Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Bannockburn, Illinois, to Merge With Trinity Western University in Canada

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, known as TEDS, is relocating from Bannockburn, Illinois, to British Columbia in 2026. Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., will absorb the school, which has been struggling financially and with attendance.

U.S. students currently enrolled at TEDS may continue taking classes on its Illinois campus until the end of the 2025/26 academic year.

Trinity International President Kevin Kompelien said in a statement: “I believe a school like TEDS will thrive best and accomplish our mission most effectively as part of a larger theologically and missionally aligned evangelical Christian university.” TEDS will also separate from Trinity International University, its parent nonprofit based in California.

Trinity was founded in the 1940s and has been part of the Evangelical Free Church, a Minneapolis-based denomination with 1,600 churches. TWU President Todd F. Martin said in a statement: “We are privileged to continue a longstanding legacy of evangelical scholarship and expand the impact of a global Christian education. We are driven by the same heartbeat for the gospel, and together, we can do even more to serve the Church and societies worldwide.”

The source reports that TEDS hosted 1,182 students in 2015 and had 813 by 2024. The university reported a $17.3 million deficit in 2023 and a $7.6 million deficit the following year. Trinity Western has stated that it will not take on TEDS’s debt, a case of honest dealing in the handling of obligations (Proverbs 11:1). The Canadian school’s president said the merger will lead to a “stronger combined future.”

Former TEDS alumni named in the report include Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, New Testament scholars Scot McKnight and Craig Blomberg, evangelist Ravi Zacharias, whom the report describes as disgraced, and Christian television host John Ankerberg.

Source: Read the original report