Vanderbilt Divinity School

The Vanderbilt Divinity School is committed to preparation for ministry and scholarship in a variety of settings with a focus on an interdenominational spirit and a desire to be a diverse community of teaching and learning. It does so with a strong sense of the importance of providing a lively context to help clergy and laity not only prepare for Christian ministry, but to re-envision ministry to meet the needs of our times by combining spiritual and intellectual growth with a sense of social justice and the formation of a new generation of scholars.

The Divinity School has been a part of Vanderbilt University since its inception and is one of the few university-based, interdenominational schools for the preparation of ministers and the oldest one in the South. Its nineteenth-century founders adopted a commonplace label for theological institutions of their era, “school of the prophets,” as they sought to lift up the importance of education for clergy. Today, we accept this legacy as we live in a world of a large tent Christianity, religious pluralism, an ever-expanding understanding of the nature of the diversities in our midst, marvelous and challenging cultural differences and more.