Andover Theological Seminary

Andover Theological Seminary is located in Newton, Massachusetts and is the oldest graduate school of theology in the United States. Andover Theological Seminary and Newton Theological Institution merged formally in 1965 to form the Andover Newton Theological School.

Newton Theological Institution began instruction in 1825 at Newton Centre, Massachusetts as a graduate seminary formally affiliated with the group now known as American Baptist Churches USA, the oldest Baptist denomination in America. As the institution developed, it adopted Andover's curricular pattern and shared the same theological tradition of loyalty to the evangelical Gospel and zeal for its dissemination.

Andover Theological Seminary, the oldest graduate school of theology in the United States, traces its roots to the late 18th century and the desire for a well-educated clergy among Congregationalists. That desire was expressed in the founding of Phillips Academy in 1778 for "the promotion of true Piety and Virtue."

In 1806, a growing split within the Congregational churches, known as the “Unitarian Controversy,” came to a full boil on the campus of Harvard College. The Hollis Chair of Divinity sat empty at Harvard for many years owing to tensions between liberal and more orthodox Calvinists. This theological battle soon divided many of the oldest churches in Massachusetts and began to impact church polity and the hiring of ministers. When the Harvard Board of Overseers appointed well-known liberal Henry Ware to the Hollis Chair in 1805, the Calvinists withdrew to organize and found a new school in 1807, Andover Theological Seminary on the campus of Phillips Academy (est. 1778) in Andover, Massachusetts. This act, covered widely in the national press, was one of the significant events that contributed to the split in the denominations and to the eventual founding of the American Unitarian Association in 1825 (which joined the Universalists, founded in 1793, to become the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961).

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