Oak Centre Steering Committee (2019-2020)

In the Spring of 2019 Don McNally, Ted Beverley, Justin Cooper, and Milton Friesen formed a steering committee to develop a plan for housing the Beverley Collection and making its contents available to those working in academic ministry. They were assisted in this process by members of the CSCA local chapter, headed by Don McNally. The Steering Committee owes a particular debt to Milton Friesen who formulated a threefold vision of the Oak Centre and launched the Oak Centre Inklings in the summer of 2020.


Oak Centre Advisory Board (2021- )

The work of the Oak Centre Steering Committee led to the establishment of the Oak Centre Advisory Board which have been brought together in December 2021 to guide the development of the Oak Centre through the next important stages towards the formal organization of the Centre as a nonprofit faith-based organization.


Oak Centre Team Members

Ted Beverley (Curator and custodian of the Beverley collection)
Ted Beverley graduated in 1982 from the University of Toronto with a BAH in philosophy and religious studies in Christianity and Judaism. From 1982 to 1984 he worked on a Master of Divinity from the University of Toronto's Knox Presbyterian Seminary. Later he finished the Master of Divinity in 2003 at Tyndale University College Seminary in Toronto. Between 2010 and 2012, he worked part-time on a Post-Graduate Master of Theology degree from Tyndale College University Seminary. Over this period, Mr. Beverley was an active member of the CSCA and was involved in local chapter meetings at the University of Toronto. An avid reader and book lover, Mr. Beverley has been systematically building his collection since 1965 to illuminate the connections in Western thought and culture between philosophy, theology, science, history, and the arts (especially literature and film). He is particularly pleased to find an avenue to pursue his passion for learning through the establishment of the Oak Centre.

AJ Boulay: Digital strategy and communications; research development
AJ Boulay holds degrees in Philosophy of Science, Communication, and Computational Science. He has studied the Science vs Religion Debate for many years and is currently focused on examining the future impact of technology on our culture. His work with the Oak Centre keeps him close to a vast collection of books that act as resources to inform careful reflection on Christian Faith, Culture, and the History and Philosophy of Science.


Vahagn Asatryan

Dr. Asatryan is an Associate Professor of Business at Redeemer University, in Ontario, Canada where he teaches various marketing courses as well as economics and entrepreneurship. He attained his Ph.D. and MBA in Marketing from Iowa State University. His research and consulting interests include consumer behaviour and decision making, as well as development of virtuous, ethical corporate culture. 

Vahagn is the Chief Transformation Officer at Flourish Business Transformations, where has led organizations in North America, Europe and beyond to achieve success through effective, virtuous, ethical workplace culture. He is also interested in application of Christian business principles and virtue ethics in emerging economies, especially those of the Former Soviet Union. He is also working on a book on questions-based leadership and its applications in the context of Christian followership. 


Peter Boushy

Peter is a criminal trial lawyer in Hamilton, Ontario. 2021, and has been practicing law for over 30 years. Peter is the current President of the St. Thomas More Lawyers’ Guild in Hamilton – a lawyers’ organization dedicated, amongst other things, to the sacred importance of the freedom of conscience, particularly in our times. He is currently vice-chair of the Christian charity Joy and Hope of Haiti, founded by several Christians in the 1990s, including former Regional Senior Justice the Honourable Mr. James Turnbull and his wife Joan Turnbull. Peter is also the current Treasurer of the Christian charity The Living Rock, a Hamilton-based organization dedicated to feeding, clothing, and spiritually nourishing disaffected youth, mainly in the impoverished, drug-ridden downtown core.

Peter is a committed follower of Jesus Christ and is a student of Marian apparitions around the world. In addition to Peter’s interest in Catholic Christian mysticism and prophecy, Peter is also a board member of the Vancouver Shroud Association which is dedicated to the public exhibition and scientific study of the Shroud of Turin, the purported authentic burial cloth of Jesus Christ.
Peter is very involved in a weekly men’s prayer group which is part of the international LeaderImpact ministry (www.leaderimpact.com). And, additionally, he loves his Saturday morning prayer group with fellow followers of Jesus Christ who form part of the True Life in God family (www.TLIG.org).
Finally, as a follower of Jesus Christ, Peter takes to heart Jesus’ Great Commission in Matthew 28: 16-20, and as such, is very much honoured to be on the advisory board of The Oak Centre for Studies in Faith and Culture.

Justin COOPER

Justin has had a long career of service in Christian higher education. He is President, Emeritus of Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ontario, where he served as a professor, Vice President, Academic, and for 16 years as President. Thereafter he was the Executive Director of Christian Higher Education Canada (CHEC), an organization of 34 Christian universities, colleges, and seminaries. He now serves on the boards of Bible League Canada and Langham Partners Canada. 

Locally, he served on the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce Board, was chair of the Hamilton Community Foundation Board and now serves as a community member on its Finance & Investment Committee. He has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto and in 2010 was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree by McMaster University. He and his wife, Jessie, live in Hamilton, Ontario, have two sons and eight grandchildren, and are members of the First Hamilton Christian Reformed Church.   


Adrian Guldemond

Adrian Guldemond is a retired educator living in Hamilton, ON. He and his wife Mary, also a retired educator, were both born in Holland during WWII and immigrated with their families in the 1950s, thus experiencing the travails of dislocation before the days of the welfare state safety net. Their interest in the character of inter-generational transitions has a strong family dimension.
Dr. Guldemond graduated from McMaster with an Honors B. A [67] and an MA from the Un of Waterloo [‘70] before taking up High school teaching so Mary could stay home as they started a family. During this time, he was active in church organizations, served as a church organist [joined the RCCO], and local political activities while continuing studies at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto as well as the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education [M.Ed.’76]. During this time, he also served on professional teacher and administrative Boards and Committees.
After he was appointed Executive Director of the Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools, [1979] the family moved to Hamilton. As this job involved government relations, the Board encouraged him to finish his doctorate at the University of Toronto. After that, most summers were spent teaching courses in the philosophy of education, history of education, curriculum design, law, and professional ethics for Calvin University [MI], Redeemer University [ON,]and Kingswood University [NB]. The rest of the year was dedicated to normal Board of Education functions [ Human resources, curriculum, and development] and serving on the boards of several national and international organizations.
Dr. Guldemond retired in 2009 to do more research and write more books. These were finished in 2014 and 2021. His current project is to encourage educational institutions to assemble archives so that the development of independent [especially Christian] schools in Canada can be documented and studied. To that end, he has assembled the OACS collection as an example of the materials needed for this goal. 


Harold Klassen

Harold was called to be a missionary teacher in 1968 and has been learning what that means ever since. He completed a BRE in Theology from Canadian Bible College and a BSc in Chemical Physics with teaching credentials from Simon Fraser University before teaching two years in the public system in Canada. He and his wife, Betty, served with TeachBeyond (formerly Janz Team Ministries) since 1977. He worked at Black Forest Academy in Germany in a variety of roles including dorm parent, teacher, librarian, computer technician, and high school principal. He completed a MSc in Education from Cairn University in 2003. From 1998 to the present, he has been an educational consultant working with teachers in over 20 countries worldwide with primary emphasis on Asia. He is interested in how education is shaped by an understanding that God reveals Himself and His ways in the Bible and in His world so that people can flourish by knowing God the Father through Jesus Christ, becoming like Jesus through the indwelling Spirit and serving others as stewards of God’s world and gifts.

He discovered that gathering a group of Christians with great intentions in a school didn’t automatically change the way they related to who they taught, what they taught, or how they taught. It became his passion to purse Christ-in education which is Christ-centered, Bible-based, others-oriented, and Spirit- empowered. While researching his thesis, Teaching Biblical Integration as an Essential Skill, he began collecting resources for teachers about how God’s world is related to His Word on his Transforming Teachers website. He wrote Visual Valet: Personal assistant for Christian thinkers and teachers which is now available in Spanish, Chinese, and French.

Betty and Harold moved from Germany to near Vancouver, Canada in 2011. They are part of Central Heights Church (Mennonite Brethren) in Abbotsford, BC. They have four children and eight grandchildren.

At present, in semi-retirement, but active with TeachBeyond, Harold is a research fellow in the CATE Centre (Christians Advancing Transformational Education). Since 2022 he is a board member of STEP International Canada which works in India. He is also an adjunct professor at Prairie College in Alberta where he teaches an online course, Education as Mission, as part of their Master of Leadership in Global Christian Education program. He is also part of the steering committee of CCEM (Canadian Christian Education Movement) which is an initiative of TeachBeyond Canada to see every Canadian church engaged in education to serve their community.


david Koyzis

David Koyzis holds a Ph.D. in government and international studies from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of the award-winning Political Visions and Illusions (2019), We Answer to Another: Authority, Office, and the Image of God (2014), and multiple scholarly and popular articles. He currently writes for First Things, Christian Courier, Kuyperian Commentary, and Cateclesia Forum. He has maintained a blog, Notes from a Byzantine-rite Calvinist, since 2003. He taught undergraduate political science at Redeemer University College for thirty years and is now a Global Scholar with Global Scholars Canada. His work for this organization sees him delivering online lectures, recording remote courses, being interviewed for radio programs and podcasts, and engaging in conversations with readers of his books around the world. David is the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012 and the Canada 150 Flamborough-Glanbrook Nation Builder Award in 2017.
David has maintained a growing relationship with the Christian community in Brazil, which he visited in 2016, and where the second Brazilian edition of Political Visions and Illusions (2021) was published by Edições Vida Nova in São Paulo. He has delivered many remote lectures to audiences in Brazil In recent years on subjects related to his two books. A Spanish translation of Political Visions and Illusions is currently in progress. In recent lectures, David has given attention to the explosive growth of evangelicalism, and its implications for the larger society and political culture in Brazil.
David's interests are many and varied, but he takes a special interest in the biblical Psalter. He recently completed a 36-year-long project of setting the 150 Psalms to verse to be sung to their proper melodies in the 16th-century Genevan Psalter. He is also engaged in another ongoing project which he has named The Niagara Psalter. His Genevan Psalter blog can be found here.
Born near Chicago to Greek-Cypriot and American parents, David now lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with his wife and daughter. 


Scott Masson

Dr. Masson is an Associate Professor of English Literature and Head of the Department of English at Tyndale University. Dr. Masson was awarded his Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 2001 from the University of Durham. Before that, he lived and studied in Düsseldorf, Germany for three years. While in Germany, he fell in love with languages, becoming a German translator while learning Classical Greek and Latin at university.
He teaches on subjects ranging from the literature of the Graeco-Roman period, the Bible as literature, Shakespeare, Milton, Seventeenth-century literature, Romantic literature, the work of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Science fiction, practical criticism, and Classical and contemporary literary theory
Dr. Masson is a former pastor, public intellectual, and proud Member of the Upper Mohawk band in Canada. He has lectured and written on a wide variety of topics and in various venues. His primary concerns centre upon the problems caused by departures from the Christian understanding of human nature (individual persons created in imago Dei). That view was abandoned by the Enlightenment and a substitute installed by its successors, the Romantic poets.
Some of his research interests, as expressed in his book Romanticism, Hermeneutics, and the Crisis of the Human Sciences (Routledge, 2016), lie in exploring the way that the humanities have been repealed and replaced by the human sciences and a new constructivist anthropology. Tradition was abandoned in favour of the goal of a wholly self-constructed humanity
He is a proud husband and father of two and resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He takes great joy in the classical education process which has resulted in two beautiful children who have an established love of literature, music, mathematics, and the life sciences, and are now steadily on the path toward a lifelong love of learning.  


Jonathan M. Wellum

Prior to founding ROCKLINC Investment Partners Inc., Jonathan began his investment career with Portland Investment Counsel (formerly AIC Investment Services) in 1990 and served as a member of the firm’s senior management team. In August 2002, he was appointed Chief Investment Officer, and subsequently, in October 2006, Jonathan was appointed Chief Executive Officer.
During his tenure at Portland Investment Counsel, Jonathan managed the AIC Diversified Canada Fund as well as a number of equity mutual funds. He also co-managed a number of exchange-traded funds and was responsible for Portland’s Private Client business which included high net worth and institutional clients.
In 1995, Jonathan was named Fund Manager of the Year by the Investment Executive Magazine and in 1997 awarded Fund Manager of the Year at the Canadian Mutual Fund Awards Gala. In addition, Jonathan was a recipient of Canada’s Top 40 under 40.
Before establishing his career in the investment industry, Jonathan held positions in corporate accounting at Deloitte & Touche as well as CUMIS Insurance. He is currently a member of the McMaster University Investment Pool Committee. Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Master of Business Administration degree from McMaster University, and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Waterloo. He completed his formal education with a Master of Arts degree in Theology and Philosophy from Trinity Seminary (Chicago). He also holds the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)