the first openly transgender person to serve as a trial court judge of general jurisdic ...

– Superior Court judge in

Alameda County Alameda County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland. Alam ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. Upon her election in 2010, Kolakowski became the first

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

trial judge in the nation *

R. J. Rushdoony Rousas John Rushdoony (April 25, 1916 – February 8, 2001) was an American Calvinist philosopher, historian, and theologian. He is credited as being the father of Christian Reconstructionism and an inspiration for the modern Christian hom ...

- father of

Christian reconstructionism Christian reconstructionism is a fundamentalist Calvinist theonomic movement. It developed primarily under the direction of Rousas Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United ...

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pacific School Of Religion Universities and colleges affiliated with the United Church of Christ Reformed church seminaries and theological colleges Schools accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Pacific School of Religion Educational institutions established in 1866 Buildings and structures in Berkeley, California 1866 establishments in California Graduate Theological Union Bible-themed museums, zoos, and botanical gardens