Prague, Czech Republic — Trustees of the International Baptist Theological Seminary have proposed relocating the 63-year-old seminary from Eastern Europe to the Netherlands. If approved by the European Baptist Federation (EBF) governing council Sept. 26–29 in Germany, the move would mark a third incarnation of the seminary originally begun to train pastors in southwestern Europe in the aftermath of two world wars.
Started in Switzerland by Southern Baptist missionaries in 1949, the seminary took an unexpected financial hit in 1991 when trustees of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Foreign Mission Board withdrew about 40 percent of the school’s total funding in a dispute related to a power struggle between conservatives and moderates in the SBC.
The seminary moved to Prague, Czech Republic, in 1997 with a new focus on graduate studies aimed at attracting graduates from Baptist unions and seminaries across Europe and the Middle East.
In recent years, the struggling European economy and the cost of maintaining aging buildings once again put the seminary’s future in jeopardy. In 2010 European Baptist leaders voted to sell the campus and either find a more affordable location in the Czech Republic or relocate to another EBF partner union.
The new plan, announced in a press release Aug. 29, calls for establishing a Baptist house imbedded in VU University Amsterdam that would concentrate on doctor of philosophy study in Baptist/Anabaptist studies and mission and practical theology.
The recommendation includes a request that proper care be taken of staff affected by the move and their families.
Concentrating on Ph.D. studies recognizes that local seminaries have grown to the point that they are now able to offer undergraduate and master’s degrees, the recommendation says, but there is a continuing need for doctoral studies.
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