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Prairie Bible Institute

 par Ruth Dearing et L.E. Maxwell Enns

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A second traditionally male leadership-role which Dearing assumed at Maxwell’s request, was preaching on occasion in Sunday services at the campus church, The Prairie Tabernacle. In the early 50s Maxwell approached Dearing about giving the Sunday morning sermon. Dearing’s first thought was, “I am not a preacher.” When she voiced this misgiving to Maxwell, his reply was, “Oh, I know you’re not, but I think you should do it.” From then on Dearing preached frequently at either the Sunday morning or evening services over the next several decades.

Maxwell’s decisions were not without precedent. In the earlier years of the school’s history he gave similar responsibilities to another woman staff member. Ms. Dorothy Ruth Miller joined PBI staff in 1928 and taught Bible courses in the college until illness forced her to retire in 1943. During that time she also preached frequently during Sunday services in the Prairie Tabernacle. In addition to these responsibilities Miller was also co-editor of, The Prairie Pastor, the School’s flagship publication in the 1930s. According to Dearing someone suggested Miller’s responsibilities at PBI were so extensive that her portrait should have hung in the Prairie Tabernacle along with all of the other Presidents of the school.

In addition to the leadership role women played on the staff of PBI, they were featured prominently as keynote speakers at the annual Missionary Conferences held on campus. Women missionaries such as Gladys Aylward, Dr. Helen Roseveare, and Elizabeth Elliot were specifically invited by Maxwell to come and speak at these large missionary rallies. Over the years it seems that Maxwell’s position on the place of women in leadership was remarkably consistent, and a good deal more liberal minded than was the norm for the evangelical Christian community of his day. Although Maxwell never went so far as to promote the ordination of women as clergy, he certainly endorsed a position which encouraged them to use their leadership abilities in para-church organizations, such as schools and mission agencies.

Perhaps it was fitting that Maxwell’s last published work was on this very issue, and that Ruth Dearing, who had been in leadership the longest of any woman on staff, helped with the final stages of writing and editing the work. Entitled Women in Ministry, the book was published in 1987, three years after Maxwell’s death. When questioned about how much of the book was actually her own work, Dearing modestly declined to take credit as an author, only mentioning that Maxwell’s position on the role of women in the Christian community reflected her own views.⁵

In 1963 Dearing submitted her resignation as High School Principal to the Board of Directors, sensing once more that some Board members were opposed to her being in the position because she was a women. When the Board accepted her resignation Maxwell offered her the position of Registrar of the Bible College, which she accepted. From then until 1985 she remained a full-time faculty member of the Bible College. During those years she continued to teach a range of Bible/theology courses, but like any good teacher, she was also committed to expanding her own educational horizons. In the later part of the 1960s, already in her late 50s, she began to study Greek for her personal enrichment. By the early part of the next decade when the resident Greek professor left, Dearing was asked to take over his classes as part of her duties. She continued to practice this habit of life-long learning well into her 70s when she began to study Hebrew at the Graduate School which PBI had recently started.

Her approach to learning, specifically to biblical education, has been an extension of her belief in what Bible College education should be. Although Bible Schools, such as PBI, traditionally did not seek official recognition from post-secondary accrediting agencies for their program of studies Dearing never considered that to indicate academic deficiency. “We do not magnify ignorance, neither do we defy higher education,” was her response to such criticisms. What was important for Dearing, though, was not the degree, but an honest, rigorous approach to studying the Bible as God’s inspired revelation of Himself. She observed: “I have found in my teaching that some very average students, and even some fairly new Christians, can get more out of God’s Word, and can discern spiritual truths better than those with a college education.”⁶

Ruth Dearing continues to work at PBI using the same principles which guided her early years. Fueled by a deep personal faith in God, and deferring to those people she believed were divinely placed in authority over her, she accepted the responsibilities and opportunities given to her. It resulted in a sense of personal freedom, the freedom to serve and to lead, but above all the freedom to minister to others.

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Aspenland II: Life and Work of Women in Central Alberta: une publication du Central Alberta Regional Museums Network et le Central Alberta Historical Society, printemps 2003, édité par David Ridley.