Launching Claremont Lincoln University

A Watershed Moment in American Theological Education
by Paul Chaffee Founding Editor of The Interfaith Observer On September 6, 2011, Claremont School of Theology, a distinguished United Methodist seminary with roots back to 1885, joined in partnership with The Academy for Jewish Religion, California, and the Islamic Center of Southern California/Bayan College. Together, they and a number of other affiliates have joined to create Claremont Lincoln University (CLU), an institution like none other. Training imams, pastors, and rabbis will be a core goal at CLU. Seminarians will have separate curricula and degree programs for clergy formation, part of a larger set of offerings and degree options focused on the interdisciplinary, intercultural, and multireligious needs of the world in the 21st century. Others have helped open the door to interreligious collaboration. In the United States, Harvard University, Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, and Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley have been pioneers in multireligious higher education. Similar programs are brewing in other seminaries, and the Association of Theological Schools is paying attention. But CLU is the first fully accredited school in America for preparing imams – and having the three primary Abrahamic traditions training clergy in a shared environment is unprecedented. This point was made over and over again when the $50 million enabling donation from David and Joan Lincoln made the story national news last May. Time Magazine’s headline ran Training Pastors, Rabbis, and Imams Together. USA Today went the same way with Theology school integrates studies of different faiths. In fact, the full story and its ramifications for theological education go much further. “On behalf of humankind” CLU’s new provost, Philip Clayton, is clear about the focus of the new University: “Finding the common threads among religious and ethical traditions – while honoring the distinctiveness of each” is the goal. The reach of this vision goes beyond Christian, Jewish, and Muslim interaction. Indeed, on the morning of the launch, a special, widely attended ceremony celebrated a letter of understanding bringing Jains into the new University, thereby including a South Asian religion into what had been an exclusively Abrahamic conclave. American Indian, Buddhist, and Hindu participation is expected. In addition, CLU is developing collaborative projects with a number of organizations. As its new website states, “Claremont Lincoln University is more than a teaching institution. It’s a call to action on behalf of humankind.” To that end, it already has working relationships with:

Doha International Center for Interreligious Dialog (Qatar)
Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions
Pacifica Institute
Islamic Society of North America
Institute for Religious Tolerance, Peace & Justice
International Islamic University Malaysia
Harbin Institute of Technology (China)

At the September 6 inaugural convocation, the remarkable opportunity this new University represents was detailed most powerfully in the keynote address by the Honorable Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to the United States.
… This is what the Claremont Lincoln University offers: an opportunity to share fragments of truth and pieces of the puzzle, firstly to overcome our own demons represented by the extremism, exclusivity and intolerance we spawned, and the way we have allowed some, in our name, not to follow God, but to appropriate God, and so contribute to the misery of society.
Simultaneously, we must allow the graduates of this institution to revel in the multiplicity of worship, ritual, pageantry and tradition, of the many faiths that must come to the Claremont Lincoln University, but they must also seek to enjoy the wonderment that comes from recognizing the Divine in each other, and acting on this insight in ways which cultivate a better world through compassionate relationships, collaborative efforts, and peaceful acceptance.
Ambassador Rasool noted the poignance of opening a University on the eve of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and called for “Providence” to bless this new enterprise and its focus on a more peaceful world.