Notes from a Byzantine-Rite Calvinist: Citizenship Without Illusions: review 1

23 December 2024

Citizenship Without Illusions: review 1

Although Citizenship Without Illusions has been out for only just over a month, three reviews have already appeared. The first of these, by Trey Dimsdale, actually appeared in July in the journal Providence: Taking the Long View of Politics in “Citizenship Without Illusions”. Here is Dimsdale:

Citizenship Without Illusions is easily one of the best books on this subject due out in 2024. Koyzis’s systematic, historically and philosophically grounded approach to exploring the duties of citizenship rather than more transitory and immediate aspects of our current political climate sets it apart from many other works engaging similar themes. Unfortunately, it is due out so late in the year that almost every Christian going to the polls around the world this year will do so without the wisdom of this book. Hopefully Koyzis’s measured, thoughtful, and thoroughly Christian approach will be the catalyst for serious reflection about the vocation of Christian citizenship.

Dimsdale also provided an endorsement for the inside of the book itself. I will link to the other reviews after Christmas.

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David Koyzis, Global Scholar

David Koyzis is a Global Scholar with Global Scholars Canada. His work for this organization sees him delivering online lectures, recording remote courses, being interviewed for radio programmes and podcasts, and engaging in conversations with readers of his books around the world.

David holds the PhD 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.

His new book, Citizenship Without Illusions: A Christian Guide to Political Engagement, is now available from IVP, local bookstores, and the many online vendors.

David currently writes for First Things, Christian Courier, Kuyperian Commentary, and Cateclesia Forum. He has maintained this blog since 2003. He taught undergraduate political science at Redeemer University College for thirty years.

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 enjoyed a growing relationship with the Christian community in Brazil, which he visited in 2016 and where the second Brazilian edition of Visões e Ilusões Políticas (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, Visiones e Ilusiones Políticas, was published in 2022.

David's interests are many and varied, but he takes 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 of Greek-Cypriot and American parents, David now lives with his family in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.