USD Magazine Spring 2009

im Bolender knows chemistry. He has two degrees, has taught at USD since 1996 and, for the last eight years, has applied all that specialized knowledge in research projects from Baja California to Jamaica and beyond in collaboration with several USD colleagues. “I’ve been places I never dreamed of” he says. “I’ve seen liberal arts at its fullest and how science fits into the picture.” His own love of science tends to be infectious; many of his students make the decision to delve deeper. “I’ve had four research students go on to get Ph.D.s or they’re in the process of getting one, which tells me I’m doing the right things in terms of mentoring them. And, through joint projects with [associate professor] Michel Boudrias and the environmental work we do, several more students have gone on to graduate school. These projects are helping them choose their direction.” Bolender, the 2007 winner of the prestigious Lowell Davies Award, is now directing several more of USD’s top students as director of the Honors Program. “He’s going to do a phenomenal job developing the undergraduate research aspect of the program. He has a lot of experience with research as a chemist and he’s committed to expanding and enhancing it,” says Noelle Norton, department chair for political science and Bolender’s predecessor as director. “I think this is the best place for me to be because I love interacting with students and I take pride in what they do,” he says. “The honors program puts in place a structure where these excellent students can excel and really step outside of the box, see cross-disciplines and be challenged.” — Ryan T. Blystone

ack in the 1990s, the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” became a popular personal motto in the United States, a reminder that Jesus was a kind of moral superhero, able to make the leap from temptation to salvation in a single bound. But was Jesus a superhero? Did his humanity

differ from that of our own? In a recently published paper titled “Arius, Superman and the Tertium Quid: When Popular Culture Meets Christology,” USD theology professor Susie Paulik Babka contrasts the life of Jesus with that of Superman, the Marvel Comic Books hero. Babka says she is fascinated by the parallels that pop up between the son of God and the cape-wearing son of Jor-El from the planet Krypton. “Many Christians see Jesus as a kind of ‘superhero’ who ‘comes down’ to earth to save us,” Babka says. “What concerns me as a theologian, however, is what happens to Jesus when Jesus is understood as a superhero, someone with ‘magical powers’ who does things it seems no other human being can do. I argue in the paper that Jesus is not Superman, that Jesus’ humanity is no different from our humanity. I argue that Jesus is the meeting point between what is fully divine and what is authentically human,” she explains. “Jesus is God who has ‘emp- tied himself’ in order to experience human life, suffering and death, and to bring humanity fully into the divine life. “This means that, as authentically human, Jesus cannot be capable of anything we are not capable of. If he is not God, or not fully God, then God is no nearer to us than before the incarnation. If he is not authentically human, then it is not humanity that is brought into union with God, but ‘superhero-ness.’” As for Superman, Babka argues that even though he’s faster than a speeding bullet, “since he’s not human, he can never be what we are.” — Tiffany Fox

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USD MAGAZINE