Edwin J. Omark 1948-1964

First American-born Dean 

Edwin J. Omark came to the Bethel faculty first as a teacher. Born in Galesburg, Ill., in January 1899, he attended Bethel Academy and Bethel Seminary as a young man, as well as Hamline University and the University of Minnesota. Later he completed a master’s degree at the University of Southern California.

Omark pastored Swedish Baptist churches on the West Coast after his early academic preparation. He was pastor of the Bellingham, Wash., church from 1927 to 1930, and served in the historic Tenth Avenue Baptist Church in Los Angeles from 1930 to 1943.

In 1944, Omark was recalled to his alma mater to teach in the field of practical theology and applied Christianity. In 1948, with the retirement of Karl J. Karlson as dean, Omark stepped into that leadership post, continuing as dean for the next 16 years until 1964.

Omark led the way as the seminary moved to require a four-year college degree as a prerequisite for admission. He rode the crest of the wave of students coming to the seminary at the end of World War II, and then saw enrollment decline for the last 10 years of his tenure. Momentum at Bethel was shifting from the seminary to a college student body, which began a growth spurt in the mid-’50s. This growth led to plans for a complete campus relocation with the seminary as the first step in that effort. It wasn’t until the seminary was in its new Arden Hills location in the mid-’60s, after Omark had retired, that seminary enrollment began to climb again.

Accreditation became a major issue during Omark’s tenure. Consultants from the Association of Theological Schools pointed out numerous areas where improvement was needed. Though Bethel Seminary had historically been led by deans with outstanding academic credentials, the seminary in Omark’s early years had only one faculty member with a doctoral degree earned in an institution other than a Baptist seminary. Omark himself did not have a doctoral degree. Other weaknesses included an inadequate library and a lack of instruction in areas such as social ethics, pastoral counseling, and field education.

Again, great change came to Bethel Seminary through the hiring of a new generation of faculty. Adolf Olson and Esther Sabel retired in 1955 and 1958, respectively. Omark hired Clarence Bass in 1955, Clifford Anderson in 1957, Gordon Johnson in 1959, and Ronald Youngblood in 1961. None spoke Swedish, and two were from outside the Baptist General Conference tradition, but all had doctorates or would shortly obtain them from accredited university settings.

A field education program was begun in 1959 under Gordon Johnson to address one of the concerns of the consultants. The faculty began an extensive curriculum review in 1961, and a whole new curriculum was implemented in 1963. Other developments during the Omark years that enhanced the academic life of the campus were the beginning of the Bethel Seminary Quarterly, a journal for pastors, in 1953, and the beginning of the Adolf Olson Lectures in 1956. In 1957, the Evangelical Theological Society met on the Bethel campus for the first time ever. Subsequent years saw an increasing interaction between Bethel professors and professional colleagues in other schools. In 1963, the seminary library collection was separated from the college collection to meet accreditation requirements.

Omark retired in 1964 and was succeeded by Dean Gordon Johnson. Johnson would enjoy the harvest of all the hard work of the Omark years. A new campus, academic accreditation, and growing enrollments would mark the next period of Bethel’s history, but all of those developments rested on the work of Dean Omark and President Carl Lundquist and their work in the ’50s and early ’60s.