The Albert M. Wolters Centre for Christian Scholarship honours the work and legacy of Redeemer’s founding generation in the person of Dr. Al Wolters. It profiles and platforms outstanding Reformed Christian research and thought through the work of our Faculty Fellows, facilitating on-campus Lectures, and partnering to host the Emerging Public Intellectual Award.

The Wolters Centre does this in three ways:

1. Research for the common good: supporting research that holds important public impact.

The Centre funds and promotes research from root to branch: from foundational translations like our partnership with the Kuyper Translation Project (learn more about Redeemer’s involvement) to our translation and promotion of Reformed philosophy and theology through our Dooyeweerd Archive and our research on faith and science through our Pascal Archive. This rich legacy is renewed and applied by our three Albert M. Wolters Faculty Fellows, working in the Sciences, Social Sciences, and Arts & Humanities to lead research and mentor colleagues in the extension and application of the Reformed tradition. 

2. Lectures on Christian cultural engagement: inviting distinguished thinkers and speakers to Redeemer’s campus.

During the fall and winter semesters, Wolters Centre Faculty Fellows host a series of free public lectures. Ranging in topics from environmentalism in the city to watching movies well to the power of spiritual habit, the focus of these lectures is how, rooted in the Reformed tradition, Christians can engage with culture in faithful and transformative ways. 

Read more about our annual Albert M. Wolters Lectures

3. The Emerging Public Intellectual Award: Encouraging excellence in Christian scholarship.

This prestigious award is sponsored in part by Cardus, the Acton Institute, the Centre for Public Justice, the Henry Institute, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), and The Richard John Mouw Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary. The annual award is intended to promote and encourage emerging academics working at Christian colleges and universities, who speak out of their Christian perspective to make substantive, credible contributions to big public questions. 

This year, the Award Committee selected Dr. Fellipe do vale, assistant professor of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

About Dr. Albert M. Wolters

Dr. Albert M. Wolters is an expert in Reformed Christian scholarship and was much-loved in his role as Professor of Religion and Theology at Redeemer from 1984 to 2008, where he taught a variety of courses, including biblical studies, hermeneutics, and Greek. Before that, he taught history of philosophy for ten years at Toronto’s Institute for Christian Studies (ICS), a graduate school based on the neo-Dooyeweerdian tradition. 

A Key Figure in Reformed Christian Scholarship Around the Globe

Wolters is a key figure in Reformed Christian scholarship around the globe, partially due to the large success of Creation Regained, which clearly and succinctly explains the Reformed Christian worldview through three movements: Creation, Fall, and Redemption.

[Creation Regained] is an invitation for Christians to turn their efforts to labour for Christ’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” Creation Regained has been in print for 37 years, and translated into 12 languages. It is currently being adapted into Chinese.

Wolters’ aim in writing Creation Regained (Eerdmans, 1985), which was based on a series of lectures he gave in the early 1980s at the Institute for Christian Studies, was to give guidance to Christian endeavors in every cultural sector and aspect of human life. Creation Regained promotes the neo-Calvinist concept of God’s Word and Spirit as providing the normative direction for redemptive culture-making, creational restoration, and human flourishing in a fallen world. This small book is an invitation for Christians to turn their efforts to labour for Christ’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” Creation Regained has been in print for 37 years, and translated into 12 languages. Although Wolters himself never used Creation Regained as a textbook in his academic career, the book has since become a staple in Redeemer’s core program and a manifesto for Christian higher education around the world.

A Seminal Figure in the History of Redeemer University

Wolters is a seminal figure in the history of Redeemer University, particularly in the institution’s early years. He was a member of the Ontario Christian College Association, the group that successfully lobbied the provincial government for a charter to start a Christian college in Ontario in 1980. Redeemer College opened its doors in Hamilton in 1982, and two years later Wolters joined the original faculty of eight as Professor of Biblical Studies. He served at Redeemer until July 2008.

Broad Academic Interests

Wolters’ academic interests extend beyond Reformed worldview. He has a working knowledge of twelve languages, which assisted his endeavours in biblical scholarship. Wolters has published extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls, in particular the Copper Scroll, which is a list of literal buried treasure. He is considered a global expert on the Copper Scroll, on which he wrote The Copper Scroll: Overview, Text, and Translation (Sheffield, 1996). Wolters has also published a biblical commentary on the book of Zechariah and a study in Proverbs.