Qualla: Belfast School of Theology

Belfast School of Theology: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1943, with the war still on and Belfast still recovering from the Luftwaffe Blitz that had levelled parts of the city two years earlier, a small group of Christians opened a Bible school and missionary training home in the city. They had no buildings of their own. They had no university backing. They had a conviction that Belfast needed somewhere to train people for ministry, and they began. Eighty-two years later, that institution still exists - though its name has changed, its partnerships have changed, its address has changed, and the way it confers degrees has changed twice.

Belfast School of Theology: From Bible School to Theology School

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The institution was founded as the Belfast Bible School and Missionary Training Home, a name that captured the evangelical Protestant culture of mid-century Northern Ireland. The 'school' trained students who expected to go overseas as missionaries or work in Christian ministry a...

Belfast School of Theology: Glenburn House

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1983 the college moved into Glenburn House, a Victorian property in the south of the city. For more than four decades it was the school's identity - a house with a wood-panelled library, classrooms in repurposed rooms, students drifting between sessions on lawns that did not l...

Belfast School of Theology: The Cumbria Connection

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bible colleges in the UK historically partnered with one university to award degrees. For decades Belfast Bible College's partner was Queen's University Belfast, the city's main research university. That partnership ended in 2019. The transition was eased by an existing arrangeme...

Belfast School of Theology: Interdenominational by Design

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Northern Ireland's Christian map is famously crowded. The school deliberately refused to belong to any one denomination. Its students arrive as Presbyterians, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, members of independent congregations - in a country where those distinctio...