Olivet the Magazine - Winter 2022

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HONORS

Scholarly Pursuits Stephen Case ’05, Ph.D.

Theologian N.T. Wright writes of the three roles Christians play as God’s image-bearers in the world. As prophets, we are called to speak truth about the nature of creation, as Adam named the animals in the garden. As priests, we offer creation back to God through our praise and thanksgiving. And as sovereigns, kings and queens, we steward and care for the creation. All these roles depend on knowledge: to see the world “as the outflowing of divine creative love, [we] must pay attention to that creation. It isn’t enough to know that it is God’s creation, and so to infer that we already know all that’s important to know about it. Love demands patient curiosity.” 1 A Christian liberal arts university is where one gains the knowledge, experience and perspective for the “patient curiosity” needed to fulfill these roles of prophet, priest and sovereign in creation. To speak truth, offer praise and steward creation, students must grow from being consumers to creators of knowledge — but creators in a specific way. Again, Wright says we are called “not to a cool, detached appraisal exposition, in which respect and enjoyment go together.”1 At a Christian university, this delighted exploration and exposition is called scholarship. Scholarship isn’t just the icing on the cake of a college education or something extra to pad a résumé. It’s the pursuit of knowledge central to who we are as Christians and what it means to be created in God’s image. The greed that threatens stewardship, the disinterest and ingratitude that threatens praise, the ignorance that makes prophecy impossible — all of these are overcome through the humble pursuit of knowledge through scholarship. At Olivet, the missional goals to “seek the strongest scholarship and the

deepest piety” are not two separate things that happen on the same campus. They are, rather, two sides of the same coin: Each makes the other possible. One place where scholarship especially flourishes at Olivet is in the University Honors Program. Team-taught courses and a cohort model immerse underclassmen in a scholarly community and equip them with tools to pursue sustained, mentored research projects as upperclassmen. Whether that’s analyzing the thermal fluctuations a satellite experiences in orbit, like Katie Chenault ’19; creating and composing a multimedia presentation based on the book of Ruth, like Elizabeth Kijowski ’21; or developing, implementing and evaluating a food recovery program on campus, like Madeira Sherwood ’21, the Honors Program gives students from all disciplines the opportunity to pursue “the strongest scholarship” as they grow in “the deepest piety.” Many students who graduate from the program go on to fully funded positions in graduate school or to positions of leadership in their industry or field. But all who complete the Honors Program become creators, having added to the body of knowledge — to that “delighted exploration and exposition” of God’s creation. For more details about the Honors Program and application information, visit www.Olivet.edu/Honors. 1N.T. Wright, “Loving to Know,” First Things, February 2020, https://www.firstthings. com/article/2020/02/loving-to-know. Accessed 12 October 2021

The culmination of students’ Honors Program research is published in ELAIA: The Honors Journal of Olivet Nazarene University, featuring the work of the previous year’s graduating class.

The 2021 ELAIA was published in early September. For more details about the Honors Program and application information, visit www.Olivet.edu/Honors.

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