By Daoud Kuttab

Three Middle Eastern Christian higher educational institutions working with an Amsterdam seminar will begin accepting candidates for PhD in 2025.

The Middle East Graduate Theological Consortium (MEGTC ) consisting  of the Beirut-based  Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS), Bethlehem Bible College (BBC) and Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo (ETSC) announced the completion of their efforts to provide contextual PhD research that is in tune with the context of Christianity in the Middle East .

While some seminaries in the region are offering local PhD degrees that lack international accreditation, this is the first program of its kind both in content and in the collaboration of regional and international seminaries.

The arduous process of acceptance to this high-level academic program will begin early 2025 and the official starting date for the accepted students shall be October 1^st, 2025.

According to the PhD manual of the schools “The consortium recognizes that the time is ripe for a research doctoral program located in the Middle East. The program meets a need for an accessible, contextually rooted, quality doctoral program oriented toward the church in the region.”

Its areas of study include Middle Eastern Christianity, Context-relevant biblical studies, Islamic Studies, Middle Eastern Cultures, and Historical, Political, and Economic issues necessary for the proper understanding of the region. Such topics align with the missions of the partnering schools as they contribute to the strengthening of the church in the region.

Dr. Munther Isaac the academic dean of the Bethlehem Bible college told Milhilard.org that academic deans and presidents of the three institutes “will lead as a committee with a clear target to encourage Arab Christians to participate in the high-level PhD degree” that will be accredited by the Amsterdam-based Protestant Theological Seminary.

“The goal is simply enhancing and advancing academic theological research in the Middle East and the Arab world to support the church,” Isaac explained. He said that there will be annual meetings for the students in a school/place in the Middle East, in addition to time in the Netherlands. “There will be at least two supervisors: one from the Middle East and one from the Netherlands.

“Teaching will be in English, and the course will be in the hybrid format some distant learning and some in-person,” he said.

According to the MEGTC handbook the PhD Program has three (3) Stages.

 ➢ Stage One – Preparatory Graduate Theological Consortium (MEGTC) Stage.

➢ Stage Two – Initial Graduate School (IGS) at Protestant Theological University (PThU) Stage.

➢ Stage Three – MEGTC-PThU Dissertation Stage.

The student will produce the following outputs:

• Annotated Bibliography of General Paper (26 Sources)
• Thesis Preproposal (10 Sources)
• General Paper (5000 Words)
• Completed application forms and all required documents must be submitted by April 30th in full to the registrar.
• The admission committee will evaluate applications in May-June.
•  The admission process will include interviews with applicants.
• Accepted offers of admission must be returned by June 15.

All newly accepted students will be admitted annually into the program by the end of June 2nd.  The official start date for the program is October 1^st.

In 2018, the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Lebanon, the Bethlehem Bible College in Palestine, and the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Egypt began a series of meetings to discuss a collaborative doctoral program to serve the Middle East. The formal collaboration would focus exclusively on a research doctorate (PhD), drawing on the shared ethos of collaboration and commitment to serve the church through producing high level research in the region. The program is designed to draw on the collective human and learning resources of the three institutions, with the potential engagement of additional individuals located within the region. In January 2024, presidents of the Consortium signed a memorandum of understanding with Protestant Theological Seminary in Amsterdam (PThU) as a partner in the new collaboration.