Theopolis comes from two Greek words, “God” and “city.” We believe that the Spirit of God works through faithful preaching and teaching of God’s Word, through vibrant, rich, transformative Liturgy, and through courageous and diligent pastoral leadership to form the church into an image of the future city of God. The Theopolis Institute, based in Birmingham, Alabama. was founded in 2012 by Dr. Pete
r Leithart and Rev. James Jordan, but our work began two decades earlier. Since the early 1990s, a small group of pastors and theologians, led by James Jordan, has been gathering for the Biblical Horizons conferences in a small town in the Panhandle of Florida. Quietly and slowly, the seeds we planted grew and a fresh form of Reformed Christianity began taking root. Dozens of churches in the U.S. and across the globe now combine rich liturgical life with solid biblical teaching and rigorous pastoral care. The Theopolis Institute perpetuates the Biblical Horizons agenda of church reformation and cultural transformation into the future. We offer a vision that we believe can and should shape the churches of the future – a thoroughly sacramental and Trinitarian theology and church practice, solidly rooted in Scripture, combined with unreserved catholicity that draws from all traditions of the church. We accomplish this aim principally by providing affordable, graduate-level leadership training courses, focusing on biblical and liturgical theology. For the first several years of our existence, we are sponsoring intensive week-long training sessions, both in the United States and in other locations throughout the world. We believe that the church is the center of God’s action in the world, and that the liturgy is the heart of the church. To be effective in mission and ministry, churches need to be biblically rooted, liturgically vibrant, catholic, and culturally aware. A weakness in one area will necessarily produce weakness in others. Bible
Theopolis trains men and women to discover and bring out all the treasures of God’s word by insisting that Christians take the Bible on its own terms. Liturgy
A joyful liturgy saturated in Scripture and Psalm-singing, centered on the Eucharistic feast, draws us into the symbolic world of the Bible, gives us our bearings, and impresses on us a scriptural pattern of life to be taken out into the world. Culture
Because the church is an outpost of God’s future city in the present, called to transform the cities of men, our cultural and political crises can be addressed only as the Church becomes more fully and faithfully herself.
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Donations may be sent to:
Theopolis Institute
PO Box 36476
Birmingham, AL 35236
Peter J. Leithart serves as President and Director of the Theopolis Institute. Leithart (PhD, Cambridge, 1998) is the author of nearly thirty books, has published widely in academic and popular journals, and taught theology for fifteen years at New St. Andrews College, Moscow, Idaho. He has a joint appointment as Director of the Institute and Senior Fellow of Theology and Literature at NSA. The Theopolis Institute is a 501(c)3 and operates in conjunction with Trinity Presbyterian Church, 3251 Greendale Road, Birmingham, AL 35243.
