The Origin of Alberta’s “Bible Belt” Reputation
by Michael Wagner
In the past, Alberta has been known colloquially
as a “Bible Belt” due to the strong influence of con-
servative Christianity over the province’s culture and
politics. Unfortunately, things seem very different
now. Social liberalism is the order of the day. Even
“conservative” politicians distance themselves from
the traditional moral beliefs represented by genuine
Christianity.
There has never been a “golden age” when all was
well in Alberta. Returning to the past is not a solu-
tion to today’s problems. However, there was a period
when God was important to large numbers of Alber-
tans and when they desired to have godly leaders. We
can always hope and pray that as God moved in the
lives of Albertans in the past, He would do so again
in our day.
In 1980, Donald Aaron Goertz completed a Mas-
ter of Christian Studies thesis at Regent College in
Vancouver entitled “The Development of a Bible
Belt: The Socio-Religious Interaction in Alberta Be-
tween 1925 and 1938.” In this thesis he offers a de-
tailed account of the spread of conservative Christi-
anity among thousands of Albertans, and of how it
changed the religious tenor of the province.
According to Goertz, the two men at the centre
of this phenomenon were William “Bible Bill” Ab-
erhart, the founder of the Alberta Social Credit Party,
and Leslie E. Maxwell, the first principal of Prairie
Bible Institute (PBI) in Three Hills.
Fundamentalism
In those days, both men were considered to be
“fundamentalists.” It is important to realize that the
meaning of that word has changed over time. In the
early decades of the twentieth century, the word “fun-
damentalist” simply referred to someone who be-
lieved the foundational doctrines of Protestant Chris-
tianity. Among Bible-believing Christians, it was an
adjective with positive connotations.
Over time, however, the term came to be an ep-
ithet. In common usage today, a “fundamentalist” is
often considered to be narrow-minded and bigoted.
Religiously-inspired terrorists are referred to as “fun-
HOME Matters Fall 2016
damentalists,” for example. But back in the 1920s and
1930s, the word did not carry those negative conno-
tations.
William “Bible Bill” Aberhart
William Aberhart was born in Ontario in 1878. He
became a teacher and then a popular school princi-
pal. In 1910 he was lured to Alberta when the Calgary
Board of Education offered him a good salary to be a
principal in that city. He oversaw a couple of schools
before becoming principal of Crescent Heights High
School in 1925.
In 1918 Aberhart began a Bible study group and
ultimately became a lay preacher for Westbourne Bap-
tist Church in Calgary. His teaching was popular so
his audiences grew steadily over time. Then in 1925
he began broadcasting over radio station CFCN in
Calgary. It was the most powerful station in the West,
covering much of Alberta as well as western Saskatch-
ewan and eastern British Columbia. Goertz writes that
Aberhart’s “popularity soon led to the broadcasting of
the morning and evening services from Westbourne
Baptist as well, and a regular listening audience of
approximately 50,000 people” (p. 130). The popula-
tion of the province at this time was roughly 700,000.
Radio broadcasting was new to Alberta in the ear-
ly 1920s but quickly became widespread. Other reli-
gious leaders also took advantage of radio but were
not as popular as Aberhart. Nevertheless, the signifi-
cance of religious broadcasting led Goertz to observe:
“Radio was a tremendously important factor in this
time period, so much so that a case can be made for
saying that the Bible Belt is that area within the radio
range of station C.F.C.N., Calgary” (p. 3).
In 1927 Aberhart founded the Calgary Prophet-
ic Bible Institute (CPBI) as the central organization
of his ministry. Worship services, Bible studies, for-
mal classes and radio broadcasts were conducted at
CPBI. (Its most famous student would be a farm boy
from Saskatchewan, future premier Ernest Manning.)
Westbourne Baptist Church split away from Aberhart
and his organizations in 1929.
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Social Credit
In the early 1930s the Great Depression hit Alberta
very hard. Aberhart searched for a solution to the eco-
nomic crisis and in 1932 he found his solution in the the-
ory of Major C. H. Douglas, a British engineer. The the-
ory was called Social Credit and Aberhart began to use
his popular radio program to make Social Credit widely
known to Albertans. He then founded the Alberta Social
Credit Party in 1934, and the party won a landslide vic-
tory in the 1935 provincial election. Aberhart became
the premier of Alberta, a post he held until his untimely
death in 1943.
Goertz writes that Aberhart had two very important
effects on Alberta. From a religious perspective, “his ra-
dio work, beginning in 1925 had been the means of tak-
ing fundamentalist Christianity into nearly every home
in Alberta, something that can never be minimized” (p.
227). And from a political perspective, “his develop-
ment of the Social Credit party created a new reality in
Alberta” (p. 227).
Leslie E. Maxwell
Prairie Bible Institute was founded in 1922 when
a Three Hills-area farmer, J. Fergus Kirk, invited L. E.
Maxwell, a young American Bible college graduate,
to teach courses for Bible students. This proved to be
a popular undertaking and PBI eventually became the
biggest Bible college in Canada.
Maxwell was very concerned about the spiritual
welfare of people and he encouraged Christians to leave
the theologically liberal churches that led their members
into false doctrine. As a result, United Church of Cana-
da ministers accused Maxwell of being a “sheep-steal-
er.” According to Goertz, Maxwell replied, “I admit it.
When was it ever a crime to take a lamb out of a wolf’s
mouth?”(p. 121).
By the late 1920s, Maxwell and Aberhart were the
two preeminent fundamentalist leaders in Alberta. Go-
ertz notes, “Aberhart and Maxwell had become friends,
with Maxwell occasionally preaching at the Prophetic
Bible Institute, but they also had some theological dif-
ferences which prevented any close co-operation” (p.
203).
Maxwell followed Aberhart’s example of radio
broadcasting. “He started, probably in the winter of
1929-30, over the Red Deer station, moving to CFCN
Calgary later” (p. 193).
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Split Between Maxwell and Aberhart
The friendship between Maxwell and Aberhart
ended when Aberhart began promoting Social Cred-
it. Maxwell and other PBI people felt that Social
Credit was unbiblical and even socialistic. As well,
they didn’t think a Christian ministry should be used
for partisan political purposes. “In early 1935 Fer-
gus Kirk, the president of P.B.I. circulated a letter in
which he attacked Aberhart for turning to material-
ism, lawlessness and communism” (p. 166).
The split between Aberhart and Maxwell hit PBI
very hard. Most of Alberta’s fundamentalists sided
with Aberhart in support of Social Credit, and as a re-
sult, PBI lost about two-thirds of its financial support.
Oscar Lowry
However, PBI’s support began to increase when
it hosted an evangelistic campaign by Oscar Lowry
in 1938. According to Goertz, this campaign was the
trigger for a spiritual revival in Alberta.
Oscar Lowry was an evangelist for Moody Bible
Institute in Chicago. Lowry came to visit Alberta, and
on October 30, 1938, PBI began broadcasting daily
radio messages by him over CFCN in Calgary. Ac-
cording to Goertz, the “results were phenomenal. In
six weeks Lowry received 5,700 letters: 3,700 from
Alberta, with the rest coming from the provinces of
Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia. Do-
nations surpassed $10,000.00, and there were over a
thousand reported conversions” (p. 218).
After this campaign Lowry returned to the United
States. However, he held another campaign in north-
ern Alberta in 1939, once again broadcasting over a
radio station. Goertz reports that Lowry “was brought
to Grande Prairie by Walter McNaughton, a former
Three Hills student, who had founded the Peace River
Bible Institute in 1933. The Grande Prairie campaign
was immensely successful as well” (p. 218).
Spiritual Revival
L. E. Maxwell described the results of Lowry’s cam-
paigns as a genuine religious awakening. Goertz
writes that “communities were changed. No longer
were dance halls, pool rooms and bars full to over-
flowing. Preachers were heckled, insulted and had
occasional objects hurled their way by opponents as
much of the reaction was very bitter” (p. 220).
HOME Matters Fall 2016
The Origin of Alberta’s “Bible Belt” Reputation
The Evangelical Free Church was a notable bene-
ficiary of this revival. According to Goertz, the “Free
Church in Alberta grew from one boarded up church
in 1938, to over a dozen in 1946. These were staffed
primarily by Three Hills graduates” (pp. 223-224).
In short, L. E. Maxwell and his colleagues at PBI
had “laid the foundations for a revival which was sud-
denly to change the religious tenor of the province,
just as the political tenor had been changed in 1935”
by Social Credit (p. 228).
It was Oscar Lowry’s campaigns that launched this
revival. But as Goertz notes, he “was followed by other
evangelists, primarily Chase Sawtell and J.D. Carlson,
men who built upon his work and furthered the reviv-
al. These men preached a similar type of fundamental-
ism as that of Maxwell and so the two forces helped to
stimulate each other’s development” (p. 228).
The rift between supporters of the Social Credit
Party and supporters of PBI was healed after the death
of William Aberhart. Ernest Manning took over as pre-
mier and also as the head of Aberhart’s ministry. Un-
der his leadership both groups were able to reconcile.
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HOME Matters Fall 2016 - 25 -
Conclusion
The spread of fundamentalist Christianity that
led to Alberta’s reputation as a “Bible Belt” is large-
ly the result of the work of William Aberhart and L.
E. Maxwell. Aberhart had a larger political impact in
Alberta’s development whereas Maxwell had a larger
religious impact. Maxwell deliberately avoided politi-
cal activity and because of that he wasn’t in the public
eye to the extent that Aberhart was.
Goertz emphasizes this point, writing that the “so-
cial quiescence of Prairie Bible Institute fundamen-
talism enabled Aberhart to appear as the arbiter of
the Alberta Bible Belt, a function which more prop-
erly belonged to Maxwell” (p. 3). Aberhart’s political
role put him more prominently in the limelight and
therefore he became the recognized face of the “Bible
Belt.”
We can always hope and pray that as God
moved in the lives of Albertans in the past,
He would do so again in our day.
Alberta does not seem like a Bible Belt today. But
God is still the same, and we can pray that He will
raise up men and women who will serve Him and
make this province a better place.
Michael Wagner is a
homeschooling father and
an independent researcher
and writer. He is the author of
Christian Citizenship Guide:
Christianity and Canadian
Political Life and Leaving God
Behind: The Charter of Rights
and Canada’s Official Rejection of Christianity. He has a
Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Alberta and
lives in Edmonton with his wife and eleven children.
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