As you’ve probably heard, the decision has now been made to appoint Dr. Philip Graham Ryken to the position. There’s been some ongoing discussion of this at the WhitherWheaton facebook site (click on “Facebook comments” in the right hand side menu above).

My own initial sense, still very tentative, is that the Board did not think very far outside the current box on this one. Indeed, some aspects of this appointment will sound ominously familiar to those of us who went through the Litfin changeover in the early 90s. The dismissal of Prof. Peter Enns at Westminster while Ryken was on the Board is particularly troubling, though the details of Ryken’s involvement are not wholly clear (he certainly didn’t speak out against it, in any case).

That said, there are also lots of things to appreciate about Ryken: he is beloved by his church, has done serious Biblical scholarship (on Exodus, primarily), comes from a storied Wheaton family, knows the college and its surrounding community well, and is theologically sophisticated. It will be interesting to see how he directs the college over the next few years (and decades–he’s very young).

I hope that the discussion started here and on related sites has done some good, and I of course join alums across the world in *sincerely* wishing Wheaton and Dr. Ryken well!

I thought you’d like to know President Litfin (presumably) has responded on the First Things blog post about your article. Comment #30, February 14.

I really liked your article and seemed very fair to me. BTW, this white text on grey background comment box is murder on the eyes. (Mac Safari)

And hey Sarah: thanks for the new terminology. I find that I am, as you say, a post-liberal, post-evangelical, but not post-biblical believer.

Sunday, February 14.

OK, first some hello’s

Hi Paul: Glad you’re getting to know a bit about Wheaton. As somebody who is interested in music you might like to know that Jerry Blackstone (Grammy winning chair of the conducting program at the University of Michigan), Doug Yeo (principal bass trombone at the Boston Symphony), Wendy White (mezzo soprano at the Metropolitan Opera, she sang Hoffman and Rosenkavalier this season), and Sylvia McNair (who is now on the voice faculty at Indiana U after an international operatic career), are all from Wheaton’s Conservatory, having graduated within a few years of each other. I don’t know if Wheaton gets great talent or Protestants who really work hard, probably more of the second. But unless you actually know Andrew Chignell (as well as Wheaton), aren’t you a little out of line diagnosing his writing as a hatchet job done by someone with a bias? Am I chiding you a bit? You bet. You’re a Lutheran minister in a confession that actually believes the Bible. Andrew needs our love and the rest of us need courageous and loving leadership from pastors like you in the denominations that still count, like the Missouri Synod. You might want to write him and apologize a bit, just a bit. He’s a nice guy. And he writes completely opaque essays on Kant.

And Joe: Howdy from a bumpkin in Tennessee
Glad you’re laughing. You’re a professor of what? Ethics perhaps? Or Masks? Must be Masks. Ok, it’s Mardi Gras, maybe you can keep the mask on, but before you mock Ms Van Dyke’s tears put your name on your post so we can blog about your life too.

Hi Christopher: Good luck on the job hunt. Been there, it’s tough. Don’t get discouraged; yep easier said than done.

Ok, now to the business at hand.

That’s a very thoughtful response to Andrew’s piece. I’m glad it’s getting some discussion. My wife and I graduated from Wheaton in ’74, my brother and sister-in-law a couple of years later, and I have a niece who graduated last year. What success I have had in life comes largely from what I learned at Wheaton and, of course, from the woman who I fell in love with there. Our Wheaton friends remain our closest, the professional kindnesses I have received from Wheaton faculty the most generous, and the teaching I received the most treasured in my memory. I owe the college a lot. So does the rest of my family. And so do all of my students in my over thirty years of college teaching.
Oh, and Christopher, I’m very much a fundy—bing, put me in that pigeon hole, I’m a bit round but you can squeeze me in.

Wheaton isn’t as much a flagship as a lightening rood. “Marlene” was one of the original responders to Chignell’s essay on another web page. She called Stanton Jones a “twit” and characterized evangelicals as fascists. I e-mailed her, introduced myself, and suggested that it might be more civil not to call Stanton a twit and asked her if she was a Wheaton grad. She quickly and generously wrote back. She has never been to Wheaton. She is an atheist and she wrote that she was civil when the situation called for it. She is a radio talk show host on a program that deals with issues of the transgender community. And she was perfectly civil to me and I expect is charming in person. But she loathes Wheaton.

There you have it. I doubt that Marlene would care much about what goes on at Grove City or Northwestern College in St. Paul, where I once taught. But Wheaton is the school that Billy Graham graduated from and because of him it sticks up on the American horizion—lighting rood like. And so things like policy changes, faculty firings, and presidential searches interest—and influence–a community far wider than college merits.
Well that’s just the way it is, and because of Wheaton’s prominence that sign out on front campus, “For Christ and His Kingdom” is seen a lot further than Pepperdine’s big cross or Oral Robert’s Prayer Chapel. Wheaton needs to take it seriously, real seriously. Folks expect Wheaton to mean it. Folks like Marlene.

And Wheaton does. But it can do better. And it’s that “better” that both Andrew and Christopher are talking about. For Christ and His Kingdom. Well, here’s my two cents.

A lot of the buzz is about Duane Litfin. I’ll start there.

My model for a great college president is Bart Giamatti who was President of Yale when I was there. He was a magnificent scholar, taught a class every semester, had a real open door policy to his students, and nurtured warm relations with alumni, some of whom he had taught. I was disappointed when I learned of Litfin’s appointment to Wheaton. The trustees chose a man who, as far as I could tell, showed no real love of learning apart from chasing degrees, had never taught in a university, and who was known in Memphis to have had a rather autocratic administrative style. When Duane became president, the president’s home, which was across the street from the college, was converted to other uses and Duane was provided with a home several miles from campus. Bad move. The main advantage of the president’s home was its immediate proximity to campus which meant that students should have been regularly invited to dinner (no, I’m not being sarcastic, there were a number of professors when I was at Wheaton who regularly had students in their homes for dinner, and it was those dinners that changed my life, and the lives of my wife and friends). By moving to a larger home miles from campus Duane showed to Wheaton that Hudson Armerding’s old home wasn’t grand enough for the president of a college For Christ And His Kingdom and students shouldn’t be able to come up and ring the door bell, at least without walking a long way (yeah I know, through five feet of snow, barefoot).

When the Men’s Glee Club had their centennial concert several years ago, I looked forward to going and seeing old friends and the several hundred other alumni who had come to Wheaton from as far away as China. There was a reception and a banquet and I also looked forward to meeting Duane. He didn’t show up, for the banquet or for the reception. One of the main jobs of a college president is to raise money and one of the most important ways you raise money is by being kind to possible donors and showing interest in what they’re doing (of course you pray about it too—and about donors: you’re kind to everybody because you really don’t know who the real donors are). Looking around the room at these events I saw alumni who had been greatly blessed with worldly goods. It wouldn’t have been too hard to have started relationships with men there that would have resulted in several million dollars of contributions. But Duane didn’t show up. The alumni all noticed it and at the end of the celebratory luncheon I pulled David Gieser aside (David was a senior when I was a freshman; he’s on the board of trustees and has been personally very generous to a number of causes, including Wheaton) and told him that if I were on the board Duane would be fired by that evening, at least that was my opinion of how well he was fulfilling one part of his duties. I’m not on the board of trustees. Duane wasn’t fired. He’s retiring. Folks can argue that all three of those things are good. My model for a great president is Bart Giamatti. I wish Wheaton could come even close to that standard.

About Stanton Jones: I know Stanton and while I think he’s made administrative mistakes he’s a deeply pastoral man and personally generous. Employment law lets an employee, or ex-employee, talk a blue streak to just about anybody he or she wants to but the employer pretty much has to be mute. In a higher ed employment termination cases, you almost never get both sides of a story unless it comes to trial. In one Wheaton case I know well a faculty member very much needed to be fired and Stanton sacked him. What does sacking a faculty member have to do with “For Christ and His Kingdom?” Basic ethics. You have an obligation to students to provide them with the quality of education you’re advertising and when you don’t do that you’re committing fraud. Fraud – like Enron. And Madoff. Not to point fingers, but we have enough problems with fraud in Evangelicaldom. Would that church boards had made some firings. We need to be thankful to Stanton for doing what he did. I know many faculty are. And remember, firing somebody is very difficult to do and takes an emotional toil on the person who fires the employee as well as on the person fired. No dean has ever been sued for promoting a professor. But the litigation you risk denying tenure or terminating a tenured faculty is significant. In my over thirty years of experience in secular private, evangelical, and state institutions, the provosts who have terminated professors have been men and women deeply committed to student welfare and were willing to run the gauntlet of litigation to provide students with the best education they could.

Oh, and about Stanton Jones and Wheaton being narrow minded: As it happened, Soul Force made its Wheaton Stop one weekend when I was visiting campus. There wasn’t name calling, no police were needed; instead the group was invited to a public discussion of Christianity and homosexuality. I might be wrong here, but I even think that Stanton made sure they were given dinner. It was perfectly civil and very well attended. “For Christ and His Kingdom” Sure, you bet.

About Joshua Hochschild: I think that Wheaton would be well served if folks from all confessions, Churches, and denominations could be on the payroll if they in clear conscience could sign the college’s statement of faith. I’m a Protestant by conviction (remember I’m a fundy) and am at a loss to understand conversions to Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism, but it’s a big world and I’m obviously not God. So, Joshua converts. After a lot of talk Wheaton gives him a year to find a different job. OK. What wasn’t OK in my opinion–not sinful, not wicked–just not OK–was the way Joshua is said to have shopped around for a way to release his story. I think that The Wall Street Journal printed it for two reasons. It was a legitimate story and it was the kind of story that potentially embarrassed a subculture much of the readership of the Wall Street Journal enjoys ridiculing: Billy Graham’s alma mater and fundies. Again, in my opinion, appearances suggest that Joshua wanted to embarrass Wheaton and worked fairly hard to do so (and I have reliable sources not associated with Wheaton that I’m remembering here). To me, that’s a NOT OK. Also NOT OK, again at least in my opinion, was Kent Gramm posing for the photographer of the Chicago Tribune in Blanchard Hall. I’m sorry Kent’s marriage failed. I’m sorry that he did not allow the administration to minister to him during the process (at least that’s what I’ve been told) and I’m very sorry that, again Kent had his picture taken in Blanchard instead of at home on his sofa. But the picture in Blanchard Hall sells better, and embarrasses better. I don’t think the Wheaton administration had any wish to embarrass Kent. That picture made it look like Kent wanted to embarrass Wheaton. Again, in my opinion, that’s a NOT OK.

And there are areas where Wheaton herself really doesn’t live up to For Christ and His Kingdom. But none of them have to do with particular persons. They have to do with a culture of faith.

Why does Wheaton surrender its admissions data to US News and World Report so that the magazine can boost its circulation? Shouldn’t modesty be a characteristic of a Christian college? And if Wheaton comes out high in the rankings, why does Wheaton care? Are the criteria that the bean counters over at magazine are counting the ones Jesus is interested in? And why are you laughing? Isn’t Wheaton supposed to be about Him and His Kingdom? A little odd here, perhaps? St. Johns College in Annapolis refuses to participate in the surveys believing that a college education is about education, not the “We’re not quite as good as Princeton but we’re better than you” game. Is Wheaton proud that it comes out ahead of Bethel? Ah, proud, isn’t that a problem? Is St. Johns more Christian in this way than Wheaton? Well in this way, yes it is.

And are Wheaton students proud to go to Wheaton? Is Wheaton looking for proud students? Are there students who go to Wheaton but who wouldn’t be caught dead on the campus of BIOLA? Yep. Do Wheaton students have a tendency to be a bit arrogant? And are there Wheaton alumni who in their sixties are still listing on their vitae that they graduated magna cum laude—were they taught that Jesus cares what their grade point averages were? Isn’t it possibly a bit comical for somebody in their 60’s to still care about the grades he got when he was 19? How does this fit with “For Christ and His Kingdom”? How well is Wheaton teaching her students about humility? Not well.

Why would a Wheaton professor, when asked about the presidential search, say “I’m not hopeful that a woman or a person of color will land in the final interview pool, [and] of that I am saddened.” Woman or person of color? I might expect that from someone at UCLA, or Madison. But wouldn’t it be plausible to expect a Wheaton prof to say something simple, like, “I pray that the Trustees will have the wisdom to find the Lord’s candidate”? That “woman or person of color” sentence suggests that the speaker doesn’t even know how a person of faith talks. The prof sounds like an anthropologist who’s lived with a tribe for a long time but hasn’t quite mastered the nuances of the language.
Are Wheaton profs really like that?

Why are the trustees all, or mostly, so rich? Why isn’t there one poor alumnus, or alumna, on the board? Does wealth only reflect Christ and His kingdom? And why aren’t the faculty deeply involved in the search for the new president? It’s the faculty who set the tone of the college, not the administration (did anybody ever go to a college because of an administrator?). Don’t the trustees love the faculty? Don’t they want to share with the people they love the important process of seeking a new president? Doesn’t the way things are done on campus reflect the world of materialism and business, of bosses and laborers more than Christ and His Kingdom? Funny, in that vineyard in the Bible there are only laborers working together, and a Master who will return–to judge.
And the Bible is important at Wheaton. Well, it’s supposed to be. And it really is. Just remember it.

To the conservatory: Why are you so much like Juilliard? You train students to mostly play concerts. And you have really good ensembles that give concerts where people at the end go clappy clappy and the happier they are with the way you played the louder the clappy clappy gets. Yeah, just like Juilliard. But isn’t that odd? Why would a school For Christ and His Kingdom sound just like Juilliard? Don’t you want to worship Christ? And isn’t the greatest calling in your lives to use your talent when you worship Him? And aren’t there chapel services at Wheaton? Doesn’t Wheaton worship? So why does your choir work really hard so they can sing a couple of concerts for people who go clappy clappy instead of singing ever week in chapel with the students and staff and faculty who you love in worship of the Lord who will someday welcome you in his arms with Well done thou faithful servant? And to the composers at the conservatory: why are you not writing hymns? When your friends die, what hymns have your written for them that they can sing and memorize and in that time of distress call to mind so that they might not fear their passing across that dark river that you and they and I must cross? Do you think that your—or my–string quartets really matter? Is it perhaps because you don’t get Guggenheim’s for hymns? Yeah, remember that sign.

To the faculty: there’s no commandment in the Scriptures to be smart. We’re told to work really hard, and to study, but smartness? Hunger and thirst after righteousness, pure in heart, peace makers, you bet. But being smart? Nope, not there. Not even a hint.
Maybe you should look into Zoroastrianism, very keen on smartness there. So lighten up. Stop wishing you taught at Harvard. Yeah, cool Harvard whose endowment basically pillaged Russia and has a law school that was the first to offer a course in “strategic truth management” (i.e. lying). And it’s no complement to be called the “evangelical Harvard.” One of Harvard’s deans made a pretty good case that the Harvard B.A. was pretty much a waste of time. I think he might have been giving places like Wheaton a clue. Take it.

And try to be more engaging to the folks at large, I think it’s called being “Christian.” I once e-mailed a well known member of the faculty who writes frequently for a journal I occasionally contribute to. I was coming on campus and admired his work and very much wanted to meet him if only for a cup of coffee. He wrote back, saying that he really didn’t like to meet people and he was very busy. Good thing I was already a Christian because if I hadn’t been that wouldn’t have encouraged me in the faith much. Oh, and answer your e-mails. Wheaton profs have a reputation for being e-mail impaired. Change it. It makes folks think that you don’t love them. But you do. That big sign out front says you do.
My wife arrived on campus with a prospective student just as the admissions office was closing. The staff said sorry, they were about to close, here’s a map and pointed to Blanchard. Treat people like you love them. Remember that sign. That really, really big sign. Everybody’s looking at it, and especially folks like Marlene who needs you to show her love and in that love Christ and His Kingdom.

Oh, and at the end, it’s pronounced Whea’en. Stop making such a fuss about the T and pretending to be C. S. Lewis. Remember Lewis was a kid from Northern Ireland, the boonies, kinda like Whea’on; had such a miserable childhood he dreamed of living in a closet. Blanchard didn’t want Wheaton to be a closet for Christians. He made that building to look like a light house. Yep, that’s called a hint.

The next decade or so is going to be very difficult for colleges. By the end of May Yale has to cut about 150 million dollars from its operating budget. There’s a private college in Nashville that is rumored to be loosing 50% of its student body. And one of the country’s oldest colleges might not make it through the next three years; faculty are being paid with IOU’s, applications are plummeting and financial assistance has evaporated.
Like GM dealerships, colleges are going to close. Wheaton could be on that list. But the purpose of Wheaton isn’t to simply maintain Blanchard’s light house, it’s the tending of that light. And if at light goes out, well, why bother with the house at all? Who can even see it?

–Mike Linton

Wednesday, February 17 — addition

Hi Duane: Wow, you’ve written a book. A book. It’s about “who Duane Litfin is.” It’s also about “what makes Wheaton tick.” Sheezam. That’s gotta be one amazing book. Because “it’s all there. Not part of it, not just a particular view point, but all of it. John, when he wrote a book about the Lord, with the help of the Holy Spirit, couldn’t get it all in just one book. But you got it all in one book. Maybe you should have retired years ago; at faculty meetings; at sessions with the board everybody could have just had coffee and passed around THE BOOK. Have a question? It’s in THE BOOK. Well, as you said, “It’s all there.” You’re kinda redundant. You could have been in Bora Bora enjoying the fresh pineapples and sun.
But not only is everything about Duane Litfin in the book, but also everything about Wheaton. Guess Wheaton doesn’t need any kids to teach now. Just send them THE BOOK because what makes a Wheaton degree unique to Wheaton, is in THE BOOK. Hey, that’s an idea. Just have kids enroll for classes on line at the University of Phoenix, and send them THE BOOK. Then pop them a quiz to take on line over the contents of THE BOOK and then ship off a diploma to them, with the Gold Seal on the bottom left corner, and the picture of the tower at Blanchard above it. Well, they read THE BOOK.
And it’s all there. Everything about Wheaton. Everything. And can’t forget that there’s everything about you too. Hey, I guess that maybe you and Wheaton are interchangeable? You’re Wheaton? Wow. Double Sheezam. Nope, make that a triple.

But you’re right. You are the subject of a lot of this, as you say, “silliness.” Are you silly? Gosh. I don’t know. I’ll have to check THE BOOK

You raise the spectre of smugness and yet freely participate in the behavior yourself. The added touch of paternalism would make the previous Wheaton administration proud. Your comment, if anything, demonstrates to me that Andrew’s words are long overdue.