“The seminary cannot be successful unless it becomes much more diverse not only racially but also theological,” he said. He envisions “a seminary as broad as the church of Jesus Christ, rooted in the Reformed tradition,” he said, referring to the theological heritage of Presbyterianism. “That rootedness in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has got to be first and foremost,” he said. But “I’m honestly convinced we can’t do good theological education unless we have many different conversation partners, especially those we disagree with.”

He calls himself “the new guy,” and he has spent his first weeks on the job meeting with and listening to people in places ranging from the red-brick campus of Pittsburgh Theological Seminaryto some of the grittier streets of its surrounding neighborhoods.

And as a veteran of seminary work from Africa to the Pacific, the Rev. David Esterline, 64, already has a few ideas of his own about the direction of the Highland Park seminary.

They include making the school more available to students taking part-time, online and nontraditional routes to a master’s of divinity degree, rather than just the traditional three-year full-time program.

More fundamentally, Rev. Esterline wants to build on the theological diversity of a school that has long had a reputation as having a stronger evangelical bent than the more liberal seminaries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) but which also has faculty from various denominations with views ranging from progressive to conservative.

“The seminary cannot be successful unless it becomes much more diverse not only racially but also theological,” he said. He envisions “a seminary as broad as the church of Jesus Christ, rooted in the Reformed tradition,” he said, referring to the theological heritage of Presbyterianism.

“That rootedness in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has got to be first and foremost,” he said. But “I’m honestly convinced we can’t do good theological education unless we have many different conversation partners, especially those we disagree with.”

He’s lived out that kind of diversity, growing up in a Pentecostal church and later earning a degree in religious studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, later studying at Oxford University and eventually earning a doctorate at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. All along, he found diverse people “whose faith is at least as deep and profound, who understood Christianity in very different ways.”

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