Within Christianity, there are a variety of views on sexual orientation and homosexuality. Even within a denomination, individuals and groups may hold different views, and not all members of a denomination necessarily support their church's views on homosexuality. The Catholic Church and Orthodox churches officially condemn homosexual activity as sin. Various Mainline Protestant denominations have taken a supportive stance towards blessing homosexual clergy and same-sex marriage while others have not.
The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a Baptist Christian denomination established in 1907 originally as the Northern Baptist Convention, and from 1950 to 1972 as the American Baptist Convention. It traces its history to the First Baptist Church in America (1638) and the Baptist congregational associations which organized the Triennial Convention in 1814. Headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, ABCUSA is usually considered mainline, although varying theological and mission emphases may be found among its congregations, including modernist, charismatic and evangelical orientations.
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 and their students can take courses at the University of California, Berkeley. Additionally, some of the GTU consortial schools are part of other California universities such as Santa Clara University and California Lutheran University. Most of the GTU consortial schools are located in Berkeley area with the majority north of the campus in a neighborhood known as "Holy Hill" due to the cluster of GTU seminaries and centers located there.
Claremont School of Theology (CST) is a private graduate school focused on religion and theology and located in Claremont, California. It is an official theological school of the United Methodist Church. Although it is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission, it is accredited with a "notice of concern"; it is also accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS).
Founded in 1855, the Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) is the oldest higher education institution in the City of Chicago and was established with two principal goals: first, to educate pastors who would minister to people living on the new western frontier of the United States and second, to train ministers who would advance the movement to abolish slavery. Originally started under the direction of the abolitionist Stephen Peet and the Congregational Church by charter of the Illinois legislature, CTS has retained its forward-looking activist outlook throughout its history, graduating alumni who include civil rights activists Jesse Jackson Sr. and Howard Schomer, social reformer Graham Taylor, and anti-Apartheid activist John W. de Gruchy. It is one of six seminaries affiliated with the United Church of Christ and follows an ecumenical tradition that stresses cooperation between different Christian denominations as well as interfaith understanding.
The Swedenborgian Church in North America is one of a few Christian sects that draws its faith from the Bible as illuminated by the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). The Administrative Offices of the denomination are located at 50 Quincy St., Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Center for Swedenborgian Studies is the seminary of the Swedenborgian Church of North America at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. It offers a Certificate in Swedenborgian Studies and a Certificate in Swedenborgian Ministry Studies. It also functions as a think-tank for Swedenborgian studies globally.
Starr King School for the Ministry is a Unitarian Universalist seminary in Oakland, California. The seminary was formed in 1904 to educate leaders for the growing number of progressive religious communities in the western part of the US. The school emphasizes the practical skills of religious leadership. Today, it educates Unitarian Universalist ministers, religious educators, and spiritual activists, as well as progressive religious leaders from a variety of traditions, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, earth-centered traditions, and others.
United Theological Seminary is a United Methodist seminary in Trotwood, Ohio. Founded in 1871 by Milton Wright, it was originally sponsored by the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. In 1946, members of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ merged with the Evangelical Church to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church, with which the seminary then became affiliated. When that denomination merged with The Methodist Church in 1968, United Theological Seminary became one of the thirteen seminaries affiliated with the new United Methodist Church (UMC).
The Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary (SDATS) is the seminary located at Andrews University in Michigan, the Seventh-day Adventist Church's flagship university. Since 1970 the SDATS has been accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada.It is a part of the Seventh-day Adventist education system, the world's second largest Christian school system.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) is a Baptist theological institute in Louisville, Kentucky. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The seminary was founded in 1859 in Greenville, South Carolina, where it was at first housed on the campus of Furman University. The seminary has been an innovator in theological education, establishing one of the first Ph.D. programs in religion in the year 1892. After being closed during the Civil War, it moved in 1877 to a newly built campus in downtown Louisville and moved to its current location in 1926 in the Crescent Hill neighborhood. In 1953, Southern became one of the few seminaries to offer a full, accredited degree course in church music. For more than fifty years Southern has been one of the world's largest theological seminaries, with an FTE enrollment of over 3,300 students in 2015.
William "Bill" McKinney is the former President and Professor of American Religion of Pacific School of Religion (PSR) in Berkeley, California, the oldest theological seminary in the American West. McKinney is a sociologist of religion by training and also an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. (UCC) His research interests include Protestant congregational dynamics, and the recent history and prospects for Mainline Protestant denominations. At PSR from July 1986 to June 2010, McKinney was previously Dean of Hartford Seminary.
Nicole Lamarche is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC) and a beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss California 2003. Competing in the Miss San Francisco Pageant in 2003, she won the title and went on to win Miss California 2003 and became the Fourth runner up to the title of Miss America 2004. She was the swimsuit winner and although she decided to wear high heels during this segment of the competition it was erroneously reported by an ESPN columnist that she competed barefoot. This is most likely due to pictures of her competing in the Miss California swimsuit segment not wearing high heels, as the contestants normally do. She earned over $26,000 in scholarships.
The San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) is a seminary in San Anselmo, California with historic ties to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). SFTS became embedded in a new Graduate School of Theology of the University of Redlands in 2019. It was founded by the Synod of California in 1871.
The Flora Lamson Hewlett Library is the central library of the Graduate Theological Union. Located on the summit of the "Holy Hill" area of Berkeley, California, its collections comprise one of the largest collections of theological works in the United States, with over 500,000 volumes as of 2014. The library's collections are open to the public. Borrower privileges are accessible not only to students and faculty of the GTU's consortial seminaries and affiliated centers, but also to the faculty and students of the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, and American Theological Library Association institutions participating in Reciprocal Borrowing. The Hewlett Library also maintains a branch on the campus of San Francisco Theological Seminary at San Anselmo. It also has storage facilities on the campus of the American Baptist Seminary of the West and at Santa Clara University.
Tell en-Nasbeh, likely the biblical city of Mizpah in Benjamin, is a 3.2 hectare tell located on a low plateau 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) northwest of Jerusalem in the West Bank. The site lies adjacent to an ancient roadway connecting Jerusalem with the northern hill country, which is how Tell en-Nasbeh gained importance as Judah's northern border fortress during its prime phase of occupation in the Iron Age II. There are also archaeological remains at the site and in surrounding cave tombs that have been dated to the Early Bronze I, Iron I, Babylonian and Persian, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Periods.
Victoria Kolakowski 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 jurisdiction in the United States, the first elected to a judgeship, and the first to serve as any type of judge in California..
Jaazaniah or Jezaniah is a biblical Hebrew personal name that appears in the Bible for several different individuals, and has been found on an onyx seal dating from the 6th century BCE.
William Frederic Badè, 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 Palestine, now believed on the basis of his work to be the biblical city of Mizpah in Benjamin. He was also an ordained Moravian minister, a professor of ancient languages, a theologian and bible scholar, a mountaineer, a conservationist and a naturalist. Born and raised in Minnesota, he studied at Moravian College and its seminary as well as other universities. He served on the faculties of Moravian Theological Seminary and then the Pacific School of Religion. He also served as interim president and subsequently as dean of the Pacific School of Religion and was founding director of the school's Palestine Institute. He was president of the Sierra Club 1919–1922 and edited the Sierra Club Bulletin for 12 years.
William R. Johnson was the first openly gay minister to be ordained in a historic protestant denomination. He received his ordination through the United Church of Christ (UCC) on June 25, 1972 in San Carlos, California.
