Why It Matters: Kenneth Kantzer, the late academic dean of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, once said that in 1890 all of the Protestant theological seminaries in the United States\u201d\u201dwith the notable exception of Harvard\u201d\u201dwere evangelical. Forty years later, though, almost all of them had become liberal (i.e., denied basic tenets of orthodoxy). By the 1950s, only four of the top ten largest seminaries were sponsored by evangelical denominations. Of those four, three were part of the SBC, which was struggling at the time to take back control of its schools from liberal professors.<\/p>\n
By the 1990s, the trend had shifted once again back toward conservative evangelicalism. After the \u201cconservative resurgence\u201d\u009d in the SBC, all six of the denomination\u2019s seminaries were solidly orthodox. And by 1995, only two liberal-leaning seminaries remained on the list of top ten schools by enrollment (Princeton at #9 and Candler School of Theology at #10).<\/p>\n
While we should be careful not to make too much of this shift (enrollment size doesn\u2019t necessarily determine national influence) this sustained trend deserves our notice and gratitude.<\/p>\n