The
Louisville Institute is a Lilly Endowment-funded
program based at Louisville Seminary supporting
those who lead and study American religious
institutions. The fundamental mission of the Louisville Institute
is to enrich the religious life of American Christians
and to encourage the revitalization of their institutions,
by bringing together those who lead religious institutions
with those who study them, so that the work of each
might inform and strengthen the other.
The
Louisville Institute encourages a broad,
collaborative conversation among academics,
pastors, and other religious leaders about
American religious life. Religious leaders need
ready access to the findings of scholars that can
help them address more adequately the complex
challenges of contemporary ministry. For their
part, scholars need to hear pastors and laypersons
speak of these challenges, and they need to
incorporate these distinctive perspectives in
their own work. Conversation among them should
result in both better-informed scholars and
better-equipped pastors. Such a conversation is
most likely to be fruitful when the questions
under discussion are of urgent importance to the
churches.
The Louisville Institute focuses on three such issues in particular. The
first, Christian faith and life, examines
the character and role of the biblical and
theological reflection and religious practice that
effectively shape the lives of American
Christians. The second, religious institutions,
explores how America's religious institutions
might understand and respond constructively to the
institutional reconfiguration occurring in
American society. The third, pastoral
leadership, focuses on improving the quality
of religious leadership in North America.
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