Late March and the first days of April have traditionally been the start of baseball season and this year is no different. Today marks, for some, the start of time, especially as life re-emerges from the slumber of winter. As W.P. Kinsella wrote in Shoeless Joe (later turned into the successful film Field of Dreams), “…the one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has been erased like a blackboard, only to be rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time while America has rolled by like a procession of steamrollers.”

One of the items that was, for all intents and purposes, erased from the memory of Wheaton College was a small little notebook in the Charles Blanchard papers. As the Archives & Special Collections has moved the descriptive information about its holdings into an archival management system (archon.wheaton.edu) staff have been reviewing box inventories and the contents of collections. One of the items that emerged was a scrapbook of clippings. Listed under “General Files” this little notebook turned out to have started out life as a baseball scorebook, circa 1868-1869, from the earliest decades of American baseball. 1869 was the year that saw America’s first professional baseball team, The Cincinnati Red Stockings. This scorebook was hidden away under pasted clippings with titles like “Temperance,” “Oddfellowship,” “The Fifteenth Amendment,” “The British Question” and many more.

The obscured pages have yet to be fully revealed, due to the pasted articles, but what is easily found are some of the names of the players, the positions they played and the statistics gathered for inning by inning action. The style of the statistics follows an older “box score” format that more resembled Cricket scoring that kept track of O-s and R-s, or, the number of “putouts” and “runs.” The statistics show a very different game than we see today as players, like Blanchard, are listed as scoring ten runs in a game with final scores of 53 to 29 not out of the ordinary.

In the roster section Charles Blanchard’s name appears numerous times and on one occasion we see that he manned second base. Other names that appear on the roster are Sox (a fitting name for baseball), Ramsey, Fischer, Hiatt and Bliss. Another name that appears, and has appeared in this blog before, is that of “Hemingway.” Since the earliest clippings in the notebook date from 1868, the year following the last known date of Anson Hemingway’s attendance at Wheaton, we can properly assume that the baseball player is the paternal grandfather of noted American author Ernest Hemingway. The younger Hemingway loved baseball as well and while living in Cuba erected a field and gathered local boys for two teams to whom he’d pitch. In this early baseball scorebook we see that the elder Hemingway, who later went on to work for the YMCA in Chicago, played third base.

In America professional baseball is nearing its sesquicentennial and amateur play is older than that. For decades each spring has brought forth flowering bulbs and hopes for a pennant. In Chicago, for Cubs fans at least, that hope, according to Alexander Pope, springs eternal. Maybe this is the year?

One could say that baseball keeps one young. Below is a photograph of Charles Blanchard at a ripe old of 72 years old giving it one more swing!

Twenty years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine began a series of articles in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Professor of Conducting Mary Hopper was featured in the Spring 1993 issue.

As I was driving to the College one day last fall, I tuned in to the public radio station. A discussion of women’s issues was in progress, and I found myself in total agreement with the speaker as she described the strides and setbacks women have made in the professional world.

Then she made a statement to the effect that the entire future of women’s rights hinged on the abortion issue, If anyone was watching me as I drove along Harrison Street, they would have been amazed to see me, first nodding in agreement, and then, suddenly, furiously shaking my head.

During the political campaign last year, I became quite distressed over the discussions that polarized the right-wing expression of “family values” and the left-wing advocacy of pro-choice. This reasoning appeared to provide only two alternatives for women: either to choose a traditional, early twentieth century female role, or to become “pro-choice/liberal” career women.

Where does this leave single women, single-parent families, couples unable to have children, and women who honestly seek to develop the gifts that God has bestowed upon them in addition to those of being wives and mothers? How many women in our country work because they have to support a family? How is a woman to function in her family?

There are many questions about the role of women in society. As a working mother myself, I struggle with such issues every day. It is not surprising that many Christian women today wonder with uncertainty about their future.

Two years ago, I taught a student who decided to leave Wheaton because her goal in life was to be a housewife and mother, and she didn’t want to work as hard to get her college degree as she would have to work at Wheaton. She was a very bright and gifted young musician with great potential for teaching. Her mind was made up, but in counseling with her, I shared my perceptions about her decision. I told her about some of my friends’ marriages, which were unhappy or had ended in divorce because both partners were not devoted to the full development of their talents. Having been single myself for quite a few years, I pointed out to her that not everyone is destined for marriage. I challenged her not to throw away her gifts merely because she was waiting for the right relationship to come along.

At Wheaton, many women are role models for our young women–they may he single; married, with or without families; at different stages of their lives; and working in almost any area of the College. I have come to realize that part of my calling to teach at Wheaton is to try to live as a woman devoted to serving Christ through her profession, her marriage, and her family.

Another part of my role as a professor is to help my students recognize and develop their gifts. In the parable of the talents, Jesus exhorts us all to develop the gifts that have been given to us, not to bury them. Many of our young women are surprised to learn that they have anything to contribute. Some live with such insecurity that it is a major revelation to them to think that they can he competent conductors, or teach music lessons, or acquire the self-confidence to perform.

I rejoice when I think of women I have taught working in the business world, in education, on the mission field, in graduate school, and in their homes. I am thankful for the small part I have been able to play in their development during the years they spent at Wheaton College.

My prayer is that Wheaton will continue to provide role models of many kinds for our students, whether those role models are trustees, faculty, staff, or administrators. It should he apparent to our students that we are all concerned about our personal lives as well as our professional lives. And it should be clear to our students that we care about them, as we push them to achieve the most they can during their years at Wheaton.

Ultimately, the measure of our success as educators and as mentors is the degree to which they learn to serve the Lord with their whole being in the exercise of their talents and skills, as well as in their attention to their roles as men and women.

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Mary Hopper is Professor of Choral Music and Conducting at the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music. She also conducts both the Men’s Glee Club and the Women’s Chorale and has toured nationally and internationally with both ensembles to great success. She holds degrees from Wheaton College and the University of Iowa, where she studied with Don V. Moses. Before coming to Wheaton, Dr. Hopper taught public school music in the Chicago area, and choral conducting and voice at the University of Minnesota (Morris). Her ensembles frequently appear at conventions of the ACDA, most recently, the Women’s Chorale at the National Convention in New York City, February 2003. The Men’s Glee Club will appear at the Illinois ACDA Convention in October, 2008. Dr. Hopper is in demand nationally as a guest conductor and clinician. During the 2007-08 academic year she conducted the Illinois and Louisiana All-State Choirs. She has served ACDA as Illinois State President and is presently ACDA Central Division President-Elect. In October 2010 she received the Distinguished Service to Alma Mater Award at Homecoming.

Twenty years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine began a series of articles in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Professor of Psychology Richard Butman was featured in the Winter 1992 issue.

One of the most satisfying and stimulating aspects of my job at Wheaton is the opportunity to travel in this country and abroad. Most recently, I had the opportunity to attend a conference on “Power Within Diversity: Confronting Moral Issues in a Multi-Racial/Multi-Cultural Community and World.” Several hundred participants met for four days on the University of Toronto campus in an effort to facilitate dialogue and discussion about those differences and their implications for moral education. That interaction was strongly influenced by the setting of the conference, According to the United Nations, Toronto is now the most culturally and racially diverse city in the world.

One of the greatest challenges facing Wheaton today is how best to come to grips with the increasing pluralism of contemporary society. Few would doubt that we need to be more multi-cultural/ international in our concerns and consciousness than we are at the present. The debate is over how best to become more intentional about that diversity in all aspects of our college life. In short, how do we best equip ourselves to act responsibly as Christians in a pluralistic society where justice for all faiths must be maintained? Put succinctly, this is the challenge of pluralism.

Christian philosopher and ethicist Richard J. Mouw has just written a wonderfully helpful book on the subject called Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (InterVarsity, 1992). He argues that dialogue and discussion are not facilitated when we become extremely dogmatic and rigid (i.e., too much “conviction”) or overly accommodating (i.e., “civility” to the point of advocating relativism). What he does advocate is a kind of “convicted civility,” a humility that doesn’t let our religious fervor blind us to our own humanity or that of the persons with whom we disagree.

An emphasis on personal piety and evangelism has been a rich part of Wheaton’s heritage. In recent decades, that has been increasingly linked to helping the student develop a Christian world-and-life-view. Perhaps the most difficult task we face today is to find ways to equip and motivate students to find distinctively and decidedly Christian ways of being and acting in the world-at-large.

Few of us lack strong convictions at Wheaton. Perhaps where we need to stretch is in the direction of greater civility and humility. For a community that strives to serve the church and society-at-large, we need to be especially sensitive to how we define what it really means to be a Christian in contemporary society. Consider the words of Wheaton alumnus Horace L. Fenton ’32, D.D. ’61:

“We mean to proclaim, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’ But what we often say is, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and accept our cultural patterns, our economic, political, and social outlook, our views of baptism and the Holy Spirit, our interpretation of prophecy, our organizational relationships –and thou shalt be saved” (taken from The Trouble with Barnacles, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, p. 14).

We need to be careful about giving to cultural or social convictions the same standing as truths we have received from divine revelation. Fenton goes on to argue that “If the sin of liberalism is to subtract from the revelation of God, it may well be that the sin of evangelicals is too often an unwitting attempt to add to it” (p. 15). Surely efforts to diversify or internationalize our environment at Wheaton will be thwarted if we add to the revelation of God by too deeply embracing a “cultural style” that expects–or even demands–conformity “for the sake of unity.”

I am not advocating that we cower in timid silence in our increasingly pluralistic society. I do believe it is possible–but never easy–to be both faithful to the Word and respectful of others. If we seriously commit ourselves to exploring that “power within diversity,” I suspect we will learn that the church is vastly larger and richer than we ever dreamed.

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Richard E. Butman has taught courses in psychological assessment, psychopathology, psychotherapy, and the psychology of religion at Wheaton since 1980. He received his B.A. in psychology and his M.A. in theological studies from Wheaton and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He is a licensed psychologist in Illinois. His clinical and research interests include the impact of fathers on their children across the lifespan, psychosocial development in young adulthood, and the assessment of religiosity. He was named Junior Teacher of the Year for 1988-89. His current interests include bereavement and psychopathology. He is currently working on collaborative projects in both areas. His commitment to promoting holistic development has lead to direct involvement in ministries in Africa, Asia, Chicago, and Latin America. Dr. Butman has co-authored (with Stanton L. Jones) Modern Psychotherapies: A Christian Appraisal (InterVarsity,1991) and (with Barrett McRay and Mark Yarhouse) Modern Psychopathologies: A Comprehensive Christian Appraisal (Intervarsity, 2005). A second edition of Modern Psychotherapies: A Christian Appraisal is currently being written with an anticipated release in 2011. Dr. Butman is also involved in a shared project in the areas of integration and the spiritual/sociocultural foundations of mental health.