The Theological College of Elstal (Theologische Hochschule Elstal) in Berlin was the host for this year’s gathering of the Theology and Education Commission of the EBF. Seventeen people gathered to explore the subject of Political Tensions of Today and the Church: Exploring Baptist Engagement in Europe. Participants included college directors, politicians, theological educators and academics and Baptist Union presidents and came from Italy, Israel, Netherlands, UK, Romania, Germany, Ukraine, Estonia, Moldova and Poland.Research and Conferences
IBTSC is committed to programmes of high quality academic research and to organising strategic conferences on theological and related topics.
Our key Research Areas
Identity 
Mission
Practice
Our Conferences
We organise regularly our Hughey and Nordenhaug lectures presented by visiting established scholars in the appropriate fields. The Hughey series concentrates on the themes of Baptist History and Identity, the Nordenhaug series on Social Ethics.
Students, researchers, and academics who attend our conferences are invited to present papers for discussion with the possibility of further review for publication in our Academic Journal.
We also host mini-conferences bringing together scholars and researchers in specific fields of interest to our constituency. Some of these will be recorded and some live streamed in order to allow our students to participate.
Our Programmes
Central to our research portfolio is the PhD programme we deliver. At present the research topics our PhD students are studying include:
- “An Inquiry into the Emerging Church Paradigm as a Way Forward for Church Planting and Church Renewal in Sweden”
- “Christian Peacemaking in the context of Convictions, Scripture and Conflict”
- “The Contribution of Yves Congar to the Re-emergence of Pneumatology in 20th Century Western Theology”
- “A Movement in Crisis: The Journey of the Hutterite Brethren through Transylvania”
- “Tending Forgiveness: Restore the Broken Garden of the World”
- “The Origins and Development of the First Czech Baptist Church in Bohemia in the Political, Social and Religious Context of Central Europe (1858 – 1918)”
