Key points:
- The United Methodist Church’s University Senate has removed Asbury Theological Seminary and Northeastern Seminary from its list of approved schools for clergy candidates.
- Asbury’s president said the decision follows disagreement about The United Methodist Church’s revised Social Principles.
- Students currently enrolled in those schools or about to attend this fall can complete the school’s programs and still qualify for ordination in The United Methodist Church.
The United Methodist Church’s accrediting body has decided that Asbury Theological Seminary will no longer be an approved school to prepare United Methodist clergy.
The University Senate’s decision comes after the Wesleyan-rooted, multidenominational seminary said it could not endorse The United Methodist Church’s revision of its Social Principles in 2024 that eliminated church teachings against the “the practice of homosexuality” and same-sex marriage.
The University Senate, at its June 17-18 meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, also decided to remove Northeastern Seminary, a Free Methodist-affiliated school, in Rochester, New York, from its approved list.
However, the removal of Asbury in Wilmore, Kentucky, marks a stunning reversal in the United Methodist relationship with the independent, evangelical school that has educated generations of the denomination’s clergy including multiple bishops.
“The decision to delist both institutions followed findings from their respective quadrennial reviews, which included an examination of the curriculum and direct dialog with institutional leadership,” said Roland Fernandes in a statement. He is the top executive of the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry that provides staff support for the University Senate. Fernandes also oversees Global Ministries, the denomination’s mission agency.
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“The University Senate’s decision,” Fernandes added, “is intended to ensure that United Methodist candidates for ministry are formed in settings clearly aligned with United Methodist teachings, theology, leadership and values.”
United Methodist students who are currently enrolled in either seminary or plan to attend in fall 2026 can still complete their programs and pursue ordination in the denomination. However, after fall 2026, United Methodist clergy candidates beginning their theological coursework should attend one of the United Methodist seminaries or the other 25 University Senate-approved schools.
Fernandes and Susanna L. Baxter, president of both the University Senate and United Methodist-related LaGrange College, also said in a joint statement that the University Senate’s Commission on Theological Education determined that Asbury’s published ethos statement is not compatible with the Social Principles. In addition, Asbury does not have a full-time United Methodist faculty member who consistently teaches required United Methodist history, doctrine and polity.
The two added that Northeastern also does not have United Methodist faculty, and its programs are offered primarily online, without a residential and formational experience required by the University Senate guidelines.
“Institutions change and partnerships change,” said Western Pennsylvania Conference Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball, board president of Higher Education and Ministry as well as episcopal adviser to the University Senate.
“The United Methodist Church University Senate’s decision that Asbury Theological Seminary and Northeastern Seminary will no longer be approved to educate United Methodist students preparing for ministry does not diminish those who have been students at these seminaries nor the role each seminary played in forming generations of pastors for the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ within The United Methodist Church.”
The University Senate is an elected body that determines which U.S. schools, colleges, universities and theological institutions meet the criteria for United Methodist affiliation and United Methodist clergy education. The 27 voting members, who work for Methodist-related U.S. academic institutions, meet twice a year to evaluate church-related institutions in areas such as church-relatedness, program quality, financial integrity, stewardship and governance.
The University Senate recently delisted both Palmer Theological Seminary and Luther Seminary, which declined to participate in the quadrennial reviews and requested removal from the approved list.
The denomination has 13 United Methodist-affiliated seminaries in the U.S. that receive support from the Ministerial Education Fund, one of seven funds included in the denomination’s budget that are paid for by church giving. The vast majority of ordained United Methodist elders and deacons in the U.S. attended one of those 13.
Asbury, founded in 1923, has never been one of the official United Methodist seminaries. But since 1981 until now, the seminary had received approval to educate candidates for ordained United Methodist ministry. Its past five presidents, and one interim, all began their careers in the United Methodist fold.
In 2017, the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry found that of the 418 deacons and elders ordained, 44 were Asbury graduates. That total was second only to Duke Divinity School, which had 57 graduates who were ordained that year.
Over the years, prominent Asbury leaders and alumni have played a key role in establishing groups that advocated for The United Methodist Church to take a more theologically conservative direction, especially in regard to LGBTQ people. That included advocating for greater enforcement of bans on “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy and same-sex marriage while also calling for the denomination to split in the face of defiance of those bans.
Can schools reapply?
Institutions can apply to be listed as an approved theological school or to affiliate with The United Methodist Church.
Institutions seeking approval for listing as United Methodist-related may apply to the executive committee of the church’s University Senate for consideration. The request should include the most recent reports of the approved accrediting agencies and the institutional response, along with the annual audits and management letters for the past three years.
The institution also should include a statement explaining its relationship to The United Methodist Church and evidence the purported relationship exists. If further consideration of the institution is warranted, the executive committee shall request the review and recommendation of the appropriate commission.
Learn more about the University Senate guidelines.
Former Presidents Maxie D. Dunnam and Timothy C. Tennent and current President David F. Watson also helped develop what became the Global Methodist Church, a theologically conservative denomination that broke away from The United Methodist Church in 2022. Today, Asbury is one of the theological institutions that the Global Methodist Church has approved for training its clergy.
Nevertheless, Watson — who is now ordained in the Global Methodist Church — stressed that the delisting of Asbury was not a mutual decision, but solely determined by the University Senate.
“We engaged fully and faithfully in the process and honored every request from the Senate in a timely manner,” he said. “We were forthcoming with the requested documents and information. Throughout the process, we were honest and clear about our doctrinal and ethical standards, even when those differed from the recently amended Social Principles of The UMC. Their final decision to delist us was unilateral. While we had hoped for a different outcome, our focus remains steadfast on our unchanging calling.”
He added that the Senate’s requirements — especially those concerning The United Methodist Church’s revised Social Principles on human sexuality and marriage “are not aligned with Asbury Theological Seminary’s institutional ethos and the historic witness of the Christian faith.”
Two years after the Global Methodist Church launched, the 2024 United Methodist General Conference eliminated the assertion, first instituted in the denomination’s Social Principles, that “the practice of homosexuality… is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
In the same vote, delegates by a margin of 523 to 161 affirmed “marriage as a sacred, lifelong covenant that brings two people of faith (adult man and adult woman of consenting age or two adult persons of consenting age) into a union of one another and into deeper relationship with God and the religious community.”
Watson said Asbury affirms marriage “as sanctioned by God, which joins one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union for life, as delineated in Scripture, and provides the sole context for sexual intimacy, helping to ensure the blessings of that relationship as God intended.”
However, Watson also stressed that Asbury values “our long history of serving United Methodist students and churches, and we are grateful for decades of partnership.”
Today, Watson said, more than 4,000 living Asbury Theological Seminary alumni are affiliated with The United Methodist Church.
Even now, about 9% of the current student population at Asbury Theological Seminary identifies as United Methodist, according to the seminary’s communications office. Those students, as the University Senate determined, are grandfathered in and could still become United Methodist pastors.
“We pray for God’s continued blessing on them as they minister faithfully across denominational lines,” Watson said.
Northeastern Seminary’s marketing department directed media inquiries to the seminary dean, who will not be available until next week.
Bishop David Graves, who leads the Kentucky Conference where Asbury is located, acknowledged in a pastoral letter that many in the conference would be disappointed that Asbury is no longer an approved school
“I share those feelings,” wrote Graves, who also leads the Tennessee-Western Kentucky and Central Appalachian Missionary conferences. “For many clergy and laity across Kentucky, Asbury is more than an institution. It is a place where faith was deepened, callings were clarified, friendships were formed, and lives were changed.”
At the same time, he wrote: “Our confidence has never rested in a single institution. Our confidence rests in the God who continues to call women and men into ministry and in the Holy Spirit who equips them for service.”
Steiner Ball, the bishop who advises the senate, also expressed gratitude for the schools and their graduates.
“I give thanks for all who have been trained and sent into ministry through these institutions,” she said, “and for the faculty, administration, and staff who supported that work.”
Fernandes and Baxter said they are mindful that these decisions affect students, schools, conferences and the wider church.
“The quadrennial review process exists to help ensure that candidates for ministry are formed in settings clearly aligned with United Methodist ethos and provide regular, substantive instruction in United Methodist history, doctrine and polity,” they said. “This work is part of the church’s ongoing commitment to prepare clergy who can serve faithfully, lead wisely and bear witness to the Gospel in a changing world.”
They added: “The University Senate gives thanks for the long history and contributions of these institutions to theological education and to the life of The United Methodist Church.”
Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
