Far Eastern Bible College was established on 17 September 1962 as an autonomous institution independent of ecclesiastical control. It shares premises with the Life Bible-Presbyterian Church, but the two organisations had a falling out over a doctrinal issue. In 2008, the church sued the college over what it considered to be "deviant Bible teachings", and sought to force FEBC to leave the Gilstead Road premises. The FEBC faculty had been promoting a doctrine known as "Verbal Plenary Preservation", which states that the text of Scripture has been perfectly preserved. However the church failed as the Court of Appeal, the apex court in the Singapore legal system, held on 26 April 2011 that “the VPP doctrine is actually closely related to the VPI doctrine which both parties adhere to,” ;” “the College, in adopting the VPP doctrine, has not deviated from the fundamental principles which guide and inform the work of the College right from its inception, and as expressed in the Westminster Confession”; “t is not inconsistent for a Christian who believes fully in the principles contained within the Westminster Confession to also subscribe to the VPP doctrine”; and “n the absence of anything in the Westminster Confession that deals with the status of the apographs, we hesitate to find that the VPP doctrine is a deviation from the principles contained within the Westminster Confession.
The "FEBC Anthem" was written by the founding principal to music composed by M. D. Buell and arranged by Dave Haas. The early years of hardships and difficulties moved the founding principal to write the lyrics while on a train journey from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur in 1966.
Since 1979, the Dean Burgon Oath has been taken by members of the Board of Directors and Faculty at every annual convocation to publicly affirm their allegiance to the Bible:
I swear in the name of the triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—that the Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High. The Bible is none other than the Word of God, not some part of it more, some part of it less, but all alike the utterance of Him that sitteth upon the throne, faultless, unerring, supreme. So help me God. Amen.
