Category Archives: Wheaton College Archives

Sweet Smelling Savor

The delicacy and sweetness of fragrance is enticing. Fragrant scents, whether floating in the breezes of meadows or crushed into oil or other compounds, add, through their signature aromas, variety and fascination to our lives. A summer walk through flowers in high meadows, a stroll through a pine forest in early winter, or a visit to a greenhouse of orchids shortly before Easter can spark our imaginations and stir waves of nostalgia. In contrast to those pleasant fragrances, however, there are also unpleasant odors whose characteristic aura we find distinctly offensive.

Substances that emit fragrance played an important role in the Old Testament sacrificial rites. The sacrifice was the central feature of worship for God’s people as they approached His holy presence. As we read Old Testament scriptures, we see the call for daily sacrificial offerings in order to atone for sin (Lev. 1:4). The sacrificial animal was slaughtered, and its blood atoned for sin.The aroma of the sacrifices that were consumed on the altar was a sweet smell, pleasing to the Lord (Lev. 1:9,13,17 NIV).

These paradoxical images of destruction and acceptability in God’s sight appear in the most compelling prophetic passage that points to the atoning work of the Great Sacrifice, Jesus Christ. “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:4-6). “For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12).

These Old Testament institutions and the prophetic voice all found their complete fulfillment in the atoning work of Christ. He was both sacrifice and high priest (Hebrews 9). Further, His resurrection means that the finality of death has been removed from us and we can anticipate living forever with Him. It is the culmination of the glory of Christian hope, and as adoptees, we have been promised inheritance, which is beyond our greatest imagination—we will share in the glory of Christ forever—a sweet fragrance indeed.

I am intrigued by the Apostle Paul’s use of this imagery in 2 Corinthians 2:14- 16: “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.”

God has prepared us to be vessels through which the fragrance of Christ, notably the knowledge of Him, is spread. Just as fragrance diffuses from its source with differing degrees of intensity, so also we, each as a unique creation of God, are called to spread that precious fragrance in our own ways. The Lord Jesus shapes our beliefs, behavior, and character. Our confidence rests in Christ and the message of His transforming work, and, as a sweet savor, these are pervasive.

Paul points to the saved in Christ and then to those who are perishing. The fragrance that we bring in the gospel message is life-giving to the former but to the latter is a deadly smell. It is our challenge to make certain that we do not allow the subtle temptations of the world to pollute the savor but instead remain dedicated to serving with justice, mercy, and humility.

The following statement was included at the time of publication (Wheaton Magazine, Winter 2001)

Dr. Dorothy F. Chappell, Dean of Natural and Social Sciences, is deeply committed to Christian higher education and served on the faculty of Wheaton College for 17 years. Following a five-and-a-half-year term as academic dean at Gordon College and serving on Wheaton’s Board of Trustees, she is now in her second year of full-time administrative duties at Wheaton. She has received awards for research and teaching and has interests in the biochemistry and ultrastructure of green algae; ethics; and Christian faculty scholarship.

Christmas Greetings from Prexy Edman

PrexyXmasThe December, 1961, Wheaton Alumni magazine features on its cover a photo of President and Mrs. Edman sitting cozily before a blazing holiday hearth, probably at their home, Westgate.

(Or perhaps it is a cold fireplace with a lantern placed within, since there does not seem to be an actual fire.)

The caption reads, “We asked ‘Prexy’ and ‘Friend Wife’ to carry to you our greetings for Christmas and the New Year ‘For Christ and His kingdom.'”

Fulfilling the Two Tasks

Twenty years ago this fall, as a new Wheaton freshman, I sat with hundreds of others on the lawn of front campus to witness the dedication of the Billy Graham Center. Sharing the platform with Dr. Graham ’43 and President Hudson Armerding ’41 was the keynote speaker, Charles Malik, a Lebanese educator and statesman whose words profoundly changed my attitudes toward learning and the gospel. Malik’s central argument was that Christians in general and North American evangelicals in particular stood little chance of having a deep impact upon their society unless they proved able to know and influence the intellectual life of the world. We are, he contended, admonished to save both the soul and the mind.

The speech found such resonance in the College community that it was quickly published in pamphlet form as The Two Tasks. Malik’s words, together with my subsequent four years at Wheaton, helped me begin to see past my dualistic and utilitarian views of evangelism and education.

While working with evangelical student groups in the city of Munich in the late ’80s, I found that Christian students in Germany also had a strong desire to view their studies from within the context of their faith. But my German friends wondered how they could ever hope to think as Christians or share the gospel with their peers when they could barely see past the boundaries of their own disciplines.

Wheaton has long valued the integration of faith and learning and the wholeness of a liberal arts education. Since joining the faculty four years ago, I’ve been a part of two initiatives geared toward helping students and professors work more effectively at the two tasks envisioned by Malik.

The first is Freshman Experience, a required course in which students explore such issues as consumerism, forming a Christian worldview and the theology of work and leisure. Above all, Freshman Experience mentors aim to get students excited about being students, to encourage them to see their studies and other activities not just as means to an end, but as part of the work of the kingdom. Not surprisingly, The Two Tasks occupies an important place in the syllabus.

During the 1999-2000 academic year, I benefited from the second initiative: the new faculty Faith and Learning seminar, which might be considered the postdoctoral equivalent of Freshman Experience. Our eclectic group (representing 11 departments) discussed topics ranging from biblical ethics, to Christology, to ways of knowing. It was inspiring to see that God had called such different people to pursue scholarship in a single Christian academic community. Though there was ample disagreement, we were united in our desire to think, speak, and live as new creations in Christ.

How well is Wheaton carrying out the two tasks that were laid upon us two decades ago? My experiences in the classroom and the seminar room over the past year give me reasons to be optimistic. I’ve observed colleagues and students striving to love God with all their hearts, souls, and minds. In my own teaching and scholarship, whether it be analyzing the roles of prayer and providence in a recent German film or outlining cultural differences in a Business German course, I’ve found that true joy comes in pursuing both of the two tasks wholeheartedly.

The following statement was included at the time of publication (Wheaton Magazine, Summer 2000)

Dr. Clint Shaffer ’84 is an assistant professor in the department of foreign languages and director of the Wheaton in Germany program. He received his M.A. from Middlebury College and his doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His scholarly presentations and publications deal with 18th- and 20th- century literature, German cinema, and foreign language pedagogy. His current research is a study of Christian responses to Asian religions during the German Enlightenment. He and his wife, Virginia Davidson Shaffer ’84, are the parents of Bill (5) and Sarah (3), and enjoy introducing Freshman Experience students to Chicago-style pizza.

Reflections on a Sabbatical

by Leland Ryken, Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English Emeritus (Spring 2004)

Sabbatical. Noun. A year or half year of absence for study, rest, or travel, given at intervals, originally every seven years, to teachers, in some colleges and universities. This dictionary definition confirms again what I regularly tell my students in my literature courses-that abstraction and propositional discourse, for all their usefulness, never do justice to human experience as actually lived.

It is doubtless risky for me as a teacher to say that my recently completed sabbatical semester was my best semester in 36 years on Wheaton’s faculty, but…last semester was my best semester at Wheaton.

What my sabbatical semester gave me more than anything else was leisure of a certain type.The word leisure is traceable back to the French word leisir, from the Latin licere, meaning, “to be allowed.” Our word license comes from the same root.

What did I have license to do while on my glorious sabbatical? I was free to pursue a wide range of research and writing projects without intrusions. I was still sometimes the first person to arrive at the office and the last to leave, but since it was something I was free to do rather than obliged to do, even that felt leisurely. In addition, I woke up without the sense of latent anxiety that I feel even after all these years when I wake up knowing that I need to stand before an audience.

My sabbatical gave me the freedom to speak around the country in a way not allowed by my teaching routine-at Milton conferences in Tennessee and Pittsburgh, a Reformation Day in Dayton, a writer’s conference in Virginia, a theology conference in Atlanta, colleges in Alabama, a Christianity-and-the-arts conference in Kansas City.

I also had license to do some of my study and writing in sites far removed from Wheaton, and the result was a feeling of accomplishment with a “value-added” sense of refreshment and expanded horizons. My ongoing scholarly project is to contextualize Milton’s sonnets in a Puritan milieu. It was more invigorating to work on it at a chalet in Wisconsin and a hunting estate in Maryland than in my office.

All of my previous leaves of absence have been conducted under severe time pressure to meet a publishing deadline. I resolutely refused to let it happen this time, and it is one of the best decisions of my scholarly life.

In my writings on work and leisure, I have asserted that leisure must be felt as leisure before it genuinely is such. The sabbatical allowed me to translate that theory into practice, and I am grateful.

The following statement was included at the time of publication:

Dr. Leland Ryken has taught at Wheaton College for 36 years. He has published two dozen books (including edited and co-authored books). In 2003, Dr. Ryken received the distinguished Gutenberg Award for his contributions to education, writing, and the understanding of the Bible. His wife Mary ’88 is a graduate of the Wheaton Graduate School, and his three children- Dr. Philip Ryken ’88, Margaret Beaird ’93, and Nancy Taylor ’98-are graduates of Wheaton College.

Standing with the Titans

Billy Graham Center Staff- Lon Allison, Jerry Root, Karen Swanso

by Lon Allison, Former Director of the Billy Graham Center

This summer (2002) I visited with two titans of the Christian faith, John R. Mott and Billy Graham.

Mr. Mott died in the fifties, so obviously, my introduction to him was by way of biographies and his own writings. Mott, more than any other leader, was responsible for the Student Volunteer Movement, which recruited more than 25,000 college students to careers in missions. In 1910, he drew church leaders together at the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, with the vision to present Christ to every tribe and nation in their generation. Mott was the friend of presidents and the counselor to corporation leaders. His knowledge of world events was so vast and his friends so many that Woodrow Wilson twice sought him to be America’s first ambassador to China. Princeton offered him its presidency, though his formal education concluded with a bachelor’s degree. He declined both appointments because of a more important calling. In 1946 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.Yet for all his accomplishments, he voiced at the end of his life that he wished to be remembered as an evangelist.

This week I sat with Billy Graham for part of an afternoon. Our talks over ice cream sodas covered a range of subjects, but, as was Mott, Mr. Graham is first and forever an evangelist. His love for the gospel and lost people consumes his thoughts. Billy Graham was to the second half of the twentieth century what John R. Mott was to the first; his commitment to the whole church birthed a host of “Edinburghs” around the world. His desire to raise up the next generations of evangelism leaders built the Billy Graham Center.

In our musings, I mentioned my fascination with John Mott and how much he, Billy Graham, reminded me of him. At the mention of Mott his eyes began to sparkle, and he said,”I knew him. He was a giant.” I learned later from one of his closest advisers that Mr. Graham saw John R. Mott as somewhat of a hero and model for his own life.

Yes, I stood with two giants from two generations this summer, though my hunch is neither of them ever thought of themselves as such. They and so many like them are quick to tell us that it is Christ who is to be lauded, and that Christ is the source of whatever accomplishments we may see in their lives.

As I left Mr. Graham and reflected on our talk, I realized that I am the same age difference from our incoming freshmen as Mr. Graham is to me. Who, then, are the “titans” of evangelism in my generation? God save us from ever seeing ourselves as giants of the faith. But should the light of Christ shine through us enough to spill on the generations now rising, let us be both humbled and grateful.

———-

Twenty years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine began a series of articles, titled “On My Mind”, in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Former Director of the Billy Graham Center, Dr. Lon Allison (who taught at Wheaton from 2000-2013) was featured in the Autumn 2002 issue.

The following statement was included at the time of publication:

For the past 25 years, Dr. Lon Allison has immersed himself in many aspects of church and parachurch ministry. As an author, educator, minister, evangelist, and performing artist in music and theater, he travels extensively in sacred and secular venues sharing his passion for relating the Christian faith to all aspects of life. In addition to membership on several missions and evangelism boards, Dr. Allison is director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton. He lives with his wife, Marie, and three children in Palatine, where he enjoys a variety of athletic pursuits.

 

Writing for Life

by Jeffry C. Davis ’83

I am composing these words at an altitude of 31,000 feet. After attending a four-day conference on teaching writing to undergraduates, I’m flying home. My mind feels like a suitcase packed full of new clothes; many fresh and colorful ideas are returning with me as a result of my participation in various lectures, workshops, and discussions.

Of all the subjects in English that I teach at Wheaton, courses in writing thrill me most. Yet, I must admit that my calling to the composition classroom exhibits a bit of God’s ironic humor: when I was an undergraduate, I loathed writing papers. Breaking a bone or catching a virus seemed like more tolerable experiences at the time. The task of putting words onto a page usually filled me with intense anxiety.

My frustration had little to do with the fact that I lacked a computer with a spell-checker; somehow I managed to type all of my college papers on a manual Smith-Corona, with a well-worn edition of Webster’s dictionary nearby (though I’m certainly grateful for my PC today). Nor did my travail result from a lack of scholastic interest or effort; as a new convert to Christ, I truly believed that the world–in all of its sadness and splendor–should he seriously studied because God made it.

My struggle, I now realize, came from my incomplete understanding of the purpose and practice of writing. As I then perceived it, the main reason I wrote papers was to show my professors two things: first, that I understood the subject matter of their courses, and second, that I understood how to craft my thoughts into grammatical sentences. Consequently, I tended to see writing as a skill primarily concerned with correctness. With each sentence, typically written at a snail’s pace, I asked myself, “Is this right?” And often, a voice inside my head would shout back, “No!” So, I would scratch out the sentence I had just written, and try to write a new one. My preoccupation with correctness paralyzed me.

In her essay, “The Watcher at the Gate,” Gail Godwin explains that most writers have an internal critic, an unrestrained negative voice committed to one goal: “rejecting too soon and discriminating too severely.” In describing her own Watcher, Godwin reveals one of her characteristic messages: “‘What’s the good of writing out a whole page,’ he whispers begrudgingly, ‘if you just have to write it over again later? Get it perfect the first time!'”

Now, as I teach my students how to write, I try to disabuse them of the myth that good writers get it perfect the first time. A great writer becomes great not because of inspiration, but because of dedication and perspiration. For example, I remind them that Thomas Jefferson carefully drafted the Declaration of Independence several times before it was finished, an accomplishment which he was prouder of than being the third President of the United States. Jefferson didn’t get his writing perfect the first time.

Instead of primarily focusing on the product of writing, I encourage students to consider the process of writing. Serious writers, more often than not, develop good habits that naturally foster good writing. They learn to observe, and to wait, and to receive; this approach requires a certain degree of humility.

Serious writers learn how to write when they don’t feel like writing, becoming obedient to the task at hand. They care about words as they think in ink. The novelist E.M. Forster explains, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” And after they have written something, they let other—those whom they trust—examine their work, and they actually welcome constructive criticism.

What’s more, they learn how to revise, which literally means to see again with new eyes; they accept the necessity of change.

In a real sense, the process of writing is analogous to the process of spiritual growth. Working with words demands discipline, which paradoxically sets us free to write well. So, too, living for the Word requires us to let go of our inclination to strive for our own perfection, which inevitably brings paralysis. We are asked, instead, to develop a habit of the heart, wherein we welcome the Word to dwell more fully in us. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

———-

Twenty years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine began a series of articles, titled “On My Mind”, in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Current Associate Professor of English, Jeffry Davis (on faculty since 1990) was featured in the Spring 1997 issue.

The following statement was included at the time of publication:

Dr. Jeffry C. Davis ’83 (Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center) has taught writing at Wheaton for more than a decade. He earned his M.A. in English from Northern Illinois University. Presently he is working to complete his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His dissertation focuses on Quintilian, a first-century teacher of writing. In his spare time he gardens and listens to country music.

The Cross of Gold and the Trumpet of Distraction

It isn’t often that a professor of history is allowed to participate in history, if only fleetingly, but Dr. S. Richey Kamm, Professor of History, Political Science and Social Science at Wheaton College, sat very close to William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic candidate for President of the United States and one of most flamboyant and influential figures of the day.

Bryan, “The Great Commoner,” championed causes like prohibition and women’s suffrage. In 1921 he visited Wheaton College, lecturing forcefully to faculty and students against the theory of evolution, later using those very arguments in his seminal debate with attorney Clarence Darrow during the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Ironically, theistic evolution eventually won the day at Wheaton College. Bryan was famous for his “Cross of Gold” speech, which responded to those demanding a currency based upon a gold standard. He shouted, “We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

In 1924 young Kamm heard Bryan speak in Greenville, Illinois. He writes on the back of the photo:

You will find me seated on the table at the left of the picture. This shows only a part of the crowd. It stretched out for a long way on each side. They had quite a time with the old fellow with the ear trumpet. He got up on the platform and got his trumpet so close to Bryan’s mouth that Bryan had to stop and get the old fellow a chair.

Nuturing a Passion for Justice

by Helene Slessarev

Scripture speaks so eloquently of God’s passion for the poor and the outcast. Throughout my adulthood, I too have had a passion for seeking justice for the poor. Prior to coming to Wheaton, I had worked as a community organizer in an all-black neighborhood in Chicago, as an advocate for stronger civil rights legislation and job training programs for the poor, and as an organizer for several local reform politicians. I saw coming to Wheaton as a continuation of my calling to a ministry of justice because it was my hope that through teaching and writing I would be able to impart those passions to my students.

Every year I have new students in my classes who have been inspired by a church missions trip or an urban immersion experience and are now eager to learn more. They understand that Christian leadership means service, and they want to know how they can best live that out in what they choose to do as adults.

A growing number of Wheaton students are wrestling with a sense of calling to some form of urban ministry as they prepare for adulthood. For them, urban studies can serve as a window into what in most cases is a very different environment, while also serving as a window into their own souls.

As director of urban studies, I see it as my calling to broaden and deepen my students’ thinking about poverty so they can clearly see the impact of societal evils in creating and perpetuating poverty and hunger in the world. Unlike the students I taught at the University of Chicago when I was in graduate school, Wheaton students’ faith serves as a common foundation. They come into the classroom knowing that God expects them to serve the hungry, the homeless, the sick, and the needy, because “when you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me” (Matt. 25:40). I seek to present them new perspectives on Scripture, often drawing on the prophets of the Old Testament such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, as well as Jesus’s own ministry among the outcasts of Jewish society.

I seek to challenge many of my students’ assumptions about the life conditions and hardships that confront people who live in the poorer communities of our nation’s big cities. They are accustomed to thinking about poverty as an individual problem, yet the growth of large poor neighborhoods in central cities is also the legacy of housing and school segregation, the loss of industrial employment, and flight of financial capital.

For young Christians to seriously engage in ministry among the poor, they have to recognize that there can be no genuine solution to poverty in America unless those most hurt by it become actively engaged in the search for solutions.

Young Christians trained in Christian colleges like Wheaton who are seeking to do urban ministry will have to form partnerships and share skills and experiences with Christians who have grown up in these communities. For many students, their urban experience will be life-transforming because they learn that to be a light in this world requires that they give of themselves. They have to empty themselves in order to serve others. They learn that there are no easy solutions to renewing poor communities and that any change requires great love, hard work, and deep commitments.

———-

Twenty years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine began a series of articles, titled “On My Mind”, in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Former Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Urban Studies Program, Helene Slessarev (who taught at Wheaton from 1991-2006) was featured in the Summer 1999 issue.

Wheaton College Awakenings: 1853-1873

Before publishing Marching to the Drumbeat of Abolitionism: Wheaton College in the Civil War (2010), Dr. David Maas, retired professor of history, released Wheaton College Awakenings: 1853-1873 (1996), comprising 266 entries excerpted from correspondence, diaries, newspapers and other printed matter, chronicling early campus life.

A few examples:

#18. Discipline of studying, 1857. And if the discipline of study ever accomplishes anything it must be self-imposed. The student who needs a police force to exact obedience to academic law deserves no place in a respectable literary institution.

#37. Student attacks novel as trashy literature, 1857. The country is flooded with books and papers which have a tendency to excite and intoxicate the mind; consequently the mind becomes poisoned and the desire for useful information is destroyed and all the noble powers of the intellect die of starvation or from the want of wholesome intellectual food…[too many read] worthless nonsensical trash which has a tendency to destroy the virtue and morality of the consumer. [Great men of the past] Webster, Clay, Washington and Sumner…[did not] rise to the highest pinnacle of fame by spending their time novel reading…Young man, beware, beware of that young lady who spends most of her time in reading novels, talking nonsense and laughing at others…

#97. Professor critical of the architectural style of central section of Blanchard Hall, 1868. [Professor John Calvin Webster in address dedicating the cornerstone of the west wing of Blanchard Hall refers to the original center section as] the semblance of an old-fashioned New England cotton mill.

#106. Complaint of high costs of Wheaton, 1857. Although the world seems to frown on you now and by every means possible to take the last dollar you possess, particularly so if you are a student at Wheaton College.

#252. Student concerned about Civil War, 1861. It [imagination] sees the dark cloud which now overhangs our country roll away; and our nation purified by fire and blood – rising up with a halo of glory around.

At the Core

by Ivan J. Fahs ’54 Professor of Sociology

During our first year of marriage, Joyce was finishing her work at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and I was teaching high school in nearby Euclid. One of my responsibilities was to supervise a study hall in the school’s cafeteria where the students typically spread out around the spacious room, some of them taking up a whole table.

One kid drew my attention. He was at a table by himself and was moving books and notebooks around, scribbling a note here and there. I noticed he was smiling, and I thought I could hear him humming, too. Now, when a teacher observes a kid smiling in a high school study hall, there are several possibilities–Is this kid concealing a frog or snake in his shirt and is he is planning to let it loose to test out this new teacher’s skill at riot control? And that smile–was it a smirk or a impious grin? Trying to appear authoritative, I wandered over toward his table. He was underlining in a book and sure enough, he was humming a bouncy tune, When our eyes met, I said, “You’re Brian, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, And you’re new here, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m new this year. Brian, you seem to be enjoying yourself this morning. You’re smiling a lot, and I heard you humming a song. What gives? Why do you look so happy?”

Brian’s response was instantaneous and genuine. “O, that? That’s just the Lord shining through.”

Obviously, Brian had not been admonished sternly enough to keep God out of his life as a public high school student. The spontaneity and brightness of his faith–what was inside him–showed on his face and was evident in his voice.

Often many of us portray a positive appearance that does not nicely dovetail with the “stuff” inside ourselves. Which means that sometimes we force an appearance, and we deliberately, some would say dishonestly, act in such a way to appear to he something we really aren’t.

What is in the core of our being? When anyone is “in Christ,” that person becomes a new creation. Christ profoundly changes our core. With that transformation we become capable of absorbing and transmitting the qualities of His Spirit–love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control.

This is the “good stuff” that presumably becomes integrated into the essence of who we are. If all that “good stuff” is an authentic part of me, then why doesn’t it bubble out more? Sometimes, I think it’s because we believe our Christian faith is a very private experience. But when we contemplate what Christ has done in us, how can we really keep it for ourselves? The “good stuff” is too good to be kept private. It is natural to spread the Good News everywhere. Another reason we don’t express what Christ has implanted in us is that we have not tended the garden inside adequately. Inside we are empty and sick and cannot bring ourselves to admit candidly how little of the “good stuff” we have. We need resuscitation, a new commitment to the Lord, or a refilling with His Spirit.

I struggle with dissonance between the realities of who I am and how I present myself. But I have learned from times like this that it’s okay, deeply okay, to let my core–even when my core is in a state of disrepair–to be revealed among caring people who love me in my brokenness; these people hold me up, and they send me on my way. That’s what Christian community life does for each of us who is needy. The personal and social toxins all around are minimized when caring people blow in spiritually pure air and offer us cool, refreshing cups of water. So even when we are less than the ideal, each of us has power to minister to one another with Christ’s Spirit and to overcome these toxins.

Because Jesus taught that every disciple when fully taught will be like his teacher (Luke 6:40), it is fair to ask who our teachers are. Cultural ways of doing things, religiously sanctioned beliefs, and focus on people’s physical appearances can distort the reality underneath. Our preconceptions about poorly clothed people, or someone illiterate or socially crude, can keep us from understanding the essence of who these children of God really are.

How well-rooted at our core are we in Christ-centered values? And does this “root system” function adequately when others need to see the authentic Jesus shining through? Does the Lord Jesus inside us make a difference in the way we appear to others? Does He come through spontaneously and joyously? Does He attract others to Himself?

I don’t know what is best for stirring us to deal with the incongruity of our inward reality with our outward behavior. Gentle persuasion and cogent argument work for some. A direct in-your-face approach works for others. It doesn’t matter. We must come to terms with a process of living before others in a way that draws upon the qualities God’s Spirit has imbedded in our inner core. Then we may be in the position where the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart (Luke 6:45).

———-

Twenty years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine began a series of articles, titled “On My Mind”, in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Former Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Ivan Fahs ’54 (who taught at Wheaton from 1981-2001) was featured in the Autumn 1997 issue.