About United Theological Seminary

United Theological Seminary is a Christ-centered graduate school of The United Methodist Church that equips leaders for the church in a pluralistic world through the nurture of piety, the love of learning, and the pursuit of justice.

Since its beginning, United has been dedicated to the education of persons for Christian ministry that is both local and global.

At the beginning of the third millennium, United strives to stand in the vanguard of Christian ministry by helping students discern the shape and direction of their vocation. At United, students with vocational clarity and well-defined religious affiliations are supported in the deepening and broadening of their faith and vocation, and students who are vocationally or religiously uncertain are encouraged to address their questions in a supportive learning community.

Education at United includes intellectual grounding, community involvement, transcultural experience, ministry with mentors and the deepening of one's spiritual life within a learning context of open inquiry and theological reflection. Collegiality characterizes the teacher-learner relationship at United, and faculty members enter into this dialogue as representatives and advocates of a richly diverse Christian tradition. Through multiple and diverse opportunities to experience and reflect on basic issues of human existence, United students develop a more vigorous personal commitment to Jesus Christ and his ministry to the world.

All persons are called to respond to God who cares for, governs, sustains, judges and redeems women and men in justice and truth. In the lives of faithful people and through their witness in Holy Scripture, historic Christianity and contemporary ministry, Christians learn what it can mean to live in relationship with God. At United, vigorous inquiry into the meaning of faith and life invites the learning community personally and corporately to examine how relationships can be faithfully created and maintained.

The Church is the community whose center is the living Christ and whose purpose is to permeate the world with the redeeming love and power of God in Jesus Christ. The fragility of human existence, the quality and preservation of natural and social environments, and the just distribution of limited physical resources become paramount issues for the Christian community.

As a responsible part of the Church, United Seminary presses such issues with the goal of making God’s redeeming activity through servant ministry effective in the world. This aspiration reaches beyond denominations and nations to encompass a vision of the reign of God that is both global and ecumenical.