The 133rd Commencement ceremony at Hope College will be held on Sunday, May 3, and approximately 575 graduating seniors will be participating.
This year's Commencement speaker will be the Dr.
Steven Bouma-Prediger, associate professor of religion.
The Baccalaureate sermon will be delivered by the Rev. Dr.
Charles Van Engen, who is the 1997-98 president of the
General Synod of the Reformed Church in America and a member
of the faculty at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena,
Calif. Van Engen's daughter Anita is a member of the
graduating Class of '98.
Commencement will be held on Sunday, May 3, at 3
p.m. in Holland Municipal Stadium. Baccalaureate will be
held on Sunday, May 3, at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. in
Dimnent Memorial Chapel.
Bouma-Prediger has been a member of the Hope
faculty since 1994, and has been an adjunct professor of
theology and ethics at Western Theological Seminary since
1996. His areas of specialization include the philosophy of
religion and philosophical theology, philosophy and theology
of nature, ecological ethics and Christian theology.
His book "The Greening of Theology: The
Ecological Models of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Joseph
Sittler, and Jurgen Moltmann" was published in 1995, and he
is co-author of the 1996 monograph "Assessing the Ark: A
Christian Perspective on Species and the Endangered Species
Act," written with Virginia Vroblesky. He is also the
author of numerous scholarly articles and reviews.
From 1990 to 1994, Bouma-Prediger was an assistant
professor of philosophy and chair of the department at North
Park College in Chicago, Ill. While he was at North Park
College, "The Chicago Tribune" named him to its 1994 "All
Professor II" academic team, which recognized 50 outstanding
faculty from smaller Chicago-area colleges and universities.
He was a member of the philosophy faculty at North
Park Theological Seminary in Chicago from 1992 to 1994, and
at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1993.
He graduated from Hope in 1979. He holds a
master's degree in philosophy from the Institute for
Christian Studies of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, a master of
divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a doctorate
from the University of Chicago.
His wife, Celaine, is also a 1979 Hope graduate.
They have three children, Anna, Chara and Sophia.
Van Engen is the Arthur F. Glasser Professor of
Biblical Theology of Mission in the School of World Mission
at Fuller Theological Seminary. He was elected vice
president of the RCA's General Synod in 1996, and president
in 1997. He will be receiving a Distinguished Alumni Award
from Hope on Saturday, May 2.
He has been on the faculty at Fuller Theological
Seminary since 1988, and was appointed to his endowed chair
in 1996. From 1985 to 1988, he was an assistant professor
of missiology at Western Theological Seminary.
He was previously a missionary for the RCA for 12
years, from 1973 to 1975, working with his wife, Jean, with
the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico in the state of
Chiapas. He was a youth pastor in California from 1971 to
1972.
Van Engen is the author or editor of more than 20
books, including "God's Missionary People: Rethinking the
Purpose of the Local Church" (1991) and "Mission on the Way:
Issues in Mission Theology" (1996). During the past 20
years, he has preached, taught and spoken on mission
extensively in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, Asia
and the United States.
He graduated from Hope in 1970. He holds a master
of divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, and
doctorandus and Ph.D. degrees from the Free University of
Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Van Engen's wife, Jean, is also a 1970 Hope
graduate. In addition to Anita, they have two other
children, Amelia and Andrew.
In the event of rain, Commencement will be held at
the Holland Civic Center. Admission to Baccalaureate, and
by Commencement if indoors, is by ticket only.