Several weeks ago I was interviewed by Jairo Mendoza for the Spanish-language Cápsulas de Teología podcast. The subject matter: Can Christian nationalism be considered biblical? The interview has now been posted and is embedded below.
I cannot help but comment on the AI-generated version of yours truly in the cover image. There is a superficial resemblance, but that's as far as it goes.
Next month marks four years since Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine began. In undertaking this military operation, Russia has arguably stretched itself dangerously thin. It has been unable to defeat Kyiv outright and is now playing a waiting game. There are no victors in a war of attrition. Who will hold out the longest? Kyiv or Moscow? Who will get exhausted first and throw in the towel?
“Being a Christian does not make you immune to the temptations of political ideologies.” Five years ago Jeff Fountain interviewed me on an episode of Schuman Talks. We had another conversation last week on the subject of my three books. Listen below:
In this second quarter of the twenty-first century, the United States seems bent on repeating the mistakes of the past, unilaterally seeking a type of security that can only alienate friends and enemies alike, thereby paradoxically making the country less secure than before. One hopes that saner heads will eventually prevail and that decades of efforts to build solid international ties, especially among Western nations, will not be quickly undone.
If one feature of my ongoing ministry can be said to give me the most joy, it is mentoring young people. I've been doing this in some fashion for nearly four decades—formally in the classroom, and informally in my semi-retirement. When I retired nearly nine years ago, I never expected mentoring to continue and thought I was leaving it behind for good. But over that time, especially since affiliating with Global Scholars Canada in 2019, God has put in my path several young people whom I have had the pleasure of getting to know and love. These have come about mostly by accident, although some have sought me out and others I have sought out, especially those with a previous connection through parents or grandparents.
I am not generally accustomed to showing readers what I received for Christmas, but my beloved wife gave me a fascinating book that is at once informative and beautiful in appearance. It's called Assembly Required: Inside the World's Most Powerful Buildings, and it was published by TLDR News in 2025. This is a book that I had long wished to see published, as its subject matter sometimes came up in my political science classes. Many of us have noted that legislative assemblies meet in rooms with different shapes. In many countries, deputies fan out from the speaker in a semicircle, while in other countries they face each other across an open floor. Still others have legislators sitting in a horseshoe or in a room resembling a classroom or theatre.
The work of Herman Dooyeweerd is currently attracting global interest. From the United States to Korea, from New Zealand to Brazil, and from the United Kingdom to South Africa, professionals across various disciplines—philosophers, engineers, politicians, economists, and others—are expanding upon his ideas within their respective fields. At the same time, his work is becoming increasingly relevant as contemporary society displays characteristics reminiscent of those observed in European culture a century ago. The Intellectual Legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977): A Hopeful Philosophy for our Time introduces his most significant concepts and numerous examples of their contemporary applications.
As I have done every year for the past few years, I was privileged last friday morning (afternoon London time) to speak with the latest group of British young people who are part of the CARE Leadership Programme. CARE stands for Christian Action, Research, and Education. According to the organization's website,
At CARE, our vision is to see Politics Renewed and Lives Transformed. We believe that politics and government, at their best, can be a real force for good in our nation. We hold the conviction that the Bible tells a better story for our broken world, a story that benefits society as a whole. By actively participating in politics, we help shape it to be the best it can be. Our vision is to create a society where everyone flourishes, exactly as God intends.
The young people in this programme are working for members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They recently read my Political Visions and Illusions, which was the principal focus of our conversation together. May God bless them as they seek to serve him in public life.
One of the more significant studies in my discipline of political science is Robert Putnam's award-winning Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. I used to have my students reading this book, because it demonstrates the durability of political cultures over many centuries and their power to make or break political institutions. I was reminded of Putnam's study when I recently came across this map:
In chapter 1 of Political Visions and Illusions, I call into question the use of left and right as labels for identifying people's political leanings for three principal reasons: First, the issues covered by these labels are constantly changing and are thus relative to these issues from one age to the next. Second, the notion of a left-right spectrum is one dimensional and thus unable to cover the full diversity of issues by which people measure their political convictions. Third, it does not adequately account for the religious differences underpinning these convictions. I hint at a fourth reason in the book: "Often these terms are used in a derisive fashion as a way of discrediting those with whom we disagree" (19). People caught up in this bipolar categorization are typically unable to see the moments of truth in the convictions of those on the opposite side. Moreover, they tend to engage in a strategy of assigning guilt by association. If Stalin is a leftist, then even moderate socialists are deemed guilty of his crimes against the Russian people. If Hitler is a rightist, then even classical liberals and tradtionalists must bear the burden of his guilt.
Given my general discomfort with using these labels, I find myself resonating with Andres Acevedo's argument in this video. Take 15 minutes to watch it in full.
Last week's conversation on Christian Nationalism has now been posted online. Listen here:
Kirk was one of a number of mostly younger men who have gained a following through astute use of social media. At one time fame and fortune generally came to those who were willing to be slotted into existing institutions and channels associated with the stage, cinema, print journalism, publishing, radio and television. Film stars, for example, were discovered by studio executives or their minions and found their lives circumscribed by the studio system.
Not anymore.
Tomorrow I will be participating in an online symposium titled, "An Evangelical's Guide to American Christian Nationalism," along with three other participants. The time will be 14:00 UTC -5, or 2 pm EST. I expect this to be a lively discussion about a movement that is in today's headlines. Register here for the event. I hope many of you will be able to make it.
If the American nation is in a covenant relationship with God, along the lines of ancient Israel, we would then have to inquire which institution is responsible to enforce this covenant’s terms. A nation, especially when conceived in undifferentiated fashion, can never be a responsible agent but only an amalgam of pluriform social structures bound loosely together by certain common elements, such as shared culture and language. Yet generally the nationalist assumption is that this responsibility belongs to the state, viewed as the highest agent in that nation. This again makes entirely too much of the state as an institution, in addition to misapprehending its normative structure as led by public justice—a proximate justice falling well short of God’s final judgement.
Last week Allan R. Bevere interviewed me on the subject of my latest book, Citizenship Without Illusions. The interview, which forms a part of his Faith Seeking Understanding podcast, has now been posted online and can be viewed immediately below:
[T]he use of psychological language to censor unpopular speech has become commonplace as we near the second quarter of the century. A phobia is generally thought to be an irrational fear properly addressed by therapeutic means. In contemporary parlance, however, a phobia is something to be suppressed, often by political means. Accordingly, the term love is misused as a way of stifling needed discussion of an issue of obvious importance to families with minor children.
Incidentally, I have spoken remotely to the staff of the Association for Reformed Political Action, referenced in the article, several times in recent years.
Correction: ARPA's Levi Minderhoud has made a correction to this statement of mine in the article: "It is true, of course, that gender reassignment surgery is not permitted for minors." Here is Minderhoud:
Aside from Alberta, that isn't true for most of Canada (which makes this all the more shocking). Every six days on average, one teenage girl has a "gender-affirming double mastectomy" in Canada (sources: Let Kids Be, National Post, attached CIHI data). Bottom genital surgeries generally are not performed on minors, but even there CIHI has stated that at least one minor has received such a bottom surgery in the last few years. Nova Scotia seems to be a big culprit here.
Thanks to Minderhoud for setting the record straight.
Until recently, I assumed that the rule of law was firmly rooted in the political cultures of the English-speaking countries, uniquely heir to the tradition of the common law, Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights of 1689, and numerous precedents which together are the shared birthright of our several countries. A key principle of this heritage is that the law applies to our rulers as much as to ordinary citizens, who enjoy constitutional protections against abuse by government officials. Such protections apply as well to non-citizens who have entered the country legally. Moreover, even illegal immigrants must be treated in accordance with their shared humanity. How do we know who is who? Great care needs to be taken to distinguish rightly between legal residents and illegal immigrants. Cutting corners for a supposedly greater good inevitably leads to miscarriage of justice.
When I was around 10 years old, my parents bought me a telescope. Although my major adult interests would be in the social sciences, arts and humanities, as a child I had a pronounced affinity for astronomy. Something about those bright celestial objects easily fired the imagination of a schoolboy. . . . I collected a small library on the subject, trying to memorize the constellations and to identify them in the night sky. During the wee hours of the morning, my ever so patient mother would get up with me and join me as I set up my telescope and attempted to view the moon, the planets, and the stars from our suburban front garden.
The escape from this idolatry is not a retreat into political apathy. Rather, it is the retrieval of a more robust and biblical political theology, one centered on the concepts of public justice and societal pluriformity.
Recognising the State of Palestine, led by the Palestinian Authority, empowers those who seek peaceful coexistence and the end of Hamas. This in no way legitimises terrorism, nor is it any reward for it. Furthermore, it in no way compromises Canada’s steadfast support for the State of Israel, its people, and their security – security that can only ultimately be guaranteed through the achievement of a comprehensive two-state solution.
This book is a conversational and welcoming invitation to consider a host of enduring challenges for Christians engaging the public square. Koyzis’s voice is personal, and he draws from his own life and experiences in helping the reader grapple with topics like the different roles of citizenship, law, and the competing (and often idolatrous) ideologies that vie for our attention. He moves fluidly from personal reflections based on his own history to more academic (but rarely jargony) mentions of thinkers like Patrick Deneen, Hannah Arendt, Yoram Hazony, and Alexis de Tocqueville. The reader feels almost like Koyzis is engaging us in a conversation on his front porch, drawing from local life in his home of Hamilton, Ontario, as well as from his relatives in Cyprus, his boyhood in Chicago, and his connections in Brazil through the translation of his earlier work into Portuguese.
I am pleased that Watson has found my approach successful, as I tried as much as possible to communicate something of the flavour of my classroom lectures and discussions with my students over the three decades that I taught undergraduate political science. I am grateful for another (mostly) positive review.
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| Yves R. Simon |
