The Illinois-based Trinity Evangelical Divinity School is in the process of leaving the Chicago-area Trinity International University and will affiliate with the largest Christian university in Canada, Trinity Western University in British Columbia.Â
“TEDS has entered into a formal commitment to take steps moving under the auspices of TWU, a union that brings together two institutions with a common statement of faith and story of origin,” stated the divinity school in a Tuesday announcement.Â
“As this moves forward, TEDS will become TWU’s seminary, all the while remaining steadfast in its mission to train men and women to testify to the transformative power of the inerrant Word throughout the world while providing a critique of the competing ideologies that threaten the life of the church.'”
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.
The merger was unanimously agreed to by the boards of both institutions.
According to a General FAQs webpage, TEDS will remain at its current location in Bannockburn, Illinois, for the duration of the 2025-2026 academic year. The move to Langley, British Columbia, will take place in time for the fall 2026 semester.
A spokesperson for TEDS told The Christian Post via email on Wednesday that students still enrolled at TEDS by that time “can complete their existing programs through in-person and online options.”
Founded in 1897 to train ministers for what became the Evangelical Free Church of America, TEDS moved to Deerfield, Illinois, in 1963. The institution describes itself as a “hub of evangelical thought” as it drew “faculty and students from across evangelical theological traditions.”
Founded in 1962 as Trinity Junior College, TWU is a liberal arts college on the west coast of Canada that is also aligned with the EFCA. With almost 6,000 students, TWU purports to be Canada’s largest privately funded Christian university.
Discussions of collaboration between TWU and TEDS began in the 1980s with a vision for what was termed “TEDS Canada.” However, those plans never materialized, according to the announcement.Â
“As a globally recognized divinity school joins a global Christian university, we are grateful for the expanded opportunities for churches and communities to access Christian theological education and ministry training,” Evangelical Free Church of Canada Executive Director Bill Taylor said in a statement. “We are excited to be part of what God is doing through university and seminary training and to see churches and ministers equipped for kingdom ministry.”
TWU faced years of litigation over its previous policy of requiring students to agree to a “Community Covenant” that, among other things, prohibited any sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman.
In June 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the denial of accreditation to the university’s proposed law school due to concerns about the covenant, which critics argued was discriminatory against LGBT individuals.
In response, TWU announced in August 2018 that it would drop students’ requirement to sign the covenant, though faculty and staff would still have to agree to it.
“In furtherance of our desire to maintain TWU as a thriving community of Christian believers that is inclusive of all students wishing to learn from a Christian viewpoint and underlying philosophy, the Community Covenant will no longer be mandatory as of the 2018-19 Academic year with respect to admission of students to, or continuation of students at, the University,” the TWU board stated at the time.
At present, TEDS has a “Community Standards” policy for its students, which includes a prohibition on “dishonesty, theft, pre-marital sex, abortion, adultery, homosexual behavior, and use of pornography, profanity, gossip, racism, and infringement upon the rights of others.”
The TEDS spokesperson did not answer whether the divinity school will drop the requirement once the move to TWU is completed.
Last year, TIU closed down its Florida campus at the end of the spring semester, with an announcement citing issues regarding financial resources and student enrollment.
