United Faculty of Theology

The United Faculty of Theology (UFT) was a recognised teaching institution of the University of Divinity. It was founded in 1969 as an informal association of theological colleges and ceased operating in December 2014. The Anglican Church continues to provide theological education through the Trinity College Theological School and the Uniting Church through Pilgrim Theological College.^[1]

The United Faculty of Theology comprised:

• The Jesuit Theological College of the Society of Jesus (incorporated in Victoria), ceased operating 2015
• Trinity College Theological School, part of Trinity College and affiliated to the Anglican Province of Victoria
• The Uniting Church Theological College (Synod of Victoria and Tasmania), Pilgrim Theological College from 2015

History

The UFT arose from co-operation between the theological halls (seminaries) based at Queen's College and Ormond College, respectively Methodist and Presybterian foundations affiliated with the University of Melbourne. In the 1960s and even earlier they were sharing resources while preparing resident theological students for the externally examined graduate Bachelor of Divinity degree of the Melbourne College of Divinity. The two bodies amalgamated in effect before formal union of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational churches as the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977.

During the same period the Jesuit Theological College moved to nearby facilities in Parkville and asked Ormond College to accommodate its library. The result was the Joint Theological Library (later the Dalton-McCaughey Library) which over time came to serve all the member institutions of the UFT.

In 1969 the faculty members of the three halls of what would become the Uniting Church, together with the Jesuit college and the Theological School of Trinity College, the Anglican residential college at the University of Melbourne, agreed to form the UFT and to teach a new degree, the undergraduate Bachelor of Theology (BTheol).^[2]

The UFT ceased operating in December 2014.^[1]

References

1. UFT to close at end of 2014: Two New Colleges Approved for 2015 by University of Divinity
2. Ian Breward, Holding Fast, Letting Go: A History of the UFT (Melbourne, 1999)

External links

• United Faculty of Theology at the Wayback Machine