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Accreditation

Who we’re affiliated with

Brisbane School of Theology is an affiliated college of the Australian College of Theology (ACT) which means the courses we offer are accredited by the ACT. We’re also a member of the South Pacific Association of Evangelical Colleges(SPAEC) and the Asia Theological Association (ATA).

The main reason we affiliate with, or are members of, these larger theological bodies is so that you know you’re studying in a program that’s recognised not only across Australia but internationally too. It also means we have to meet certain standards when it comes to our staff, our teaching program and our spiritual values, helping us keep our promise of giving you a high-quality theological education.

About the ACT

The Australian College of Theology Limited is a higher education provider as defined by the Higher Education Support Act (2003). Like universities, it has government approval to accredit its own courses in the ASCED field of Religious Studies (091703). The ACT is a national provider.  It operates through independent colleges (like BST) as a consortium.  These colleges are approved by the Board of Directors to deliver ACT courses on its behalf, and are termed affiliated colleges of the ACT.

The courses of the ACT and the units of study of which they are comprised, as described and contained in the ACT Handbooks and in submissions to the Academic Board, are the intellectual property of the ACT.  Copyright and ownership of these courses and their units is vested in the ACT.  So-called Type B electives approved by the ACT for delivery by affiliated colleges remain the intellectual property of the affiliated college that proposed them.

CRICOS approvals to deliver ACT courses to international students are held by the ACT Ltd. The national provider CRICOS code for the ACT is 02650E.

Where we started

Our commitment to helping students know God’s word and take it to the world goes right back to our college founder, Rev Gwilym Morgans, whose vision was “to see young people informed about their faith and sharing it effectively.”He began the college, then known as the Queensland Bible Institute, in 1943 with sixteen students.

Our status as an inter-denominational college also finds its roots in Rev Morgans, who made it clear that denominational habits were not the focus in his classroom but students were simply to be taught “better knowledge of God’s word and practical use of the Bible for the service of Christ and the church.”

Our passion for mission remains as strong as it did in the early days of the college too, when the difficulties faced by a post-war society convinced our founders that “the training of young people to go out into the world to share the gospel is the only answer to the problems men face.” Although our society has altered in many ways in the last 70 years, it’s still in desperate need of God’s grace.

How we’ve grown

Our principles may have stayed the same, but our principals have not! Many leaders and lecturers have come and gone, bringing different methods and ways of working; our yearly student numbers have grown from sixteen to an average of 150; and the cultural context around us is constantly shifting. So change has been inevitable as we’ve fought to be relevant to the time and place in which we find ourselves.

The changes in our name are one of the most obvious displays of that: after beginning as QBI we then became the Bible College of Queensland, most recently we’ve been known as Crossway College and now we’re facing the future as Brisbane School of Theology. We love the picture this name paints of who we are and what we exist to do: