Category Archives: College-related Publications

Rural Bible Crusade

August 9, 2010College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archivesadmin

Sometime during his last year as a student at Moody Bible Institute, J. Lloyd Hunter preached at Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. Leading a ragged drunkard to Christ, Hunter reflected on the man’s lost decades, years that might have been dedicated to serving Christ rather than alcohol. At that moment Hunter decided to offer his own life in an effort to reach children. Traveling with his wife to various churches around the country, he gained valuable experience working with the American Sunday School Union. While living in Wheaton in 1937, Hunter, ablaze with a vision for evangelization, organized the Rural Bible Crusade, a ministry encouraging public school children to systematically memorize scripture. Its first advisory council consisted of J. Oliver Buswell, V. Raymond Edman, J.D. Hall, John R. Rice, Wendell Loveless, Bob Jones, Sr., William McCarrell, Oscar Lowry, Paul Rood, Harry Rimmer, George Strohm, Louis Talbot and Walter Wilson. Shortly before Christmas vacation of that year, Hunter stood before the students of Wheaton College to introduce his program. There Hunter’s idea was packaged as a contest, with letters sent to four thousand local school teachers. The envelopes contained a tract, Four Things That God Wants You to Know, with a request that pupils memorize Bible verses. Four hundred teachers responded positively, some requesting to join the contest, and to them were sent Gospels of John and a tract. Prizes were given for the verses learned. Ten verses entitled the pupil to a button. Thirty-two earned him a New Testament. Five hundred verses won him a fine leather Bible. Many families who never attended church received a Bible and heard the Gospel for the first time. Under the direction of Hunter, Phil Saint, Wheaton College student and brother of missionary martyr Nate Saint, taught “chalk talks” to classes, training young people in the essentials of presenting the Gospel to children. As the ministry blossomed Hunter’s health declined, and he entered the hospital in 1943, where he led three nurses to Christ shortly before his death. He was 55. Later that year, a committee met at Wheaton College and formed a constitution which delineated new internal organization. After the document’s ratification, the work of Rural Bible Crusade continued as it enrolled thousands of children in the Bible Memory Program. In 1966 the ministry moved from Wheaton to Salinas, Kansas; and in 1990 it changed its name to “Bible Impact Ministries.” In 1993 the ministry relocated to St. Louis, MO, expanding with permanent camps and facilities. Hunter’s passion for evangelizing and discipling young souls survives unabated.

[Some information for this entry is derived from Bible Impact Ministries.]

Jerry’s Pub R.I.P.

August 4, 2010College-related Publications, Wheaton College ArchivesDavid Malone

On August 4, 2010 Gerald Hawthorne ’51, a beloved Greek professor and mentor to many, passed on to his reward. His influence was noted in a festschrift published in 2003.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, 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 were about to throw the remaining coffee down the drain. It was theirs for the taking. Faculty and students spent time thinking through some theological issues, talking about baseball or fishing, or discussing some difficult Greek passage, telling a few jokes, and generally enjoying each others company and insights. Soon others wanted to join. So it became a weekly feature, but it was too large and often too raucous to continue meeting in a corner booth of the Stupe.

Just as concerns over a meeting place arose a new chapel schedule was implemented with chapel to be held weekly on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays — leaving Wednesday at 10:30 free when faculty and students had no officially scheduled meetings. So Wednesday became the new day. Now all that was needed was a place. John Ortberg, speaking for his housemates, offered Windsor House as the newly designated place of meeting. It was agreed that faculty would provide the donuts and the Windsor men would provide the coffee. Occasionally one of the faculty would fudge a little on the donut buying, for one of them was caught slipping across to Windsor house early, to heat up a day-old coffee cake for the coffee hour.

Eventually these Windsor men graduated, but the new men assigned to that house wanted us to continue, which the faculty were only too happy to do. Windsor House, which was adjacent to Buswell Library, continued to be a place of meeting for students from all parts of the world, faculty from all discipline a — great amalgam of students and faculty. Discussions were lively and sometimes even heated, but always argued with passion, if not always with reason. Everyone present could not help learning something he (all men in those days) had not known before-those were great times together.

Jerry Hawthorne When Windsor House was torn down the group was invited to join the men in Kay House, so that this tradition could continue. By the time that particular Kay House group of men were ready to move on via graduation to their higher calling, the new “pharaoh knew not Joseph.” So no successive invitation was extended from that house. When that moment of desperation came, however, many of our student friends were awarded Hidden House as their next year’s domicile, and with one voice they beckoned us to come and join them at their home each Wednesday morning as usual. The tradition kept going and growing. This pleasurable and profitable welcome break from the routine bustle of academic life continued unabated for more than a decade.

As change is always inevitable, the chapel schedule changed again. The new schedule had it fall on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Not wishing to flaunt chapel, nor to encourage undesirable behavior on the students’ part, the majority of the faculty regulars decided that all who wished could come to Jerry Hawthorne’s office (on the second floor of Wyngarden Health Center) at the traditionally designated time. As many as 15-18 professors from the departments of literature, language, philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, communication and the sciences crammed into that small office for the weekly repast of coffee and donuts. Here the late and beloved Dr. Joe McClatchey delighted to come as long as he was alive; it was he who dubbed this place and this congregation, “Jerry’s Pub,” a name it still holds.

The Beagle

July 12, 2010Collection-related Publications, College-related Publications, Wheaton College ArchivesDavid Malone

When some here the title The Beagle their minds may be drawn to Charles Darwin, but at Wheaton College this may not be the first thought to emerge. For “Wheaties” the thought should run to The Wheaton College Press, of course. Well, maybe not “of course.” The Beagle: treating of the history, breeding, rearing, training, showing and kennel management of the breed is quite a mouthful and was the result of the editing efforts by Reno B. Cole and was published by the Wheaton College Press in 1903. Cole was enrolled at Wheaton and studied art, science and literature over an eleven year period. After leaving Wheaton he made his way to DeKalb, Illinois. He became an authority on beagles.

Few know the history of the Wheaton College Press. However, the staff of the Archives & Special Collections have gathered together a variety of sources to tell its story. The press was begun when the college received a Marder and Luse press as a donation. Using the model of manual colleges like Knox and Berea colleges had been, Amos Dresser, Jr. and Charles Blanchard envisioned a press that could save the college money as well as employ students. Amos’ son, Ernest, was the first manager. As the press expanded another press and other equipment was added. The press employed nearly two dozen students at its peak. The college used the press to print and publish its own publications, such as the Record, Echo and Catalog. In its last years the expenses outpaced receipts and outside business accounted for less than two percent of revenue. The last known manager was Julius C. Phillips. When he finished college in 1920 and new technologies, such as four color printing and lithography, emerged the press lagged and then remained unused.

Below is a bibliography of known titles produced by the press. You will note the wide range of subjects covered.

Dresser, Amos. The Christian Flag. Wheaton: Wheaton College Press, 1894.

Hart, Walter Osgood. Bits of Exegesis. [n.p.]: Wheaton College Press, 1894.
[note: Hart was an alum and Civil War veteran]

Monrad, John Henry. A. B. C. in Cheese-Making. A Short Manual for Farm Cheese-Makers. Wheaton, Ill: Wheaton College Press, 1894.
[note: Monrad was a dairy expert with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture]

Wheaton College (Ill.). Echoes. Wheaton, Ill: Wheaton College Press, 1895.

Monrad, J. H. Cheese Making in Switzerland …: Condensed Review of Swiss, German and French Literature, Combined With Observations in Wisconsin Factories. Wheaton, Ill: Wheaton College Press, 1896.

Daniel, Mooshie G. Modern Persia. Wheaton, Ill: Wheaton College Press, 1897.

Adams Memorial Library (Wheaton, Ill.). Catalog of the Adams Memorial Library. Wheaton, Ill: Wheaton College Press, 1901.

Pulley, James M., and Reno B. Cole. The Beagle: Treating of the History, Breeding, Rearing, Training, Showing and Kennel Management of the Breed. Wheaton IL: Wheaton College Press, 1903.

Wheaton College (Ill.). Wheaton College Bulletin. Wheaton, Ill: Wheaton College Press, 1910.

Straw, Darien Austin. Bible Sociology. Wheaton, Ill: Wheaton College Press, 1918.

John Ortberg

June 3, 2010Alumni, College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archivesadmin

In recent weeks Dr. John Ortberg addressed the Wheaton College graduates of both the undergraduate College and the Graduate School in the May 2010 Commencement ceremonies. In the following excerpts, he exhorts the Class of 2010 to embrace Wheaton’s mission, “For Christ and His Kingdom.”

It is His kingdom that we seek to be for, not ours. And this means a call to humility, because His kingdom is about something so much bigger, and so much more glorious, than our little evangelical subculture and institutions and movements and churches. But it’s also a call for great boldness, because to be ‘For Christ and His Kingdom’ means that we do not have to be nervous about this world. In a world where so much is down…where the economy is down…where employment is down…where consumer confidence is down…where marital stability is down…where, I know, the odds of finding a great job fresh out of college are down; people wonder is anything up? And some things are. The opportunity to serve a hurting world is up…the power of hope is up…the market for faith is up…and this is so because certain truths remain unchanged:

God remains sovereign…the beauty of forgiveness is still greater than the stain of sin…the Bible still pierces the human soul…prayer remains the most remarkable communication known to the human race…love still beats bigotry…joy still trumps despair…the greatest scandal of this sorry, dark world remains the scandal of the cross…God’s mercies are still new every morning…the tomb is still empty…the Spirit is still descending…the kingdom Jesus announced, which we seek to be for, is still expanding.

To be ‘For Christ and His Kingdom’ is to be for the world that God so loved that he gave His only begotten son.

John Carl Ortberg, Jr. was born in 1957 and was raised in Rockford, Illinois. While attending Wheaton College in the late 1970s, Ortberg was a member of the Scholastic Honor Society and graduated summa cum laude in 1979 with a B.A. in psychology. He played men’s tennis all four years, earned the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) Most-Valuable Player award, achieved NCAA All-American Honors and reached the quarterfinals in men’s doubles at the NCAA Division III Tennis Championships. During 1978 and 1979 he was the #1 CCIW singles and doubles champion and ranked first in singles and doubles of the Wheaton squad while captain his senior year.

He pursued post-graduate studies at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and later earned both an Master of Divinity (M.Div.) and a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Clinical Psychology from Fuller Theological Seminary, where he is currently on the Board of Trustees.

He served as senior pastor at Simi Valley Community Church for five years until 1990, and then until 1994 at Horizons Community Church in Diamond Bar, CA. The Ortbergs moved from California to Illinois for John and his wife, Nancy to serve as teaching pastors at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois for the next decade.

While living in the Chicagoland area, in March 1997 John and Nancy gave the McManis Lectureship Chapel “Recovering an Evangelical Spirituality” on the campus of Wheaton College.

Since 2003 he has served as Senior Pastor of the 4,000 member Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California. Ortberg is also an author of such Zondervan titles as the 2002 Christianity Today Book Award winner If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat (2001) and the 2008 ECPA Christian Book Award winner When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box.

In January 2007 Pastor Ortberg returned to Wheaton and addressed the campus for Spring Special Services in a series of messages entitled “Adventures in Faith.” His pastorate at Menlo Park was also highlighted along with other alumni in the Wheaton Magazine (Winter 2007) issue.

The Ortbergs have three children (Laura, Mallory and John) and live in Menlo Park, CA.

Change of Heart

May 17, 2010Books, College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archivesadmin

“Although I am an older person,” begins Doris Dresselhaus Menzies in her memoir, Young At Heart (2007), “I have a much younger heart.” She explains her cryptic remark as the story unfolds.

Born in Decorah, Iowa, in 1932, Doris lived peacefully with her family and worked hard on the farm. At age nine she fully committed to Christ at the local Assemblies of God church. She was baptized in a lake, and shortly thereafter during an evening service received her baptism in the Holy Spirit. In 1951 she enrolled at Wheaton College where she studied elementary education. Because there were no Pentecostal churches in Wheaton at that time, an Assemblies of God campus fellowship provided a venue where Doris could meet students of similar conviction, including her future husband, William Menzies. “Neither of us could imagine the adventures in faith that would be ours when we met at Wheaton College,” he reflects. Later Bill would pen Anointed to Serve (1984), the definitive history of the Assemblies of God.

After their marriage in 1955, Bill and Doris served in various midwestern churches until he was called to teach at Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. From there he moved to other teaching positions at home and abroad, until he and Doris were called to be regular missionaries for the Assemblies of God. In 1989 they relocated to the Philippines, where Bill served as president of Asia Pacific Theological Seminary. As he taught and lectured at the school, Doris quietly mingled with the people of Baguio City, personally leading many hungry hearts to Christ. Their lives proceeded busily until one day Doris suffered sharp chest pains, indicating severe cardiac arrest. Transferred to Salt Lake City for specialized care, it was concluded that she required a heart transplant. With that stunning report came the additional bad news that she would need to await a donor. And so for fourteen months she and Bill patiently waited in Salt Lake, until at last it was announced that a heart had been located, belonging to a young man from Oregon who requested that his organs be donated should anything happen to him. To the delight of all, the operation was a smashing success. As she writes, “There was thanksgiving and joy in my new heart.”

But Doris was not entirely free of physical affliction. In 2003 she was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer. After an onerous series of chemo and radiation treatments, she lost her strength, appetite and all her hair, but the disease was finally controlled. Her hair has since regrown, and she has regained the weight.

Summing up her eventful life, Doris Menzies expresses her joy: “I have appointments to see my oncology doctor, and also blood tests to send to my heart transplant doctor…I also see my internist, my neurologist, and my foot doctor on a regular basis. But my Great Physician continues to be God Almighty, my Creator and Redeemer. To Him I give all glory for each day!”