Biola in Fiction, Film, and Popular Culture

In Lela Gilbert's romance novel Prelude, the main character, Betty Fuller, attends the Los Angeles Bible College. "Los Angeles Bible College was situated right in the heart of L. A.'s urban center. The campus was self-contained in a run-down, thirteen-story building. Men's and women's dormitory floors were carefully separated by four levels of classrooms that were strategically locked every night. As one might have imagined, there were no coeducational visitation rights. Residents did share their quarters, however, with countless cockroaches and an occasional displaced rat. None of these peculiarities disturbed Betty Fuller in the least. ... Betty's window overlooked crowded streets, noisy with traffic, and she could watch shoppers come and go from Broadway. An assortment of hotels, travel agencies, flower stalls, pharmacies, and coffee shops lined the busy sidewalks. Downtown Los Angeles throbbed with life, and she drew energy from it." (p. 38) Betty also develops a romantic interest in a young man who has pentecostal interests, and her openness to his arguments leads to a major breach in her relationship with her anti-Pentecostal parents. Prelude (1992) is the first book of a trilogy (Interlude and Reprise are the next two books)published by Word Publishing.

In James Scott Bell's novel Glimpses of Paradise (Bethany House, 2005), the main character has various adventures in the Los Angeles of the roaring twenties. R. A. Torrey is a speaking character in the novel.

There is a novel called Mine is the High Road which features the heroic young men and women who turn down prestigious secular schools to attend the Bible College of Los Angeles. One of the plots involves a liberal professor who tries to infiltrate the faculty. Dr. John Mark Reynolds has Fred Sanders' copy of this book and needs to return it.