Drew University Theological School
One of the thirteen United Methodist schools of theology.
Drew doesn't build its M.Div. the way the rest of this list does. Its six universal required courses aren't named Old Testament, New Testament, or Church History — they're cross-disciplinary seminars, and the testament- and practice-specific work instead comes from one of four vocational pathways every student chooses. Pick United Methodist Ministry — the pathway Drew's own admissions copy says meets UM ordination requirements for Elder or Deacon — and eight of the nine ¶324.4 areas end up binding, several of them named to the exact course. The one that doesn't: preaching, which no pathway at Drew actually guarantees.
The Discipline's requirements, at this school.
¶324.4 asks for nine areas of basic graduate theological study, three semester hours each, with a minimum of six hours in United Methodist studies. Not pass/fail. ¶335.3(d) asks for them again at full connection, so they cannot be put off.
University Senate standing
Approved — a United Methodist school
One of the 13 United Methodist schools of theology.
As of July 2026 · source ↗
Do online classes count?
Yes — a fully online M.Div. here meets the requirement
GBHEM: all thirteen United Methodist schools of theology are approved to provide a fully online M.Div. that meets UM ordination requirements. Drew's own MDiv program page independently confirms the degree 'offers completely online or in-person options,' with full- or part-time pacing either way.
As of July 2026 · source ↗
Old Testament
Drew's 78-credit MDiv core has no testament-specific survey (its six universal required courses are cross-disciplinary, not OT/NT/Theology/Church-History-named). Every vocational pathway a United Methodist ordination candidate would realistically choose fixes this: the United Methodist Ministry pathway names a required 3-credit Hebrew Bible line (BBCL505, BBCL600, BBCL601, or another HEB course) as its own dedicated requirement, separate from and in addition to the universal-core Bible course (BBCL501, a hermeneutics/interpretation course, not a testament survey).
New Testament
Same structure as Old Testament above: the United Methodist Ministry pathway names a required 3-credit Christian Testament line (BBCL506, BBCL605, BBCL606, or another CNT course), on top of the universal core's BBCL501.
Theology
THEO501 ('Transforming Theologies') is one of the six universal required courses every MDiv student takes, regardless of pathway.
Church history
THST501 ('Christian Communities in Contexts') is one of the six universal required courses. Its own catalog description frames it thematically — 'select Christian communities in their historical contexts,' with an explicit emphasis on gender, sexuality, race, and colonialism — rather than as a chronological survey course; a candidate wanting the fuller conventional history sequence would look to electives.
Mission of the church in the world
Bundled into the United Methodist Ministry pathway's required 'United Methodist Studies (10 credits)' block: WESM600, titled 'United Methodist History and Mission,' is a required course inside that block, per its own catalog description covering 'origins, mission, organization, outreach...in the development of United Methodism as an international denomination.' The course reads as UMC's own missionary history and self-understanding of mission specifically, not a general missiology survey — the closest fit this catalog offers to ¶324.4's mission-of-the-church area, and bound on a United Methodist student the same way Duke's unnamed mission elective is bound, just with a course actually named here.
Evangelism
WESM615 ('Evangelism as Practice'), part of the same required 'United Methodist Studies (10 credits)' block in the United Methodist Ministry pathway. Its own catalog description states, in Drew's own words, that it 'Fulfills the Division of Ordained Ministry requirement in evangelism for United Methodist students' — about as direct a statement of the ¶324.4 obligation as a course description gets.
Worship / liturgy
The United Methodist Ministry pathway carries its own dedicated, required 'Worship (3 credits)' line (THST622, WOR610, WOR505, or another WOR course) — a slot that exists in this pathway specifically and is not guaranteed by Drew's other three vocational pathways, where worship is only one option among several inside a shared 'Practices in Ministry' block a student could fill without it. The obvious course to satisfy it is WOR610 ('Vital Worship in the 21st Century for United Methodists'), whose own catalog description says it is 'Designed for United Methodist Church Basic Graduate Theological Studies' — though the pathway's requirement itself is satisfied by any WOR course, not WOR610 specifically.
Preaching
No pathway at Drew guarantees a preaching course, including United Methodist Ministry. Its 'Practices in Ministry (9 credits)' block requires three different categories chosen from Preaching (PREA), Pastoral Care and Counseling, Religious Education, and Professional Ethics — a student can complete it entirely on the other three and never take a PREA course. The same is true of the Ministerial Leadership pathway's equivalent block. This is a real gap, not a naming omission: nothing in Drew's own materials states an obligation the way it does for evangelism and worship above.
United Methodist studies (doctrine, polity, history)
The core of the United Methodist Ministry pathway's required 'United Methodist Studies (10 credits)' block: WESM610 ('United Methodist Doctrine Polity,' 3 credits) and WESM630 ('United Methodist Book of Discipline,' 1 credit) between them clear ¶324.4's 6-semester-hour UM-studies floor on their own, before WESM600's history component is even counted. No substitute or 'or approved elective' clause is offered for any of the four WESM courses in this block — they are named by code, the way Duke names PARISH 777/778.
As of August 2026 · source ↗
Every M.Div. student here takes the other 5. These 4 are required because you are a United Methodist on an ordination track, so they sit outside the courses the school schedules for everyone — which means nobody will schedule them for you. Name them early with your advisor, and confirm the choices with your board of ordained ministry registrar.
Eight of the nine ¶324.4 areas bind a United Methodist student who takes Drew's United Methodist Ministry vocational pathway — the pathway Drew's own admissions materials say 'meets the educational requirements for ordination as an Elder or Deacon in the United Methodist Church.'
The one area no Drew pathway guarantees, for any student regardless of denomination, is preaching: every pathway's shared 'Practices in Ministry' block treats Preaching (PREA) as one option among several rather than naming it outright, so a student can graduate having never taken a preaching course.
In the United Methodist Ministry pathway's 'Practices in Ministry (9 credits)' block, spend one of the three required category-choices on a PREA course rather than defaulting to Pastoral Care and Counseling, Religious Education, or Professional Ethics — nothing about the pathway rules that choice out, it simply isn't made for you.
Confirm with your conference's Board of Ordained Ministry registrar whether they expect a dedicated preaching course specifically, or accept Drew's broader homiletics-adjacent electives — the catalog names the PREA course family but does not itself state a preaching-specific graduation requirement the way it does for evangelism and worship above.
Confirm all of this with your conference’s Board of Ordained Ministry registrar before you enroll. They decide which courses satisfy which requirement — not the catalogue, and not us.
The faculty, by what they work on.
25 faculty, grouped by field rather than alphabetically — because the useful question is not who is here, it is who is here who works on the thing you care about.
Church history
Gladson Jathanna
Associate Professor of the History of Christianities
ThD, Georg August Universität
Recent work (5)
- Colonization, Conversion, and Co-option: Postcolonial Reflections
- Decolonising Eucharist: Reclaiming Postcolonial Alter-natives in the Face of Covid-19
- Transformative Indigenous Queer Spiritualities: Journeying with Jogappas of India
- Entangled Historiographies of Christian Missions: A Subaltern Conversation and Contention
- Decolonising Oikoumene
Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre
Henry Anson Buttz Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity
BA, Eastern College
Jesse Mann
Associate Teaching Professor in the History of Christianity and Practice of Theological Research
BA, Dickinson College
Recent work (5)
- Johannis de Segovia Epistola ad Guillielmum de Orliaco
- On the Dating of Juan de Segovia's Super materia contractuum de censibus annuis
- Engaging the Alumnus/a Donor: A Case Study Based on Drew University's R. S. Thomas Collection
- Facing the Music: The Whimsical Cadels in a Late Medieval English Book of Hours
- Notable Luther and Melanchthon: An Annotated Copy of Luther's Confitendi ratio
Kevin Newburg
Teaching Professor in the History of Christianity and Methodist Studies
BA, MA, Point Loma Nazarene University
J. Terry Todd
Associate Professor of American Religious Studies
PhD, Columbia University
New Testament
Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre
Henry Anson Buttz Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity
BA, Eastern College
Stephen Moore
Edmund S. Janes Professor of New Testament Studies
PhD, University of Dublin
Recent work (5)
- Jesusviolence: Racism, Speciesism, and Other Violences in and around the Gospels
- Decolonial Theory and Biblical Unreading: Delinking Biblical Criticism from Coloniality
- The Bible after Deleuze: Affects, Assemblages, Bodies without Organs
- Revelation: Book of Torment, Book of Bliss
- Gospel Jesuses and Other Nonhumans: Biblical Criticism Post-poststructuralism
Robert Paul Seesengood
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Theological School
PhD, Drew University
Recent work (5)
- American Standard: The Bible in U.S. Popular Culture
- The Bible and Cultural Studies: Critical Readings
- Judith
- The Bible and New Materialism
- Pasolini's St. Paul
Althea Spencer-Miller
Assistant Professor of New Testament
PhD, Claremont Graduate University
Recent work (5)
- From White Man's Magic to Black Folks' Wisdom
- Emancipation: Wheel and Come Again
- Looking Forward from the Horizon: A Response in Africana Sisterhood and Solidarity
- Creolizing Hermeneutics: A Caribbean Invitation
- Feminist Hermeneutics: New Testament
Latino/Hispanic ministry
Edwin David Aponte
James W. Pearsall Professor of Religion and Culture
PhD, MA, Temple University
Recent work (5)
- Latine Lived Religions and Religious Identities: ¡Presente!
- Introducing Latinx Theologies
- ¡Santo! Varieties of Latino/a Spirituality
- Handbook of Latina/o Theologies
- Introducing Latino/a Theologies
Francisco Pelaez-Diaz
Assistant Teaching Professor in Latinx Studies and Ministries
PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary
Recent work (4)
- La Santa Muerte – Saint Death
- La Santa Muerte – Saint Death
- "You Belong Here"
- Central American Migration as the Way of the Cross: Ignacio Ellacuría's 'Crucified Peoples' as a Theological Reframing of the Migrant Experience
Systematic theology
Chris Boesel
Professor of Christian Theology
BA, Westmont College
Recent work (5)
- Reading Karl Barth: Theology that Cuts both Ways
- In Kierkegaard's Garden with the Poppy Blooms: Why Derrida Doesn't Read Kierkegaard When He Reads Kierkegaard
- Divine Multiplicity: Trinities, Diversities, and the Nature of Relation
- Apophatic Bodies: Negative Theology, Incarnation, and Relationality
- Risking Proclamation, Respecting Difference: Christian Faith, Imperialistic Discourse, and Abraham
Daniel D. Shin
E. Stanley Jones Chair in Evangelism
PhD, University of Chicago
Recent work (5)
- Towards Ecclesial Diversity: A Case Study in Theological Hermeneutics
- Review of The Unique and Universal Christ: Refiguring the Theology of Religions by Drew Collins
- Baptism and Evangelism
- Reimagining Evangelism: An Interdisciplinary Assessment and Proposal
- Theology and the Public: Reflections on Hans W. Frei's Hermeneutics, Christology, and Theological Method
Interreligious engagement
Emily Filler
Wallerstein Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies
PhD, University of Virginia
Recent work (5)
- Modern Jewish Ethics, 1970-Present
- Zionism and the Politics of Complexity
- Difficult Jewish Texts and Contemporary Political Crisis
- The Incivility of Meir Kahane
- The Honesty of Radical Pessimism
Hyo-Dong Lee
Associate Professor of Comparative Theology
PhD, Vanderbilt University
Recent work (5)
- Spirit, Qi, and the Multitude: A Comparative Theology for the Democracy of Creation
- All under Heaven and the City of God: A Familial and Ecclesial Reflection
- Jeong (情), Civility, and the Heart of a Pluralistic Democracy
- My Path to a Theology of Qi
- Confucian Democracy and a Pluralistic Li-Ki Metaphysics
Congregational leadership
Jonathan Golden
Teaching Professor in Religious Studies
PhD, University of Pennsylvania
Recent work (5)
- Religion in the Classroom: Exploring the Issues
- Expanding the Borders of a Common Good: Transformational Encounters
- And the Nations Shall Flow Unto It
- Encounters Beyond the Daled Amot
- Dawn of the Metal Age: the Origins of Social Complexity in the Southern Levant
Meredith E. Hoxie Schol
Associate Teaching Professor in Religious Education & Leadership
PhD, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
Recent work (5)
- A Review of "Transforming Fire: Imaging Christian Teaching" by Mark D. Jordan
- Contributor to Abingdon Preaching Manual
- A Review of "Waiting for a Glacier to Move" by Jennifer Ayers
- A Playdate with the Early Church
- Connecting the Dots – Christian call to public witness
Ethics & public theology
Laurel Kearns
John Fletcher Hurst Professor of Ecology, Religion and Society
BA, Florida State University
Recent work (5)
- Trojan Horses Facing the Mirror: A Comparison between Religious Anti-Environmental Movement Organizations in the US and Brazil
- Religion and Nature in North America: An Introduction
- The Tent of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and Nature
- Race, Religion and Environmental Racism in North America
- Climate Change
Elaine Noguiera-Godsey
Assistant Professor of Religion, Society, & Ecofeminism
PhD, University of Cape Town
Recent work (5)
- Decolonizing Dialogues: Bridging Ecofeminism, Religion, and the Decological Path Forward
- Race, Religion and Environmental Racism in North America
- A Decological Way to Dialogue: Rethinking Ecofeminism and Religion
- Tangible Actions Toward Solidarity: An Ecofeminist Analysis of Women's Participation in Food Justice
- Environmental Racism in the 'True' America: A Reflection on Race, the Earth, and Moral Action after Trump
Hebrew Bible / Old Testament
Dong Sung Kim
Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible
PhD, Drew University
Recent work (5)
- Reading with Minor Feelings: Racialized Emotions and Children's (Non)agency in Judges 10–12
- Review of Landscapes of Korean and Korean American Biblical Interpretation, edited by John Ahn.
- Queer Hermeneutics: Queering Asian American Identities and Biblical Interpretation
- Weeping by the Water: Hydraulic Affects and Political Depression in South Korea after Sewol
- Children of Diaspora: The Cultural Politics of Identity and Diasporic Childhood in the Book of Esther
Robert Paul Seesengood
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Theological School
PhD, Drew University
Recent work (5)
- American Standard: The Bible in U.S. Popular Culture
- The Bible and Cultural Studies: Critical Readings
- Judith
- The Bible and New Materialism
- Pasolini's St. Paul
Pastoral care & counseling
Arthur Pressley
Associate Professor of Psychology and Religion
PhD, Northwestern University
Angella M. Pak Son
Professor of Psychology and Religion
PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary
Recent work (5)
- What is Spiritual Care from a Christian Perspective?: Pastoral Care for Rage and Joy
- Recapturing the Bible as the Living Word Through God as Selfobject: The Descriptive Eclipsed into the Prescriptive in Pastoral Practices and the Bible
- Review of Comfort Women: A Movement for Justice and Women's Rights in the United States, edited by Jung Sil Lee and Dennis P. Halpin
- Pastoral Care in a Korean American Context
- Conversion Experiences of Adults in El Salvador
Preaching
Gary V. Simpson
Associate Professor of Preaching and Pastoral Formation
DMin, United Theological Seminary
Recent work (5)
- Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship
- Abingdon Preaching Annual
- Foreword
- God Alone Exalted
- Pastoral Perspective
Jess Winderweedle
Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow
PhD, MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary
Recent work (1)
- Review of Kristina Lizardy Hajbi, Unraveling Religious Leadership: Power, Authority, and Decoloniality
Practical theology
Edwin David Aponte
James W. Pearsall Professor of Religion and Culture
PhD, MA, Temple University
Recent work (5)
- Latine Lived Religions and Religious Identities: ¡Presente!
- Introducing Latinx Theologies
- ¡Santo! Varieties of Latino/a Spirituality
- Handbook of Latina/o Theologies
- Introducing Latino/a Theologies
Spiritual formation
Katherine Brown
Teaching Professor of Language and Culture
Christian education & formation
Meredith E. Hoxie Schol
Associate Teaching Professor in Religious Education & Leadership
PhD, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
Recent work (5)
- A Review of "Transforming Fire: Imaging Christian Teaching" by Mark D. Jordan
- Contributor to Abingdon Preaching Manual
- A Review of "Waiting for a Glacier to Move" by Jennifer Ayers
- A Playdate with the Early Church
- Connecting the Dots – Christian call to public witness
Church music
Mark A. Miller
Professor of Church Music
BA, Yale University
Wesleyan & Methodist studies
Kevin Newburg
Teaching Professor in the History of Christianity and Methodist Studies
BA, MA, Point Loma Nazarene University
World Christianity
Daniel D. Shin
E. Stanley Jones Chair in Evangelism
PhD, University of Chicago
Recent work (5)
- Towards Ecclesial Diversity: A Case Study in Theological Hermeneutics
- Review of The Unique and Universal Christ: Refiguring the Theology of Religions by Drew Collins
- Baptism and Evangelism
- Reimagining Evangelism: An Interdisciplinary Assessment and Proposal
- Theology and the Public: Reflections on Hans W. Frei's Hermeneutics, Christology, and Theological Method
Evangelism & church planting
Daniel D. Shin
E. Stanley Jones Chair in Evangelism
PhD, University of Chicago
Recent work (5)
- Towards Ecclesial Diversity: A Case Study in Theological Hermeneutics
- Review of The Unique and Universal Christ: Refiguring the Theology of Religions by Drew Collins
- Baptism and Evangelism
- Reimagining Evangelism: An Interdisciplinary Assessment and Proposal
- Theology and the Public: Reflections on Hans W. Frei's Hermeneutics, Christology, and Theological Method
Limited to the 25 people on Drew's faculty directory page listed ahead of its explicit 'Emeriti Faculty' heading — the page's own implicit cut for current, active, full-time faculty; adjunct/affiliate faculty are listed separately below the emeriti section and excluded here on the same basis Duke and Saint Paul used for their own adjunct/emeritus exclusions. Drew publishes no individual per-professor pages — each entry links a dated CV PDF instead. All 25 CVs were opened and read (2026-08-07): 4 links 404 (Johnson-DeBaufre, Miller, Pressley, Todd — confirmed dead on Drew's own site, not a fetch bug) and 2 more CVs carry no publications section at all (Brown, Newburg); the remaining 19 have a publications selection (cap 5, most recent first) sourced to their own CV PDF. `workingOn` stays empty across the board — no human has yet read any of these 25 people's current work closely enough to summarize it, which is a higher bar than pulling a citation list.
Titles and fields are the school’s own; the grouping is ours. Drew University Theological School does not publish a separate page per professor, so there is nowhere deeper to link — the full listing is here ↗. Professors answer email from prospective students more often than you would guess. Publication lists come from the school’s own annual listing ↗, are a selection rather than a full CV, and are only shown for people currently on the directory.
The degrees.
Master of Divinity
78 hrs78 credits: an integrated six-course common curriculum, a year-long vocational internship and leadership seminar, a mentored portfolio, an immersive intercultural experience, unrestricted electives, and one of four vocational pathways (Ministerial Leadership, United Methodist Ministry, Social Justice Advocacy, or Chaplaincy) that supplies most of the testament- and practice-specific coursework.
2.5–3 years full-time; part-time over 4 years
Master of Arts in Theology and Ministry
Not an ordination degree on its own — for lay ministry, nonprofit, and vocational-formation paths that don't require the full MDiv.
Doctor of Ministry
For MDiv holders with ministry experience; Drew states no merit-based scholarships are offered for this degree specifically.
Money, plainly.
Tuition
$840 per credit hour (Theological School programs: DMin, MDiv, MAR, STM, MATM)
2026–2027 rate. 78 credit hours (the MDiv total) × this rate is roughly $65,520 in gross MDiv tuition before aid. Separate per-term fees apply: a $600 Continuous Registration fee, a $500 General Fee, and (international students only) a $75 administrative fee.
As of August 2026 · source ↗
Typical award
United Methodist Initiative: at least 100% tuition for United Methodist applicants to the MDiv who earned at least a 3.2 undergraduate GPA
Drew's own wording: 'United Methodist applicants to the Theological School's Master of Divinity degree, who have achieved at least a 3.2 GPA while earning their undergraduate degree, receive a scholarship of at least 100% tuition.' No candidacy-certification requirement is stated — the GPA threshold is the only condition named on this page.
As of August 2026 · source ↗
- Continuous Registration Fee — $600 per term
- General Fee — $500 per term
- International Student Administrative Fee — $75 per term (international students only)
- United Methodist Initiative — At least 100% tuition for any United Methodist MDiv applicant with a 3.2+ undergraduate GPA — no certified-candidate status required by Drew's own published wording, which makes it broader than Candler's candidacy-gated full-tuition policy or Duke's geographically-narrow Rural Ministry Fellowships. Confirm with Admissions whether 'at least 100%' ever exceeds tuition into a living stipend, or is capped at tuition itself; the page's phrasing leaves that open.
- Sampson-McCann Scholarship — Set aside specifically for non-United Methodist Theological School applicants engaged in social justice work in urban environments — the counterpart award for the students the United Methodist Initiative doesn't reach.
- Tipple Scholarship — Drew's own description: 'The highest scholarship awarded by the Theological School,' for the most exemplary applicant on academic ability and gifts for ministry — not United Methodist-specific.
The United Methodist Initiative's 'at least 100% tuition' for any 3.2-GPA UM applicant is, on paper, the most generous and least conditional UMC-specific award found across this project's schools so far — it names no candidacy certification, no conference residency, no geography. That is also exactly why it is worth confirming directly with Drew's Office of Graduate Admissions rather than budgeting against the web copy alone: the page does not say how the award is renewed year to year, whether it can be reduced if the GPA condition was borderline, or how 'at least' 100% is decided above the floor.
Place, and what else is within reach.
Drew University
The Theological School sits on Drew University's Madison, NJ campus alongside the College of Liberal Arts and the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies; MDiv electives may be drawn from Caspersen offerings with advisor approval.
Who this fits, and what to weigh.
- People who want a curriculum built around integrative, justice-oriented seminars rather than a classical discipline-by-discipline core — that's the whole shape of Drew's required six.
- United Methodist candidates who want their conference's requirements named to the exact course, not left as a generic elective slot to plan around alone.
- Candidates for whom a close-to-unconditional full-tuition scholarship changes whether seminary is affordable at all.
- No pathway at Drew — including United Methodist Ministry — guarantees a preaching course. If you want dedicated homiletics training, you'll have to choose it yourself inside a 'pick three of several' elective block.
- The vocational-pathway structure means a UMC candidate who picks a different pathway (Chaplaincy, say) may not automatically clear ¶324.4 the way the United Methodist Ministry pathway does — the choice of pathway matters, not just the choice of school.
- This profile could not verify Drew's publication record for any faculty member; ask directly, or read their linked CVs, before assuming a silence here means someone isn't publishing.
- One of its required United Methodist Studies courses states its own ordination function in the catalog's own words: 'Fulfills the Division of Ordained Ministry requirement in evangelism for United Methodist students.'
- Drew was chartered by the Methodist Episcopal Church's General Conference itself in 1867 — the only one of the thirteen with that particular founding.
- Every full-time faculty member's CV is a linked PDF rather than a bio page; this profile didn't parse those, so no faculty member here carries a publication list.
- The United Methodist Initiative scholarship is at least 100% tuition for any United Methodist applicant with a 3.2+ undergraduate GPA — no candidacy certification required by Drew's own published wording.
Send one email this week.
Not an application — an email. Pick the professor above whose field is closest to what you cannot stop thinking about, and ask them what they are working on. Then ask admissions to sit in on one class. Both are free, and both tell you more than a brochure will.
Everything on this page was checked against the school’s own published material on August 7, 2026. Costs and curricula change every year — the source link beside each fact is the one that stays current.