President's Welcome

Welcome to Christian Theological Seminary!

In the heart of a continent, a city. In the heart of that city, a school. And in the heart of that school, a community of disciples, gathered around a treasury of knowledge and know-how, skills and ideas, poetics and practices as old – and as eternally new – as the adventure of learning itself.

Make no mistake, this is one of the most exciting, potentially life-changing places you’ll ever visit. In fact, once you look at it in the right way, you’ll see it’s less a collection of programs and classes and personalities and more a kind of cathedral, a mansion with many rooms, chapels, and passageways to search out and explore.

In this sense, each page on this site is a door, a threshold to a world you’ve yet to travel. And accordingly, each faculty photo is an introduction to a personal tour guide, someone who’s been there and can show you around – though be advised, there’s still no telling what the two of you will find around any given corner. On these journeys, even the guides discover something new on every trip.

Welcome to CTS. We specialize in thresholds and surprises, new worlds and open doors. When Jesus said, “Follow me,” he didn’t just mean, “Stay close by.” He meant, “Become my disciple” – and the word “disciple” comes down to us from the Latin discipulus, “pupil, student, apprentice, learner.”

He meant walking with him and learning from him at every step along the way. Learning, that is, not only about Jesus himself, but also about God’s whole wide world, in all its broken beauty. As the New Testament makes quite clear, Jesus is the kind of teacher who often points toward others: to a poor widow, for example, who embodies generosity; or an ancient enemy, who models mercy; or a child, who shows what it means to enter the kingdom of God.

And so to do this kind of discipleship well, each one of us needs a community – a circle of fellow disciples, yes, but also a wider place where we can learn from widows and enemies and children and countless others. We need diversity in every sense: racial, cultural, economic, personal, generational, and theological. We need vibrant and challenging worship to put our learning in its proper context. And we need a broad, broken, beautiful society in which, and for which, we do our work.

We need, in other words, a school in the heart of a city, a city in the heart of a continent, and a continent in the heart of God’s good creation, the whole wide world that so desperately needs new leaders: disciples called to learn, learners called to serve.

Welcome to CTS. We’re already looking forward to getting to know you better.

Matthew Myer Boulton
President and Professor of Theology

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President's Welcome