ICAS-Accredited Degree Program
Doctor of Sacred Theology in Historical Theology
S.T.D. credential
Discover the people, ideas, and movements that shaped Christianity, and the lessons their stories offer the church today.
Doctor of Sacred Theology in Historical Theology: Your Grant Price
Applications are free. Eligible applicants receive their admission and Grant decision before any one-time program fee is requested.
Published tuition
$24,900.00
$649.00 Registry & Assessment Fee
$149
Doctoral Degree
2026 Life in Christ Grant is active
Ministry Experience, Evaluated Against Academic Standards.
Documented prior learning may be considered when it aligns with program outcomes; every credit decision follows academic review.
Program Overview
About this program
Doctoral study in Historical Theology is for those producing original work from archives and primary texts. Every doctrine you hold was hammered out by somebody, usually in an argument, often under political pressure. This ICAS-accredited Kingdom of Life University program follows that process from the second century to the present, including the last hundred years in which the numerical centre of Christianity moved decisively out of the West.
Competency-Based Ministry Assessment
Recognition of demonstrated learning in theology and ministry
Experienced ministry practitioners demonstrate competencies developed through years of service, theological study, and continuing learning. The assessment connects that learning with the published outcomes of the Doctor of Sacred Theology in Historical Theology through biblical understanding, theological reflection, research, and ministry judgment.
70
Audited questions in this pathway bank
30
Questions drawn for each sitting
60 minutes
Time available for the knowledge component
24 hours
Interval before reassessment
Theological knowledge and degree outcomes
- Published bank title
- Historical Theology - Doctoral Competency-Based Ministry Assessment
- Credential
- Doctor of Sacred Theology (S.T.D.) in Historical Theology
- Question construction
- 14 pathway subject-bank sources contribute 5 questions each, producing the complete 70-question bank.
How completion is reported
- The knowledge component contributes 40% and assessed ministry experience contributes 60% to one weighted result.
- The reported result is no lower than 80%, matching the 80% degree pass mark.
- Reassessment draws a fresh question set and is included in program access, with no additional fee or limit on sittings.
- The integrated assessment covers the published degree plan; separate course assessments, a capstone paper, and a dissertation defense are not required.
Program Objectives
What you will achieve
Integrate advanced theological inquiry and ministry judgment in service to the church and its mission
Narrate the main developments of Christian history with attention to cause and context
Read a primary source critically, including for what its author takes for granted
Explain how a doctrine's formulation was shaped by the controversy that produced it
Account for the movement of Christianity's centre of gravity over the last century
Learning Outcomes
Skills and competencies you will develop
Synthesize doctoral-level theological evidence, research judgment, and ministry wisdom for faithful leadership
Analyse a primary text for its argument, its audience, and its silences
Trace a doctrine or practice across at least three historical periods
Evaluate competing historical explanations of a movement or controversy
Write historical prose that separates evidence from inference
Career Opportunities
Where this degree can take you
Church history educator
Archivist or researcher
Theological writer
Ministry curriculum specialist
Major Subject Areas
The fourteen subjects you study, and the ones the ministry assessment draws on
Foundational and Major-Core Subjects
Four foundations every pathway shares, then four that belong to this field.
Doctoral Seminar: Biblical Interpretation
How the church has read Scripture across eighteen centuries — allegory, the fourfold sense, Reformation literalism, historical criticism — and what each method was for.
Doctoral Seminar: Old Testament Theology
The Old Testament's reception history, including the readings the church inherited from the synagogue and the ones it invented.
Doctoral Seminar: New Testament Theology
The New Testament in the period when its canon was still being settled, and what the disputes over particular books reveal about the church's criteria.
Doctoral Seminar: Christian Doctrine
Doctrine as a historical process: the councils, the confessions, and the controversies that turned a shared faith into agreed language.
Doctoral Seminar: Early Church and Patristic Theology
The church from the apostolic age to Chalcedon: persecution and expansion, the formation of canon and creed, and the councils that fixed trinitarian and christological language.
Doctoral Seminar: Medieval Christianity
Latin and Byzantine Christianity from the sixth to the fifteenth century, covering monasticism, scholasticism, crusade, schism, and popular devotion.
Doctoral Seminar: Reformation History and Theology
The sixteenth-century reformations and the Catholic response, read through their theology, their politics, and the social conditions that made them possible.
Doctoral Seminar: Modern Global Christianity
Christianity since 1700: revival, missions, secularisation, world war, and the movement of the church's numerical centre to the global South.
Specialization Subjects
Six more that take the field into the places it actually gets used.
Doctoral Seminar: History of Christian Doctrine
How specific doctrines were formed and contested over time, following one or two through the councils, confessions, and controversies that shaped them.
Doctoral Seminar: Revival and Renewal Movements
Pietism, the Great Awakenings, Pentecostal origins, and later renewal movements, with attention to what recurs in them and what is genuinely new.
Doctoral Seminar: Christianity in the Global South
African, Asian, and Latin American Christianity in their own right: independent churches, indigenous leadership, and the historiographical problem of sources.
Doctoral Seminar: Historical Research Methods
Working with primary sources. Archives, editions, translation, dating, provenance, and the distance between an event and the account that survives it.
Doctoral Seminar: Spiritual Formation and Christian Vocation
Formation through the company of the dead — reading people who prayed under conditions you will not face, and the vocation of the historian in a church with a short memory.
Doctoral Seminar: Integrative Theology and Ministry
A historical question researched from primary sources and written up as an argument that separates evidence from inference.
Admission Requirements
What you need to apply
- Master's degree in theology, ministry, or a relevant field from an accredited or recognized institution
- Official graduate transcripts demonstrating advanced academic preparation
- Research statement identifying a proposed area of theological or ministry inquiry
- Scholarly or ministry-focused writing sample
- Current curriculum vitae documenting relevant research, church, or ministry leadership experience
- Three ministry or academic recommendations and a faculty interview
Degree Completion Requirements
Requirements for the Doctor of Sacred Theology
Graduation Requirements
- Complete at least 60 doctoral semester credits in the approved degree plan
- Pass the Competency-Based Ministry Assessment for the degree
- Satisfy every doctoral-core, research-methods, specialization, elective, and Competency-Based Ministry Assessment requirement group
- Integrate theological knowledge with assessed ministry experience under the published result-weighting policy
- Recognize demonstrated learning against every published degree-plan requirement
Culminating Experience
Demonstrate doctoral-level theological synthesis, research judgment, and ministry leadership through Competency-Based Ministry Assessment, combining theological knowledge with assessed ministry experience.
Credit Distribution
| Requirement Area | Credits | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Advanced Doctoral Core | 24 | 8 courses. Doctoral theory, disciplinary foundations, and scholarly leadership. |
| Research Design and Methods | 12 | 4 courses. University-wide doctoral preparation in quantitative, qualitative, measurement, and research-ethics competencies. |
| Area of Specialization | 15 | 5 courses. Focused doctoral inquiry supporting the learner's research agenda. |
| Doctoral Elective | 6 | 2 courses. Any doctoral-level major course from any school that is not already part of this degree plan. |
| Competency-Based Ministry Assessment | 3 | 1 course. Integrated doctoral theological knowledge and assessed ministry experience, recognizing demonstrated learning across the published degree plan. |
| Total Degree Credits | 60 | All requirements must be completed within the approved degree plan. |
Program Details
Program Length
Self-Paced
Self-Paced Learning
Total Credits
60 credit hours
Up to 30 Transfer Credits
Published Degree Plan
20 courses
Across 5 required curriculum groups
Format
Flexible Study
Assessment Format
Competency-Based Ministry Assessment
Selected Degree
Doctorate
School
School of Theology and Ministry
Institutional Status
ICAS Accredited
Ready to Begin Your Accredited Historical Theology Degree?
Applying costs nothing, and the work you have already done may count. Have a look at what this pathway asks for before you decide.