C. John Weborg

On July 30, North Park University honored a longtime professor of theology by naming its spiritual direction center after him: the C. John Weborg Center for Spiritual Direction. This is excerpted from the North Park News:

The current president of the Evangelical Covenant Church, Gary Walter, was in one of the first classes Weborg taught. “I realized I was in the presence of a true giant in terms of understanding the ways of God," he said. Then, as now, “there was a presumption of profundity by the students.”

North Park Theological Seminary also honored the other three members of a “gang of four” who were instrumental in steering the Seminary to make spiritual direction an integral part of all its students’ education.

Fran Anderson joined the Seminary staff in 1975 and was the school’s first female faculty member. She first brought up the idea of supporting the students’ spiritual development in a more intentional fashion. Weborg developed the first course.

Jane Koonce had a recurring dream in which she saw herself teaching at North Park Theological Seminary. She met with Dean Rob Johnston and interviewed with the faculty. She remembers Weborg saying, “Jane, you are an answer to prayer. I need a spiritual director.” Saturday was her 88th birthday, so the gathering regaled her with a well-harmonized “Happy Birthday.”

Richard Carlson previously pastored an inner-city church and served as director of field education at the Seminary for 25 years. He has taught the beginning course at the spiritual direction center since its inception.

Nicholas Wolterstorff was Weborg’s choice to give the evening’s address. A professor emeritus of philosophical theology at Yale University, Wolterstorff told the gathering that spirituality, remembrance, and justice are inter-related. Christianity is uniquely a spirituality of remembering because it is a story-telling faith, with the work of Christ being at the center of the story.

“Christian spirituality that does not remember is a truncated spirituality,” Wolterstorff said. Christian memory is not merely an interior act of the individual but also a public act that expresses itself in serving the outcast and impoverished, he added.

To read more about C. John Weborg Center for Spiritual Direction, follow this link.