A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

n Anabaptist perspective. But his leadership raised immediate suspicion among churches with a funda- mentalist orientation. Was a man with only a secular educa- tion and not a minister-churchman trustworthy? Could he give spiritual direction to the college? Students in the Bible department of the college were influenced by suspicious pas- tors at home, One zealous student fell called to demonstrate his crusading spirit in the library. Discovering the books The Christ of the Indian Road by Eli Stanley Jones and How to Keep America Out of War by Kirby Page on the shelves, he took them to the librarian and demanded that they be burned because they were "the vomit from hell."23 The Committee of Reference and Counsel of the General Conference was called in to investigate the school's biblical trustworthiness* The committee's chairman, Abraham H. Un- ruh, subsequently assured the churches that no issues of bibli- cal faith were at stake. The attacks, however, did not stop, The storm spread a spirit of fear and became a "witch hunt" for modernism in the conference school. The struggle contin- ued well into the 1950s, finally resulting in Schellenberg's res- ignation. To restore confidence in the college, John K C Hiebert, a missionary from India, was called as president to affirm and protect the "faith of our fathers." Mennonite Brethren on the West Coast watched this "struggle for the faith" with apprehension. In 1944 they estab- lished a school of their own, Pacific Bible Institute, later to be- come Fresno Pacific College. Those who were close to the leaders of this new venture-George B. Huebert, Jacob D, Hofer, August A, Schroeter, Henry D. Wiebe and others-inter- preted the move as a vote of no confidence in Tabor Col- lege 24 The following statement spoke further to the motives for establishing the Bible institute. The reasons for this urge for a school here in the west are many. Three stand out predominantly. The first, of 174 MENNONITE BRETHREN EDUCATION course, was the realization for the great need of Christian workers in our churches who would be able to meet the intellectual progress of our time. Secondly, the horror on the part of parents and churches for the hazards that stu- dents confront today in some theological schools, and thirdly, the unmistakable but simple fact that a church body can not long continue in its true channel unless its doctrinal principles and church policy are definitely and squarely implanted in its coming generation. These are concerns to which God-fearing and Church-loving people cannot be indifferent