I attended the Apostolic Bible Institute in St. Paul, MN for just one year. That was September 1956 till June 1957. I came to Cincinnati for the summer to work here and to sit under the teaching of F.E. Curts who was the pastor of the only UPC church in Cincinnati. He was also the District Superintendent of the Ohio District. I got here in June, don't remember the exact date and started a job the next day. A month later I got laid off and was off work for about a month, getting a new job in August. I did not feel like I should quit that job a couple of weeks later and go back to Bible School so I decided to wait a year. Well, the following year I got married and I'm still here in the Cincinnati area.
I learned some good stuff while I was in Bible School but heard some teaching that I just could not swallow.
At the time I went to ABI, I also considered going to MBI (Moody Bible Institute) in Chicago,IL but decided to go to an Apostolic school. At that time I had heard of PBI (Pentecostal Bible Institute) in Tupelo, MS; Apostolic College in Tulsa, OK; WABC (Western Apostolic Bible College) in Stockton, CA; IBC (International Bible College) in San Antonio, TX; and Conquerors Bible College in Portland, OR. I chose ABI because it was the closest and it was where my pastor, Lester Thompson, had gone.
I didn't know much about the other schools but we at ABI prided ourselves on having the most and best Bible/doctrinal teaching. PBI was looked down on because they were "loose" in doctrine i.e. did not stand firm on the "plan of salvation" and Apostolic College was just considered as placing too much emphasis on holiness standards and not enough emphasis on Bible. It was rumored that the women there could not wear wedding rings and nobody could drink any kind of soft drink except Dr. Pepper (I guess because it was not carbonated and was made up of prune juice or something like that).
Like I said, there were some things we were taught at ABI that I just could not accept. I also did not like the dictatorial control of Bro. Norris and the idea that any disagreement with what he taught was wrong/error/false doctrine. Bro. Norris taught that a person had to complete all three steps of
Acts 2:38 to be born again or to be in the Church or to make it in the Rapture but he did teach that if a child had at least one parent in the church, the child would be raptured. He taught that the "holy" people were those who had obeyed
Acts 2:38 since 30 AD or were the "prophets" in the Old Testament who had been Spirit filled. He taught that everyone else would be judged by how well they lived up to whatever truth they had and would receive eternal life at the White Throne Judgment based on that. Some people call that the Light Doctrine. Bro. Norris' teaching over the years has influenced many, many UPC and other OP ministers and lots of people in official positions of the UPC have been influenced/taught by him.
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