The Divinity School carries on from the original founding of Trinity College in 1859, which provided free training for Methodist preachers in exchange for support from the church.

Though the school is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, it is also ecumenical in outlook and has both faculty and students from a variety of denominations.

It also contains the 315-seat Bishop W. Kenneth Goodson Chapel with 55-foot (17 m)-high ceilings, office space, a bookstore, cafe, outdoor patio, and a 177-seat lecture hall.

Stanley Hauerwas, considered one of the leading exponents of postliberal and narrative approaches to theology, was a longtime professor at Duke Divinity School, serving as the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics.

[2] Hauerwas retired in 2013, but continues to write and speak at Duke as a senior research fellow.