Alma White College was a Bible college in Zarephath, New Jersey from 1921 [1] to 1978. It was an institution of the Pillar of Fire Church. [2] The academic institution is now succeeded by Pillar College.
Alma White College was a Bible college in Zarephath, New Jersey from 1921 [1] to 1978. It was an institution of the Pillar of Fire Church. [2] The academic institution is now succeeded by Pillar College.
In June 1917 an elderly German professor came to Zarephath, the headquarters of the Pillar of Fire, and offered to teach college level classes. Several other classes were organized around a standard college curriculum. [3]
The college was first allowed by the New Jersey Department of Education to grant Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in 1921 and the name Alma White College was chosen. [3] [4] [5] [6] [2] Alma White's son, Arthur Kent White was the first president starting in 1921. [7] [8] Alma White was the founder of the church.
In 1923 the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey provided funding for the school, allowing it to become "the second institution in the north avowedly run by the Ku Klux Klan to further its aims and principles." Alma White said that the Klan philosophy "will sweep through the intellectual student classes as through the masses of the people." [9] [10] At that time, the Pillar of Fire was publishing the pro-KKK monthly periodical The Good Citizen . In 1927 the college conferred its first Doctor of Divinity degree. [11]
Arthur Kent White retired as president in 1971. [7] [8]
The college made the decision to shut down its liberal arts and science programs. The state gave the school permission to allow the students already enrolled to complete their studies until graduation.[ citation needed ]
It graduated its last student in June 1978. [12]
The buildings suffered heavy damage in 1971, 1999, and 2011 from flooding on the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the Millstone River. [13] [14]
After the closing of the college, the Pillar of Fire continued to operate Zarephath Bible Institute [ZBI], which historically had operated on the campus. In early 2001, on the same campus, the Pillar of Fire founded Somerset Christian College. [15] [2]
Following the flooding caused by Hurricane Irene in 2011, the Zarephath campus buildings have been condemned, and all classes meet at Stonecrest Church in Warren, New Jersey.
Zarephath is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) and located in Franklin Township, in Somerset County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, about 15 mi (24 km) north of Princeton. As of the 2020 United States census, the CDP's population was 69, an increase of 32 (+86.5%) from the 37 enumerated at the 2010 census.
Alma Bridwell White was the founder and a bishop of the Pillar of Fire Church. In 1918, she became the first woman bishop of Pillar of Fire in the United States. She was a proponent of feminism. She also associated herself with the Ku Klux Klan and was involved in anti-Catholicism, antisemitism, anti-Pentecostalism, racism, and hostility to immigrants. By the time of her death at age 84, she had expanded the sect to "4,000 followers, 61 churches, seven schools, ten periodicals and two broadcasting stations."
WAWZ is a Christian radio station licensed to Zarephath, New Jersey. The station is owned by non-profit Pillar Media, a division of the Pillar of Fire International.
The Westminster Castle, also locally known as "The Pillar of Fire" is a historic landmark located in Westminster, Colorado, northwest of Denver near the intersection of 83rd and Federal. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Westminster University.
Arthur Kent White was a bishop, and the general superintendent of the Pillar of Fire Church in Zarephath, New Jersey, and the president of Belleview College. The church was started by his mother, Alma Bridwell White, in Denver, Colorado.
Ray Bridwell White was the son of Alma White, the leader of the Pillar of Fire Church in Zarephath, New Jersey. He was nominated to be a Bishop shortly after his mother died in 1946, but was too ill to attend the ordination ceremony and died shortly thereafter.
The Pillar of Fire International, also known as the Pillar of Fire Church, is a Methodist Christian denomination with headquarters in Zarephath, New Jersey. The Pillar of Fire Church affirms the Methodist Articles of Religion and as of 1988, had 76 congregations around the world, including the United States, as well as "Great Britain, India, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, the Philippines, Spain, and former Yugoslavia".
Robert Barney Dallenbach is a bishop in the Pillar of Fire International. He also was the church's fifth general superintendent until losing a vote of confidence at the 2008 Pillar of Fire annual camp meeting convention. He also served as a director for the North Metro Arts Alliance in Colorado. He was the author of seven books.
Arlene Hart White Lawrence was a bishop and the third president and general superintendent of the Pillar of Fire Church, a Protestant denomination which in 1966 operated church congregations, missionary homes, radio stations, publishing operations, farms, schools and colleges from 54 properties around the world. The denomination was founded in Denver, Colorado, by her grandmother, Alma Bridwell White, the first woman to become a bishop in the US. She believed that "activities such as gambling and dancing take time from the really important activities of life". She was the president of all three church radio stations, KPOF in Westminster, Colorado; WAWZ in the Zarephath section of Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey ; and WAKW in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Pillar College is a private evangelical Christian college with the main campus in Newark, New Jersey and educational locations in Somerset, Paterson, Plainfield, and Jersey City. Pillar College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Arthur Hornbui Bell was an attorney and the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey.
Heroes of the Fiery Cross is a book in praise of the Ku Klux Klan, published in 1928 by Protestant Bishop Alma Bridwell White, in which she "sounds the alarm about imagined threats to Protestant Americans from Catholics and Jews", according to author Peter Knight. In the book she asks rhetorically, "Who are the enemies of the Klan? They are the bootleggers, law-breakers, corrupt politicians, weak-kneed Protestant church members, white slavers, toe-kissers, wafer-worshippers, and every spineless character who takes the path of least resistance." She also argues that Catholics are removing the Bible from public schools. Another topic is her anti-Catholic stance towards the United States presidential election of 1928, in which Catholic Al Smith was running for president.
The Good Citizen was a sixteen-page monthly political periodical edited by Bishop Alma White and illustrated by Reverend Branford Clarke. The Good Citizen was published from 1913 until 1933 by the Pillar of Fire Church at their headquarters in Zarephath, New Jersey in the United States. White used the publication to expose "political Romanism in its efforts to gain the ascendancy in the U.S."
The Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy is a 144-page book written by Bishop Alma Bridwell White in 1925 and illustrated by Reverend Branford Clarke. In the book she uses scripture to rationalize that the Ku Klux Klan is sanctioned by God "through divine illumination and prophetic vision". She also believed that the Apostles and the Good Samaritan were members of the Klan. The book was published by the Pillar of Fire Church, which she founded, at their press in Zarephath, New Jersey. The book sold over 45,000 copies.
Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty was a book published by the Pillar of Fire Church in 1926 by Bishop Alma Bridwell White and illustrated by Branford Clarke. She claims that the Founding Fathers of the United States were members of the Ku Klux Klan, and that Paul Revere made his legendary ride in Klan hood and robes. She said: "Jews are everywhere a separate and distinct people, living apart from the great Gentile masses ... they are not home builders or tillers of the soil." Her book, which contains many anti-Catholic themes, became popular during the United States presidential election of 1928 when Al Smith was the first Catholic presidential candidate from a major party.
Branford Edward Clarke was an Evangelical preacher, poet and artist who promoted the Ku Klux Klan through his art which was drawn for the Pillar of Fire Church and their publications.
Kathleen Merell White was an American minister, author, and senior leader in the Pillar of Fire Church, a Protestant denomination founded in 1901 by Bishop Alma White, Kathleen's mother-in-law.
The Ku Klux Klan has had a history in the U.S. state of New Jersey since the early part of the 1920s. The Klan was active in the areas of Trenton and Camden and it also had a presence in several of the state's northern counties in the 1920s. It had the most members in Monmouth County, and operated a resort in Wall Township.
Guardians of Liberty is a three volume set of books published in 1943 by Bishop Alma Bridwell White, author of over 35 books and founder of the Pillar of Fire Church. Guardians of Liberty is primarily devoted to summarizing White's vehement anti-Catholicism under the guise of patriotism. White also defends her historical support of and association with the Ku Klux Klan while significantly but not completely distancing herself from the Klan. Each of the three volumes corresponds to one of the three books White published in the 1920s promoting the Ku Klux Klan and her political views which in addition to anti-Catholicism also included nativism, anti-Semitism and white supremacy. In Guardians of Liberty, White removed most, but not all of the direct references to the Klan that had existed in her three 1920s books, both in the text and in the illustrations. In Volumes I and II, she removed most of the nativist, anti-Semitic and white supremacist ideology that had appeared in her predecessor books. However, in Guardians Volume III, she did retain edited versions of chapters promoting nativism, anti-Semitism and white supremacy.
Donald Justin Wolfram was the fourth General Superintendent of the Pillar of Fire Church from 1984 to 2000.
In June 1917 our people made the acquaintance of an elderly German professor, who came to Zarephath offering to conduct classes on the college level for such persons as might care to attend them. Several other classes were organized under some of our own professors, and all were conducted according to regular college schedules, meeting requirements as to hours, numbers of classes, and character of work done. In May 1921 application was made to the Stale Board of Education at Trenton, New Jersey, for a college charter, which, after due inspection and consideration, was granted, and Alma College became a reality. In order to distinguish and avoid confusion in connection with another Alma College, the name was subsequently changed to Alma White College.
assumed the deanship of Alma White College when it was founded in 1921 at Zarephath. Alma White College offered Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, ...
in 1921, Alma White College in Zarephath ...
In 1921 the New Jersey Board of Education granted to Alma White College the authority to confer the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science. ...
Commencement exercises of Alma White College will be held here tomorrow afternoon, with Arthur K. White, Junior Bishop of the Pillar of Fire Church and president of the college, as the speaker. Zarephath Bible Seminary and Alma Preparatory School are associated with the college.
Bishop Arthur K. White, president and general superintendent of the Pillar of Fire Church in Zarephath, New Jersey, died Monday at his home in Zarephath. He was 92 years old. ... He was president of Alma White College from 1921 to 1971 and received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree there.
That the Ku Klux Klan is on the verge of 'sweeping through the colleges of the country as it has swept through the masses,' was the assertion of Bishop Alma White, founder of the 'Pillar of Fire,' a religious sect and the head of a small institution called the Alma College, fifteen miles north of Princeton at Zarephath, in an interview published this morning in the Daily Princetonian.
Bishop Alma White, the founder of the Pillar of Fire Church, and an author of various religious works, is President of the institution under the new regime. In an interview for the Princetonian today Bishop White deplored the present indifference of the undergraduate to the Klan and predicted that in the near future "it will sweep through the intellectual student classes as through the masses of the people."
For the first time in its history Alma College, at Zarepath, near Bound Brook, N.J., conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity during its commencement exercises, which took place last week.
Closed: Alma White College, 1978
Pillar of Fire International Headquarters at Zarephath in Somerset, New Jersey, lies on the Raritan River [ sic ], which was reported to have crested at ten feet above its banks following more than ten inches of rain brought in by Hurricane Floyd. The main campus, including Zarephath Bible Institute, Zarephath Community Chapel, and WAWZ Christian Radio, was under seven feet of water and by Friday morning was under 100% evacuation. Temple Christian Day School, the Pillar of Fire elementary school, is located in nearby Bound Brook, which was inundated by the out-of-banks river.
When the floodwaters left by Hurricane Floyd in September 1999 receded from the Pillar of Fire religious complex in Zarephath, Somerset County, they revealed more than just the millions of dollars in damage.
ZBI became [ sic ] Somerset Christian College on March 23, 2001 when the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education issued the license to grant the two-year Associate in Biblical Studies degree. In 2006 the college was approved to offer four-year Bachelor of Arts degrees.
Dr. Donald J. Wolfram left this life on August 25, 2003, after a brief bout with pancreatic cancer. He was 83. ... He earned a bachelor's degree from Alma White College in Zarephath, a master's degree in education from Columbia University and his doctorate in education from the University of Denver.
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