The reports shared with the group in Providence revealed an association that, since 1930, had grown from 5 to 164 member schools, awarded 23,664 teacher diplomas to graduates of member schools, and distributed 469,597 training textbooks. While there were many reasons to praise God, a tinge of sadness filled the meeting. The man who played an instrumental role in the founding of ETTA and served as its guiding force for the first twenty-five years had passed away on September 16, 1954. An adopted resolution, honoring Dr. Clarence H. Benson, read in part:

He founded the All Bible Graded Series curriculum of Scripture Press, and . . . helped found the Evangelical Teacher Training Association of which he later became President. This organization has been used of God to revolutionize the standards of evangelical Sunday schools in North America and other countries. Graduates of this organization may be found on all major mission fields of the world. . . . At the age of seventy-five, Dr. Clarence H. Benson was called to higher service to hear the “well done” of his Savior whom he loved and served so loyally. He is greatly missed by all members of the Executive Committee and staff of the Evangelical Teacher Training Association, and it is their earnest prayer that the mantle of zeal of Dr. Benson will descend upon the future leadership of the association. 1

This report of ETTA’s 1955 corporation meeting confirms the organization had come a long way in just twenty-five years. What were the circumstances surrounding the beginning of Evangelical Teacher Training Association in 1930? What were the purposes of ETTA? What were the programs and curriculum of ETTA? What was Clarence H. Benson’s role in its founding and development? Who were the key leaders that assisted Benson shape ETTA in its first twenty-five years? What were the contributions of ETTA to the evangelical world from 1930-1955?

General Conditions in the United States in 1930

Herbert C. Hoover was president of the United States in 1930. The stock market had crashed the year before and the country had been plunged into economic depression. Silent movies were going out of fashion in favor of the new “talkies” and Mickey Mouse was introduced on the silver screen. The Empire State Building was under construction and would be completed in 1931. The population of the United States was 122 million and prohibition was the law of the land until, it was repealed in 1933.

Religious Conditions in the United States in 1930

The religious world, like the economy, was in turmoil, although the roots of conflict stretched back to early in the twentieth century. American Christianity was embroiled in what became known as the “Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy.” In its simplest terms, fundamentalists were united behind an emphasis on at least five doctrinal tenets they considered to be unchanging: The inerrancy of Scripture, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth of Christ, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and the physical resurrection and bodily second coming of Christ. 2   Scholars and leaders in mainline denominations and seminaries who denied one or more of these tenets (“fundamentals”) were branded as modernists.

The beginnings of the Modernist-Fundamentalist contro-versy are dated to the publication, from 1910-1915, of a series of widely distributed booklets titled The Fundamentals. The Fundamentals promoted the five “fundamentals of the faith” and were sent free to thousands of pastors nationwide. The conflict was most evident inside mainline denominations where modernists seemed to control denominational power structures as well as the church educational institutions.

Christian Eduation Conditions in the U.S. in 1930

American Christian during 1930 was centered primarily in the Sunday School. The concept of using the Sunday School for Christian education was introduced to America by John Wesley in the late eighteenth century. Wesley modified methodology pioneered by Robert Raikes in England. Growth was phenomenal, and by 1875 there were over 6 million students in American Sunday Schools.3 By 1930, there were 22,000,000 pupils enrolled and over 2,000,000 teachers in the Sunday Schools of the United States. 4   This growth spurred the development of international Sunday School conventions which began meeting in various parts of the world on a regular basis.

The Religious Education Association (REA) was created in 1930 as an interdenominational organization promoting religious education. From the beginning, it took an ecumenical approach:

. . .the R.E.A. has sought the answer to the question of how to improve the co-operation (sic) of orthodox and liberal Christians, orthodox and liberal Jews, and unchurched idealists. 5

The eclectic approach of the REA was of great concern to evangelical Christian educators. Clarence Benson wrote:

While full credit must be given to this Association for creating new interest in religious education and crystallizing the sentiment in favor of better methods, its efforts to modernize the content of the instruction accomplished more harm than good. The liberalizing of the curriculum they believed was the necessary sequence of directing more attention to the interests of the pupil, and as the members for the most part had modernistic conceptions of the Bible, their contributions were at variance with those who accepted the Scriptures in their entirety as the Word of God. 6

By 1922, the International Council of Religious Education (ICRE) was founded through the cooperation of forty denominations in the United States and Canada. This formation resulted from a merger between the International Sunday School Association (founded in 1908 as the outgrowth of the national Sunday School convention movement) and the Sunday School Council of Evangelical Denominations (founded in 1910). Among the functions of ICRE were the development of uniform lesson outlines (used by the publishing houses of various denominations in producing Sunday School curriculum) and a standard teaching training program. 7  The ICRE was the forerunner of the National Council of Churches, officially founded later in 1950.

Evangelical Christian Education

In 1930, evangelical Christian educators were dissatisfied with what they saw as the controlling influence of liberal theology in the leadership of both the REA and the ICRE. 8  This left at least two strong influences that promoted Christian education from a dis-tinctly evangelical perspective: the Southern Baptist Convention and the growing network of Bible Institutes.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) had divided from the Baptists in the North during the Civil War. The SBC was conservative in theology and evangelistic in methodology. The SBC did not seek to cooperate with other groups, so they were largely unaffected by the REA and ICRE. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Southern Baptists were busy establishing colleges and seminaries for the training of their young people. Southern Baptists in the 1920s heavily promoted the training of Sunday School teachers. As a result, the growth of Sunday Schools among Southern Baptists was explosive. By the 1950s, the SBC would become the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.

While the Southern Baptists were developing their programs and materials primarily for internal consumption, the Bible institute movement was having a great influence in interdenominational circles both in the United States and Canada. The Bible institute movement in America began with Dr. A. B. Simpson in 1882 in New York City. D. L. Moody started the Moody Bible Institute in 1886. Simpson and Moody’s efforts began an avalanche of over 30 Bible institutes which were started from 1886 to 1915. The original focus of the institutes was the training of lay people for local church ministry. However, by 1930, the emphasis had expanded to include professional preparation of pastors and missionaries for full-time ministry. This happened, in large part, because theological liberalism was infiltrating the major American seminaries of the day.

There is little question that by 1930 Moody Bible Institute (MBI) had become the unofficial leader of the Bible institute movement. From 1914 to 1922, MBI was an active member of the International Sunday School Association and offered one course in Sunday School ministry at the institute. However, after the merger which produced the ICRE, Moody dropped affiliation with any outside educational organization.

In 1922, Clarence H. Benson joined the faculty at Moody Bible Institute, and was given the responsibility of directing a course of study in religious education. Benson was an ordained Presbyterian pastor who had served several churches in the United States as well as an English-speaking church in Kobe, Japan. Although MBI had offered only a few courses in Christian education since 1900, Benson designed a curriculum for Christian education that was introduced in 1924 and would be duplicated in Bible institutes and Bible colleges around the nation. But Benson was not satisfied with the development of such a program of study residing only at MBI. He was appalled by what he saw in the Sunday School programs of evangelical churches and began to see the need for training Sunday School teachers on a much wider scope.

The Rationale Behind the Founding of ETTA

In 1930 there was no organization, solely for evangelicals, equivalent to the REA or the ICRE. The evangelicals who had cooperated with these two organizations were increasingly frustrated and ostracized. However, some evangelicals, like Clarence Benson, believed there was value in the concept of standardization which ICRE did have in their “Standard Leadership Course.” This leader-ship course was being used by churches of ICRE member denominations primarily to train Sunday School teachers and other lay workers.

Miss Nettie Myers, both a New York public school and Sunday School teacher, wrote to Clarence Benson about her frustra-tion with the ICRE. 9   She suggested to Benson the idea of an evan-gelical organization which could set up a standardized curriculum for the training of Sunday School teachers. The frustrations of Myers and Benson regarding ICRE’s curriculum were six-fold:

1) Limited study of the Bible.
2) No required courses in personal evangelism.
3) No required courses in missions.
4) Lack of logical sequence in studies.
5) No standardization in where or how a course was taught— Benson was concerned about courses receiving equal credit that were taught in a variety of circumstances.
6) A restricted list of approved textbooks—Textbooks written by evangelicals were ignored by the ICRE. 10

Benson elicited the help of Dr. James M. Gray, president of Moody Bible Institute. Gray agreed with Benson’s analysis and together they planned a meeting of some of the leaders in the Bible institute movement. Its purpose was to investigate

the feasibility of promoting a common course in teacher training that would conserve the high standards of the International Council of Religious Education without the objectionable features of the Standard Leadership Course. 11  

The meeting was scheduled for May of 1930 at Moody Bible Institute.

The International Bible Institute Council of Christian Education

Representatives from five Bible institutes were present at the 1930 meeting in Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now Biola University), the Bible Institute of Pennsylvania (now Philadelphia College of Bible), Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School (now Northwestern College of Minneapolis, Minnesota) and Toronto Bible College (now Tyndale College of North York, Ontario, Canada). The discussions culminated in the formation of the International Bible Institute Council of Christian Education (IBICCE).

The group’s choice of what to call the new organization reveals three major emphases:

1) The organization was to be international in scope. At the beginning this meant member institutions were in the United States and Canada.
2) The organization was to be made up of Bible institutes and not denominations or churches as was the case of ICRE.
3) The organization was to be distinctively “Christian,” hence use of the term “Christian Education” instead of the broader term “religious education.”

At the 1930 meeting, curriculum was adopted for use by member schools in the training of Christian education leaders and Sunday School teachers. This was an attempt to standardize instruction in Christian education at member schools. A textbook committee was appointed to approve theologically conservative textbooks for use in the curriculum. Additionally, a secretary was chosen to handle correspondence for the new association. 12  Rev. Clarence H. Benson was elected for the position. For the next twelve months, Benson and the others would invest time in preliminary curricula development and promoting the work to other Bible institutes.

Since the formation of IBICCE predated the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges (AABC), there is some sense in which IBICCE could have become the first accrediting association for Bible institutes, if that is what it so desired. However, after its first year of existence, the fledgling organization would decide to chart a different course.

Change from IBICCE to ETTA

On May 16, 1931, a group of seven men met in the Philadelphia offices of the Sunday School Times for the second meeting of the IBICCE. Present at the meeting were Dr. James M. Gray and Clarence Benson from Moody Bible Institute, Lew Gosnell of the Bible Institute of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), B. Allen Reed of the National Bible Institute (New York, New York), Charles C. Ellis of Juniata College (Huntington, Pennsylvania), Philip E. Howard and Charles G. Trumbull of the Sunday School Times (Philadelphia). In Philadelphia, the major topic of discussion was whether an organization was needed which could provide impetus to a new wave of teacher training in evangelical churches and if so, what role IBICCE should play in it. The consensus of the group was to change the name of the IBICCE to the Evangelical Teacher Training Association (ETTA). The renamed organization would

not only serve the orthodox constituency of the denominations, but would put teacher training on a higher plane than any existing agency was then doing. 13

This was more than just a name change, it was also a broadening of the scope of the organization as well. Instead of focusing on the needs of Bible institutes themselves, ETTA would utilize the resources of the member institutes to meet the training needs of local churches.

The group adopted Articles of Association at the meeting. The preamble of the document read:

We, representatives of Bible institutes, colleges and seminaries in the United States and Canada, in order to foster a closer co-operation among evangelical Christian institutions; to certify to the public our deep interest and concern for Christian education; to provide and promote a common course in teacher training which will give adequate attention to instruction in Bible, personal evangelism, and missions as well as instruction in teaching methods; to recognize and encourage the use of textbooks of approved orthodoxy, do hereby associate ourselves under the following articles of organization. 14

These Articles served as a constitution which provided for the election of officers: president, vice-president and secretary, who would direct the affairs of the Association between annual meetings. Elected in 1931 were: Robert C. McQuilkin (Columbia Bible College) as president, E. L. McCreery (Bible Institute of Los Angeles) as vice-president and Clarence H. Benson (MBI) as secretary.

A key feature of the Articles of Association was a doctrinal statement which has remained unchanged. The six paragraphs of the ETTA doctrinal statement emphasized the conservative theological stance of the member schools: A trinitarian view of God, the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, the deity of Jesus, the sinfulness of mankind and its need of the new birth for salvation, the Church as an “elect company of believers baptized by the Holy Spirit into one body,” and that “the entire program of Christian training is evangelical,” the goal of the church is to bring people to salvation and then lead them into spiritual growth and service. 15

The Purposes ETTA

The purposes of ETTA were four-fold from the beginning:

1) Seek the cooperation of as many Bible institutes, Christian colleges and seminaries as possible.
2) To develop curricula standards (for both Bible institutes and local churches) for the training of Sunday School teachers.
3) To approve textbooks as needed to meet the approved curricula for schools and churches.
4) To actively promote Christian education as widely as possible.

The officers who were elected in 1931 set out to fulfill these tasks. They had at their disposal little financial resources, donated office space (at MBI), and the belief God had called them to a great work.

The Organizational Structure of ETTA

The original ETTA Articles of Association called for an annual meeting of representatives of the member schools of the association. At each meeting, the representatives would vote on officers (president, vice-president, and secretary) who would direct the work of the Association between annual meetings and serve as an Executive Committee. There were several organizational changes (reflected by appropriate changes in the ETTA Articles of Association) in the early years, none of which effected the basic work of the association as adopted in 1931.

ETTA was to be funded from three sources: membership/ award fees, the sale of literature, and honorariums given to representatives of the association. Although as a nonprofit organization, ETTA was permitted to solicit funds, it was the approach of the board not to seek out donations for operating expenses (a policy which has continued to the present).

The Programs and Curriculum of ETTA

The twofold focus of programs sponsored by ETTA contin-ued through the first twenty-five years of its existence. First, was the ETTA Diploma program; offered exclusively through “active member” schools (degree granting). Second, was the ETTA Certificate Program, which was offered through “affiliated member” schools (non-degree granting) and local churches.

The Standard Training Course: Member School Based Study

Students in active member schools who completed the “Standard Training Course” were eligible to receive the “Standard Teacher’s Diploma.” The initial curriculum of the Standard Training Course, adopted by the Association, included courses in: Bible survey, personal evangelism, missions, Bible geography, Biblical introduction, child study, pedagogy, Sunday School administration, age-group specialization and some electives. These courses today would be equivalent to 24 semester hours of study, sufficient in many schools for a minor in Christian education. Since no accredit-ing association existed for these schools, these requirements provided a standard by which they could measure their current curriculum and provide a basis for transfer of credit between ETTA member schools.

The Preliminary Training Course: Local Church-based Study

The “Preliminary Training Course” was designed to prepare Sunday School teachers who could not attend member schools. These courses could be taught in local churches or other sites, as long as the teacher was approved by ETTA. Upon the completion of a course (12 class hours in length), the student would receive a “certificate of credit” from the ETTA office. Students who completed the courses in Bible, child study, pedagogy, and Sunday School administration received a “Standard Teacher’s Certificate.” Students who completed an additional course in missions or evangelism received a certificate with a gold seal.

The curriculum for the certificate, initially adopted by ETTA, contained the following courses: Bible survey (3 courses), child study, pedagogy, Sunday School Administration, evangelism (optional), missions (optional). Thus, the six required courses represented 72 clock hours of study. Once the curriculum was approved, Clarence Benson began to work on the textbooks needed for the preliminary course of study. Although the standard diplomas began to be awarded by member schools as early as 1932, due to the time required for the development of textbooks, the certificate program did not begin until 1934.

The Curriculum Development of ETTA

Clarence H. Benson had produced the first six textbooks for ETTA’s preliminary training course by the end of 1934, designed primarily for use in local churches. Additional units were added in the following years: Personal Evangelism (1941), World Missions (1945), The Triune God (1948), A Guide for Bible Doctrine (1948). Eight of the original ten units were written by Benson, with the exceptions being Personal Evangelism and World Missions. Each manual was 80 pages, 12 chapters, in length, with discussion questions and project ideas at the end of each chapter. The textbooks sold for $.25 each in 1934. By 1955, the price had risen to $1.00 each. ETTA textbooks were widely distributed for use in member schools and local churches. Of the 469,597 textbooks sold by 1955, 453,863 (97% of the total) were books authored by Benson.

Growth of ETTA

ETTA grew steadily in the 1930s. The association began with five charter schools in 1930, and growing to 79 schools (71 active, 8 affiliate) by 1939, and reached 164 schools (102 active, 62 affiliate) by 1955. 16

It is significant to note that ETTA’s membership encompassed a wide scope of theological positions. ETTA members included Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal schools, as well as schools with a Arminian/Wesleyan viewpoint. This was intentional on the part of ETA’s founding member schools. ETA’s doctrinal statement, unchanged since 1930, does not mention potentially divisive issues. In many ways, ETTA’s fellowship of schools represents the kind of evangelical ecumenism that would later be demonstrated by the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942.

In addition, almost every type of educational institution was included in its membership: Christian liberal arts colleges, Bible colleges, non-degree granting Bible institutes, seminaries and graduate schools. This diversity of membership continues to be reflected by the present membership.

The Visionary Behind ETTA: Clarence H. Benson

It is not possible to fully understand the first twenty-five years of ETTA without briefly examining the life and vision of the Rev. Clarence H. Benson. Clarence Herbert Benson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1878. His undergraduate studies were in astronomy at the University of Minnesota and Macalester College. He went on to earn the M.Div. degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1908. Working in the advertising department of a large manufacturing company during his senior year in college and the summer before he left for seminary, Benson was impressed with the firm’s organization. He became convinced the evangelical church could learn much from its basic organizational principles. This passion for organization, and what would today be called marketing, would be continue throughout Benson’s ministry.

Benson was ordained as a minister in the Reformed Church in August of 1908 and married Rena Pearl Clark from Minnesota the next month. From 1908 to 1919, he pastored five churches in New York and Pennsylvania before being called to an English-speaking church in Kobe, Japan. During his years in Japan (1919 to 1922), Benson additionally taught astronomy (a lifelong avocation) in a local college. He began writing magazine articles on astronomy and soon an article written for Moody Bible Institute Monthly gained the interest of MBI president Dr. James M. Gray. The two had met during the 1922 “Founder’s Week” activities. Benson had resigned his Kobe pastorate, was planning to seek another, but was offered a position on the MBI faculty by Gray which he accepted. 17

Benson was named as the Director of the Christian Education Course at MBI and began serving in the fall of 1922. He designed the curriculum, taught a full course load, and enjoyed interacting with students. One those students, Dr. Lois LeBar (at MBI from 1933-35) shared her fond recollections of the Benson of those days:

He was. . .very goal-oriented. He had come home from Kobe, Japan, with a burden he had received the way we did. We visited Sunday Schools and we were horrified. There was nothing but rote memorization. There was no teaching going on at all. Not at all. So, immediately, that became his burden and he wanted to do something about it. He was very personal and intimate with his own majors. I mainly think of him as moving around. It is too strong to say that he was driven or that he was nervous, but he was along that line. He couldn’t stand still. He could no more stand still behind a lectern than anything. He was here, there and all around. Very active. He got us active, too. He was not a placid type of person at all. He had a hearty laugh. He was good-natured. He really enjoyed what he was doing, very much. He had this burden and he was fulfilling it. He saw his goal and he was getting it. 18

Moody Bible Institute Monthly

As would be true for the rest of his life, Benson was not one to focus on a singular responsibility. Because of his writing experience, he was asked to serve as Associate Editor for the Moody Bible Institute Monthly magazine in 1926, in addition to his faculty responsibilities.

He shared a home in Wheaton, Illinois with his wife and two sons. They were active first in The College Congregationalist Church (now College Church in Wheaton) and later at the Wheaton College Nondenominational Church (now Wheaton Bible Church).

Benson held his post as secretary for ETTA until 1952, when he was elected president. During the first twenty-two years of ETTA’s existence, the position of secretary was actually that of chief operating officer. He served for many years without pay and ac-cepted only modest honorariums for writing the association text-books and reimbursement for travel on behalf of the association. Eventually the association would hire a president to take over CEO responsibilities. Benson served as president until his death in 1954.

For most men, directing a course of study at a rapidly growing institution, editing one of the most prominent magazines in evangelicalism and giving birth to a parachurch ministry organi-zation would be a full plate. But not for Clarence Benson. Benson’s overall vision was the revitalization of the Sunday School among evangelical churches both in America and worldwide . Viewing Benson in this light his desire was not to be an empire-builder; rather to build up the body of Christ through Christian education, in as many ways as possible. This drive to impact Christian educa-tion on a wide scale would lead Benson to his involvement in two additional organizations which would impact thousands more; Scripture Press and the National Sunday School Association.

Benson and Scripture Press

One of the issues that captured Benson’s attention was the use of the International Uniform Lesson Outlines (owned and produced by the ICRE). Although used by major denominational publishing houses in producing Sunday School curriculum, in Benson’s opinion, the International Uniform outlines did not cover enough of the Bible nor did they utilize an age-graded approach. After a careful analysis, Benson discovered that in 46 years (1872-1918) the International outlines covered only 35% of the Bible. He set out to correct these problems through the development of what he called the “All Bible Graded Series of Sunday School Lessons.”

Benson’s dream was to involve students in his “Curriculum Building Course” in outlining the entire Bible and designing Sunday School curriculum for each of five age groups. 19  He started the project in 1925 and completed the needed outlines over the next eight years. Although Benson used students, most of them were already college graduates with experience in public school teaching before they came to Moody. Thus, most of these students were in their late 20s or 30s, certainly older than the average Bible college student today. Benson’s curriculum approach resulted in 74% coverage of the Bible. However, Benson lacked the financial capital to turn his dream into a reality.

Benson approached the directors of the Moody Colportage Association (today, Moody Press) and offered them the opportunity to publish his new curriculum. After much discussion, Benson’s request was turned down, primarily due to the poor economic times. However, Victor Cory, a friend and former employee of the Colportage Association (victum of the Depression), believed in the project and felt he could find the financing for such a venture.

William R. Thomas, a Christian businessman in Chicago, provided the money. The new publishing house, Scripture Press, was launched December 8, 1933. Benson provided curriculum units ready to print. They adopted the optimistic motto, “The Whole Word for the Whole World.” Among the writers Benson employed in the project were Mary and Lois LeBar, his former students at MBI who both ended up teaching Christian education at Wheaton College. Benson remained active in the work until he severed his ties with Scripture Press in the fall of 1942. 20

The National Sunday School Association

In addition to teaching, teacher training, and writing, Benson had a passion for Sunday School conventions. An ardent historian of Christian education (he wrote one of the first texts of the history of Christian education from an evangelical perspective), he knew well the impact that national and international Sunday School conventions could have to encourage and stimulate Christian education. In 1943, the National Association of Evangelicals for United Action (today the National Association of Evangelicals), invited Benson to serve on their educational committee. As a direct result of this involvement, in 1946 NAE established the National Sunday School Association (NSSA) for two primary purposes: to establish an evangelical version of the International Uniform Lesson outlines and to sponsor national Sunday School conventions. Benson was deeply involved in the organization and promotion of the new venture. He served as the chairman of the committee that developed new uniform lesson plans from an evangelical perspective. Benson also spoke at many of the national and regional Sunday School conventions.

His Writings

Not only did Benson author eight of the ETTA study texts, he wrote nine major books, several of which were widely used in evangelical institutions as textbooks (History of Christian Education, The Sunday School in Action, The Christian Teacher). In addition to his writings which appeared in Moody Monthly, Benson also had articles published in a number of other periodicals, most notably The Sunday School Times (at least 31 articles appeared in the Times from 1932 to 1953) and The Church School Promoter.

A Driving Passion

Clarence Benson resigned as Director of the Christian Education Course at MBI at the end of 1940-41 school year yet continued to serve on the faculty for another year. He officially retired from MBI and moved to Maitland, Florida (a suburb of Orlando) in the summer of 1942. It seemed to those around Benson that of all his Christian education interests, he was most passionate about the ministry of ETTA. When asked about the contributions of Clarence Benson to evangelical Christian education, Lois LeBar replied:

He changed the Sunday School. . . .It was different after his day. He prepared a lot of people so they could change it. His influence is with us to this day. . . . It isn’t often that one man, one person, can really be responsible for the changes that he made. And he made them, he changed it. He was tireless in his efforts, he was always after something, because he had a burden and he was going to see to it. 21

Although he had been called “Dr. Benson” for many years by his students and the public at large, it was not official until June 11, 1945. On that date he received an honorary doctorate from King’s College in Newcastle, Delaware.

Clarence H. Benson served as president of ETTA from 1952 until his death in 1954. His death came as a result of a virus he contracted while on a preaching/teaching trip to Puerto Rico. His body was laid to rest in the city cemetery of Winter Park, Florida.

Other Key People Behind the Success of ETTA

In 1931, the first offices of ETTA were in an office next door to Clarence Benson’s at Moody Bible Institute. For ETTA’s first ten years, MBI provided the space at no charge to ETTA. In 1941, ETTA moved from Moody Bible Institute to rented offices at 800 North Clark Street in downtown Chicago. The ETTA offices were again relocated in 1947, still in downtown Chicago, where space was rented from Scripture Press Publications. ETTA remained at the Wabash address until 1956, when it moved into an all-new facility built by Scripture Press in Wheaton, a suburb approximately twenty-five miles from downtown Chicago.

It would not be unfair to suggest that ETTA was run on a “shoe string out of a shoe box” for its first decade. The officers were not paid for their services. In 1933, ETTA, under the direction of the association’s secretary, Clarence H. Benson, hired part-time secretarial help. These part-time workers kept the books, processed awards, and processed the ordering and shipping of textbooks.

At 1939 annual meeting, the feasibility of ETTA hiring a full-time executive secretary was discussed. Clarence Benson recommended that if a full-time secretary was hired, the ETTA offices should be relocated to Philadelphia. This recommendation was based on the fact that the east coast was a hotbed of ETTA activity in both member schools and local churches. In addition, the Sunday School Times had offered ETTA free office space if the association decided to relocate. Benson also shared his belief that a president not affiliated with a member school could be more effective. After Benson’s report, the association voted to hire Dr. J. Gordon Holdcroft, a missionary to Korea who was scheduled to return in 1940, as the full-time executive secretary and to move the ETTA offices to Pennsylvania. Both actions were contingent on raising the necessary funds.22   Holdcroft was present at the meeting and after thanking the association for its confidence in him, he promised to pray for wisdom in making his decision. There is no clear record as to what happened to these two proposals in the months following the 1939 meeting. There is no record if Holdcroft accepted the position and later reneged or if the press release of his coming preceded his actual acceptance of the position. What is clear is that by the 1941 biennial meeting of ETTA, the offices were still located in Chicago and Holdcroft never served as Executive Secretary.

However, in November of 1940, Clarence Benson hired Helen Seberg (later to become Helen Nelson) to serve as a full-time secretary. In 1958 she was named as ETTA office manager. She was to serve a total of twenty-seven years, finally retiring from ETTA in 1967.

For the first twenty-five years of ETTA’s existence, the secretary of the association was, for all practical purposes, the official head. The president of the association served like a chairman of the board; involved in policy formation but not in the day to day operations.23 The first president of ETTA to serve in a paid position was D. Kenneth Reisinger, who was elected to a three-year term at the biennial meeting of 1955. He went on to serve through 1960.

At the May 1943 meeting of ETTA, Harold E. Garner, a former student of Benson’s at MBI, was elected as executive secretary (later changed to field secretary), at a salary of $2,600 a year. Garner was on the faculty of MBI (he was hired to replace Benson) but only had a part-time teaching load. As part of his agreement with ETTA, he was allowed to teach one day a week at MBI and spend the rest of his time promoting the work of the association.

The Contributions of ETTA to the Evangelical Church

In its first twenty-five years ETTA made several lasting contributions to the field of evangelical Christian education:

1) ETTA provided a rallying point for schools of higher Christian education with conservative, evangelical doctrinal positions.
2) ETTA provided a standardized training curriculum which raised the existing level of training both at the institutional level and the local church level.
3) ETTA produced a teacher training curriculum that continues to be widely used in schools and churches in the present.
4) ETTA provided opportunities for fellowship across denominational lines and conservative theological perspectives as a joint witness. Thus, ETTA pioneered a true evangelical ecumenism in the days before the NAE and the AABC.

Seventy years after its founding in 1930, the Evangelical Teacher Training Association still exists, although now known as the Evangelical Training Association (ETA). ETA has grown from 5 member schools to about 200, has awarded its diplomas to over 70,000 graduates of member schools and has distributed over 3.4 million textbooks. Today, ETA materials are used by thousands of churches in over 90 denominations and its textbooks have been translated into over 25 languages.

The story of the first twenty-five years of Evangelical Teacher Training Association is remarkable in many ways. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect is the contribution of Dr. Clarence H. Benson to the work. With millions of his textbooks distributed in English and over twenty other languages, people are still being added to the kingdom of God and strengthened in their faith as the result of the words of Clarence H. Benson. Truly, the words, paraphrased from Acts 5:42, engraved on Benson’s tombstone, are testimony to his faithfulness, “He ceased not to teach and to preach.” Through the ministry of ETTA, now ETA, Clarence H. Benson is continuing to teach and preach, forty-five years after his death.

Notes

1 ETTA Minutes, October 25, 1955.

2 Robert E. Sears, Moody Bible Institute and the Fundamentalist Movement, 1886-1930. M.A. thesis, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1986, 15.

3 C. B. Eavey, History of Christian Education. Chicago: Moody Press, 1964, p. 258.

4 Benson, 1943, 319.

5 Philip Henry Lotz, ed. Orientation in Religious Education. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1950, 450.

6 Clarence H. Benson, The Sunday School in Action. Chicago: Moody Press, 1941, 327-328.

7 Lotz, 432-433.

8 Gene Getz, MBI: The story of Moody Bible Institute. Chicago: Moody Press, 1969, 209.

9 Getz, 213.

10 Benson, 1941, 130.

11 ETTA Minutes, 1932. These minutes contain minutes of both the 1930 and 1931meetings.

12 ETTA Minutes, 1932.

13 Clarence H. Benson, A Popular History of Christian Education, Chicago: Moody Press, 1943, 255).

14 ETTA Minutes, 1932.

15 ETTA Doctrinal Statement, adopted May, 1930.

16 Membership fees were a modest $5 a year in 1931. The annual mem-bership fee was eventually raised to $10 in 1953. In 1955, annual member-ship fees were set at $25 for active member schools and $15 for affiliate member schools.

17 Laurin J. Zorn, "Benson in Action." The Sunday School Promoter. May 7-10, 1943, 45-46.

18 Personal interview with Lois LeBar, Febrauary 18, 1995, Ft. Meyers, Florida.

19 The five age groups were: Ages 2 to 5 (Beginners), grades 1 to 3 (Primaries), grades 4 to 6 (Juniors), Intermediate (grades 7 to 9), and Seniors (grades 10 to 12). Adult curriculum would later be added.

20 Letter written by Clarence H. Benson to Philip E. Howard, Jr., December 19, 1942, ETA Archives, Wheaton, IL.

21 Personal interview with Lois LeBar, February 18, 1995, Ft. Meyers, Florida.

22 ETTA Minutes, 1939.

23 The presidents of ETTA who served in such a capacity were: Dr. Robert C. McQuilken (Columbia Bible College, South Carolina), 1930-43; Dr. R. A. Forrest (Toccoa Falls Institute, now Toccoa Falls College, Georgia), 1943-50; Gordon C. Davis (Practical Bible Institute now Practical Bible College, New York ), 1950-51 and Clarence Benson.

The task of the interpreter [is similar] to that of a bi-lingual translator. . . .The (bi-lingual) translator must be thoroughly familiar with the vocabulary, idioms, syntax and grammar as well as with the circumstances that make a linguistic unit appropriate in both of the languages in which he is working. But translation involves more than a mechanical, automatic process. From his knowledge and experience the translator must make choices based on his subjective assessment of what is said and meant in one language and how it should be transferred into the second. Here is the art, the subjective, the personal element. But the conscientious translator studies continually the language and customs, seeks constantly to develop and improve himself, in order to give the subjective the maximum with which to work and thus minimize the chance for error in the translation process.

The Biblical interpreter is sort of a bicultural translator. He is charged with taking information originally conveyed in the linguistic, cultural and thought-forms of the Biblical world and making them understandable and meaningful to his contemporaries. To know that other world he must skillfully employ the rules and principles of interpretation. Yet the actual act of making the transfer of meaning from one world to the other involves also a subjective element; something inexplicable takes place within the person of the translator-interpreter himself.

Other than the integrity of the individual, the major safeguard or control within this subjective phase lies in the quality of the preparation, knowledge and expertise of the translator. As his familiarity with the objective data of his discipline increases, the possibility of error in the subjective side of his task decreases. Thus, his growth in his knowledge of and skills in handling the facts, thoughts, feelings and forms of the two worlds must always continue in order to maximize the accuracy of his work.

And accuracy, although not always completely possible, is the goal of the translator-interpreter. His concern must not be for personal reputation or pride, but for truth, God’s truth. Thus he engages in revision and seeks criticism and correction. With Augustine he affirms, "The lover of truth need fear no man’s censure."³

Notes

1 The fact that the North Carolina mountains have now stolen my affection does not affect the validity of the illustration.

2 H. H. Rowley, "Recent Foreign Theology," Expository Times , LXXIV, 1963, 383.

3 J. Julius Scott, Jr., "Some Problems in Hermeneutics for Contemporary Evangelicals," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 22/1, March 1979, 76-77.

4 Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 3