Dr. Elmer Towns is a college and seminary professor, an author of popular and scholarly works (the editor of two encyclopedias), a popular seminar lecturer, and has developed over 20 resource packets for leadership education. He has a B.S. from Northwestern College, an M.A. from Southern Methodist University, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a M.R.E. from Garrett Theological Seminary, and a D.Min. from Fuller Theological Seminary. 

Elmer was President of Winnipeg Bible College for five years, leading it to receive American Accreditation and Provincial authority to offer degrees. He taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, in greater Chicago, Illinois, in the field of Religious Education and Evangelism. He is co-founder of Liberty University, with Jerry Falwell, in 1971, and was the only full-time teacher in the first year of Liberty's existence. Today, Liberty has over 11,400 students on campus with 39,000 in the Distance Learning Program (now Liberty University Online), and he is the Dean of the School of Religion. 

He has published over 100 books listed in the Library of Congress, 7 listed in the Christian Booksellers Best Selling List—several becoming accepted as college textbooks. He is also the 1995 recipient of the coveted Gold Medallion Award awarded by the Christian Booksellers Association for writing the Book of the Year, The Names of the Holy Spirit. He has given theological lectures and taught intensive seminars at over 50 theological seminaries in America and abroad. Elmer holds visiting professorship rank in five seminaries. He has written over 2,000 reference and/or popular articles and received six honorary doctoral degrees.