Introduction to the Tour

The city of Boston, its neighboring towns and cities, and the Commonwealth in which they are is embedded, have often been involved in events of great import in American history. Gov. William Bradford’s 1630 reference to his Separatist colony of Plimouth as a "Pilgrim" people (Hebrews 11:13) and Gov. Winthrop‘s later shipboard reference to the Boston Puritans’ “errand into the wilderness” as that which would create “a cittie on a hill,” have characterized for many the self-consciously prophetic–and paradoxically humble–sense of elective identity which impelled many early New England settlers to journey here. This sense of destiny, obligation to duty, and awareness of the example one’s life and conduct create for others continue to affect how Americans see themselves in the world, and define in part what is meant by “learning from our history” and “preserving our traditions” yet today.

Greater Boston–including Cambridge, Brookline, Brighton, Charlestown, Newton, and other surrounding towns and cities–retains some of the built elements of its earliest days, juxtaposed with modern structures in an oddly textured patchwork quilt of new and old together.

The schools of the BTI represent a similar juxtaposition: The oldest college in the US, Harvard, was founded across the river in what is now Cambridge in 1636, ostensibly to educate ministers and magistrates (although as we shall see, security and strategic planning had a part in its establishment, too); its Divinity School is joined here with other, more “recent” schools of very different theological backgrounds like Andover Newton (1807/1825/1965), the Episcopal Divinity School (1831/1867/1974); Boston University School of Theology (1839/1869) Boston College (1863) Saint John’s Seminary (1883) Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (1889/1976/1992), Weston Jesuit School of Theology (1922) and the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological School (1937).

As you can see, in Boston, “recent” may mean something founded in the early19th as opposed to the 17th or 18th centuries–for visitors from some parts of the country, the continental shelf on dates drops nearly two centuries here! (Spanish colonization in the South and Southwest was a century earlier still). Because of this, and because people of many backgrounds settled here, we are fortunate, both in having such a wealth of historically significant representatives of theological education in this institute, and in being the only consortium in which Roman, Greek, and several “flavors” of Reformed traditions work together, finding common ground from which to prosper and grow.

An early map of Boston, probaly based
on the British Lt.Page's 1776 military map

We will visit school and church sites of both historic and present importance, but be aware that one does not always guarantee the other. Some very old congregations, like First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, and the Anglican Christ Church, Cambridge, both in Harvard Square, are lively parishes today–and highly sought after as field placement sites. They lead very active congregational and community lives and are very conscious of their importance as being among the earliest churches of their confession as well. The same can be said of churches like New Old South and Trinity in Downtown Boston, or First Baptist in Newton, which are aware of their continuity with the early congregations which bore the same names, although they now inhabit newer buildings in a different location.

However, other early Boston churches, like churches elsewhere in this country, have fared less well: some have sold their buildings, merged with other congregations–or disappeared altogether. Some others have also been joined or replaced by strong new churches, founded by recent arrivants to the area, and offer a reinvigorated vision of the centrality of the place of the church in its congregants’ lives. Others have joined with longer-established churches, expanding both their ministries and enhancing each others’ energy and community spirit.