The Auburn Theological Seminary

Auburn Seminary was founded in 1818 in Auburn, New York, to fill a need for ministers hardy enough for frontier life.  Its founders were progressive Presbyterians who believed passionately in the value of education.       

Nearly two centuries ago, a visitor to Auburn's campus described the seminary as "a little swerved."* That characterization has long been appropriate. Auburn has always been an open and progressive institution, slightly eccentric, with an unusual ability to respond to change.

In 1837, Auburn Seminary played a prominent role in one of the great theological controversies of the 19th century: When the seminary's supporting presbyteries were excluded from the church by "Old School" Presbyterians, Auburn became a center of the "New School" church. The statement of "New School" principles of doctrinal openness was called the "Auburn Declaration," (not to be confused with the "Auburn Affirmation").

The seminary worked across denominational lines to prepare clergy for the American frontier and foreign missions. Faculty participated in the great social movements of the time: the struggles against slavery and for women's suffrage, temperance, and reforms that uplifted the poor. Auburn was one of the first theological schools in the country to educate women and to enroll students from Asia, and it was among the first to establish a summer session and a school of religious education. At their height, the grounds of the seminary flourished with many exotic trees and plants which had been brought back to Auburn by foreign missionaries.
 
As with the 1837 "Auburn Declaration,"in 1924, Auburn's name was once again attached to an historic document, the Auburn Affirmation, which defended theological freedom as Auburn faculty joined in a movement that successfully prevented a fundamentalist takeover of the Presbyterian Church.

By the second half of the 1930s, Auburn, like many other seminaries in nonurban settings, faced steadily declining enrollments and financial hardship. In 1939, after several attempts to associate with other institutions, Auburn accepted the offer of President Henry Sloane Coffin to share Union Seminary's campus in New York City, moved to Union, and built Auburn Hall for the use of both seminaries in 1950. These two independent institutions have enjoyed a cooperative partnership ever since.

Today the only remaining building from the Auburn Seminary Campus is the Willard Chapel, an architectural treasure that is the only known completely intact interior designed by master artist and craftsman Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Link to Auburn Theological Seminary's website here. 

*In 1825, John Williamson Nevin, then a student at Princeton Seminary, observed that Auburn's theology was "a little swerved" from the straight line of Calvinist doctrine.