The Perception Gap

Those concerned about political polarization in the United States will want to take a look at this study: The Perception Gap, sponsored by More in Common as the third of their Hidden Tribes of America studies. From the findings:

To learn how well Americans understand each other, we partnered with global research firm YouGov to survey 2,100 Americans. On issues including climate change, patriotism, sexual assault, police conduct and more, we asked Americans what they themselves believed and what they estimated people on the other side believed. We were then able to calculate the difference between the predictions and reality.

The conclusion? Americans have a deeply distorted understanding of each other. We call this America’s “Perception Gap”. Overall, Democrats and Republicans imagine almost twice as many of their political opponents as reality hold views they consider “extreme”. Even on the most controversial issues in our national debates, Americans are less divided than most of us think. This is good news for those worried about the character of this country. The majority of Americans hold views that may not be so different from your own.

Americans to the Polls

My latest column appears this week in the new issue of Christian Courier: Americans to the Polls, subtitled, "A party system that is broken and a constitutional tradition whose edges are beginning to unravel." An excerpt:

Next month Americans return to the polls to elect a president and vice-president, members of Congress, and host of state- and county-level officials. They do so at a time of unprecedented crisis for the country. What happens on 3 November will have an impact on its future as we enter the third decade of this century. The issues range from the government’s inept handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, an economy crippled by months of quarantine, the consequent spike in unemployment rates, racial division, unrest in the streets of several major cities, and a vacuum in effective leadership at the top. But above all, the United States will have to deal with a party system that is broken and a constitutional tradition whose edges are beginning to unravel.

Read the entire column here.

Dooyeweerd introduction

I have just posted my Introductory Essay to Herman Dooyeweerd's Thought on my blogger pages. An earlier version of this appeared in an edited volume of Dooyeweerd's political writings in 2004, as indicated at the bottom of the text. Here is an excerpt:

The difficulty with engaging one of these [modal] reductionisms in dialogue is due, not to the supposed irrationality of the reductionist, but to the fact that her enterprise accounts for all the evidence in a way that seems to be complete but is nevertheless missing something rather crucial. The convinced materialist can easily explain such complex phenomena as anger or even romantic affection by pointing to the movement of electrical impulses through the brain . . . . In this respect, the materialist is similar to G.K. Chesterton’s “madman,” who reasons in a way that combines logical completeness with spiritual contraction. If the madman argues that there is a universal conspiracy against him, and if you point out that everyone denies it, he is likely to reply that denial is exactly what one can expect from conspirators. “His explanation covers the facts as much as yours.” As Chesterton memorably concludes, the madman is not the one who has lost his reason, but the one “who has lost everything except his reason.” Dooyeweerd would put the matter less colourfully perhaps, but he would agree that the materialist, who sees the entire cosmos through the narrow lenses of only one or two modal aspects, has missed the fulness of human life, if not experientially, at least theoretically.

Dooyeweerd is best known for his account of the modal aspects of reality. Read this essay to find out what they are.

(Re)integrate podcast

I was recently interviewed by Bob Robinson and Brendan Romigh on the (re)integrate podcast. Click here to listen: Political Ideologies That Become Idolatries – with David Koyzis.

 

Who's oppressing whom?

 

The Cateclesia Institute has published my article, Who's Oppressing Whom? Sin, Oppression, and Forgiveness. An excerpt:

In the real world, as we relate to each other on a daily basis, we will quickly discover that the title oppressor cannot be easily assigned to a particular group of people, primarily because this status will not hold still. As soon as we think we have identified and labelled the oppressors, something happens to upend our conclusions. Those victimized in the past turn right around and victimize others. Once the party claiming to represent the working class has overturned its capitalist overlords, it begins to persecute dissidents and those it deems to be obstructing the new order’s arrival, irrespective of what they have actually done. In their efforts to build a better world, revolutionaries typically end up turning on their own followers, creating a society more oppressive than the one they overturned.

Read the entire article here.

Note: the map above is of the routes taken by the aboriginal Americans westwards to their new homes in what is now Oklahoma.

Conversation with University of Ottawa students

Last evening I was the guest of Chaplain Sid Ypma at his online student group at the University of Ottawa.

Veritas Forum interview

 

This afternoon I took part in a conversation with Erin Dienst of Veritas Forum on my Political Visions and Illusions. Click on this link to view it.

Video review of Political Visions and Illusions

It's always good to get a positive review of one's books. Here's one by a certain Joel Wentz on the second edition of Political Visions and Illusions: 

 

David Brooks on America's current plight

New York Times columnist David Brooks has written a remarkable article for The Atlantic: America Is Having a Moral Convulsion. Here is what the author does in this article, which I strongly recommend:

This essay is an account of the convulsion that brought us to this fateful moment. Its central focus is social trust. Social trust is a measure of the moral quality of a society—of whether the people and institutions in it are trustworthy, whether they keep their promises and work for the common good. When people in a church lose faith or trust in God, the church collapses. When people in a society lose faith or trust in their institutions and in each other, the nation collapses.

This is an account of how, over the past few decades, America became a more untrustworthy society. It is an account of how, under the stresses of 2020, American institutions and the American social order crumbled and were revealed as more untrustworthy still. We had a chance, in crisis, to pull together as a nation and build trust. We did not. That has left us a broken, alienated society caught in a distrust doom loop.

The Atlantic gives visitors three free articles per month. This should definitely be one of the three.

The American Political Parties: History, Problems, and Prospects

The Gospel Coalition recently published my article titled, The American Political Parties: History, Problems, and Prospects. Here is an excerpt:

With the demise of the Democratic South, the Democrats became home to a certain brand of progressives—to those wishing to expand the individual right to choose, full stop. Under the choice-enhancement state, the apparatus of government continually expands to enable individual choice, but at the expense of non-state communities with more traditional standards of life and behavior . . . . The Republicans have similarly taken the libertarian element to the nth degree, focusing especially on economic life and the market. Generally skeptical of government regulations, many people in the party seek to unleash what they see as the economic dynamism of the American people, liberated from the heavy hand of government bureaucracy. They’re not departing from the liberal tradition, but they’re attempting to turn back the clock in its development, embracing either the night-watchman state or a modest form of the regulatory state.

Read the entire article here.

Ashford interview with yours truly

Bruce Ashford, my occasional host at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, has posted an interview with me on the subject of the forthcoming American election: Political Scientist David Koyzis on the 2020 Election Cycle. An excerpt:

What advice would you give Christians in America as they go to the polls?

To those Americans who believe that voting for one party over the other will solve the nation’s problems, I would advise them to lower their expectations. It simply won’t happen. Whichever party wins in November will bring its own considerable flaws to the policy process. However, I suspect that many more Americans recognize that the election presents them with weak options. Their expectations are now so low that they will vote for the party they believe will do less harm to the common welfare. Still others will cast their vote for a third party, such as the American Solidarity Party, which is trying to bring something of the wisdom of the European Christian Democratic experience into the American political landscape. This third option is one I personally find very attractive.

My advice? Cast your vote. Hold your nose if you must. And pray that, whichever candidate makes it to the White House, God will magnify his strengths and diminish the effects of his failings.

Read the rest of the interview here.

The impact of ideologies on Europe

 

This week I received a package from Germany containing two copies of this book, Europa, wie hältst du's mit der Religion? (Europe, how do you feel about religion?) My own chapter in this collection is titled, "The religious roots of political ideologies and their impact on Europe." I presented this at a conference in 2018 at the Internationale Hochschule Libenzell, Bad Libenzell, Germany. My contribution is the only one in English in this volume.

Providence interview

Providence magazine carries a transcript of Mark Tooley's interview with me in July: David Koyzis' Political Visions & Illusions. An excerpt:

TOOLEY: And when you look at Christian, especially evangelical, political engagement today in North America, especially in the United States, from your perspective, what are the positives, and what are the negatives, and where are we heading?

KOYZIS: Well I think the positives are that people have a lot of enthusiasm. I think this is certainly more now than was the case when I was growing up. I think when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, a lot of evangelicals had more or less withdrawn from social and political life, and they had for about the previous 50 years. I don’t think that could be said today. I think a lot of people are more involved in political affairs than was the case in the past.

But I think the negatives are that this involvement sometimes comes with an unhealthy activism. We want to do something, and we haven’t thought adequately about the foundations that support whatever activity we wish to be involved in. And that can be dangerous, because we can get on the bandwagons, we can follow movements that sound right, but may actually be problematic when you start to dig a little bit deeper into them.

The Descent of the Post-Modernists

Most of us are too young to remember this famous illustration by E. J. Pace in the 1924 book, Seven Questions in Dispute, by William Jennings Bryan.

Although the confessional liberalism plaguing evangelical protestantism a century ago is still with us in some fashion, it declined precipitously after around 1960, as the denominations most affected by it lost members to more confessional denominations and congregations or to sleeping late on sunday mornings.

However, the current form of "progressive Christianity" is based on similar assumptions about the nature of the Christian faith and the authority of Scripture, but it has led, not to an exaggerated faith in reason and the scientific method as it did in the early 20th century, but to an affirmation of the self and its subjective aspirations. Here is an updated illustration.

Government's Call to Do Justice

Canadian periodical Faith Today has just published an adapted excerpt from my book Political Visions and Illusions, titled,"Government's Call to Do Justice: How a society can seek justice when there are so many ways to define it." A couple of paragraphs follow:

People seek justice as they understand it, but each nevertheless comes to a different conclusion on what it requires. The consistent liberal will argue that, based on the rights of individuals, no person should be required to join a labour union against her wishes. The socialist, on the other hand, will likely argue that class solidarity must take priority over individual preferences and that compulsory union membership is necessary to protect employees in the workplace. Of course, both cannot be right.

This difference of opinion is complicated by the fact that governing authorities are required to adjudicate, not only the dispute between worker and union, but the clash between liberal and socialist, which is no simple matter, particularly if the government is dominated by a party representing only one of these viewpoints. If government must be evenhanded in its treatment of worker and union, liberal and socialist, it cannot be neutral with respect to which vision of justice will underpin its decision. Yet whatever decision it finally makes, the government will inevitably be exercising its jural task.

Tribute to my father

My monthly column in the Canadian periodical Christian Courier is devoted to my late father, a "man who survived more than his share of near-death experiences and turned tragedy into poetry." 

Throughout his 92 years he experienced vivid signs of God’s work. Ten years ago, he survived a lightning strike on the car he was driving, and five years ago he and my mother miraculously walked away unscathed from a serious automobile accident. So many times did such events happen to him that we sometimes thought him immortal. He was not, of course. But when God saw fit to draw his years to a close last month, we were thankful for a life well lived, confident that we will meet him again at the resurrection of the righteous.

Visões e Ilusões Política: A série está completa

O Pastor Vitor Grando, da Igreja Presbiteriana do Bairro Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, completou o seu ciclo de conferências sobre o meu livro Visões e Ilusões Políticas. Essas palestras são postadas no canal da igreja no YouTube. A playlist começa aqui.

 Pastor Vitor Grando, of the Igreja Presbiteriana do Bairro Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, has completed his series of lectures on my book, Political Visions and Illusions. These lectures are posted on the church's YouTube channel. The playlist begins here.

Intellectuals and the totalitarian temptation

Last week I posted one of Hannah Arendt's examinations from 1955, and one question in particular intrigued me: "Explain why intellectuals can be attracted by a totalitarian ideology."

This is something that has perplexed many observers over the past century. From Martin Heidegger's positive estimation of national socialism to Jean-Paul Sartre's early flirtation with communism, many of the most influential philosophers and writers have flirted with an ideology that promises redemption and uses any means to achieve it, however costly in human terms. Sartre himself became disillusioned by Moscow's crushing of Hungary in 1956 but continued to advocate some form of socialist revolution in his later years.

O MELHOR LIVRO DE POLÍTICA PARA CRISTÃOS!

Jean Francesco reviews my first book: "This book, in my opinion, is the best book for Christians . . . on politics." Muito obrigado, irmão! 

 

The Common Good interview: WYLL Chicago

 This week I was interviewed by Ian Simkins and Brian From on "the Common Good" over Chicago radio station WYLL, AM 1160. It has now been posted here: Guest: David Koyzis, Author - Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies - September 2, 2020.

Dooyeweerd and Political life (Dooyeweerd e a vida política)

Several weeks ago I was privileged to give an address to an online gathering of Direito Reformacional in Brazil. Arthur Loureiro was my host, and Vinícius Pimentel was translator. The lecture runs from the beginning of this video to around 40 minutes.

 

Hannah Arendt's exam questions

Someone recently posted this on Facebook, purporting it to be a final examination from one of Hannah Arendt's (1906-1975) courses at the University of California at Berkeley. I cannot imagine she would have been an easy marker.

The True Nature of Freedom

Last evening I was privileged to speak at the 1ª JORNADA DE DIREITO E FÉ CRISTÃ on the subject of "The True Nature of Freedom" ("A Verdadeira Natureza da Liberdade"), based on my second book, We Answer to Another: Authority, Office, and the Image of God. 

 

Turkey administers a second blow to Christian minority

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has done it again. This time it's the much smaller Chora Church in Istanbul, dating back to the 4th century: Turkey Turns Another Historic Church into a Mosque.

A decision by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, published in the country’s Official Gazette, said Istanbul’s Church of St. Saviour in Chora, known as Kariye in Turkish, was handed to Turkey’s religious authority, which would open up the structure for Muslim prayers.

Like the Hagia Sophia, which was a church for centuries and then a mosque for centuries more, the historic Chora church had operated as a museum for decades before Erdogan ordered it restored as a mosque.

The church, situated near the ancient city walls, is famed for its elaborate mosaics and frescoes. It dates to the fourth century, although the edifice took on its current form in the 11th–12th centuries.

Hazony on Marxism and liberalism

Yoram Hazony

Last year I wrote a review of Yoram Hazony's book, The Virtue of Nationalism, which I appreciated more than I thought I would. Now Hazony has contributed an article to the online journal Quillette, titled, The Challenge of Marxism. I hope to write about it soon, but for now an excerpt will suffice:

My liberal friends tend to believe that oppression and exploitation exist only in traditional or authoritarian societies, whereas liberal society is free (or almost free) from all that. But this isn’t true. Marx is right to see that every society consists of cohesive classes or groups, and that political life everywhere is primarily about the power relations among different groups. He is also right that at any given time, one group (or a coalition of groups) dominates the state, and that the laws and policies of the state tend to reflect the interests and ideals of this dominant group. Moreover, Marx is right when he says that the dominant group tends to see its own preferred laws and policies as reflecting “reason” or “nature,” and works to disseminate its way of looking at things throughout society, so that various kinds of injustice and oppression tend to be obscured from view.

For example, despite decades of experimentation with vouchers and charter schools, the dominant form of American liberalism remains strongly committed to the public school system. In most places, this is a monopolistic system that requires children of all backgrounds to receive what is, in effect, an atheistic education stripped clean of references to God or the Bible. Although liberals sincerely believe that this policy is justified by the theory of “separation of church and state,” or by the argument that society needs schools that are “for everyone,” the fact is that these theories justify what really is a system aimed at inculcating their own Enlightenment liberalism. Seen from a conservative perspective, this amounts to a quiet persecution of religious families. Similarly, the pornography industry is nothing but a horrific instrument for exploiting poor women, although it is justified by liberal elites on grounds of “free speech” and other freedoms reserved to “consenting adults.” And in the same way, indiscriminate offshoring of manufacturing capacity is considered to be an expression of property rights by liberal elites, who benefit from cheap Chinese labor at the expense of their own working-class neighbors.

No, Marxist political theory is not simply a great lie. By analyzing society in terms of power relations among classes or groups, we can bring to light important political phenomena to which Enlightenment liberal theories—theories that tend to reduce politics to the individual and his or her private liberties—are systematically blind.

Stay tune for my own thoughts on Hazony's analysis.

Philadelphia Statement

 I am not generally in the habit of signing statements or manifestos, but I think the new Philadelphia Statement is worthy of support. Although it is tailored to the American context, it has relevance also for Canada and other western countries. Here is an excerpt:

Humanity has repeatedly tried expunging undesirable beliefs and ideas. What self-appointed speech arbiters, whether in the majority or in the minority, fail to grasp is that they will likely eventually become the targets. The winds inevitably shift, sometimes rapidly. The question is whether civility norms and free-speech safeguards will remain in place to protect them, or whether they will become victims of the dangerous precedents they themselves have established and advanced.

To be sure, our free speech tradition is not absolutist. It does not embrace certain, limited categories of speech, such as defamation, obscenity, intimidation and threats, and incitement to violence. Yet the idea of “hate speech” exceptions to free speech principles is foreign to our free speech ideals, impossible to define, and often used by those wielding political, economic, or cultural power to silence dissenting voices. That is why we must favor openness, to allow ideas and beliefs the chance to be assessed on their own merits; and we must be willing to trust that bad ideas will be corrected not through censorship but through better arguments.

I agree and have thus signed the statement.

Global Scholar's page

Since November of last year I have been a member of Global Scholar's Canada, an organization set up to aid scholars in academic outreach around the world, whether locally or at a distance. I have now set up my own page as a Global Scholar, and it can be accessed here. I will be updating the page regularly from now on, including such items as links to writings, online lectures, interviews, &c. Here is my GSC mission statement:

My mission is to disseminate to the larger world the riches of a Reformed Christian worldview, especially as it impinges on social and political life. More specifically, I aim:

1.     to expose the idolatrous religious nature of political ideologies and their implications for our shared public life;
2.     to affirm the role of authority in human flourishing; and
3.     to connect our political cultures with the institutions they nurture.

To facilitate these aims I anticipate using my two published books, Political Visions and Illusions (InterVarsity Press, 2019) and We Answer to Another (Pickwick Publications, 2014), and thirty years of teaching experience to reach interested readers in Canada, the United States, Brazil, and elsewhere; to teach seminar courses, both in person and online; to continue to publish in my field; and to travel when necessary.

If anyone is interested in supporting me in this mission financially, please contact me privately at dtkoyzis at gmail dot com. Thank you.

Hagia Sophia becomes a mosque

Last month it was reported that a Turkish court has cleared the way for the historic Hagia Sophia, an ancient Roman church built by the Emperor Justinian in the 6th century, to return to its former use as a mosque. Known as Ayasofya to the Turks, it functioned as a Muslim place of worship between 1453, when the Ottoman armies of Mehmed II, the Conqueror, conquered Constantinople, and 1934, when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk turned it into a museum.

Since then this architectural wonder has seen millions of tourists file through its interior, which once echoed with the sounds of Byzantine chant and Muslim prayers but now houses the ancient artefacts of two civilizations and two religions. Because Islam prohibits the presence of images in worship, the status of the building’s Byzantine mosaics, uncovered in recent times, remains uncertain.

This development is consistent with the efforts of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to move his country away from the secularizing Kemalist legacy towards a more Islamic identity.

Read the full column in the latest issue of Christian Courier.

A new book about Kuyper

Brazilian publisher, Editora Monergismo, has just published this new book, Abraham Kuyper e as Bases Para uma Teologia Pública, by Thiago Moreira. The title in English is Abraham Kuyper and the Bases for a Public Theology. Perhaps it will be translated into English at some point. In the meantime, here is my translation of the table of contents:

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Brazil and its Encounter with Abraham Kuyper: brief critical hermeneutical considerations

Chapter 1: Religion and Modernity: historical notes

    Religion and Worldview

    Religious Worldview, Narrative and History

Chapter 2: Abraham Kuyper and Calvinism as a Coherent and Integral System of Life

    Relevant biographical points

    Abraham Kuyper and his Conversion to Orthodox Calvinism

Chapter 3: The Kuyperian Antirevolutionary Vision

Chapter 4: Calvinism as Worldview in Kuyper

    Kuyperian Social Thought and the Political Sphere

    Creation Order and the Spheres of Human Existence

Chapter 5: The question of Pillarization and Apartheid in South Africa

Chapter 6: Common Grace in Kuyper's Vision

    Cosmogony, the Doctrine of Creation and the Manifestation of Common Grace in Humanity

Chapter 7: Culture, Engagement, and Antithesis

Chapter 8: Kuyper and the Relation Between Church, State, and Society

     The 1891 Christian Social Congress and the Question of Social Justice

    The Relation between Church, Society, and State in the Kuyperian Corpus

    Religious Worldview and Political Participation in Social Life: A Kuyperian Proposal

Epilogue: The Roots of Shalom

About the Author

Differentiated authority in a pandemic

The second part of John Sikkema's interview with me is posted here: State and church authority in a pandemic – An interview with Professor Koyzis. An excerpt:

The church in no way derives its authority from the state. However, the state, as a community of citizens led by a government, properly cares for the public welfare in ways that other communities are not easily able to do. The institutional church, for example, is not equipped to handle public health crises affecting huge numbers of people, nor do we expect it to. An emergency necessitates someone assuming a temporary coordinating function in ways that might otherwise seem intrusive. In wartime young men are conscripted into the military, food is rationed, curfews are imposed, bank accounts are frozen—all of these impinge on marriages, families, churches, businesses, and many other communities, at least temporarily.

The intensity of such state-coordinated solidarity would be inappropriate during most circumstances. And there are risks that the state will abuse its authority even during emergencies, as when Canadian and American governments interned their own citizens of Japanese descent during the Second World War. We need to be vigilant to be sure that, once the emergency has ended, the state will not inappropriately try to hold on to emergency powers. This is why democratic and constitutional checks are important.

Authority and office: an interview

 I was recently interviewed by John Sikkema of the Association for Reformed Political Action on the subject of my second book, We Answer to Another. The first part of the interview can be found here: The Key to Authority is the Office of Image Bearer – An Interview with Professor David Koyzis. An excerpt follows:

If we have a high view of office, then rather than simply railing or rebelling against it, we recognize that we can call the office holder to use their authority in a non-abusive way. It’s not helpful simply to be cynical about authority per se. Rather, we should recognize authority’s legitimacy and on that basis, call the office bearer to exercise their authority in a way that fits the office, its norms and limits. Deny the legitimacy of authority, and you are simply left with a competition for power. But that view does not line up with our daily experience and intuitive recognition of authority.

Interview posted

Mark Tooley, of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, recently interviewed me on the subject of my book, Political Visions and Illusions, now in a revised second edition. 

 

Theodore Anthony Koyzis (1928-2020)

Theodore Anthony “Ted” Koyzis has died at age 92 in Andover, Massachusetts. An extraordinary man, he lived an extraordinary life, giving of himself to so many people over the decades, especially his beloved family. He was born in Koma tou Yialou, Cyprus, in the Greek Orthodox Christian community, during the British colonial era. When the Second World War began, his father and mother moved him, his four brothers and two sisters to the old walled city of Famagusta. Theodore graduated from the American Academy in Larnaca. 

In 1948 he left Cyprus and served briefly as a war correspondent for a British newspaper during the first Arab-Israeli war. He then moved to Kano, Nigeria, where he worked for a Greek entrepreneur. He traveled widely during these years. After meeting American missionaries in Africa, he moved to Chicago in 1951 to study at the Moody Bible Institute, where he met his wife Jane Korpinen, both of whom graduated in June 1954. They were married that year and had six children. Theodore was an independent businessman throughout most of his adult life, working from their long-time home in Wheaton, Illinois.

He was an amateur poet in two languages and was regularly published in Cypriot newspapers in his youth. He continued to write poetry into his 90’s. He and Jane were married for 66 years. He leaves her behind, along with a brother Eustace (Dora); sister Anna (Gus); his six children, David (Nancy), Cynthea (John), Pamela, Dawn, Thomas (Rodney), and Yvonne (Guy); seven grandchildren, Janine (Anthony), Robyn (Rick), Claire (Chad), Bethany (Brian), Theodora (Jereme), Cecily, and Theresa; and ten great-grandchildren, Aurélie, Elodie, Charles, Ingrid, Benjamin, John, Rose, Aaron, Jane, and Béatrice. Theodore's family was his greatest joy in life, and he was unfailingly generous to his many descendants. After living in Aurora, IL for 16 years, Ted and Jane recently relocated to MA where they were living with family. 

He loved God and served him faithfully, his prayers echoing the cadences of both the Orthodoxy liturgy and the King James Bible, especially Psalm 107: “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” We whom he has left for a time hold him in our hearts and look to the hope of the resurrection.

The obituary can be found here.

Dooyeweerd's Encyclopedia

I have just finished reading Herman Dooyeweerd's Encyclopedia of the Science of Law: Series A, Volume 8/1: Introduction. Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) was a Christian philosopher who taught at the Free University of Amsterdam from 1926 to 1965. He was a prolific scholar and writer who founded a unique philosophical school known as the Philosophy of the Law-Idea (De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee), or the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea. His major contribution to philosophy consisted in demonstrating that the pretended autonomy of philosophical thought is in reality nothing of the sort. All theoretical thought has its own religious starting point in naive experience, and to claim otherwise is to fall prey to dogmatism. For this reason, Dooyeweerd believed that the only way forward in the ongoing conversation between different philosophical schools was for their adherents to examine their own "Archimedean point," that is, the pre-theoretical standpoint from which they develop their theories. This requires a degree of self-knowledge that cannot be acquired through theory itself. Such self-knowledge is the purpose of his transcendental critique of theoretical thought.

Ubi Caritas et Amor

This is an incomparably beautiful performance of the ancient Latin chant, Ubi Caritas, sung in a stairwell, of all places. I could listen to this all day and never tire of it.

Text:
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.
Exultemus, et in ipso iucundemur.
Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum.
Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.

Translation:
Where charity and love are, God is there.
Christ’s love has gathered us into one.
Let us rejoice and be pleased in him.
Let us fear, and let us love the living God.
And may we love each other with a sincere heart.

M Elaine Botha (1938-2020)

This week we bid a reluctant farewell to Elaine Botha, a friend and former colleague whom I had known for many years. A native of South Africa, she taught philosophy for much of her career at the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, later serving as vice president (academic) and professor of philosophy at Redeemer University College, where I knew her best.

I first met Elaine in the mid-1980s at the University of Notre Dame, where I was a PhD student. She was there for a sabbatical year, and we both worshipped at the same church. During that time we got to know each other, renewing our friendship when she came to Canada more than a decade later. Among other things, she had two earned doctorates, in cultural studies and in philosophy of the social sciences, the latter of which came from the Free University of Amsterdam. Her major field of interest was metaphor, on which she published prolifically.

Late in life she married Bob Goudzwaard, the Dutch political economist and one time member of parliament who is a major influence on my own thinking, particularly with respect to understanding the nature of political ideologies. They lived in retirement in South Africa until her passing.

Here is a link to her page at All of Life Redeemed. We who loved her will miss her, but not as those without hope. May she rest in peace until the resurrection.

All the Areas of Life (Todas As Áreas Da Vida)

I just have to post this marvellous performance of a song written by Marcello Oliveira Ferreira. He sang this after the conclusion of an online course on Abraham Kuyper's thought in Brazil, and it is worth passing along.


Here is my rough translation from Portuguese:

Earlier in the month, I was interviewed by Dr. Bruce Ashford, provost at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, on the subjects of socialism and Marxism. The interview has now been posted and can be seen immediately below:


More such videos are forthcoming, as part of the series, "The Public Square and Everything In It."

Clash of Idols

Today Mere Orthodoxy published this brief essay of mine: Clash of Idols.

An excerpt:

Some people believe that idolatry affects us only in those matters concerning liturgy, prayer, sacraments, and preaching. But idols refuse to remain within the walls of a formal worship space. After all, worship can be said to describe the way we live our entire lives seven days a week, as individuals and as communities. If we are obsessed with making as much money as we can, subordinating every other consideration to that goal, we effectively serve an idol of our own making. This idol is a jealous god, refusing to share space with other ordinary activities, such as raising children, being faithful to our spouses, nurturing friendships, and helping the poor. We need not literally burn incense, sing praises and offer prayers to this god, but because it so dominates our lives, we in effect worship it.

As we look more closely at public life in North America, we can see at least three principal ideological groupings battling for political power. Each of these in its own way is intermeshed with the idols that shape—and distort—our efforts at securing just governance. These idols are nation, market, and the expansive self. Of course, there is nothing intrinsically evil about nation, market, and personal freedom. Each of these has developed over time and come into its own, enriching our lives as those created in God’s image. Yet each of these goods, separated from God and from the larger normative framework of his creation, becomes an idol that enslaves.

Read more.

Government vs. virus

Over the past two centuries, the pace at which we have succeeded in taming our environment has accelerated, tempting us to assume that we are in nearly absolute control over our own lives and futures. Although my grandparents lived through the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, many millions did not. The last flu pandemic took place when I was 13, killing one million people worldwide and 100,000 in the United States. As a boy I was afflicted, like virtually all of my peers, with the “normal” childhood diseases such as measles, rubella and the mumps. But we were inoculated against more serious maladies such as smallpox, diphtheria and polio. As an increasing number of diseases have been conquered by medical researchers, we were lulled into thinking that good health is a right to which we are entitled.

Now, quite unexpectedly, we are faced with another pandemic, the COVID-19 coronavirus. And we are freshly reminded that we are not in control; we are still subject to the vicissitudes of life beyond our powers.

Online church shopping

During the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, our church has of necessity made the move to an online presence. We have had a YouTube channel for a few years now, so the technical infrastructure was already in place to permit this. For the past several weeks, we have worshipped from home, tuning in from our televisions while seated on our living room sofas, whose cushions are more comfortable than the 112-year-old wooden pews in our sanctuary. We even celebrated the Lord’s Supper on Palm Sunday, each of us providing bread and wine and having it consecrated from 2 kilometres away by our minister. It’s not the same, of course, but it will have to do for now. We can be thankful to God that our technical means have come so far that we can worship in this way, which we would not have been able to do even twenty years ago.

God’s Divided People: Biblical Lessons for the Church

The recent observance of the 502nd anniversary of the Protestant Reformation should once again prompt us to reflect on the unity of God’s church amidst so many divisions. Christians everywhere can point to Jesus’ high priestly prayer recorded in John’s gospel: “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you” (John 17:21), yet wonder why this cannot be a present reality. It’s not just that churches are organizationally distinct but that they do not enjoy full communion with each other, erecting barriers preventing their members from recognizing outsiders as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Of course, some church bodies deny that God’s church is divided at all. The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one holy catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus nearly 2,000 years ago. Other communions are officially in schism from this one true church, and their members constitute at most separated brethren in imperfect communion with Rome. The Orthodox Churches, while organizationally more pluriform, return the favour, claiming that Rome, along with every other ecclesiastical body, is outside the one true church, embodied in global Orthodoxy.

We Praise Thee, O God: a literary analysis of the Te Deum

A few weeks ago I began volunteering at a local food bank. In between conversing with clients and manning a literature table for the chaplain, I discovered there is time for other things. As I had neglected to bring anything to read, I decided to undertake a literary analysis of the ancient Te Deum, a 4th-century Latin hymn traditionally sung on great occasions of thanksgiving. As I typically pray this during my daily prayer regimen, I mostly know it by heart. Variously ascribed to Sts. Ambrose and Augustine and to Nicetas of Remesiana, its authorship is otherwise unknown.

Now I freely admit that, as an academic political scientist, I am by no means an expert in literary analysis beyond the basics. However, I have noticed a few things about the Te Deum that I thought worth passing along.

Thoughts on Thunberg and ordinary politics

Last week, shortly after adolescent Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg angrily addressed the United Nations, I posted the following on my facebook timeline:

The world is in crisis; there is no denying that. It has always been in crisis and always will be in the present age. There are so many injustices to be angry over, and I went through such a period of grieving and anger in my youth.

But watching this performance prompts me to wonder whether this still very young woman is assuming too much responsibility for the entire globe, more than is emotionally healthy for her. It suggests to me that her parents need to offer her better guidance, perhaps encouraging her towards engineering or some profession that will give her hope that she can make a difference in some fashion.

No one person can cure the ills of the world, and Greta should not be encouraged to shoulder this burden, especially not in so public a fashion. Take time for family, hobbies, friends and, yes, political causes, but don’t be consumed by them.

I knew that some people would likely take issue with my assessment, but I was not expecting to have more than one-hundred comments, in response to which I thought it appropriate to make some clarifications.

Loving the church: lessons from Bonhoeffer

It is not always easy to love our fellow Christians. After all, they sometimes say things that we find embarrassing and embrace causes that we find repugnant. Their political opinions are hopelessly atavistic or thoughtlessly progressive. They believe the world will end tomorrow and think they can hasten the coming apocalypse. They think they will save their country and bring godliness to everyone. They make all Christians look foolish by their missteps, and we–their betters surely?–are reluctant to associate with them for fear of losing respectability.

How many of us have experienced this for ourselves? I freely admit that I have, and it’s a side of me that I quite dislike. In my youth I developed a burning passion for social justice, for helping the poor and oppressed and for ending the economic structures that hold them in their grip. This produced in me an anger towards anyone else in the church who was less aware of these issues than I. Of course, this included most of my fellow Christians who were busy making a living, raising families and giving time and financial resources to their church and other communities. At least temporarily, my attitude made it difficult for me to sit in church and to listen to sermons that failed to touch on what I had come to believe was so important to a genuine faith. Had someone attempted openly to correct me and thereby coax even a little humility into me, I doubt I would have listened.

Visions & Illusions: another go at it

When I first began teaching undergraduate political science some three decades ago, I was expected to teach a course in modern political ideologies for introductory-level students. As this was before the dawn of the internet, I had to page by hand through several orange volumes of books in print to find possible texts for the course. Then I had to write to the publishers to request copies of their books for consideration. Even after this time-consuming process, I still failed to find something I thought was needed for such a course.

Because I was teaching at a Christian university in Canada, I wanted a book that would bring a Christian perspective to the subject matter. Being unable to find this, I resigned myself to ordering whatever was least expensive for the students and then proceeding to do something rather different in my lectures. Some years later I began shaping these lectures into a book-length manuscript which eventually became Political Visions and Illusions, published in 2003 by InterVarsity Press near Chicago.

I was gratified when Christianity Today chose the book as its Editor’s Bookshelf selection in July 2003. The following year the book won an award from the Word Guild in the category of nonfiction/culture against stiff competition. It went through twelve printings before I decided to propose a second edition. Preparing this occupied much of my time until it finally appeared in May of this year.

God's seventh-day rest: Skillen's achievement

James W. Skillen, God’s Sabbath with Creation: Vocations Fulfilled, the Glory Unveiled. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2019.

If you are reading anything else at the moment, put it aside and read this book! Yes, it’s that good. James Skillen, who has written several works on the implications of Christian faith for political life, has now turned his attention to a foundational eschatological theme. In so doing, he has managed to produce an intriguing argument that is fresh yet remains faithful to God’s revelation in Scripture and in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God. This is not a book to be rushed through. It is not difficult reading, but it should be read and considered carefully and, I’m tempted to say, savoured like a fine wine. Do I exaggerate? I don’t think so, but do read it yourself and make your own judgement.

For more than a millennium and a half Christians have confessed in the words of the Creed: “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” Because Jesus was raised from the dead, the Scriptures promise that we too will be raised bodily to new life in the next age. But what will this look like? What will our life be like in the new heaven and new earth spoken of in Isaiah 65:17-25 and Revelation 21:1-5? Theologians, preachers and even hymn-writers have been grappling with the relationship between this world and the next, generally affirming both continuity and discontinuity, differing on how to balance the two. Some commentators think that we will be swept up out of the world into an ethereal realm above, while others appear to think that the world to come will simply see us picking up where we left off at death. Skillen does not accept either of these extremes, opting instead to focus on the sabbath rest mentioned throughout the scriptures in such passages as Genesis 2:2-3, Psalm 95:11, and Hebrews 3-4.

Political Visions and Illusions, 2.0

InterVarsity Press has just released this promotional video:


The book is available from the publisher and from the usual bookstores and online vendors.

Flightless birds in history's cauldron

My paternal grandparents were born nominal subjects of the sultan in Constantinople, albeit under a British colonial administration. While Cyprus had come into British hands in 1878, it remained officially part of the Ottoman Empire until 1914. Like the surrounding territories, the island had a mixed population, with a 5 to 1 ratio of Greek Orthodox Christians to Turkish Sunni Muslims, along with much smaller Armenian, “Frankish” and Maronite minorities. Because Cyprus was unaffected by the population exchanges mandated by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, my father grew up with Turkish Cypriot playmates, one of whom, Abdullah, became very close to him and remained a lifelong friend until Abdullah's death in February of this year. Indeed the final separation of Greek and Turkish Cypriots would not come until a half century after Lausanne, as the events of 1974 divided the island seemingly irreparably.

I was reminded of our family's history as I recently read Louis de Bernières's Birds Without Wings (Vintage, 2004), a sprawling epic on a Tolstoyan scale set against the backdrop of the final years of the Ottoman era, the Great War, the Greco-Turkish War and the tragic aftermath. The story takes place largely in the small Anatolian village of Eskibahçe in what is now southwestern Turkey in the ancient province of Lycia. Based on the long abandoned village of Kayaköy, meaning “rock village,” Eskibahçe, meaning “old garden”—perhaps the Garden of Eden awaiting the inevitable fall—contains a colourful cast of characters known largely by their occupations and their respective religious faiths. Levon the Armenian is the local apothecary, providing medicinal cures for a variety of ailments. Iskander the Potter is a Muslim who so thoroughly submits to God's will that he does not plan in advance what he will produce, allowing the clay to decide what it will become under divine guidance. Father Kristoforos is the Orthodox priest and leader of the village's Christians who easily mixes with and ministers to the Muslims but denounces the occupying Italians as heretics. The book's title is an allusion to two boys, Mehmetçik and Karatavuk, a Christian and Muslim respectively, who are best friends eventually separated by war and deportation. Although their given names are Nikos and Abdul, they adopt the names of Robin and Blackbird after the clay bird whistles fashioned for them by Karatavuk's father Iskander.

Political Visions and Illusions: release and interview

The second edition of Political Visions and Illusions is now out and available for purchase from the publisher, bookstores and the usual online vendors. An excellent place to find it is at the famous Hearts & Minds Bookstore in Dallastown, Pennsylvania, operated by the indefatigable Byron Borger, who has been a great supporter of my work. If you can't get there in person, he would be happy to send it to you.

If you want to know what's in the new revised edition, Steve Bishop has just posted an interview with me on the topic. Here is an excerpt:

Christian Platonism and the Platonic redemptive story

Plato

Two weeks ago I was privileged to attend two back-to-back conferences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The first was the annual Kuyper Conference, whose overarching theme was “Christ and Community.” One of the major speakers was Hans Boersma, until recently a professor at Regent College in Vancouver, BC, soon to join the faculty of Nashotah House near Milwaukee.

In an address titled, “Neo-Calvinism and the Beatific Vision,” Boersma suggested that the neo-Calvinist emphasis on continuity between this life and the next lacks a proper sense of the beatific vision of God.

Voices at the Margins: the problem with identity politics

The Bible manifests great concern for marginalized, especially those among the people of God who fell into the categories of widow, orphan and resident sojourner. Because these groups were at a disadvantage under the land tenure system, thus deprived of a secure means of livelihood, the law of Moses mandated special means of ensuring that such people be provided for. When I was teaching, I would give my students a series of scripture texts that emphasized our duty to care for the poor, such as Isaiah 1:11-17, 10:1-4, Amos 5:21-24, and Psalms 72 and 82.

In recent years this recognition that God calls us to care for the poor and oppressed has taken a new form. Now many people are telling us that we have an obligation to listen to the voices of the marginalized. What does this mean?

Is Nationalism Worth Defending?

When I first came across Yoram Hazony’s The Virtue of Nationalism, I found the title off-putting. After all, I have devoted an entire chapter of my Political Visions and Illusions to nationalism, which I treat as an idolatrous love of nation: in an effort to bind people together in a tighter unity, nationalists often exalt the nation, however they define it, at the expense of more proximate loyalties rooted in the pluriformity of communities making up a complex differentiated society. Thus when I started reading Hazony’s treatment, I steeled myself for what I expected to be a grim experience.

Nevertheless, once I was into the book, I quickly discovered that it was not what I had expected. Far from defending an idolatrous love of nation, the author has advanced what amounts to an implicitly Aristotelian defence of the nation-state as the optimal form of political governance. A world of independent nation-states is the virtuous mean between the extremes of tribal anarchy on the one hand and supranational empire on the other. In defending the national state against its apparently vicious rivals, Hazony mounts a modest argument in favour of a non-utopian order which, while far from perfect, he believes best facilitates political freedom. While his thesis has applicability across a broad range of political life, the author employs it in defence of his own homeland of Israel as a state embodying the Jewish nation, acting unilaterally when necessary. He refrains, however, from affirming a universal right to national self-determination, conceding the legitimacy of prudential considerations in particular cases. In this respect, his argument has Burkean overtones.

Does Hazony’s defence of the national state work? Yes. And no!

Amsterdam and Mecca: Bridging the Gap

In an era when so many are interested in finding their ancestral roots, discovering an immigrant among our forebears is scarcely unusual. Since pre-history people have moved from place to place in search of the proverbial greener pastures and a better life, or to escape tyranny, disaster and hunger.
Yet immigration poses problems of adjustment for both the host community and the people entering it. Migration in sufficiently large numbers can overwhelm a host nation and permanently change its culture, a prospect fuelling fear in settled populations, especially during times of economic uncertainty. The reception of Muslim immigrants into western nations has been particularly fraught with tension, because Muslims bring practices that contrast markedly with the ways of the receiving communities. Yet as Christians we recognize that the Bible requires us to exercise hospitality to the sojourner in our midst. So how should we approach this issue?

In his new book, Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), author Matthew Kaemingk, a professor at Fuller Seminary, has made a significant contribution to the discussion surrounding Muslim immigration. Much as Tertullian posed his famous question on the relationship between Athens and Jerusalem, Kaemingk focuses on that between Amsterdam and Mecca, representing the changing dynamics between a post-christian liberal culture and a traditional nonwestern monotheistic culture.

Rev. Wang Yi and faithful disobedience

The church in China is growing dramatically, but in the meantime the government in Beijing is renewing its persecution of Christians. Last month members of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, including Pastor Wang Yi, were arrested and taken into custody. Anticipating his likely arrest, Wang Yi wrote My Declaration of Faithful Disobedience, to be published in the event this did take place. Here is an excerpt:

If God decides to use the persecution of this Communist regime against the church to help more Chinese people to despair of their futures, to lead them through a wilderness of spiritual disillusionment and through this to make them know Jesus, if through this he continues disciplining and building up his church, then I am joyfully willing to submit to God’s plans, for his plans are always benevolent and good.

Precisely because none of my words and actions are directed toward seeking and hoping for societal and political transformation, I have no fear of any social or political power. For the Bible teaches us that God establishes governmental authorities in order to terrorize evildoers, not to terrorize doers of good. If believers in Jesus do no wrong then they should not be afraid of dark powers. Even though I am often weak, I firmly believe this is the promise of the gospel. It is what I’ve devoted all of my energy to. It is the good news that I am spreading throughout Chinese society. . . .

Those who lock me up will one day be locked up by angels. Those who interrogate me will finally be questioned and judged by Christ. When I think of this, the Lord fills me with a natural compassion and grief toward those who are attempting to and actively imprisoning me. Pray that the Lord would use me, that he would grant me patience and wisdom, that I might take the gospel to them.

Reading such a fearless statement should prompt those of us living in safer environments to consider what we ourselves would do under similar circumstances. In the meantime, let us pray for the safety of Pastor Wang Yi and the members of his congregation. Let us also pray that the Holy Spirit will change the hearts of their persecutors.

Everything Changed: the impact of the Great War

You can see the differences in the old photographs. Before the war, cities were filled with horses pulling buggies, pedestrians filling the streets, women in long skirts and dresses and men in dark suits with ample facial hair.

But after the bloodletting had ended, everything had changed. Automobiles plied the thoroughfares. The “crime” of jaywalking was invented, and pedestrians were banished to the sidewalks. Young women shortened their hair and their dresses alike, advertising their sexuality in ways that shocked their parents. Men were clean-shaven. Jazz was in the air, and a hint of craziness had descended on a previously staid society. The reigning philosophy was an echo of the biblical Preacher: “eat, drink and be merry” (Ecc. 8:25). Life is short, so let’s enjoy ourselves while we can.

This new nihilistic philosophy spawned by the war had another more lasting effect: it accelerated the secularizing trends that had beset Europe since the 18th century. During the 19th century, especially in the English-speaking world, attending church was the respectable thing to do on Sundays, even if not everyone in the pews was equally devout. The Continent, which had been more affected by the French Revolution, was already experiencing the effects of this secularization, yet the vast majority of Europeans still wore the Christian label.

The Great War managed to erode European Christendom in a remarkably brief time. Why?

Political Visions & Illusions, new edition online

Although the new edition of Political Visions & Illusions is not due out until May, the publisher's page is now live. Do check it out.

Statement on Social Justice, a final assessment

Now that we have evaluated in some detail each of the affirmations and denials of the Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel, it is appropriate to make a final assessment of the statement as a whole.

To begin with, it seems to me that we are manifestly living in a moment of manifesto fatigue. Too many statements are published to persuade people to come onside of a particular issue or set of issues. Forty-five years ago the Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Concern was published and garnered a number of signatories, including such mainstream stalwarts as Carl F. H. Henry, Richard Mouw and Lewis Smedes, but also those more evidently associated with the so-called Christian left such as Ron Sider, John Howard Yoder and Jim Wallis. I was particularly excited about this document, although I never had the opportunity to sign it, which was more difficult to do before the internet age.

Then came the 1976 Hartford Appeal for Theological Affirmation, spearheaded by Richard John Neuhaus and Peter Berger, and signed again by Mouw and Smedes, among others. This statement attempted to combat a number of defective views concerning the relationship between religion and modernity. I could list more, such as the Manhattan Declaration (2009), the Nashville Statement (2017), and now the Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel. Since the most recent statements cover much of the same ground, it is unclear why some people think that new statements are necessary, apart from the fact that they emerge out of different organizations with somewhat different emphases and constituencies. Some people have signed one of these statements but feel unable to sign the others for various reasons. Dare I ask whether there should be a moratorium on the making of new manifestos? If they appear too frequently, they will tend over time to lose whatever impact they might have had as singular documents tailored to specific circumstances.

Nevertheless, as this document is now "out there", I will indicate right off that I cannot sign it for several reasons, despite my agreement with much of its content. Why?