Center City pastor to head Wheaton College

The Rev. Philip G. Ryken, senior pastor at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Center City, has been named president of Wheaton College in Illinois, his alma mater and that of evangelist Billy Graham.

Ryken, 42, will leave his congregation in June and is to be installed July 1 as Wheaton's eighth president.

A nondenominational evangelical Christian college in suburban Chicago, Wheaton - like Tenth Presbyterian - has a reputation for scholarship and theological conservatism. U.S. News & World Report, which ranks American colleges and universities, has dubbed Wheaton "the Harvard of evangelical colleges."

Ryken, who graduated from Wheaton in 1988 with degrees in literature and philosophy, was the unanimous choice of the school's board of trustees and the "clear choice" of its selection committee, according to its Web site.

Among the committee's criteria for a new president was that he or she be "firmly evangelical," with "an unwavering commitment to the authority of Scripture."

Until the 1990s, members of the science faculty were obliged to sign statements that they rejected human descent from apes.

In 1992, Ryken earned a master of divinity degree from Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, Montgomery County, and a doctorate in historical theology from Oxford University in England.

He joined Tenth Presbyterian in 1996 as its preaching minister and succeeded the Rev. James Boice as its senior pastor after Boice's death in 2000. Ryken has published more than 30 books, and his sermons are broadcast on radio via the Alliance of Concessing Evangelicals, on whose board he also serves.

Founded in 1830, the church, at 1701 Delancey St., is affiliated with the scripturally conservative Presbyterian Church in America and does not permit female clergy. Ryken currently serves on the board of trustees of both Westminster Seminary and Wheaton.

He and his wife, Lisa, have five children.

Ryken's father, Leland Ryken, has taught English at Wheaton since 1968.

Graham, one of the world's best-known evangelists, graduated from Wheaton in 1943. Since 1973, the school has been home to the Billy Graham Center, an evangelical resources and training institute.