Where have all the Bible College Graduates gone?

For the better part of the last 100 years the Bible College or the Bible Institute has been the primary means of educating and providing pastors for churches throughout North America in the broader evangelical tradition. At one time numbering in the thousands these colleges were an alternative voice to the theological training of major universities. Bible Colleges distinguished themselves apart with two salient traits. First, the Bible was their primary textbook to which adherents mined it for its propositional and inerrant knowledge. And second, students attending these colleges reportedly did so often with a higher sense of “calling.” Enthusiastic and motivated, students entered these colleges with a sense of a divine mandate that they were going to change the world. In its infancy Degree credentials be damned.

In its early development the Bible College movement flourished. While numerically most colleges remained relatively small, their low infrastructure allowed new ones to constantly pop up across the North American continent. However, as the Bible College has entered the 21st century significant changes have occurred. Infrastructure costs have gone up. Devotional readings of the biblical text have ceded to more critical readings. In addition to Bible and ministerial training, many Bible Colleges have expanded to include a more contemporary Liberal Arts education. In fact, in those cases the word “Bible” has largely disappeared from their nameplates. The reasons for these changes are legion and are not the focus of this project. It has, however, resulted in substantially fewer graduates pursuing Christian vocational ministry. And that is a problem. Churches and parachurch organizations are increasingly struggling to fill leadership positions.

Considering these trends, I began a couple of years ago, as part of a sabbatical project to investigate the subsequent vocational and faith journeys of graduates from one Bible College as representative of Bible Colleges across Canada and the U.S.A. In Canada, Eastern Pentecostal Bible College (EPBC) at its peak was the largest denominational Bible College in the nation. I chose EPBC as such not only because of its relative size but because it was my alma mater and 17 years after I graduated, I became a faculty member myself. The study thus far has involved quantitative data with over 100 people surveyed and qualitative data with over 70 graduates interviewed. Among the questions my project explored were: How many graduated from college and entered full time Christian vocational ministry? How many are still active? (when possible I restricted my graduates to those who graduated pre 2001). If graduates started in ministry and later pursued secular interests, what were the mitigating circumstances? Would graduates recommend to other potential students that this is a vocation worth pursuing? Do they still self-identify as Christian? What role has gender or ethnicity played both in terms of opportunities of employment and satisfaction with their Bible College education? Would they consider themselves more mature in their faith today, than at the time of their graduation or is that even a question that makes sense? And what impact did the Bible College training have on their faith journey?

EPBC began in Toronto, Ontario in 1939. It later moved nearby to the city of Peterborough, Ontario where it is presently located. Its mission was to “provide Biblical, theological and general knowledge, to nurture maturity, and to develop practical ministerial skills, all within a Pentecostal context, for the purpose of preparing servant-leaders, credentialed and lay, to make an impact upon the world for Christ.”

Typical of many Christian colleges in the broader evangelical tradition, EPBC began more as a Bible institute designed to serve the immediate needs of its affiliated denomination (PAOC). Graduates had one goal, to find a place of leadership in the fledging denomination. In time EPBC opened itself to recognize credentialed degree programs and by the late 1990s flirted itself with the idea of becoming a Christian Liberal Arts University College. However, in the end it halted that trend and attempted to reinvent itself as primarily a pastoral training center. Elsewhere I have documented this subsequent failed project and its numerical rapid decline.[1] Today EPBC now named Masters College and Seminary is a fraction of its former self, but its varied 80 year history is prototypical of the life and times of the Bible College movement in North America.

My hope is that a study such as this over a 40-year span will provide invaluable information for both colleges and churches as they are forever planning curriculum and/or positioning themselves as communities of grace. For now, I am going to use the blog format to organize my own thoughts and have an occasion to tell their stories. Names have been changed (I am substituting biblical name’s in part for fun and in part because so many of the stories have such a biblical feel to them) and any distinguishing information that could be used to identify participants has either been deleted or changed to protect their privacy. And in some cases, I have mashed some stories together that share similar characteristics. Along the way I will include collected statistical information where it might be helpful. And I will entertain some of my own observations.

These then are their stories. Stories of hope and disappointment. Stories of faith, doubt, incertitude, transformation, despair, betrayal and loyalty. Stories of interruptions and journey modifications. No story is too trivial, nor should any story be demonized. In the end, creeds seldom change people stories do.

The Story of No god: Part 1

Peter and Esther

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I remember the nights in chapel or in the quiet rooms on my knees in prayer and crying out to God. I remember the sense of of calling and purpose in the first night when I got to the college and felt that I was where God wanted me to be." Peter

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The change began for Peter early on after graduating. It was a friend who gave Peter a book with a quote by Rene Descartes scratched on the margins of the page. “In order to be a real believer of Truth or seeker of Truth you must doubt as far as possible all things.” At the time Peter was a minister on staff of his first church. The quote from Descartes both haunted and assured Peter at the same time. In college he had repressed doubt as antithetical to faith even though he was often haunted by his doubts. Suddenly Peter began wondering if one could still believe, and doubt at the same time and still be committed to God.

A few years later a multicultural experience presented itself. He and his wife Esther took advantage of it and thought while they did not have any children at the time it would be an adventure to see how another part of the world works. For Peter this was for all intents and purposes his Cornelius encounter. He encountered a culture not known for any strong religious base, and surprisingly it worked. People were kind, respective of others and seemed happy without any recourse to any god and their lives seemed to reflect an absence of fear that this life on earth is all there is?

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I remember that the night I was lying in bed, I was actually reading Christopher Hitchens book, God is Not Great? I just read something and I put the book down and turned the light off. We were lying in bed. And I said to Esther, you know, I don't think there's a guide. And there may not be a god?

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So Peter thought, "if there is no god, there is no heaven, and there is no need to fear making it 'in or not." Instead, he concluded, "I need to find fulfillment in this life and take it seriously."

Esther

“Peter’s revelations shook me. Tears were shed. How will our families take this change? Can I imagine a life without God? The idea of a Christian family formed a significant part of my identity. I loved the idea of being part of a church family. Could I just let go of that heritage part of my upbringing? “No god,” does that mean everything was awash, that I have been deceived all my life? At one point, I thought maybe I could leave speaking in tongues, and I don't need to believe in Jesus' sacrifice. That was a personal thing. Maybe I could just go to God instead of me and Jesus. And so it went around and around where I didn't really know what to think, until one day I came to understand that I can be something different also. I can choose my beliefs too. So that released me to be okay with me being me. It meant letting go of some things of my upbringing but hanging on to other things. I still attend church, there's something warm and emotional that I still need. There is still a heritage piece that keeps me connected. But a lot of it I'm not sure that I need in my everyday life anymore. Prayer is a constant thing. But it’s not necessarily to any person or anyone but I feel like I need that a lot.”

Observations

In my encounters with graduates the story of Peter and Esther is not a “one off.” They are not alone in their faith journey. Peter and Esther met in Bible College, both with a sense of calling and purpose. Has that purpose been abandoned? I think not, but it is shifting.

Truthfully life stories are never static. None of these stories are final. To the Peters and Esthers, I would say faith and doubt are not antithetical to each other. The opposite of faith is not unbelief, it is certitude. Faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin. At the heart of Peter’s story is the death of certitude and a laying to rest the “god of the gaps” a coinage that the late theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer framed, where God simply fills in the gap at the end of our knowledge on any given thing.

Peter’s journey however, also raises the question, what would living look like if we gave up “heaven” as a place of final escape or final reward? Is the point of this life to simply survive until we get to heaven? Giving up on escapism would one invest in living this life more seriously? Would one’s approach to ecology, welfare, health, and other subjects be matters of greater importance? Would we enjoy the adventure of living now? Questions? Questions?

As for Esther, she reminds us that it is religious belongingness that matters for social well-being, not necessarily religious believing. We are part of communities, whether or not we chose those communities or whether we inherited them, these communities’ matter. They shape us and we shape them moving forward.

Today Peter and Esther are making life work within their family. Their story is far from finished. Other chapters are left to be written. One might conclude that they regretted going to Bible College. The answer was no, in fact only 5 percent of those surveyed claimed their Bible College education was not valuable.

Some might question why would I begin with a story like this that appears to be so dark – a journey from with God to no god? Again Peter and Esther as Bible College graduates are not alone in their journey. Next week I lead off with the story of a female pastor of more than 50 years still going strong with vitality.

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[1] Randall Holm, Masters College & Seminary: A Case Study in a Pentecostal Integration of Faith and Learning https://www.academia.edu/5152358/Masters_College_and_Seminary_A_Case_Study_in_a_Pentecostal_Integration_of_Faith_and_Learning?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper