A young Los Angeles Baptist Theological Seminary found itself faced with severely mounting financial troubles as it entered 1940. Its resources did not allow for the completion of a seminary building on its property — an essential project, the failure of which would spell stagnation for the school. At this time, J. J. Rutherford (president of a bank in Vista, California) was elected to the seminary’s board in March of 1940.

Rutherford later said that he came to the school because he saw a need for a place where young people could be trained to serve the Lord competently.

Described by one colleague as a man of “great Christian character and business ability,” Rutherford, along with LABTS president William Matthews, engaged in months of struggle with the Bank of America to secure funding for construction. Ultimately, they reached an agreement, and the seminary was able to complete its first new building. A written history of the institution says it was “a wonderful victory for the school and a new spirit of hopeful advance was manifest everywhere.”

Rutherford’s business skill and dedication to the advancement of LABTS were instrumental in its early years. As a San Diego local, his involvement at LABTS involved a costly routine of leaving his bank in the afternoon, riding a train up the coast to LA for evening board meetings, and returning early the next morning in time for work. Decades later, in 1963, Rutherford Hall was named in honor of his sacrificial service when the building was finished on the school’s Newhall campus.

To learn more about TMU’s history, visit our Centennial website here.