One statement, many traditions.

Rooted in the ecumenical creeds

Before Life Seminary says anything of its own, it says what the whole church has said. The Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian Definition are taught in every degree plan and received here without revision.

The Apostles’ Creed is the baptismal confession of the Western church. The Nicene Creed, from Nicaea in 325 and expanded at Constantinople in 381, confesses the full deity of the Son, of one being with the Father, and the Holy Spirit as the Lord, the giver of life. The Chalcedonian Definition of 451 confesses that Jesus Christ is one person in two natures, truly God and truly human, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.

Confessionally broad, and deliberately so

Life Seminary is not the seminary of a single denomination. The articles are drawn at the level the historic creeds are drawn, so that students from many traditions can study together without leaving their tradition at the door.

Students come from Anglican and Episcopal, Baptist and Free Church, Lutheran, Methodist and Wesleyan-Holiness, Pentecostal and Charismatic, Presbyterian and Reformed, Anabaptist and Mennonite, and independent and non-denominational churches.

Applicants are not asked to sign the statement. They are asked to study within it: to engage the seminary’s doctrinal position honestly and to represent other traditions fairly. Faculty and academic reviewers affirm the statement; students are welcomed from any tradition that can work inside it with integrity.

How the doctrine shapes the teaching

Scripture governs the curriculum: every degree plan begins in the biblical text, and doctrine, history, and ministry practice answer to Scripture rather than stand beside it.

The tradition is a teacher, not a museum: students are taught what the church has already argued and settled, and where it deliberately left questions open.

Doctrine is for the congregation: students are assessed on how well they understand the positions and the texts they rest on, never on which one they hold.