Wade Center to host lecture on two key figures in C.S. Lewis’s academic life

On Thursday, Aug. 20, the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College welcomes the Rev. Joel D. Heck for the lecture, “Bookending C.S. Lewis: On F.P. Wilson, his Oxford Tutor, and J.A.W. Bennett, his Cambridge Successor.”

This presentation surveys the life and influence of two people whose lives intersected in significant ways with C.S. Lewis, both at Oxford and at Cambridge. Wilson, Lewis’s tutor, was the general editor of the Oxford History of English Literature for which Lewis wrote the volume on the 16th century, and Bennett succeeded Lewis at Cambridge as the man who held the chair of Medieval and Renaissance English. Bennett’s inaugural lecture gave tribute to Lewis.

Since July 1, 2022, Rev. Heck is retired from pastoral ministry after 50 years in ministry. He has been pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Valley Park, Missouri; professor at Concordia University Wisconsin; chief academic officer and professor at Concordia University Texas; and most recently as president of Concordia Lutheran Seminary, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He holds the Doctor of Theology from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. He is the author of more than 120 articles, more than 40 of them on C.S. Lewis, and the author or editor of 16 books, most recently “No Ordinary People: Twenty-One Friendships of C.S. Lewis” (Winged Lion Press, 2021) and “The Lion That Roared” (Lulu.com, 2023), a children’s story that he co-authored with his daughter Brenda, who lives in Cincinnati. Besides their daughter Brenda, he and his wife Cheryl have two grown sons and four grandchildren.

This event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 7 p.m. in Marion E. Wade Center, Room 130 Bakke Auditorium, 351 E. Lincoln Ave. in Wheaton. Parking is located on the east side of Washington street. For information, contact the Wade Center at (630) 752-5908 or wade@wheaton.edu.