On Memorial Day weekend in 1944 an adventurous group of evangelical Protestants filled the rented Orchestra Hall to launch "Chicagoland Youth for Christ."
The preacher for that day was an unknown greenhorn from a modest suburban church, the Rev. Billy Graham by name. Soon Youth For Christ was staging rallies every week at the Michigan Avenue musical shrine, with Graham as its first full-time evangelist. On Memorial Day weekend 1945, an even more audacious breakthrough event drew 60,000 or more to Soldier Field.
What was the origin of America's oft-rambunctious, complex and remarkably successful evangelical Protestant movement as we have come to know it?
Some will cite the 1942 formation of the National Association of Evangelicals by conservatives — including many in mainline Protestant churches — fleeing the old "fundamentalist" brand. But The Guy contends it was those Chicago spectacles leading into a nationwide "parachurch" organization with Graham as its charismatic leader.
The media and their audiences tend to see evangelicalism in terms of star preachers, megachurches, media, music, missions and more recently immersion in Republican political wars. Oh, yes, and scandals.
But the movement cannot possibly be understood apart from its beliefs as propounded by thinkers at graduate-level divinity schools and the students they trained. Their impact has been profound, and global in scope.
Three multi-denominational seminaries led the way, and their current woes — part of negative trends in theological education as a whole — are worth substantive journalistic analysis.
* Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California was the pioneer, founded in 1947, with Graham as a long-time backer and board member.
* Trinity Evangelical Divinity School outside Chicago is the seminary of the Evangelical Free Church but reconfigured to reach a wide evangelical constituency starting in 1963.
* Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary outside Boston was created in a 1969 merger of two schools brokered by Graham and friends. (Disclosure: The Guy's daughter earned a Gordon-Conwell M.A. as a part-time lay student while pursuing a secular career.)
One doctrinal point has been especially controversial inside the movement. While resolutely evangelical, Fuller long ago changed its original credo from the Bible as "free from error" to being "infallible" for "faith and practice." The other two schools affirm Scripture's inerrancy, all history included (though only as the books were originally written, thus allowing for manuscript variations and unexplained puzzles).
After expansion that contrasted with the inexorable decline of liberal Protestantism and its institutions, all three seminaries have fallen on hard times, not in academic heft and influence but financially despite the rise of low-cost online coursework. The urgent difficulty, as chronicled by Christianity Today magazine, is declining enrollment. Due to part-time students, "full-time equivalent" enrollment is the best number for tracking trends. Since the 21st Century began, Gordon-Conwell's FTE total is down 34%, Fuller's by 48% and Trinity's by 44%.
The latest shocker, announced last week, is Gordon-Conwell's dramatic rescue scheme, after prior cutbacks failed to stabilize matters. The school (current FTE 633) will sell off its valuable 102-acre main campus and move to as-yet-unchosen quarters in Boston, with hopes to end dangerous deficit spending, boost endowment, and cut overhead.
Just last month, Trinity (FTE 491) cut seven or perhaps more faculty positions with new budget cuts of nearly $1 million. The school disputed the contention of a laid-off professor that finances are "near catastrophe."
Fuller (FTE 1,077) will name a new president next year and has announced a thorough revamp that's vague on financing. The school has cut extension campuses and programs. The biggest blow came with the 2019 collapse of a strategic move to Pomona blocked by a property sale dispute with Pasadena plus ballooning construction costs for the new campus.
Evangelical seminaries with narrower denominational or ideological identities have fared better, among them Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (FTE 1,936), Asbury Theological Seminary (FTE 1,150; Methodist-Arminian-Holiness), Reformed Theological Seminary (FTE 429) and Dallas Theological Seminary (FTE 1,194; Dispensationalist premillennial in eschatology).
Some entrepreneurs operate their own small schools rather than support better-established seminaries, and some megachurches ditch seminary altogether in favor of local apprentice training.
Media could also take a broader look at the ample troubles beyond evangelicalism. Some particulars.
* Most liberal or "mainline" Protestant schools have been shrinking and often merging. A dramatic example was the 2017 closure of Andover Newton Seminary, the nation's oldest, carried on as a program within Yale Divinity School, where FTE is only 295.
* St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary (FTE 64) issued a Gordon-Conwell style plan this past November to leave its Yonkers, New York, premises for a new location not yet determined, but closer to growing networks of Orthodox parishes.
* Cincinnati's 147-year-old Hebrew Union College announced in April that its full-residency rabbinical program will end by 2026 due to slumping enrollment and revenue, with training of Reform rabbis concentrated on New York City and Los Angeles campuses. Also note this GetReligion post by Ira Rifkin on this topic: “Liberal religion's sharp decline closes Reform Jewish seminary. How about some elite news ink?”
* What about Catholic seminaries? Check out this state-by-state list of closed seminaries, including 20-plus in New York State alone.
Pretty much all U.S. seminaries and religious colleges are coping with this generation's birth bust and secularization, so add this to your futures list: Is a serious clergy shortage in the making?
A good over-all source on trends is Executive Director Frank Yamada of the Association of Theological Schools (412-788-6505, ext. 258 and yamada@ats.edu). The association accredits North American graduate seminaries and compiles year-by-year statistics, useful for trends and comparisons.
FIRST IMAGE: The main Gordon-Conwell Seminary campus, in a photo from its official website.