Boston University School of Theology - History

History

On 24–25 April 1839 a group of Methodist ministers and laymen met at the Old Bromfield Street Church in Boston and elected to establish a Methodist theological school. Following that vote, Osmon C. Baker, director of the Newbury Seminary, a high school and literary institution in Newbury, Vermont, started a biblical studies program at the seminary in 1840. It was named the Newbury Biblical Institute.

In 1847 a Congregational Society in Concord, New Hampshire, invited the Institute to relocate to Concord and made available a disused Congregational church building with a capacity of 1200 people. Other citizens of Concord covered the remodeling costs. One stipulation of the invitation was that the Institute remain in Concord for at least 20 years. The charter issued by New Hampshire designated the school the "Methodist General Biblical Institute", but it was commonly called the "Concord Biblical Institute." The school graduated its first class in 1850.

With the agreed twenty years coming to a close, the Trustees of the Concord Biblical Institute purchased 30 acres (120,000 m2) on Aspinwall Hill in Brookline, Massachusetts as a possible relocation site. The Institute moved in 1867 to 23 Pinkney Street in Boston and received a Massachusetts Charter as the "Boston Theological Institute."

In 1869, three Trustees of the Boston Theological Institute obtained from the Massachusetts Legislature a charter for a university by name of "Boston University." These three were successful Boston businessmen and Methodist laymen, with a history of involvement in educational enterprises and became the Founders of Boston University. In 1871, the Boston Theological Institute was incorporated into Boston University as its first professional school, the Boston University School of Theology.

Over the course of its history, the Boston University School of Theology played a central role in the development of the fields of philosophical theology (e.g. Boston Personalism), social ethics, missions and ecumenism, and pastoral psychology. Because of its roots in the egalitarianism of nineteenth-century Methodism, from its beginning the school admitted women and African-Americans for all degree programs. In 1880, Anna Howard Shaw, the second woman to graduate from the school, became the first woman ordained in the Methodist Protestant Church, one of the forerunners of the United Methodist Church. As late as the 1960s, the vast majority of African-Americans with doctorates in religion were trained at Boston University. A study in 1983 showed that the largest number of doctoral dissertations in mission studies had been produced at Boston University.