About the School of Divinity

The story of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, in a way, began long before its first students opened a textbook in 1999, its first dean stepped on campus in 1996, or its first $500 came from First Baptist Church in New Bern in 1989. The story, like Wake Forest itself, commenced with Samuel and Sarah Wait some 170 years ago. In 1827 they left home and family in the North so that Samuel could become the pastor of that Baptist church at New Bern, North Carolina.

Viewing the Carolina “backcountry” as a secular, pagan region and convinced of the need for an educated clergy, the Waits—along with their daughter—packed their worldly possessions in a twohorse Jersey wagon and began crisscrossing the rural state. They traveled the state’s dusty byways, raising money to fulfill their vision of educating a new generation of ministers, and knocking on farmhouse doors when they grew weary and needed to rest. Sarah Wait made and sold hats to support her family, and Samuel Wait preached hundreds of sermons, as many as 268 in one year.

Two years later, more than $2,000 had been raised to buy the 615-acre plantation of Calvin Jones in Wake County, north of Raleigh. In 1834, in cooperation with the North Carolina Baptist State Convention, which Wait also helped found, the Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute opened. Samuel Wait became its first principal, and students worked in the fields by day and studied by candlelight at night. By the end of the first year, 72 students had enrolled, each paying a total of $60 per year for their education and able to earn
money toward that sum by working on the farm. But only four of the students were ministers and only 18 professed a religious faith.

Today, Samuel Wait no doubt would be astounded at what has developed from such modest beginnings. Rechartered as Wake Forest College in 1838 after the end of the manual labor requirement, Wait’s
school, like other church-related colleges, faced daunting financial challenges. But the vision prevailed and the school matured into a 6,000-student, liberal-arts university, with established professional schools of law, medicine, and management. The institution, known since 1967 as Wake Forest University, stands two hours drive from its original home in Wake County. Since 1986 it has been autonomous in governance, with fraternal ties to the Baptist State Convention. Long gone are the days of candlelit study sessions, male-only classes, and compulsory chapel. Yet Wait’s original vision of educating ministers remains. As the first professional school to open at the University since the Babcock Graduate School of Management was organized in 1969, the Wake Forest University School of Divinity brings the Waits’ dream to fruition. In April 1989 the trustees of Wake Forest University approved the idea of forming a School of Divinity, stipulating that sufficient funds should first be raised so that programs in other departments and professional schools would not be adversely affected. In 1999, the School opened its doors to female
and male students seeking a Master of Divinity degree through the full-time, three-year program. While most intend to work in parish ministry, others will choose vocations in counseling, higher education,
and related areas.

Thirteen of the first 24 donations to the School came from churches in North Carolina, whose pulpits some day could be filled by School of Divinity graduates. The very first gift ($500) came August 1, 1989, from First Baptist Church in New Bern, the church that Samuel Wait once served. The road has been long. Raising
support and money was not without difficulty. Supporters wanted assurances of the school’s direction and proof of its ultimate success. Yet University Trustees continued to affirm the plan for a School of Divinity and volunteers and supporters continued promoting it. Today, the school has $17 million in pledges and gifts, a renowned faculty, a multidisciplinary curriculum, earnest students, and open doors.

The Waits had challenges, too, gaining support for their vision. Educating ministers was a difficult idea to sell in the early 1800s to the state’s 20,000 Baptists, who often were suspicious of education. Many
believed that an “educated clergy” could be detrimental to faith. But the Waits viewed their mission as providential, believed they had a mandate to see it fulfilled, and sacrificed to make it happen. Samuel
Wait’s first visit to North Carolina was as a young man, riding in a horse-drawn buggy and attempting to raise money for Columbian College (now George Washington University) in Washington, D.C. Wait and another preacher arrived first in Edenton, where they met Thomas Meredith, a prominent Baptist. Meredith was so impressed with Wait that he wrote a letter to the Baptist church at New Bern, which was without a pastor, recommending his new friend. Wait visited New Bern and was preparing to leave when something spooked his horse, causing the animal to jump and break a wagon wheel. Wait was forced to remain in New Bern an additional month, preaching multiple times before continuing his fund-raising in South Carolina. The New Bern church soon issued a call, inviting him to be their pastor. Wait accepted, but he viewed the barren, sparsely populated state of North Carolina as a place where children were growing up
without spiritual direction, preachers were ill-prepared, and Baptist churches needed greater cooperation. Wait helped form the Baptist Benevolence Society, the predecessor of the Baptist State Convention, to promote education and missions, and he delivered its inaugural sermon in 1829. After founding the college, he was its president until 1844 and a member of the Board of Trustees until 1865. Samuel Wait
died in 1867 in the town of Wake Forest. Today, the University chapel bears his name.

As early as the mid-1940s, the idea of opening a professional school of theology surfaced at Wake Forest College. Fissures in the Southern Baptist family re-ignited the idea in the mid-1980s. As Baptists fought over control of their denomination in the 1970s and 1980s, the convention’s six seminaries often were the battlegrounds, with trustees and faculty clashing over issues of dogma and denominational control, as well as academic and intellectual freedom. Many faculty members were fired or forced to resign, and Baptists in the pews who held more moderate views began wondering who would educate their next generation of clergy.

In addition, religions in America in general, and mainline denominations in particular, found themselves in near constant flux in the latter half of the 20th century. Denominations experienced significant transitions, as individuals explored numerous spiritual avenues and confronted controversies, old and new. Schools both new and old have found themselves searching for ways to prepare ministers for the ever-changing situation, and when trustees at Wake Forest approved the start of a School of Divinity in 1989, other institutions also were starting their own. Several new Schools of Divinity opened in the 1990s, including two others in North Carolina with Baptist ties. The Wake Forest University School of Divinity, identifying itself as Christian by tradition, ecumenical in outlook, and Baptist in heritage, is the first university-based seminary in the United States to start without a formal denominational affiliation. Its Baptist heritage informs but does not insulate a present and future amid transition and diversity.

As such, the School of Divinity takes an interdisciplinary approach to educating ministers and strives for a diversity that mirrors the world today. The school’s curriculum blends instruction in traditional seminary subjects such as biblical studies, theological studies, and historical studies with courses taught by faculty of the University’s undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, as well as adjunct faculty from outside the University community. A truly integrated approach is one of the hallmarks of the School of
Divinity.

Wingate Hall, located alongside Wait Chapel, the spiritual center of the campus, has been renovated and expanded, enabling the School of Divinity to share space with the University’s Department of Religion, the Office of the Chaplain, and Wake Forest Baptist Church. Common areas in Wingate Hall enable students to meet, talk, study, and pray together. Some students live together in the Wake Forest Divinity Houses, University-owned facilities that border the campus along Polo Road. The curriculum includes a first-year “Art of Ministry” course that brings together first-year divinity students and select faculty for theological reflection, further personal interaction, and opportunities for spiritual formation. A comprehensive, three-year vocational formation program, in which area ministers guide students in internships, together with multicultural ministry courses centered in rural, urban, and international settings, assure that students remain involved in and engaged with the broader world.

The beginning of a new century was a momentous time to begin a divinity school, with much uncertainty about the future and significant transitions occurring in theological education and the world today. Amid those transitions, the vision begun by Samuel and Sarah Wait remains, extending through the University and its School of Divinity into a new millennium.