As Inside Higher Ed reports, Andover Newton Theological School, the nation’s oldest school of theology, plans to close its campus outside Boston in 2018. The Newton location has served as its home since the seminary’s Calvinist founders fled Harvard in 1807.
But it won’t disappear: Yale Divinity School (YDS) will absorb Andover Newton. YDS, which skews high-church (it absorbed Berkeley Episcopal Seminary in 1971), welcomes the acquisition in part to round out its offerings.
Andover Newton’s fate fits the decades-long trend of Mainline Protestants’ dwindling numbers. Joseph Bottum autopsied the Mainline in his 2014 book, An Anxious Age. And in 2015, a Pew study found evidence of the sharp decline.
Some credit the rise of evangelicalism, while others blame the liberalization of Mainline churches for the dying role of the Mainline in American life. Either way, being a Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, or Presbyterian—once a social and professional requirement in certain pockets of America—no longer matters much. Naturally, serious study in these traditions has declined at roughly the same rate as attendance, forcing seminaries to close and merge. As the social role of the Mainline peters out, there’s just not much need for Mainline ministry anymore.
