WELCOME to The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. Welcome to a community of theological students and teachers who are carrying out the LTSP mission of raising leaders for the church, today and tomorrow.Our students and faculty represent many Christian traditions besides Lutheran, and reflect the multicultural world in which church leaders are called to serve.

THE PHILADELPHIA TRADITION

Philadelphia Lutheran Seminary was founded in 1864. Its roots go back to the colonial church and the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, the first Lutheran Synod founded by missionary Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (pictured right) in 1748.

Its academic tradition and Lutheran roots are exemplified by the fact that the "Book of Concord," the basic collection of writings from the time of the Reformation, has been officially translated three times - all three editors (Jacobs, Tappert and Wengert) came from the Philadelphia Seminary faculty. Basic textbooks in liturgy, preaching and Christian education produced by members of this faculty are used in seminaries all over the United States.

Its record for church leadership is well known. Lutheran leaders like the notable Franklin Clark Fry, and the immediate past ELCA Bishop H. George Anderson, are part of the Philadelphia tradition. This seminary has nurtured numerous bishops. Four Lutheran seminary presidents, including the first woman and the first African American president, have been members of this faculty, as was the past presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Rev. Frank Griswald. Dr. Addie Butler, a Philadelphian and a president of the seminary Board of Trustees, is a past Vice President of the ELCA and a leader in academia.

LTSP is known for being innovative and cutting edge. The first Lutheran graduate school was begun here in 1913. In 1938 "Mt. Airy" seminary, as it was then dubbed, was one of the first three Lutheran schools accredited by the American Association of Theological Schools (ATS). The first full-capacity television studio was inaugurated in 1965. In 2005, The Brossman Learning Center opened with state of the art technology-equipped classrooms, student services offices, and community space in a striking building that blends the facade of the nineteenth century "Old Dorm" into a modern, light and airy classroom building.

In the early 1980s, the Urban Theological Institute (UTI) initiated as a fully-accredited evening and Saturday program for African American church leaders, and the UTI now includes among its programs the Black Church curriculum for MDiv and MAR students, a certificate program for church leaders, and the annual Preaching with Power series, which brings the best preachers in the African American tradition to Philadelphia each March. The metropolitan/urban track is the only full-blown training program for metropolitan ministry on the Master of Divinity level in a Lutheran seminary.

The seminary continues to build its distance learning capabilities, increasing opportunities for learning at the campus and making available to other areas learning opportunities from the seminary, bringing courses taught by the seminary's outstanding faculty to learners who can be anywhere, connected to LTSP via the World Wide Web. In partnership with the Eastern Cluster of Seminaries, opportunities for theological education will be made available to areas up and down the East Coast.