 | |
| Type | Seminary |
|---|---|
| Established | 1850 |
| Accreditation | Association of Theological Schools (ATS) and Higher Learning Commission |
Religious affiliation | United Church of Christ |
| President | Deborah Krause |
| Academic Dean | Christopher Grundy |
Academic staff | 8 |
| Students | 56 |
| Location | , , United States |
| Website | www |
Eden Theological Seminary is a Christian seminary based in Webster Groves, Missouri. It is one of the six official seminaries of the United Church of Christ (UCC).
The seminary was established in 1850 by German pastors in Marthasville, Missouri as Das Deutsche Evangelische Predigerseminar or, more locally, as the German Evangelical Seminary. At the time, the goal was to equip pastors to lead and minister to frontier churches. The pastors soon formed the German Evangelical Synod of North America which, after subsequent mergers, became a part of the UCC.
In 1883, the seminary moved to what would become Wellston, Missouri and built a campus there. The campus was only a mile away from the Eden Station of the Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railroad. [1] Ministerial candidates, usually from Elmhurst College, an Evangelical Synod of North America college near Chicago, would arrive at the Seminary by getting off at the Eden Station and, eventually, the Seminary would be colloquially referred to as the "Eden Seminary." The campus was purchased by Normandy High School in 1923.
In 1924, the seminary moved to its current campus in Webster Groves. The school was augmented in 1934 by a merger with the Central Theological Seminary, an institution of the Reformed Church in the United States in Dayton, Ohio, and the Oakwood Institute of Cincinnati, Ohio. This coincided with the merger of the two denominations into the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Conversations at Eden Theological Seminary, beginning in 1937, led to the 1957 merger of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches to form the United Church of Christ.
| Term | Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1902–1919 | William Becker | |
| 1919–1941 | Samuel D. Press | Namesake for Press Hall. Press was known as the "Teacher of the Niebuhrs" and oversaw the seminary's move to Webster Groves. [2] Prior to his presidency, he was a member of Eden's faculty from 1908 and was the first full-time professor to teach exclusively in English. |
| 1941–1962 | Frederich Schroeder | |
| 1962–1981 | Robert Fauth | |
| 1981–1986 | Malcolm Warford | After Eden, Warford served as president of Bangor Theological Seminary from 1987 to 1995. |
| 1986–1993 | Eugene S. Wehrli | Namesake for Wehrli Chapel. Was Professor of New Testament from 1960 to 1986. |
| 1993–1996 | Charles R. Kniker | Prior to Eden, Kniker was professor of education at Iowa State University for 24 years and at one point was assistant dean of the College of Education. He was an 1963 M.Div. graduate. |
| 1997–2020 | David Greenhaw | Prior to Eden, Greenhaw was Dean of Lancaster Theological Seminary. |
| 2020 – Present | Deborah Krause | First woman president of Eden Seminary and 1988 M.Div. graduate. Prior to her presidency, she was Professor of New Testament since 1992 and academic dean from 2005 to 2018. [3] |
Eden Theological Seminary offers five degree programs:
All classes and programming are offered in blended format with students participating fully on campus and online. [4]
The Samuel D. Press Education Center is the heart of the Eden Seminary campus. The tower was inspired by Oxford's Magdalen Tower. The Center contains faculty and staff offices, classrooms, institutional archives, the Luhr Reading Room, and the Wehrli Chapel.
Duhan and Schultz Halls were among the original buildings of the campus and, with the Press Center and Luhr Building, surround the Wiese Quadrangle. Duhan Hall provides on-campus housing for students and visiting faculty. Schultz Hall houses the offices of Peace United Church of Christ and the Missouri Mid-South Conference of the UCC.
Schroer Commons was the Seminary's refectory but continues to host events and dinners. The building was named after Rev. Dr. Hale Schroer was professor of preaching and worship, and Dean of Students and Dean of the Chapel at Eden Seminary.
A group of apartment buildings - Goetsch Hall, North Hall, and South Hall - provide on-campus housing for students. The Seminary also provides housing for faculty members, including the seminary's president, near the campus.
In 1968, Eden Theological Seminary built the Luhr Library to house its collections. The next year, it was approached by Webster University. The two schools agreed to put their collections together, and the Luhr building became the library building for both the seminary and Webster University.
In 2003, the book collections outgrew the capacities of the Luhr building and the books were moved to the newly constructed Emerson Library at Webster University, where the library remains to this day. The Emerson Library is open to both Eden Seminary and Webster University students, and is a member of the MOBIUS library consortium. Eden Seminary maintains its historically significant books and religious/theology reference collections in the Luhr Reading Room in the Samuel Press Hall. In 2010, the Luhr building was sold to Webster University, which uses it for its institutional technology department and the chess team.
Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary (GCTS) is an evangelical seminary with its main campus in Hamilton, Massachusetts, and three other campuses in Boston, Massachusetts; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Jacksonville, Florida. According to the Association of Theological Schools, Gordon-Conwell ranks as one of the largest evangelical seminaries in North America in terms of total number of full-time students enrolled.
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a socially liberal mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Restorationist, Continental Reformed, and Lutheran traditions, and with approximately 4,600 churches and 712,000 members. The UCC is a historical continuation of the General Council of Congregational Christian churches founded under the influence of New England Puritanism. Moreover, it also subsumed the third largest Calvinist group in the country, the German Reformed. Notably, its modern members' theological and socio-political stances are often very different from those of its predecessors.
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