Dr. Clyde Kilby

On Thursday afternoon, I went to an inaugural lecture that Dr. Jacobs gave called "Learning from Dr. Kilby" on the first anniversary of his being named to the Clyde S. Kilby chair in English. I didn't realize the occasion of the lecture when I decided to go - I just knew that any lecture Dr. Jacobs gives is worth attending. So I was a little surprised when I slipped into the Blanchard lecture hall a few moments late, that Wheaton's provost Stan Jones was speaking, and Dr. Litfin was seated in the front row. The audience was full of Wheaton alumni who remembered Dr. Kilby warmly, English faculty, a few students, and some professors from other departments.

With a quick overview of his professional career and a few anecdotes, Dr. Jacobs was able to make Dr. Kilby alive to me in a way that made me wish I could have known that great man. Dr. Kilby was born the youngest of eight children in the backwoods of Tennessee in 1902 and was the first of his family to graduate from college. He came to Wheaton in 1934 as assistant dean and professor of English, eventually becoming the chair of the English department. He retired in 1981. He and his wife, Martha, were warm and hospitable and much-loved. Though they had no children of their own, Dr. Jacobs pointed out that it is more truthful to say that they had many children for they attracted many to themselves.

Dr. Kilby didn't begin writing til later in life, publishing a book of poetry in 1953. His greatest years of productivity were his 60s. He was best known for his study of C.S. Lewis whom he got to meet in 1953 and corresponded with until Lewis' death. Dr. Kilby collected books and papers of Lewis as well as six other British authors known as the Inklings. Today that collection is housed in the Marion E. Wade Center, an internationally recognized research institution right on Wheaton's campus. Dr. Kilby designed and taught a class on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their contemporaries known as Modern Myth. Today that class, changed a little over the years, is called Christianity and Fantasy, and I have the privilege of taking it from Dr. Jacobs.

Dr. Jacobs affectionately described Dr. Kilby's twinkling eyes; red cheeks; warm, ready smile. The top of his head was always scratched from his pet birds, all named Peter, whom he let land on his balding head. Former students that Dr. Jacobs contacted remembered that "his enthusiasm intensified ours" and that he had "a pastoral heart and poet's eye. . . Oh, what eyes he had! When he spoke of the tree he saw on the way to class this morning, you wondered why you had been so blind all your life." (Here's a tribute to Dr. Kilby from one of those students, John Piper.)

In this lecture entitled "Learning from Dr. Kilby," Dr. Jacobs focused on two messages that Dr. Kilby loved to share, and that we also ought to preach.

Dr. Kilby strongly promoted the liberal arts, liberal learning being liberation from the here and now of current engagements. Dr. Kilby fought against the modern conception of freedom in which it is "choice and not the choice itself which is the greatest good." In contrast, true freedom is when the will is wholly devoted to God, and Dr. Kilby was always reminding his students that we no longer live under the law. He would have us think of our freedom in paradoxical terms. Luther put it aptly, "A Christian is a free lord, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant, subject to all."

Dr. Kilby was also known for his rejection of the concept of nature, for the concept of Creation. To call Creation "nature" is to grant it independence from its Creator. Dr. Kilby, again, was well known for his love of the Creation. He even used to try to grow dandelions, although oddly without success.

What I think was most impacting to me about the lecture was hearing about Dr. Kilby's delight - his delight in Creation, in literature, in learning, in sharing with his students. I tend to get bogged down under the weight of my backpack, and forget about the delight that is mine in my studies. I left the lecture hall invigorated, excited about all there is for me to learn and discover. Perhaps some day, years down the road, I'll come back to Wheaton to hear some professor give an inaugural lecture on his naming to the Alan Jacobs or Roger Lundin chair in English literature. I'll be glad to share with others the delight in learning that those professors communicated to me.