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• Yale Tomorrow

A Message from the Dean

Yale Tomorrow, The Campaign for Yale University comes at a crucial time for the Divinity School—a kairos, or moment of opportunity and challenge. The future of faith informed by reason is at issue, and the Divinity School is poised to play a decisive role in the century ahead.

A mission old and new

Educating for the Christian ministry was a primary objective when ten Congregational clergymen helped found Yale College in 1701. Now, three centuries later, Yale Divinity School is carrying forward that mission—but in ways that reflect the dramatic shifts in the religious and cultural landscape. Yale Divinity School in the twenty-first century enrolls as many women as men; Catholics are the second-largest group in a student body with representation from three-dozen different faith groups; many graduates enter creative forms of lay ministry that are not pulpit-based; faculty colleagues have launched new programs to bring together Christians and Muslims; and the newly renovated Sterling Divinity Quadrangle is equipped with technologies that can unite the campus with any spot on the globe..

As we move further into the new century, the religious contours are shifting dramatically here and abroad. In the United States, there has been a resurgence of evangelical and Pentecostal Protestantism, and the Catholic world has become more complex, in part due to the immigration of large numbers of Latin American Catholics. Alliances between religious and political communities are becoming commonplace, challenging the boundaries of church/state separation. Globally, Christianity and Islam have experienced tremendous growth in places like Africa and East Asia.

A time of need and opportunity

These are exciting, yet demanding, times for communities of faith and the divinity schools that provide their leadership. In many ways, the stakes have been raised by globalization and the shrinking world it has created. Daily headlines tell the story. Religion can be a reconciling force, but it can also instigate war. Churches can open doors for the disenfranchised, but they can also exclude. Faith can make lives whole, but it can also shatter them. Thus, the risks are high, and there is an urgent need for leaders who know the history of the Christian tradition, understand the claims that it makes on minds and hearts, and have the skills to interpret those claims for the twenty-first century.

As an ecumenical, university-based seminary with a strong traditional focus on educating practitioners, Yale Divinity School, strengthened by its close collaboration with Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, is uniquely suited to take up the challenges of the new century. A respected voice in changing times, the School contributes to reasoned discourse among Christian churches as they respond to today's social and cultural realities, as well as to other religions of the world. Through scholarship, it sheds new light on the religious features of human existence, often in collaboration with Yale's other schools and disciplines. And most important, in a setting where faith and intellect flourish together, the Divinity School prepares talented students for demanding leadership roles in service to church and world. These are men and women who will shape the future, through pastoral service in churches, through teaching and research in academic institutions, or through lives of committed principle in public service or private enterprise. In so doing, they will follow in the footsteps of iconic leaders trained at Yale Divinity School such as H. Richard Niebuhr, Roland H. Bainton, William Sloane Coffin Jr. and many more.

Momentum for the new century

Building on the University's history of more then 300 years of tradition in theological training, Yale Divinity School is committed to constructive engagement in a new century and a new world – a world that is increasingly complex and diverse, increasingly integrated and connected in new and surprising ways. To respond to the challenge of the new century, we need to provide for our students' financial needs, enhance our faculty, continue to revitalize our programs, and complete the renovation of our facilities.

Over the past decade, with the generous support of alumni and friends, Sterling Divinity Quadrangle has been transformed into a magnificent space for learning and ministerial formation in the twenty-first century. The Yale Tomorrow Campaign will build on this momentum to enhance other important areas of opportunity and maintain the Divinity School's signal position in the world of theological education.

I welcome your support for the Campaign for Yale Divinity School .

Sincerely,

Harold W. Attridge
Dean, Divinity School
Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament