"C" is for Columbia Theological Seminary

"C" is for Columbia Theological Seminary. An institution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the seminary was founded in 1828 in Georgia and moved to Columbia, South Carolina in 1831. Influential Columbians, wanting “a southern theological seminary,” helped purchase the Ainsley Hall mansion to house the seminary. Following the model of Andover and Princeton theological seminaries, Columbia was a graduate professional institution with a three-year curriculum. Leading Faculty, including George Howe and James Henry Thornwell taught an Old School Calvinism that understood truth to be propositional. After the Civil War, Columbia Theological Seminary was beset by financial and intellectual crises. In 1928, the seminary moved to the outskirts of Atlanta. By the end of the twentieth century, while remaining deeply Presbyterian in its ethos, Columbia Theological Seminary was broadly ecumenical in its faculty and students.