Join Redeemer on November 5 for a free public lecture hosted by the Albert M. Wolters Centre for Christian Scholarship. This is the second lecture in the 2024-2025 Wolters Lecture Series.

The speakers are visiting scholars in the field of natural sciences and mathematics, Dr. Matthew Heun and Dr. Dave Warners. In 2019, Heun and Warners published an edited volume, Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care, that explores new ways of understanding humanity’s responsibility to care for the world.

Dr. 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.

Dr. 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.

Wolters Lecture: Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care

Executive Dining Room (EDR), November 5, 7:30 – 9 p.m.

Global environmental challenges today threaten life on earth as we have known it. The church has received blame (past and present, rightly or wrongly) for causing and/or contributing to these challenges. At the very least, the church has not been at the forefront of efforts to protect and restore creation. One possible explanation for lack of involvement by the church is that we have been thinking poorly about the creation and our presence in it. How can and should Christians think differently and better, in ways that will promote more heartfelt concern and effective action? This lecture builds upon the book Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care to suggest fresh ways of thinking about the relationship between humans and the natural world.

Please note: the 21 Five Bookstore will be open before the Lecture if you would like to purchase copies of the book Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care.

Accompanying events

Chapel address: Walking Through a World of Gifts
Auditorium, November 6, 11:00 – 11:45 a.m.

Faculty Workshop: Teaching and Learning for Sustainability
EDR, November 6, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.