Training Disciplined Soldiers for Christ
The influence of American fundamentalism on Prairie Bible Institute (1922–1980)
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The comparative scarcity of academic attention given Prairie Bible Institute located at Three Hills, Alberta, Canada, was indeed a motivating factor behind the initial inquiry that resulted in this book. The original doctoral dissertation was written to augment and refine the limited research that exists regarding PBI during the L.E. Maxwell era (1922–1980). This edited work should therefore be regarded as an attempt to contribute to and refine how Prairie Bible Institute’s first half-century should be understood and interpreted by students of North American church history.
As a significant part of this overarching objective, the book reflects both a belated response to and an eager interaction with the valuable foundational efforts of Canadian scholar, Dr. John Stackhouse Jr., in this regard as presented in his 1993 book entitled "Canadian Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century: An Introduction to Its Character." Callaway's work endeavors to document that several conclusions reached by Stackhouse, at least as they relate to Prairie Bible Institute during the L.E. Maxwell era, are, if not demonstrably false, regrettably misleading. Accordingly, this volume serves to cordially facilitate Stackhouse's open invitation for further study that would improve on his initial efforts.
This volume convincingly documents that the very same ethos that typified American fundamentalism as it prevailed at U.S. educational institutions now known as Moody Bible Institute, Biola University, Wheaton College and Columbia International University, also held sway at Prairie Bible Institute, although the latter is located in western Canada. The book represents the first doctoral dissertation ever written that solely focused on the history of PBI in an effort to clarify how students of North American church history should regard an institution that attained world-wide fame in the twentieth century.
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About the Book
The comparative scarcity of academic attention given Prairie Bible Institute located at Three Hills, Alberta, Canada, serves as the primary motivation behind this book. This work should therefore be regarded as an attempt to contribute to and refine the very small amount of research available regarding how Prairie Bible Institute’s first half-century should be understood and interpreted by students of North American church history.
Drawing on an insider’s perspective of PBI, former PBI “staff kid” Tim W. Callaway challenges the adequacy and accuracy of Canadian scholar Dr. John G. Stackhouse, Jr.’s inference that the kind of “sectish evangelicalism” that typified PBI in the twentieth century was substantially different from the characteristics that define the traditional understanding of American fundamentalism.
The undertaking contained in these pages advances the perspective that Prairie Bible Institute during the L.E. Maxwell era did in fact reflect the influence and attributes of American fundamentalism to a far greater extent than what Stackhouse allowed for in his research.
About the Author
Timothy Wray Callaway (b. 1956) was raised as a “staff kid” from 1960–1977 at Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills, Alberta, Canada. In addition to completing each of the four levels of education that existed at PBI during that era (kindergarten, elementary, high school, and Bible college), he has studied at the University of Calgary and is a graduate of Providence University College (B Rel Ed) in Otterburne, Manitoba, Canada; the University of Waterloo (BA) in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (MDiv and ThM) in Deerfield, Illinois, and the University of South Africa (ThD) in Pretoria, South Africa. He and his wife, Joyce, are parents to three adult children and reside in Calgary, Alberta, where Tim is active as a pastor, college professor, writer, and social justice advocate.