Heretics and Politics Theology, Power, and Perception in the Last Days of CBC

The United Pentecostal Church-sponsored Conquerors Bible College was founded in Portland, Oregon in 1953. It closed abruptly in 1983. The denomination attributed the failure of the college to financial causes. Heretics and Politics argues that the financial crisis at CBC was rooted in theological controversy, church politics, conflicting models of education, and sustained suspicions of heresy.

In seeking to delineate the several factors which destroyed CBC, historian Thomas A. Fudge has looked closely at the context, critically assessed a wide range of surviving documents, and taken into account the diversity of oral history. The narrative is neither an institutional history nor a biographical account. Instead, it explores the challenge of formal education within the UPC and evaluates the politics of change within that denomination in the Pacific Northwest. Both issues are assessed through the prism of CBC.

The story of the last days of CBC illuminates important developments in the Pacific Northwest. The story is told against the broader canvas of events transpiring within American religious history. Heretics and Politics is the first book to deal with any aspect of the history of CBC. Its probing narrative chronicles both institutional upheaval and personal tragedy.