March 16, 2023
By Walid Zailaa A few weeks ago I, with some of my colleagues at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS), visited some churches and seminaries in Sudan. The strategy of periodically visiting our students in their contexts has been eye-opening for me. I have realized that most communities not only […]
February 16, 2023
By Wissam Nasrallah This blog is overly ambitious. I seek, in a very short space, to tackle two major topics that each deserve several pages to unpack. The first one revolves around textual criticism and the Bustani-Van Dyck Arabic translation of the Bible, while the second is an invitation to […]
January 19, 2023
Teresa Sfeir “All the Lebanese immigrants I know keep talking about Lebanon, but no one wants to come back,” Samar shared. Samar, 27, has been in the UAE since 2020. Returning is not an option for her because she has gotten used to the sense of stability that the UAE […]
December 8, 2022
By Dustin Ellington I recently joined the faculty of ABTS and, given ABTS’s new hybrid format, I’ve been asked several times how I feel about beginning to teach from a distance. As someone who has loved being a New Testament lecturer on the faculty of residential seminaries for twelve years […]
May 19, 2022
By Grace Al-Zoughbi In the second and third centuries, Tertullian asked the following rhetorical question: ‘What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the church with the academy?’ Have you ever felt trapped in the Academic-Spirituality divide? Although these two narratives should not compete with one another, often it appears as […]
February 3, 2022
By Elie Haddad Another year has gone by. It has become a practice for many churches and ministries to publish an end-of-year report highlighting the activities and accomplishments of the previous year. This is mostly a sincere attempt to quantify impact and measure success. We even do this at ABTS. […]
December 16, 2021
by Grace Al-Zoughbi I am an Arab woman, a Palestinian (born and raised in Bethlehem), a Christian, and a Protestant with a heart not only for the Middle East but also for ecclesial diversity. My research on the role of Arab women in theological education has opened up a plethora […]
August 19, 2021
By Elie Haddad The stated purpose of our blog is to “provide theological reflections by ABTS voices about pressing matters of faith and witness in the Middle East and beyond.” There is no shortage of high-quality theological reflections on pressing matters of faith and witness around the globe. We read […]