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Join us as we talk all things college with Dr. Philip Ryken, President of Wheaton College!

What makes a successful college student? What challenges are Christian colleges facing today? How does college shape a young adult’s thought processes? Is college actually still a worthwhile investment today? We’ll tackle all of these topics and more in today’s episode of Veritas Vox!

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Marlin Detweiler:

Hello again. Welcome to Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us Dr. Phil Ryken, the President of Wheaton College. Phil, welcome!

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Thank you so much. And warm greetings to all of your Veritas listeners, participants, and supporters.

Marlin Detweiler:

Do we find you in the warmth of Chicago today?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

I am here in Blanchard Hall, historic Blanchard Hall, going back to 1860 and trying to get as much work done as I can during the summer months before our students come back to campus in a few short weeks.

Marlin Detweiler:

I imagine this is the time of year we have fewer interruptions, and I know how much more efficient that can be. Tell us a little bit about yourself personally, your family. You have a father that has been dear to Veritas. I'd be interested in hearing how he's doing and your education.

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Sure. I was not born in Wheaton, Illinois, but was raised here. We moved here when I was one year old and I came to Wheaton as a student, met my wife Lisa here. Then we were in Philadelphia for seminary. Westminster Theological Seminary, lived for three years in England, had 15 years in Center City, Philadelphia, very involved in pastoral ministry, gospel work there came to Wheaton in 2010.

I'm happy to say that my youngest of five children is matriculating at Wheaton College on August 8, I guess her first day of classes is around August 21 or something like that. All of our kids have come to Wheaton, and that's wonderful. We're excited about that. My dad's doing well. He's still writing. And in fact, he just gave me a copy last week of his latest book.

He's done these really nice devotional reflections on classic Christian poetry and other writing on different theological themes. He's got this beautiful book of 31 devotional reflections on Advent that's just been released. And so he's going strong and still writing. And we enjoy spending time together regularly.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's wonderful. I have enjoyed every moment I've had a chance to visit with him. Well, you stepping in to Philadelphia was your first role in Philadelphia, the senior pastor at 10th Presbyterian?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Yeah, actually, when I came to 10th in 1995, I told people I had the best job in America because I was the associate minister of preaching. I was preaching every week on Sunday evenings, preaching in the morning when James Boyce was traveling. And I had no other regular responsibilities, nothing else on my job description, just preaching. So my job got a little bit worse.

Month by month, year by year. But when Dr. Boyce, untimely as it seemed to us, died very suddenly in the year 2000, I became senior pastor thereafter.

Marlin Detweiler:

Those were some big shoes, and they were fairly warm when you filled them, weren't they?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

They were. We love Dr. Boyce and we love our relationship with Linda Boyce, and he was always a huge encouragement to me in ministry. You know, we had a strong sense of calling to the church. So it felt it was certainly challenging and an important role, but we also had a strong sense of calling to it.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, I've had a chance to worship there a time or two and hear you preach there. And it was wonderful. I'm curious how it came about that you decided to leave pastoral ministry and become the president of Wheaton. I don't mean to speak ill of Wheaton at all, but that sounds like a step down to me.

Dr. Philip Ryken:

So, yeah, so interesting question. We don't have long enough on this podcast to tell that whole story! I'll just say this, though. I was involved at Wheaton on the Board of Visitors and then Board of Trustees for a decade before becoming president. So already in my early thirties I was coming back to Wheaton’s campus very involved in leadership roles at the college and with a strong sense of lifelong connection to Wheaton students and what God does in their lives and does through their lives after they graduate.

It's really the only other job I would have been willing to pray about. And Lisa and I were open knowing that a presidential transition was coming and prayerful about coming to Wheaton, even though actually I didn't apply for the position initially. But eventually I was approached about it. And by that point, we were ready to be considered.

Just to get one correction, though, I have not left the pastoral ministry. My gospel ministry calling is for life. I would not have come to Wheaton if the trustees of Wheaton College had not recognized that this could be a form of pastoral ministry. I would not have come without the support of my elders, recognizing that this could be a gospel calling as well.

So, Lord willing, at some point I may be restored to regular local church ministry, but I continue to value my opportunities to preach the gospel and view this as one form of gospel ministry, which is really a throwback. You know, in the 19th century, most smaller colleges, liberal arts schools all across the United States, nearly 100%, 90% plus were led by ministers of the gospel who offered some, you know, spiritual as well as intellectual training.

We've come a long way from that model we have with our campus leadership. But it's something that Wheaton College has embraced and we've tried to embrace it.

Marlin Detweiler:

Thank you for reminding me of that. Thank you for correcting me so gently. You're absolutely right. And I appreciate how you look at that.

How did you find the transition? Had you been involved in something with such administrative breadth before? I'm curious as an entrepreneur to understand big transitions like that at the executive level.

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Yeah, no, it's a great question. And what I would say is that so many things of the structure of my life as a senior pastor in a large church are similar to the structure of my life as the president, as the president of a college campus. But the scale is different. So, you know, 10th Presbyterian Church budget of several million dollars, you know, 30 ish members on the staff.

Wheaton College is $100 million plus budget. We've got, you know, 800 employees. It's very complicated. We do we do residential. We do food service. It's just so much more complicated. But I think it illustrates something that particularly for people who are still in high school or college, is a relevant principle. And that is, if you're faithful in doing the thing that God has in front of you and take very seriously those responsibilities, there may well come a time when God has a more complicated, maybe broader role of leadership and the principles that you've established for how you lead then become transferable to that new context.

May be more complicated. It may have a lot more burdens, whatever. But you know, in the grace of God, you're ready for that. Ready for that step. The biggest difference– there are a few different differences. I mean, I don't have ministry to young children on a college campus, so that, you know, there's a sense of loss that goes with that. That would just be one example.

The biggest difference, though, is in a local church, your casting vision from the scriptures for the entire community weekly, the whole community is there. All ages, all backgrounds. That almost never happens on a college campus. Most colleges and universities don't have a venue where you can get all those people together. So you do cast vision and you are teaching and applying biblical truth in a lot of different contexts.

Wheaton You know, we do that in our chapel worship, sure, But even there we don't have the entire community there. It's mainly undergraduate students. So that's very different. It's a different kind of leadership that's required.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's an interesting observation. As you have stepped into this role, you've been in it now since 2000?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

2010, so this will be my 14th year.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, in that timeframe that does go back far enough. You have seen some changes, I dare say radical changes in the education that happens in college. Put it that way. In simple terms. Where do you see Christian colleges at risk? Where do you where are the battles that you fight to protect and to move forward? I am a conservative, but that doesn't mean I don't think about progressing and so where do you see your challenges and how do you see keeping the vision as you adapt?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Yeah, so that's a great question. I think in a way it's a perennial question because Wheaton’s been on the same Christ-centered, kingdom-minded mission since 1860. But what that looked like in the Civil War, what that looked like through the Great Depression, what that looked like in the 1960s. I mean, it's there are lots of cultural challenges that go with it.

I think it's true there's never been a harder time for Christ-centered colleges and universities than right now today. There may be some times that have been equally difficult, but for a lot of reasons. One is just simple financial challenges. You look at sort of the overall financial well-being of our Christ-centered colleges and universities, most are not nearly as strong as they would want to be.

And that's why we're starting to see some closures and things like that. So that's a practical challenge. And there are aspects of COVID that exacerbated that. I think it is becoming more difficult to communicate the high value of college education in general, but specifically liberal arts education, or maybe more specifically Christ-centered liberal arts education. There's a big move to things that are more directly applicable to certain kinds of jobs, and I don't have a problem at all with that.

In fact, I'm supportive of apprenticeships. I'm supportive of military training. Sure, I'm supportive of forms of formal education that prepare people for particular jobs. But I also think the history of the church going back to Antioch and Alexandria proves that we want some of our top Christian young leaders to get a breadth of preparation that teaches them how to think, how to write, how to reason, how to argue.

That comes through not narrowly focusing on preparing for a particular job and preparing a kind of person who can be a kingdom leader. And I think that's very countercultural now and increasingly so, and there’s lots of criticism of the value of higher education and the cost of higher education.

Actually, just this week, the latest data is out in confidence in higher education and in colleges and universities, even lower, you know, people that really feel confident about it's in the low thirties, but people are also not so confident of government, the church's reputation is down, like it's a culture-wide phenomenon.

Marlin Detweiler:

It's probably fair to say that there is an overarching pessimistic mindset about a lot of things.

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Yep. And an anti-institutional. And I've seen that wax and wane. I would say that five or six years ago there was an incoming group of college freshmen that were more instinctively respectful of authority and kind of trusted their elders. It's a bit of a post-9-11 generation, but that's not the overall cultural mood now, and our students are definitely affected by that.

Also, a big push towards online education. Again, I'm not in principle opposed to that. That's a great calling for some institutions, but I do think we need schools where people live, worship, play, study, think together, embodied. And so there's a real place for the kind of residential education that Wheaton offers. But, you know, it's more expensive and sometimes people are looking for more flexibility. So these are some of the trends.

The other one I'll just mention is a moral trend. The general direction of American culture specifically is not in the direction of biblical ethics on sexuality, biblical recognition of the truth and absolute truth, like all of those kinds of things. The culture seems to be running a bit more away from all of those things.

So we're standing against that. I think one of the things that makes me most hopeful about Christian education, as we know the history of lots of institutions that moved away from their Christian moorings. So that stands as a warning to us. And organizations like the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, which strengthened some of our ethical commitments to make it more clear what a difference it makes to be a Christian institution.

So there are lots of reasons to be encouraged, but it's it's challenging for sure.

Marlin Detweiler:

I'm old enough to have observed the effect of the anti-Vietnam. There are a number of ways I can describe the sixties, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to call it the sixties. I was I did not live them except a bit vicariously through an older sister. And I see a lot of what happened, what's happened there, having a lot of roots in the college campus or the college-age student, college-age person.

I see that again with some of the cultural trends that sometimes get nicknamed “wokeness” or “being woke.” What is it about college and the college experience that tends to be the greatest maybe source of those occurrences? I was going to call it consternation. I'm trying, but clearly there were problems and there are problems. There are also are things that are being worked through as a result. But why does it come out of college kids?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Yeah, well, and I think I wouldn't say it just comes out of college kids. I would say it comes out of the college context.

Marlin Detweiler:

You got my attention. I want to hear more about that too.

Dr. Philip Ryken:

So colleges and universities are really on the cutting edge of culture. There are some other things that are on the cutting edge of culture. I think the creative, artistic community. I often say if you want to see where a culture is going ten years from now, like look what's happening in the visual arts, look at what is happening in film production and things like that, partly because those media are going to be influential, but also because there's an openness to what the future holds and an interest in the latest thinking that is characteristic of of of creative communities and certainly very characteristic of colleges and universities.

I think, and this has been true since the time of Augustine, that young people gravitate towards colleges and university colleges and universities because they want to learn and they want to know what is happening in the world. And I think it's part of a maturing process. At some point in childhood or junior high or high school, you start noticing broader political issues, trends in the world that are interesting and compelling.

You actually have a conversation with your parents. A topic comes up suddenly you realize, I'm actually really interested in this. Before people were talking about this, I didn't have an interest. Now I do. I'm interested in what's happening in the world.

So to me, it's very understandable that in terms of knowing what is happening, what problems we're facing in the world is not to me surprising at all that rather than just wanting to, for example, listen to the official United States Army report about how the Vietnam War was going, there were journalists and there were college students and college professors that brought a certain skepticism to that and wanted to test that idea and find out if that actually was the truth about what was happening, that that sort of skepticism and critical thinking can be turned to tremendous positive good, and it can also be used in very destructive ways.

So there is both great promise and great peril with our education. I think the New Testament speaks to, you know, the higher accountability for those who teach the risks that come with gaining knowledge. It's a good thing to learn. But, you know, the Bible also talks about bringing our thinking captive to the Lord Jesus Christ is an important part of what true wisdom is.

So I think those are some of the dynamics that are at work. I agree with you. There are a lot of similarities between the 2020s and the 1960s. I also think some of this kind of ferment to some degree is perennial.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, I can see that too. Is there something distinctly American in our frontier mentality and mindset, our “pull ourselves up by the bootstraps” sense that causes American colleges and universities to be a little bit more fertile than might be the case in other colleges and other cultural settings?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Still, I think the answer to that is no. So okay, maybe you and I will disagree about something which I think makes for an interesting podcast.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, I'm happy to hear you want to have a fun argument, but I don't know that I disagree. It was really an open-ended question. I don't know the answer here.

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Here's why. If you look at what happens on college and university campuses in Latin America, if you think about Tiananmen Square and how university students were at the forefront of raising questions and concern about the Chinese government, if you look at the people that many of them that were leaders for carrying umbrellas in Hong Kong, just lots of examples around the world where young people that really want to think and learn, they are not just going to accept the answer that they're given.

They're going to think more deeply about it. And if there is a lack of integrity, a lack of wisdom, a willingness to like, try to cover over the facts, sharp young people are going to be all over that. And what we try to develop on a college or university campus is critical thinking. Critical in the good sense of testing the thinking.

That's often the thing I'll say when we're working on an issue that we can count. Let's test our thinking. Yeah, I've got an idea here, “I want you to test my thinking.” I hear what you're saying, but I want to test your thinking. That's a good thing for us to be doing in college and university campuses. So I'm more of a half-full than a half-empty person.

So I see the positive version of this. But I think this fertile college university setting with its promise and as I've said, it's peril. I think you see that in a lot of different cultures around the world.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, I'm convinced. I wasn't poking the bear trying to pick an argument. I really wanted to think through it and you've really helped do that. How does this experience– I know I have my own answer here, and it's in simple terms, I felt like my college experience was kind of a half step into full independence. And it was what I might call managed independence. And it's often been a funny thing to hear children talk about wanting to be independent from their parents as long as they get a meal every night, a warm bed to sleep in, and a car that's filled with gas by dad's credit card, they're fine with independence! And I thought, yeah, as a parent, it doesn't work that way. But how does the model of students coming into that setting finding themselves moving into independence, how does that fit with the Fifth Commandment, honoring your parents and continuing that kind of relationship? What is the biblical ideal in this process of dependance to independence?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Yeah, so it's a great question. It's one I've given a lot of thought of as a parent. My goal has been by the time my child is 18, I want that child to be ready for adulthood. It's still a work in progress. I feel like I didn't have time to do all the things I wanted to do, but I want to see a six-year-old about a third of the way towards that 12-year-old, about two-thirds of the way, 18-year-old pretty close to that. I think you have to be willing to allow your children to make some mistakes, which is super tough. You can't just pretend.

Marlin Detweiler:

It's a hard thing to do, isn't it?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

College is a big switch because up until this point, it's been appropriate for a parent to advocate. At this point, we as a college, we want parents to back off quite a bit– pray, encourage, give counsel, but don't, you know, find somebody that you think should be making a different decision. Help your child advocate for himself, advocate for herself.

Help them understand how college processes work. One of the ways we accomplish some of these goals as goals at Wheaton, is we have as many learning goals for you outside the classroom as we do inside the classroom. And a lot of that happens in residential life. We want to teach people how to live in community and how to care for others more selflessly.

How to take responsibility for their property and for their physical well-being. Students fail and in all those areas need support, encouragement, and sometimes need accountability. The other thing we do a week in, and this would be probably typical of many residential campuses, our freshmen and sophomores all live in larger dorms. Most of our juniors live in apartments. The apartment of four people.

Many of our seniors live in houses with 6 to 10 students, and there's a progression there of taking greater responsibility. And you see it as a parent freshman year. You got to be there to help move into the dorm, set up the dorm, things like that sophomore year, you know, they maybe want you to help drop them off at school and maybe move a heavy piece of furniture. But you're not needed in the same way. And that's a good thing. That was the goal all along.

Marlin Detweiler:

What a wonderful parallel in practicality to what's happening emotionally and psychologically as they're progressing through their undergraduate degrees. You started to touch on this a little bit, but I think it bears really going into, what is your persona for the ideal Wheaton student? What do you really want?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Well, one thing to say is there's a huge variety there. So just to give one example, I think many incoming freshmen think that the ideal Wheaton student is an extrovert that's involved in lots of activities. But, you know, half of human beings are more introverted than extroverted. So there's no character type, no particular background. We're looking for students who are serious about their Christian discipleship, have a genuine personal faith relationship with Jesus Christ that they're able to express verbally. That's a requirement for us, not something optional. And we're looking for somebody with a keen academic interest and ability.

So this is a high-achieving campus. Students that have done very well and their high school experience and they've demonstrated that and they're ready to excel and go deeper in intellectual pursuits. And typically students that are gifted intellectually, not surprisingly, they may also be gifted musically, athletically, dramatically, and other areas of human pursuit.

But we're looking for somebody who wants to learn and who wants to want to grow in love and service to Jesus Christ, simply put.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's a great word. Thank you. You have written– I didn't count them, but somebody told me over 50 books. That's quite an undertaking for somebody that understands the publishing world like I do. That's another career at work. What is it that motivates you to write? Why do you write in spite of the fact that you have had some very big responsibilities in your college?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

You know, there are several different ways I can answer that question. One reason I write sometimes is to learn something that I don't know or don't understand very well. Some of the writing projects I've undertaken, it's not because I've got this figured out and I want to tell you about it. I'm actually learning as I write and can express that. I write to help people understand the Bible and its principles and put them into practice.

So that's very motivating for me. Most of the writing I do comes out, comes in one way or another out of the teaching that I do, and I write because I'm called to do it and have a deep sense of calling. At a certain point, a missionary friend asked me– this is maybe five or ten years into my writing career, not too far in, but enough that I had worked on several projects.

And she said, “Oh, you must really enjoy writing.” And I said I don't know. That's not the first thing I would say comes to mind. There's a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It takes a tremendous commitment and time, and a lot of other things. So that's not the first thing that I would say.

I just feel it's what I do. It's what I'm called to do. Having said all of that, I love getting the resources I need, blocking out the time that I need to work day after day on a project. I like what it takes to get things expressed just the way that you want to express them, how they sound, how they look, what they mean.

So I'm not an especially creative person, but there is a creative aspect to any writing which I do find fulfilling. And of course, when somebody says, “Hey, that book really helped me, thank you for writing this, I want to just tell you, you know, the difference this made for me.” You know, that's very gratifying because that means the goal has been accomplished.

Marlin Detweiler:

Those kinds of feedbacks really help us get up in the morning, don't they?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Yeah, they do! And one thing I do whenever I get an encouraging word, I always share it with my wife, Lisa, because she makes a lot of sacrifices for my calling as well. So I think it's good to get an encouraging word.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, absolutely. Maybe your last question. We're coming up here on the end of our time. As you think about what you've written, what would you guess, maybe, you know, but what would you think is the most influential thing that you've written?

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Yeah, that's an interesting question. So I think some of the Bible commentaries I've done, certainly. Because those are books that somebody reads learns from and then teaches to others. So there's a kind of multiplying effect there. I'll mention one book that to me is just done surprisingly well and maybe has been influential. It's a little book I wrote called Art For God's Sake, and that particularly when that was written, there's more now, when that was written, there just weren't that many strong affirmations of the calling of Christians in the arts that affirmed this vocation, helped artists understand Christians and Christians understand the arts.

So it's sold a surprising number of copies and still get good comments about it. So that's maybe one that's had an influence.

Marlin Detweiler:

That is wonderful. That sounds like something that your father would have written too.

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Yeah, in a way, you know, and how it came about. I think most of the things that really help people you're thinking about particular people that you're helping, and then it has a multiplier effect and it came out of just teaching I was doing through the Book of Exodus and I had one of the art teachers in my school come up and say, “Hey what you talked about today? You should publish that as a little book. I love it. Can I get a copy of that? I want to use that with my high school students.”

So that's when, you know, it's touched a responsive chord and it has made a difference for people.

Marlin Detweiler:

Thank you! Folks, we have had Phil Ryken, Dr. Ryken, President at Wheaton College with us today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Philip Ryken:

Thank you. And warm greetings to everyone at Veritas.

Marlin Detweiler:

Folks, this is Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Thank you for joining us again.