Archive for December, 2008
Casual Worship
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008I recently drove past a church and its sign said “Casual Worship, 9:30 a.m.” I know what they meant as they placed this message on their sign, but it also can communicate something completely different. The sign could have some unintended consequences. Evangelicalism is exhibiting signs of broad differences of opinion in the area of [...]
12 Days of Christmas (Archives-style)
Thursday, December 25th, 2008In the waning days of 1858, Jonathan Blanchard, then president of Knox College, wrote home to his wife Mary. Among matters pertaining to the raising of the children, city taxes and sending a turkey to him, Jonathan broaches the topic of Christmas. According to Clyde Kilby’s account in Minority of One, “as long as he [...]
Francis Schaeffer And the Shaping of Evangelical America recently published
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008Continuing the Eerdman’s Library of Religious Biography series (edited by Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch and Allen Guelzo), Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America seeks to provide a ciritical biography of this noted evangelical figure. Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) was probably the single greatest intellectual influence on young evangelicals of the 1960s and ’70s. He [...]
Kilby and Gormenghast
Monday, December 22nd, 2008The seven authors featured in Wheaton College’s Wade Center are well-known: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, Charles Williams and Owen Barfield. The acquisition of manuscripts, both primary and secondary, surrounding these authors was masterminded by Dr. Clyde Kilby, professor of English. Through the 1960s and 1970s Kilby cultivated a wide-ranging [...]
Grand-Papa Hemingway
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008Recently, the Wheaton College Archives and Special Collections obtained a letter penned by Wheaton’s first president, Jonathan Blanchard as a recommendation for alumnus Anson T. Hemingway, grandfather to Ernest Hemingway. The College Archives purchased the letter and photograph of Anson in his later years from a dealer via eBay (a great deal of history goes [...]
Humble Beginnings
Sunday, December 14th, 2008Today, December 14th, over one-hundred and fifty years ago the first classes were held in the basement of a yet-complete building atop a hill in section 16, township 39. Milton Township in Dupage County, like many other townships in the burgeoning Midwest, took advantage of legislation that enabled townships to use land in section 16 [...]
Cramped Quarters
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008Imagine that for five years you are living in a dirty cramped 12-foot by 20-foot basement room that is heaped full of boxes and other material in an office building in a major city. In this room are six others who must live and sleep together and with only two beds. This was the experience [...]
Jerry’s Pub
Saturday, December 6th, 2008Beginning in the mid-1970s when Art Rupprecht and Jerry Hawthorne joined a group of their very interesting and interested Greek students late on Friday afternoons in the Stupe. The week’s classes were over and it was time to relax with a free cup of coffee — they arrived just at closing time when the staff [...]
A Proper Home
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008On November 25th noted investment banker, and well-known rare book collector Helmut Friedlaender died at the age of 95. Widely known as a bibliophile Friedlaender drew attention when he disposed of his quietly-gathered collection at Christie’s Auction House. Smaller volumes were fetching six-figures without hesitation. Wheaton College was the beneficiary of the generosity of another, [...]
James Bond at Wheaton College
Monday, December 1st, 2008Ian Fleming wrote 14 James Bond titles before his death in 1964. The series was continued with varying degrees of success by Kingsley Amis, John Gardner, Raymond Benson (who resides in suburban Buffalo Grove, Illinois), Sebastian Faulks with Devil May Care (2008) and Carte Blanche (2011) by Jeffery Deaver, who hails from Glen Ellyn, Illinois. [...]