All posts by David Osielski

Embracing the Love of God

Wheaton College Archives

From November 1-3, 2000 James Bryan Smith delivered five messages to the Wheaton College audience based upon his book “Embracing the Love of God, The Path and Promise of Christian Life.” The text of Smith’s first message was from 17th century Christian poet, George Herbert and his third poem on love.

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d any thing.
“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”;
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”
“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.

A synopsis of the book is found on the publisher’s website: “Unfortunately, in today’s world many people fail to experience the freedom and healing power of God’s grace. Even Christians too often experience judgement, rather than the love that is the vital essence of Christian life. A visionary guide in the spirit of Celebration of Discipline, Embracing the Love of God calls Christians back to the basics — to understanding the promise of God’s love to transform our most important relationships and fulfill our deepest spiritual needs. Here James Bryan Smith launches readers on a revitalizing spiritual journey. He distills the basic principles of Christian love and provides a new model for relationship with God, self, and others that is based not on fear and judgement, but rather on acceptance and care. Smith’s moving insights illuminate the gentle nature of God’s love and teach readers how to continue on the path of love by embracing it day by day. For both new Christians and those desiring renewal, Embracing the Love of God offers hope, peace, and guidance for spiritual growth.”

James Bryan Smith (M.Div., Yale University Divinity School, D.Min., Fuller Seminary) is a theology professor at Friends University in Wichita, KS and a writer and speaker in the area of Christian spiritual formation. He also serves as the director of the Aprentis Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation at Friends University. A founding member of Richard J. Foster’s spiritual renewal ministry, Renovare, Smith is an ordained United Methodist Church minister and has served in various capacities in local churches. In addition to Embracing the Love of God, Smith is also the author of A Spiritual Formation Workbook, Devotional Classics (with Richard Foster), Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven and Room of Marvels.

Audio icon LISTEN to James Bryan Smith’s first lecture from November 1, 2000 (mp3 – 23:41)

“Hopelessness can be overcome” said Jimmy Carter in 1992 Pfund lecture

Wheaton College Archives

Nearly twenty years ago, President Jimmy Carter delivered the LeRoy H. Pfund Lecture on February 24, 1992. The following article “President Carter urges Christians to compassion and action on behalf of others” by Margaret Irish documented the event and was featured in the April/May 1992 issue of the Wheaton Alumni magazine.

As a young person, Jimmy Carter had two ambitions. The first he accomplished when he attended the U.S. Naval Academy, becoming an officer in the Navy.

The second was to teach at a college or university. “Thanks to Ronald Reagan, I reached that ambition four years earlier than I’d anticipated,” Carter quipped, speaking to the packed house gathered in Edman Memorial Chapel for the LeRoy H. Pfund Lecture. His defeat in the 1980 election spelled the end of his presidency, but it gave him opportunities to serve that he would never have had if he had remained in office. And service, for Jimmy Carter, is more significant than his job title.

“The essence of Christianity, as described by Christ himself, is not preaching which is important hut is action on behalf of others,” Carter said. “Jesus reached out to the outcast, the despised, the people who were different. How do we translate that compassion into our own culture?” Carter emphasized that Christians must serve others and minister to their needs, rather than associating only with people like themselves.

He emphasized that much of the nation’s and the world’s suffering could be alleviated if its affluent citizens would more willingly share with those who had little or nothing. “The greatest discrimination today is that of rich people against poor people.”

The Carter Center at Emory University in Atlanta is one example of an institution whose purpose is to address the needs of the poor, the homeless, the illiterate, the sick, and the outcast both in the United States and abroad. Carter challenged his audience to find ways to make a difference in the lives of others, one at a time. He cited the Atlanta Project, which is coordinating efforts between private enterprise, businesses, churches and government agencies in the city of Atlanta to react to disadvantaged people. Individuals can make a difference, “adopting” those in need, getting to know them, taking them to the doctor, teaching them to read, or taking time to be available for a child at risk.

Carter also expressed his conviction that the United States, in its role as a superpower, should he addressing problems such as hunger, disease, war, and human rights abuses in the world, “Our country should he totally committed to peace, not war … we have a direct responsibility to use our influence, whatever it might he.” He mentioned the Carter Center’s work in these areas, monitoring world conflict, working to improve the health of children in the Third World, finding ways to alleviate hunger. He warned, “When we think we’ve got it made, and that we are particularly blessed because we deserve to be blessed, then we have abandoned a major part of the faith in Christ that we claim is a driving force in our lives.”

At a press conference preceding the lecture, President Carter responded to questions from both journalists and students. He said he is encouraged that the United States is urging new Middle East peace talks, but felt that final settlement at this time is unlikely. Carter considers the Democratic presidential candidates to be capable leaders who should not be characterized as political “lightweights.” He had no strong preference among them, he said, “but once we choose one, I will give him my support.” He also felt that the contenders are “fair game” for the press, which “has an obligation and a right to scrutinize their past actions and let the American people make a judgment.”

The key theme of this year’s Pfund Lecture became Carter’s message of action on behalf of others. Listeners heard it stressed repeatedly by a man intent on meeting the challenges of a needy world with hope, enthusiasm, and Christian commitment.

“Something can be done,” Carter said. “We can prove that hopelessness can be overcome. We can do it with justice, humility, service, compassion, love, and peace.”

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The Leroy H. Pfund Lectureship was established in 1987 by Mr. Fred Bostrom, Sr., in memory of his wife, Ragnhild; it was named for Coach Lee Pfund ’49, who served the College for more than 38 years, first as a coach and then as director of the alumni association. The lectureship brings to Wheaton College’s campus leaders of American political and public life to enhance the students’ awareness of public Policies, issues, and views, and offer them a broad range of perspectives. The 1992 Pfund Lecture brought former President Jimmy Carter to Wheaton.

The Wesley G. Pippert Papers in the Wheaton College Buswell Library Special Collections has a wealth of information about the former president. Wes Pippert came to Washington, D.C. in 1976 in order to cover Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign as the principal UPI reporter. Pippert followed Carter to the White House and was assigned there from 1977 to 1981. He also wrote “The Spiritual Journey of Jimmy Carter: In His Own Words” (1978).

LISTEN to President Carter’s 1992 Pfund lecture (mp3 – 01:04:09)

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On My Mind – Beatrice Batson

Collection-related Publications, College-related Publications, Special Collections, Wheaton College Archives

Twenty years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine began a series of articles in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Professor of English Emeritus E. Beatrice Batson (who taught at Wheaton from 1957-1987) was featured in the August/September 1991 issue.

Beatrice BatsonWhen I came to teach at Wheaton in the autumn of 1957, I discovered a nucleus of professors and students charged with excitement over Wheaton’s mission as a Christian liberal arts college. Combined with this concern was the belief that mind and spirit should he so constantly and consistently nurtured that complacency would be highly unlikely to make permanent inroads. I found the atmosphere extraordinarily exhilarating. Admittedly, some of us were idealists; perhaps such idealists that not a few individuals determined to find new and different ways of talking about the whole educational process. Through the decades, however, there were still those who were unable to think dispassionately of Wheaton’s mission. Similar zeal is by no means absent in 1991.

Several years following that autumn of 1957, I met at a professional conference one of my former students, then an advanced graduate student at Yale. Among the first questions he asked me were: ‘What are Wheaton students really like now?” and “Is the faculty remembering the mission of the College?” Or in paraphrase, “Are faculty members consciously aware that they are teaching human beings who must make moral and spiritual responses in life ?”

My reply to him was another question: “What kind of student do you wish to see at Wheaton?” Quick as a flash, he answered, “Hungry students. Let them he cynical, and let them be angry.” He continued, “But whatever they are, be sure they are hungry–hungry for nourishment that feeds mind, heart, and spirit.” What came clear was that somebody had a heavy and joyous responsibility. “To study at a college like Wheaton,” he insisted, “is to he exposed to a faculty and a curriculum that will not let students forget the large human questions of meaning and purpose.” However excellent the speakers at that professional conference may have been, it was the urgent tone of my former student’s pleas that lingered longest in my memory.

With the onslaught of unparalleled campus unrest in many colleges and universities during the late sixties and early seventies, prophets of doom began to declare that the liberal arts ideal would wither away or bit by bit literally slip from consideration in the strongest liberal arts colleges. Problems were far too complex, we were frequently told, for contemporary students to spend time on “the arcane vestiges of the past,” as critics pejoratively titled the liberal arts. To jettison every thinker and artist prior to the late twentieth century seemed no solution to some of us. Minds and imaginations burnished on Plato and Aristotle, Aeschylus and Shakespeare, Augustine and Kierkegaard (and scores of others) might well be the sort of informal minds and lively imaginations that should be working on different issues, we reasoned. Besides, students hungered for meaning and purpose.

What my former student urged still persisted in my mind in more recent years when numerous educational leaders held that students were in college to acquire a passport to immediate pleasure, instant success, and economic affluence. This indictment, however, failed to dissuade some of us from our firm belief in the mission of a Christian liberal arts college.

When I left close contact with the thinking of students and faculty for retirement in 1988, I continued to teach one course in Shakespeare. Although I was aware of new theories that pervaded scholarly writing and knew of the abuse that pseudo-scholars heaped upon those who affirmed the liberal arts ideal, I continued to discover that students did not consider Shakespeare’s works to be anachronisms. They perceived that his inimitable writings embodied large human questions and always-contemporary subjects even though the great artist wrote 400 years before they were horn.

In October 1990, I came from active retirement to serve as Kilby Professor of English and from October to May as acting chair, due to the serious illness of my colleague, Dr. Joe McClatchey. In these responsibilities, I had a closer contact with students and more interaction with faculty.

Since that autumn in 1957, many changes have occurred. In this year, 1990-91, faculty were challenging luminaries on their own ground, discussing terms not even named in 1957; students were wrestling with new issues, thinking hard on complexities born of their technological age. As before, there was still a nucleus who saw themselves as “privileged inheritors of a rich legacy” the mission of the Christian liberal arts college. I have a deep conviction, even in my most pessimistic moments, that Wheaton has in its community particular individuals who know that they are “custodians of something immensely valuable,” and they sense a dire need to keep it alive.

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Dr. E. Beatrice Batson, Professor Emerita of English, was chair of the department for 13 years. During the academic year 1990-91, she served as Kilby Professor of English and as acting chair. Since her retirement she continues her work as coordinator of the Shakespeare Collection and has organized bi-annual institutes for undergraduate teachers of Shakespeare, sponsored by the Shakespeare Special Collection, since 1992. She received the Wheaton College Alumni Association Distinguished Service to Alma Mater Award in 2007.

Let’s Celebrate

Entries with Audio, Wheaton College Archives

Dr. Lori Salierno is a nationally recognized public speaker and founder and CEO of Celebrate Life International, a non-profit organization committed to helping young people become leaders of integrity. Founded in 1996, CLI’s mission is “dedicated to transforming at-risk kids into responsible citizens through the building of their character based on practical leadership skills and universal ethical principles.” The organization is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with offices in California, Colorado, Louisiana, Cape Town (South Africa) and volunteer chapters established in metropolitan areas throughout the United States. Lori Salierno earned her BA in Biblical Studies from Seattle Pacific University and was presented the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1997. She later completed her Masters Degree in Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1992. In 2003, Dr. Salierno received her Doctor of Ministry degree in Leadership Development from Asbury Theological Seminary. She has authored six books and currently resides in Kennesaw, Georgia, with her husband Kurt.

Lori spoke at Wheaton College on October 9, 1991 from Philippians 4 on the theme of celebrating our lives in Christ with joy.

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Audio icon (mp3 – 00:22:50) —
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Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye

Entries with Audio, Wheaton College Archives

Sue Thomas was born in 1950. At the age of 18 months she experienced an instant and total hearing loss. With the support of her parents she spent years with therapists learning to communicate and read lips despite being profoundly deaf. Instead of being relegated to an institution her parents were determined to help their only daughter become a success among the hearing. Although having academic challenges as the only deaf child in her public school district near Boardman, Ohio, she focused her energies on skating and became the youngest Ohio State Champion free-style skater.

She persevered through her schooling and finally graduated from Springfield College in Massachusetts with a degree in Political Science and International Affairs. She was hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a fingerprint examiner and then as an undercover investigator doing surveillance work reading lips for the FBI agents in Washington D.C.

In 2002 her inspiring story was adapted for television and aired as a weekly drama. At its peak, “Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye” was watched by more than 2.5 million viewers in the United States and was syndicated in 60 countries. It has since generated a loyal fansite, Facebook, and Twitter pages.

Prior to her international acclaim, Sue Thomas spoke in Edman Chapel in December 1991 to the Wheaton College family and shared her Christian testimony. She had recently written her autobiography “Silent Night” which has since been updated for it’s 20th anniversary edition.

[excerpted from Wikipedia and Sue Thomas Productions]

Audio icon (mp3 – 00:38:26)


Thoughts of Irina

Collection-related Publications, Special Collections

It is very important when one has a real aim. Sometimes this aim is more important than life. –Irina Ratushinskaya

Irina RatushinkayaIn April 1987, Russian poet and human rights advocate Irina Ratushinskaya spoke at Wheaton College while she and her husband, Igor Gerashchenko, were guests of Northwestern University in nearby Evanston, Illinois. Irina was sentenced to seven years in a labor camp in 1983 followed by five years of internal exile. The main pieces of evidence presented at her trial were six poems rich in Christian imagery. According to her husband the poems were as remote from politics as the Lord’s Prayer, yet Irina was charged with subverting and weakening the Soviet regime. At the time Irina stated “our people take literature very seriously. It is our Russian tradition. No wonder when our government take literature very seriously, too. It moves people.”.

During her imprisonment, Irina endured beatings, forced feedings, and long periods of solitary confinement. She continued to write poetry, despite being instructed otherwise, and scratched lines on a bar of soap and committed them to memory before washing them away. The women in the labor camp helped her to pass completed poems to Igor, who in turn smuggled them via underground couriers to the West for publication. Irina and her fellow prisoners, most of whom were also believers, appealed to the West for help in a similar fashion. Irina attests that Western pressure was the cause of her release: “The KGB knew that if they killed us, there would be too much noise in the West. So they decided to release us.” She was freed, along with 108 other political prisoners, two days before the U.S. | U.S.S.R. Summit in Reykjavik, Iceland between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in October 1986.

During her appearance at Wheaton, sponsored by the Slavic Gospel Association and the (former) Institute for the Study of Christianity & Marxism, and World Christian Fellowship at Wheaton College, Irina read three poems she had written while imprisoned. She also fielded questions about the Soviet Union, especially Soviet Christians. When asked about glasnost, the new Soviet policy of openness, Irina simply stated that there was no openness in the prison camps; Russian people generally do not believe the changes exist “because those changes are more in newspapers and TV sets than in the lives of Soviet people.”

Nearly twenty-five years later Irina’s life has taken her full-circle back to the land which once held her captive. In December 1998 she and her husband moved with their twin boys from London back to Russia in the former Soviet Union. She chose to educate her two sons in Russian school after years of procedures to restore her Russian citizenship and currently lives in Moscow.

Audio icon (mp3 – 00:43:24)………………………..[Excerpted by Wheaton Alumni magazine, August 1987]

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For Your Gift of God the Spirit

Books, Collection-related Publications, Special Collections

On February 21, 2010 an announcement was made to the congregation of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia that their Senior Minister, Dr. Philip G. Ryken had accepted the presidency of Wheaton College. During Pastor Ryken’s remarks, he read these words: “Father, grant your Holy Spirit in our hearts may rule today, grieved not, quenched not, but unhindered, work in us his sovereign way.” This quote is part of the fifth verse of the hymn ‘For Your Gift Of God The Spirit‘, written by Margaret Clarkson. According to Hymnary.org, an online hymn and worship music database created as a collaboration between the Christian Classics Ethereal Library and the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship,

Margaret ClarksonMargaret Clarkson wrote this text about the work of the Holy Spirit during the summer of 1959 at the Severn River, Ontario, Canada upon request by Stacey Woods, General Secretary of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship in Canada and the United States. “For Your Gift” is the best teaching text on the Holy Spirit. Inspired by biblical passages about the work of the Spirit in creation, the church, and our personal lives, this text reads like a study of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is a splendid example of sung theology, which brings our heart’s confession onto our lips. In liturgical settings it is appropriate for Pentecost and many other services (Psalter Hymnal Handbook).

The papers, library, and assorted materials of E. Margaret Clarkson, teacher, author and hymnwriter, are held in the Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections. The collection contains personal papers, articles, manuscripts, hymns, books reviews, and correspondence, as well as her personal library of over 600 books on theology, poetry, hymnody, and many other subjects. The full lyrics of the hymn are as follows.

The Grass is always greener – Sesquicentennial Snapshot

College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives

In his memoirs The Wheaton I Remember, Edward “Coach” Coray (Professor Emeritus and former Executive Director of the Alumni Association) recalls his days as an undergraduate student at Wheaton in the 1920s. He reminisces about his early athletic endeavors and attempts to locate the advertised athletic fields.

Intercollegiate athletics at Wheaton were always fun and in the late teens and early twenties were carried on without the equipment, facilities, or coaching staffs of later years. I lined up for football equipment in my freshman year. By the time my turn came there were only two shoes left, both for the left foot. But they were real football shoes, so I took them gladly and made the best of it. The way I have often told the story, whenever I got in a game I told the quarterback to run all the plays to the left as I couldn’t turn my feet to the right. This isn’t altogether true, however, as I didn’t get into a game my freshman year. Besides shoes I received stockings, pants, and a jersey. Helmets and shoulder pads, if desired, had to be purchased by the individual. Coming from the coal fields of Pennsylvania, I thought I was tough enough to get along without a helmet. After I got a few indentations in the top of my head from cleats, I rounded up enough money for a cheap helmet.

The first day I hit campus I had inquired where the athletic field was. The college catalog had described it as having a football gridiron and a baseball diamond surrounded by a quarter mile track with a 220 yard straightaway. I was directed out Irving Avenue. After walking a few blocks I passed a hayfield with a cow grazing on it. I never did find the athletic field as described in the catalog. I found out later that Lawson Athletic Field and the hayfield were one and the same. The day before football practice started a farmer was hired to mow the grass. The stubble we practiced and played football on was sharper and tougher than the stones and hunks of coal on our high school field back in Pennsylvania.

Highway to Heaven – Sesquicentennial snapshot

Alumni, Books, College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives

One of my most memorable experiences of the power of our Lord’s prayer [in John 17] happened on a county road in Colorado. Olena Mae and I seldom pick up hitchhikers. We’ve heard too many sad reports of strangers doing harm. But like many rules, we sometimes make exceptions. The night before we had finished an intensive Bible conference at Winding River Ranch near Grand Lake. It had been a good week, a full one, and we were both anxious to be on our way for a few days of vacation. We left a little later than planned, but at last we were rolling down the highway–just at the right moment to spot a man thumbing a ride. He was in his middle years, clean shaven, wearing tattered jeans and carrying only a brown paper sack. Both of us felt we should stop, so I pulled the car over and invited him to ride with us. Olena Mae slid over to make room.

“What is your name, sir?” I asked, “and where are you from?” Without hesitating, the stranger answered, “I’m Orville Pratt, from Carmel, Indiana, near Indianapolis.” “Do you have a family?” “Oh yes, a wife and two married children. My son lives in Indianapolis, and my daughter in Wheaton, Illinois.” “Wheaton! Did you say Wheaton?” “Yes,” the man continued. “Her name is Mary Wilson, just north of Wheaton in Carol Stream.” We were amazed to find our hometown mentioned by this traveler in Colorado. “But where are you headed?” I asked him. “Can’t tell you, ’cause I don’t know myself,” Orville answered. “Maybe Steamboat Springs, maybe Australia.” Our curiosity obviously aroused, we pressed for more of his story. “Does your family know about this?” I asked. “No. I walked off my job last week and didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I’m part owner of a manufacturing business. We make outdoor tool sheds. It’s a good business. . . ,” he said, and his voice trailed off. Olena Mae and I sat quietly for a moment. Gently I proceeded. “Do you have a church home in Carmel?” “I did. A good church, too. I’ve been a deacon and an elder there–but I’m not fit to go to church anymore.” With care I ventured, “Why do you say that?”

“My daughter Mary lost her boy, a four-year-old lad. I loved him. He had a heart problem, and the specialist made a mistake. I cannot forgive that doctor, so I’m in no condition to go to church any more. It’s too much, I can’t face it.” Our hitchhiker friend was crying now. I assured him of our deep concern and more important, of God’s great love for him. We urged him to return to his wife and home, but Orville chose to get out of the car when we turned south for the Redstone Inn. We left him there–a lonely, heartbroken man–thumbing for another ride west. Our drive to the Inn was filled with prayer. Within minutes of our arrival, Olena Mae was on the phone. “You don’t know me,” she told the voice on the other end, “but my husband and I are traveling in Colorado. Earlier this afternoon we picked up your father… “Yes, yes, I know,” Mary Wilson interrupted. “He called an hour ago. He’s coming home!” Not long after we returned to Wheaton, Orville called to thank us for our simple advice and reminders of God’s care. He wanted us to visit him, and since I was to speak in Indianapolis at an alumni chapter in the next few weeks, we arranged to spend an evening in the Pratt home. They welcomed us warmly. The next morning, a Sunday, the four of us attended their church, a warm, evangelical fellowship. After church and a delightful dinner together, Orville and I went to the cemetery where his little grandson was buried. I prayed there for Orville and his loved one, and assured him of the promised resurrection and reunion. God was there with arms around us. Later, back at his home, we all thanked God that our paths had crossed on that Colorado highway. A chance meeting? “Holy Father,” Jesus prayed, “keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” Excerpt from Evan Welsh, first chaplain of Wheaton College, A Touch of Heaven Here (Tyndale: Wheaton), 1985.

Model 1873 Springfield “Trapdoor” Rifle

Wheaton College Archives

Springfield rifleThe Springfield Trapdoor served as the United States Army’s “warhorse” for at least 20 years. It was held by both sides through the Indian campaigns in the American West and widely used by American troops during the Spanish-American War. The powerful single shot Trapdoor was also quite popular with many famous Indian warriors. Sitting Bull was carrying a Trapdoor Carbine model when he surrendered to American troops at Fort Buford, North Dakota and Geronimo was carrying the same when he was captured by General Miles in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona in 1886.

In the world of weapons and artillery, the Springfield holds the dubious honor of having been carried into the Battle of Little Bighorn by General George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry on June 25, 1876. While repeating rifles such as the Spencer and Winchester were already available, the U.S. Army chose the Springfield carbine, a single-shot weapon (shorter and more suitable for the cavalry than the rifle) that had to be reloaded after each fired round. Springfield rifle firing mechanismMany officers believed it to be superior because of its considerable accuracy at long ranges. The Springfield Trapdoor came about in 1873, as a redesign of the Army’s Allin Trapdoor rifle. The Springfield was made to hold the new, more powerful .45-70 military cartridge. The .45-caliber cartridge came out of the muzzle at 1,200 feet per second and could make significant hits up to 600 yards. Full-stocked, 32″ barreled rifles as well as half-stocked, short-barreled carbines were produced for the military.

The Wheaton College Archives houses two of these vintage Springfield rifles. They were discovered among articles in Wheaton’s archival collections. With no provenance to speak of, historians can only speculate what dangers of the early Illinois frontier were kept at bay by this intimidating weapon.