Evangelical Education Society. Records

The Evangelical Educational Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church was organized in November 1866 as a “general Education society” uniting the diocesan Societies of New York, Massachusetts, Ohio and Virginia [and possibly Maryland] with the Divinity Students’ Aid Society in Philadelphia. Twenty years later, it changed it’s name to the Evangelical Education Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church (EES).

EES occupied an important place in the polity of The Episcopal Church in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was a strong and representative voice for promoting the thread of “rational religion” that dominated worship and clerical leadership in The Episcopal Church up to the post-Reconstruction period. It did this by supporting the education of men for ministry; sponsoring gatherings, conferences and workshops; publishing books and pamphlets; aiding campus evangelism and theological rigor; and providing biblically-centered Christian education.

EES expanded its membership in the 20th century by merging with the Protestant Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Knowledge (PESPEK) in 1949 and the Episcopal Evangelical Fellowship (EEF) in 1961. Although a membership organization for most of its history, it shifted to a grant-making organization in the 1990s with an annual donation drive replacing membership dues. Grants are disbursed through the Evangelism for the 21st Century (E-21) grant program, established in 1977, to support emerging forms of lay and ordained ministries.

In 2014, the EES Board changed the organization’s name to the Episcopal Evangelism Society. It continues to support clerical education, publish books and newsletters, and award grants.