Harvard Divinity School examines its 200-year history
How should we approach religion? Whose religion should we study? What should we include? Students, faculty, and staff at Harvard Divinity School (HDS) have labored over these questions for 200 years. Together, they have undertaken an audacious project to combine critical thinking about religion with the training of religious leaders in the context of a research university. A special exhibit for HDS’s bicentennial year, “Faces of Divinity: Envisioning Inclusion for 200 Years,” tells the story of the School since its founding in 1816. It brings together the student experience, faculty work, and University initiatives. It draws on the School’s history to explore how it became a multireligious divinity school, while also broadening its reach as a multidisciplinary center of academic excellence, religious scholarship, and service to the communities — both locally and globally. At the same time, it follows students, faculty, and staff across porous and shifting lines between HDS and Harvard’s...