ABSTRACT
Pentecostal denominations were deeply divided about Bible institutes and “literary education.” The formats that early Pentecostals devised to provide ministerial training contributed to the gradual emergence of Pentecostal colleges and seminaries. Despite their regular debunking of “theological cemeteries” and their general dismay about the secular drift of American higher education, Pentecostals have always taken learning about the Bible seriously. With the formation of Pentecostal denominations, a number of early Pentecostal Bible schools closed or merged with denominational efforts. The reorganized school remained an independent Bible institute that resisted some of the trends toward standardized curriculum and embraced more radical charismatic teaching and behavior than most denominational Pentecostal schools tolerated. The few Pentecostals who dreamed of denominationally supported liberal arts education found virtually no sympathy in either their constituency or their denominations. Cultural change and denominational institutionalization stimulated discussion of Pentecostal liberal arts education, something suggested by a few in the 1920s but only seriously considered after World War II.
