Related Information
- Reformed Perspective of Calvin Theological Seminary
- "What It Means to be Reformed" pamphlet (pdf).
Profile - Calvin Theological Seminary
All Christian seminaries prepare students for Christian ministry, but each in its own way, with its own atmosphere, marked by its own pattern of loyalties and expectations. Accordingly, Calvin Theological Seminary shares much in common with sister seminaries in the great Presbyterian and Reformed branches of the Christian Church-a strong confessional heritage, for example, and, beneath it, a love of the Bible in all its riches. How remarkable that Christians come to the world with this book in their hands.
And CTS shares with evangelical seminaries a reverence for the force and beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Where else in this sorrowful world do we find power to raise the dead?
But, at the same time, Calvin Theological Seminary also has her own flavor and character. CTS is the mother of Calvin College, a famous child, one of the most respected Christian liberal arts colleges in North America. So, expectably, CTS offers students a solid program of studies, a stout platform of Bible, theology, history, apologetics, and missions on which to build their ministry. How else could a student ever presume to speak for God or even for the church?
With her new Center for Excellence in Preaching and her deep ties to The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (the Institute annually serves thousands with fresh thinking on worship practices), CTS offers students, ministers, and worship leaders first-class education, and continuing education, in preaching and worship.
Respecting students as brothers and sisters in Christ, members of the CTS faculty create a welcoming atmosphere for students and assign a manageable workload. They know that learning is best inside a cradle of grace and goodwill. So professors pray with students and also accompany them on field trips. Professors make it their business not to see whether students learn, but rather to see to it that students learn. Meanwhile, North American and international students learn each other's names and something of each other's cultures. The President invites students for dinner in the Parsonage-a new President's home built in 2003 specifically for a ministry of hospitality.
Seminaries are sometimes smorgasboards, or even battlegrounds, of conflicting Christian loyalties. By contrast, CTS faculty, staff, and administration share a single Reformed vision of an interconnected Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation, with Jesus Christ at the center, and the people of God as the witnesses, agents, and models of God's purpose to make all things new.
Taken together, these characteristics give Calvin Theological Seminary not only a profile, but also a mission in the world. The Seminary's job is lend her particular passions and strengths back to the Holy Spirit who gave them, so that the Spirit may inspire students, faculty, staff, Board, and alumni to declare God's purpose in the world and to make it their own.