The University of Edinburgh is scrapping the Divinity programmes it runs for its undergraduate and postgraduates. Divinity is an academic degree designed for people wanting to pursue pastoral and vocational ministry.
The Head of the School of Divinity, Jeremy Carrette said, "Changes in ministerial training across Scotland led to the closure of the B.Div and M.Div programmes, after the Church of Scotland chose to concentrate training in a single institution."
That training now moves to the University of Glasgow from 2027.
Theology as a subject will continue to be taught at the university and students will be able to graduate with a degree in theology.
"Our core programmes in theology, religion, philosophy and ethics remain and are strong, with one of the largest undergraduate intakes in the UK and one of the largest PhD communities in the field" said Carrette.
Cuts to Divinity are part of a wider shake-up at the university which originally opened in 1583. It's the latest university to reduce and reshape its department. Exeter University announced cuts to its staffing in the theology department earlier this summer as part of wider humanities reductions.
Meanwhile, the numbers of people training for ordination in the Church of England remain well below what is needed. After four years of decline, figures ticked up slightly last year, with 442 people entering training in September compared to a low of 329 the year before, still far short of the 630 new clergy the Ministry Council estimates the Church needs annually.
Campaign group Save the Parish has pointed to a lack of confidence in ministry as a "major obstacle" to recruitment.
However, not everyone sees the closures as a death knell for the subject. Dr Michael Tang, who studied theology at Birmingham University and whose PhD explores the search for God in popular music, told Premier Christian News that interest among Gen Z remains strong, just not on campus.
He described how many young people who don't attend church still gather in coffee shops during church hours to read the Bible together.
"Don't read it as a sign that theology doesn't matter...it still matters," Tang said.
He argued universities need to revisit their core mission for teaching theology, rather than treating it as a purely academic pursuit: young people are still seeking Christian spirituality for themselves through practices like communal Bible reading, "so you don't need a degree in theology to pursue that kind of thing."
Tang has a passion for the subject but his own experience underlines the risk of pursuing the subject academically. After completing his PhD in Theology, he was unemployed for a year and now works as a barista. His advice to prospective students: question your motivations before signing up.
"If people are very scholarly and want to become a theologian, of course going down the academic path is right for them," he said. "But not everyone wants to become a theologian. So figuring out why you want to study theology in the first place is very important."
This story has been amended to clarify that the subject is undergoing changes at the university, rather than being completely discontinued.