William Tyndale College

The college opened its doors in September 1945 as the Detroit Bible Institute, organized by the Christian Business Men's Committee of Detroit. Classes were held in the Missionary Workers Tabernacle and later at Highland Park Baptist Church and Elim Baptist Church until the first campus was built at 17370 Meyers Road in northwest Detroit in 1950. The institute became a bachelor-degree-granting college in 1960. In 1976, the college sold its Meyers Road campus to Lewis College of Business and moved to a temporary location in a former elementary school on Franklin Road in Southfield. DBC relocated to newly built facilities on a 28-acre campus at 35700 W. Twelve Mile Road in Farmington Hills, Michigan, in 1978. As a means of maintaining its historic connection with urban churches in Detroit following its move to suburban Oakland County, the college began offering undergraduate courses in Urban Ministry as well as non-credit continuing education courses at Greater New Mt Moriah Baptist Church. In 1981 Detroit Bible College changed its name to William Tyndale College.^[1] In 1993 the continuing education component became Tyndale Bible Institute, offering a Bible Base Curriculum, in eight Metro-Detroit churches.^[2]

During the years from 1945 to 1980 when it was Detroit Bible Institute and then Detroit Bible College, the school's motto was "The will of God, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else." Numerous students graduated and went on to become pastors, missionaries and Christian teachers. The Detroit Bible College Chorale, a student vocal music group, toured the great lakes area every Easter vacation, presenting Scriptures and choral music to churches in that region.

Tyndale offered the Bachelor of Theology (Th.B.), Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Religious Education (B.R.Ed.) Bachelor of Music (B.Mus.) and Associate of Arts (A.A.) degrees.

Five presidents led the college: Dr. Roy L. Aldrich, Dr. Wendell G. Johnston, Dr. William A. Shoemaker, Dr. James C. McHann, and Dr. Robert Hagerty. Notable faculty who served over the years include Dr. Charles H. Shaw, Dr. Herbert Cocking, Dr. Matthew Parker, and Dr. Henry W. Holloman.

Although the college was not affiliated with a particular denomination, its early theological identity was tied to the dispensationalism theology that was characteristic of similar mid-20th-century Bible institutions, such as Dallas Theological Seminary, Moody Bible Institute and Philadelphia College of Bible. Through the early 1980s, the first two presidents and many of the college's administrators and Bible faculty were graduates of Dallas Seminary. Nonetheless, the student body represented a cross-section of conservative Protestant and independent churches, such as various Baptist groups, Assembly of God, Plymouth Brethren, Evangelical Presbyterian, Church of God in Christ, Bible churches, Trinitarian Pentecostal churches, and others. With the appointment of William Shoemaker as president in the mid-1980s, the college began to broaden its theological teaching perspective, a process that was met with mixed reaction from alumni and traditional constituents.