Returning to “A Special Place,” Where Pastors Become Leaders

In an atmosphere of reverence for past and hope for the future, Dr. Theodore T. Turman will be officially inaugurated as the 7th president of the Ecumenical Theological Seminary (ETS), April 5, at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit.

“I am deeply honored to be entrusted with the leadership of ETS and I look forward to collaborating with our dedicated students and esteemed faculty to further our mission of inclusive theological education,” Turman said in a statement. “Together we will strengthen ETS’s community presence and equip our students to serve their congregations and communities effectively.”

He said the inauguration marks “not just a celebration of leadership, but the beginning of an exciting new chapter for ETS —one filled with growth, innovation and a renewed commitment to theological excellence.”

Turman is a Detroit native who is bullish on the Motor City, and his role leading a faith organization that’s important to his hometown. 

“We are predominantly Metro Detroiters training Metro Detroiters to serve Metro Detroiters,” Turman says. His hometown has had its trials over the last decade or two — bankruptcy, political scandals, a population exodus — but the city has heart, and, he says, has learned to do more with less.  

He then remixes a famous tourism slogan, blending the optimism he feels as leader of a seminary focused on social justice with an acknowledgement of the challenges it, and the city, both face.

“Detroit is the new New York,” Turman says. “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”

Seminarians “learn how to do it with less, so that you can learn how to steward more,” he says. “I believe that ETS is a very special place. And I’m excited for not just those in Detroit, but literally all across the country to experience what we’re doing here.”

In October Turman was selected to lead the Ecumenical Theological Seminary, the only accredited Protestant seminary in metropolitan Detroit, and an institute that serves a different type of constituency. Most ETS seminarians are already pastors in the metro area, and some students are called to the cloth as a second career. 

Along with encouraging students to do what they are uniquely called to do, however, Turman sees his mission as identifying, training and equipping the next generation of social justice activists — leaders for the faith community and beyond. 

In the light of the current administration in Washington, D.C., pastors are often called upon to offer consolation as well as constructive counsel to parishioners who face unexpected consequences. Turman finds himself helping his students to do that while encouraging their efforts to help parishioners become more politically active. 

Founded more than half a century ago, Ecumenical Theological Seminary sits in the heart of Detroit’s historic Midtown neighborhood and has been described as “one of the few seminaries with an urban-focused, ecumenical approach.”

Given its reputation, ETS draws seminarians from all parts of the country, Thuman says. ”Every August has the best and brightest coming from their towns — D.C. to New York to Boston to Atlanta” looking to invigorate their churches back home, Thuman says. 

Yet when the academic year ends, “what we see is an exit,” Thuman says. “Every May, an exit. Every June and after every graduation, our best and brightest are frequently leaving” for HBCUs like Howard University and Virginia Union University as well as predominantly white institutions. 

“Detroit was kind of the canary in the coal mine when it came to urban disinvestment and moving from urban to suburban; and not just of the predominantly white population,” Thuman says. “Even the Black elite, if we’re going to be honest, have in many ways disinvested from the urban centers.” 

Still, Thuman believes in ETS’s social justice mission, even as he sees what he describes as contemporary, “corporate” churches — built around personalities and narrow interests rather than a shared, humanitarian sense of purpose or growth — dominate the faith landscape. 

“There’s no unifying goal like (ending) world hunger,” he says. “We don’t really gather around goals anymore, or even religious beliefs or church polity, or anything like that. It’s more about liking a certain pastor or wanting to be like a certain pastor, or choosing to be part of this or that conference.”

By contrast, at ETS seminarians get to minister to “all of the different kinds of people who are walking with you through that journey,” Thuman says.  At the end of training, he says, “you are much more attuned to the different kinds of people who are sitting in your congregation, to the different kinds of people that are living in your locale, and it gives you tools that better prepare you to reach a wider group of people.”