One this page: 2024-2025 Wolters Lecture Series | The World and Our Calling Lecture | Past Wolters Lectures

2024-2025 Wolters Lecture Series

Three times a year, each faculty fellow hosts a scholar of their choice to visit, lecture, and discuss their work on Redeemer campus. These free public lectures highlight speakers who are suited to speak to a broad community audience, and who also have expertise in applying the Reformed scholarly tradition to their subject area. Annual lectures are rooted in the Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences and Mathematics, respectively. Scroll to the bottom to view past lectures.

Speaker: Dr. Louis Markos, Professor of English, Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities, Houston Christian University

Louis Markos, professor in English and scholar in residence at Houston Christian University, holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities. His 25 books include On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis, From A to Z to Middle-Earth with J. R. R. Tolkien and Tolkien for Beginners.

Click here to view the lecture recording on Youtube.

Speaker #1: Dr. Dave Warners, Professor of Biology, Director of Plaster Creek Stewards, Calvin University

Dave Warners has taught biology at Calvin University since 1997, working in the areas of plant evolution, field botany, and restoration ecology. Since 2009, Dave has been directing Plaster Creek Stewards, a university-based watershed group focused on restoring health and beauty to the highly urbanized and degraded Plaster Creek Watershed. Dave also co-directs the Emma Cole Project, a field-based initiative to re-visit and botanically inventory all the sites that Emma Cole documented in her 1901 book, Flora of Grand Rapids.

Speaker #2: Dr. Matthew Heun, Professor of Engineering, Calvin University

Matthew Heun has taught engineering at Calvin University since 2002 in the mechanical engineering and EESE (energy, environment, and sustainability engineering) concentrations. Prior to joining the faculty at Calvin, Matt worked for Global Aerospace Corporation and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In addition to Beyond Stewardship, he has authored two other books: A Framework for Sustainability Thinking: A Student’s Introduction to Global Sustainability Challenges and Beyond GDP: National Accounting in the Age of Resource Depletion.

Click here to view the lecture recording on Youtube.

March 5, 2025 — 7:30 p.m.
Sharing Responsibility: Getting Creative in Responding to the Need of the Vulnerable
(Social Sciences)

Speaker: Dr. Abby Foreman, Professor of Social Work, Director of the Master of Public Administration program, Dean of Social Sciences, Dordt University.

Abby Foreman holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and Public Administration from the University of South Dakota, a Masters in Social Work from the University of Michigan and a Bachelors in Social Work from Dordt. Prior to teaching, Abby served as an organizer for Bread for the World, working to equip church and faith-based college groups to advocate on hunger and food insecurity policy. She is interested in exploring the relationship between government and civil society in responding to social problems and the needs of vulnerable groups.

The World and Our Calling Lecture

Once a year, the Wolters Centre invites the winner of the Emerging Public Intellectual Award to deliver a public lecture at the Redeemer campus in our long-standing The World and Our Calling Lectures series. These lectures explore different facets of the Christian calling to be engaged with our culture. Unlike the Wolters Centre Lecture Series, which features guests in the Reformed scholarly tradition, these lectures will feature guests from a broadly orthodox, Protestant Christian tradition.

January 29, 2025 — 7:30 p.m.
Christ or Barabbas? Christian Political Theology in a Post-Christian Society (Winner of the 2024 EPI Award)

Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Askonas, Assistant Professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America.

Jonathan Askonas specializes in international relations (IR) and security studies. He lives in Washington, DC, where he and his family are part of a local Anglican church. He is also a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. Learn more in the Resound award announcement article here!