Segers and Koyzis on citizenship

During my visit last month to the Netherlands, I was privileged to spend time with Gert-Jan Segers, former head of the ChristenUnie political party and member of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament. As I wrote earlier, we had to delay a joint interview by Pieter-Jan Rodenburg until after my return to Canada, but it has now been published at Evangelische Omroep online: 'Een goede burger mag ongehoorzaam zijn': Gert-Jan Segers en David Koyzis over geloof en politiek. Here is a partial translation of the article:

An unwanted phone

No, I never really wanted a smart phone, but "Once everyone uses the infrastructure of a new technology, it becomes a lot harder to opt out": An unwanted phone.  An excerpt:

I find myself sympathizing with someone living in, say, 1920 who resists buying an automobile, reasoning that his horse and buggy will do just fine. In the meantime, roads are being paved and automobiles are zooming past him at what must seem like breakneck speed. At some point purchasing a Model T is no longer optional, because an entire transportation infrastructure is being built for it. 

Read the article here. 

Recent activities for October 2026

I have now posted my Global Scholars Canada newsletter for October. Included are a speaking tour of the Netherlands, lunch with a member of the Dutch parliament, a conversation at a political party headquarters, a podcast interview, a visit to Abraham Kuyper's home village, a board meeting just outside of Washington, DC, my review of a book about an important Christian philosopher, and a brief foray into an ecclesiastical issue. Thank you for your continuing support for my work!

De Nieuwe Wereld interview

During my recent trip to the Netherlands, Govert Buijs interviewed me at De Nieuwe Wereld's studio in Leiden, as I wrote earlier. Our conversation ranged widely over a number of topics, especially the thesis of my first book, Political Visions and Illusions. The interview has now been posted online in English with Dutch subtitles, lasting an hour and ten minutes. Listen to it here:

Nederland 2026: Conclusion

All in all my visit to the Netherlands lasted exactly one week. But the time was so filled with activities that it somehow seemed much longer. I was really pleased to renew my friendship with Samuel Vandeputte, for whom I had come to have great affection during his years here in Canada. I owe a considerable debt of gratitude to him and his two friends Floris Wagenaar and Hildebrand Bijleveld, who organized the visit, covering every detail and extending unusual hospitality. Putting together something like this takes a lot of effort and expense. A huge thank you as well to the dr. Abraham Kuyperfonds for partially funding my visit.

Nederland 2026, 12: A home in exile

On the last full day of my visit to the Netherlands, I requested to Samuel that we visit Huis Doorn, which I was pleased to hear is located less than 30 kilometres from Nijkerk. On 9 November 1918, two days before the armistice ended the Great War, Germany was declared a republic at Weimar, and Kaiser Wilhelm II went into exile. He chose to spend the remainder of his life in the Netherlands, which had maintained a strict but precarious neutrality during the conflict. Although the allies considered putting him on trial for war crimes, the Netherlands refused to hand him over. Queen Wilhelmina was apparently involved in the decision to offer refuge to the deposed Kaiser, although she maintained a personal distance from him.

The Kaiser took up residence at Huis Doorn, a large mansion surrounded by sprawling grounds covered with trees, most of which the Kaiser subsequently felled in large numbers. He was allowed to take with him trainloads full of possessions from only three of his palaces. Indeed most of these possessions are still in storage, but many of them are now on exhibit at Huis Doorn. The Kaiser lost his first wife, Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, Queen of Prussia and German Empress, in 1921. He remarried Princess Hermina Reuss of Greiz the following year. He himself died in 1941 in the midst of the German occupation of the Netherlands.

Nederland 2026, 11: Mannenzang and Sunday worship

What is a Mannenzang? There is a Dutch tradition, apparently not more than three decades old, of mass gatherings of men in churches, and perhaps elsewhere, to sing psalms and hymns together. The sound of huge numbers of tenor and bass voices praising God in song exudes a certain power that has to be experienced first hand for a full appreciation. In the evening of saturday, 19 September, Samuel and I made our way into Nijkerk's historic Grote Kerk for a mannenzang. I would be hard pressed to estimate the number of men present, but the building was completely filled for the event. The assembled men sang six psalms according to the Genevan melodies and six hymns. These were interspersed with commentary by Dr. Paul Jan Visser. Martin Mans was at the organ, Pascal van de Velde on the trumpet, Wibrand van Norel on the timpani, and Jan Verhoef directing from the front.

I recorded two of the songs we sang together, including one that will be familiar to English-speaking Christians. Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven is one of my favourites, written by Henry Francis Lyte in 1834, with accompanying melody by Sir John Goss. The words are loosely based on Psalm 103. In Dutch this becomes Prijs, mijn ziel, de Hemelkoning, whose first stanza I recorded below:

Nederland 2026, 10: Paleis Het Loo and other sites

On saturday, 19 September Samuel and I visited the Paleis Het Loo in Apeldoorn, a former royal palace built by the stadhouder Willem III, who, along with his wife Mary II, became co-ruler of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland following the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. The Glorious Revolution saw Mary's father King James II overthrown by Parliament and sent into exile and solidified parliamentary government in England and eventually in its overseas colonies such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as well. (Paradoxically, however, this event may have made inevitable the rebellion of the American colonies not quite a century later.) The city of Williamsburg, Virginia, restored in the last century to its colonial appearance with Rockefeller money, is named for this Willem, as is the College of William and Mary. Our family visited Williamsburg in 2008.

Nederland 2026, 9: CHE and De Nieuwe Wereld

Friday, 18 September saw the last two significant events of my stay in the Netherlands. That morning Hildebrand drove me the 30 kilometres from Nijkerk to Ede, the location of one of the principal Christian universities in the country. Its formal name is Christelijke Hogeschool Ede (CHE), also known at the Ede Christian University of Applied Sciences. CHE is a publicly funded university that accepts students from all backgrounds. It offers a variety of professional programmes, including business administration, human resource management, journalism, social work, nursing, theology, teacher education, and information and computer technology. My own experience, of course, has been with liberal arts education, and more specifically with political science. My reflections on political ideologies might be thought to be applicable within that field only. How then might we apply the method I employ in my books to the several professional fields taught at CHE? This is what I was tasked with doing during my conversation with faculty at this institution.

As a matter of fact, I believe that the sorts of idolatrous ideologies we meet within public life have their counterparts in other areas as well. The fields I addressed were journalism, business, the arts, and education, but I could also have touched on medicine, law, technology, and the various helping professions. Once again I found this a stretching experience, as questions posed by the CHE faculty in attendance required me to think outside the parameters of my own discipline. I enjoyed our conversation. I would have enjoyed a tour of the facilities, which are much more extensive than I had anticipated. However, we had to stick with our schedule, which required our presence at the studios of De Nieuwe Wereld in Leiden, just under 100 kilometres to the west.

Nederland 2026, 8: ChristenUnie

The evening of thursday, 17 September, I was privileged to spend time with the good people of the Wetenschapelijk Instituut – ChristenUnie (WI – CU), or the Scientific Institute – ChristenUnie. This is the think tank connected with the ChristenUnie political party, which currently holds three seats in the Tweede Kamer and has been part of three governing coalitions. This was less a lecture than an interview conducted by Jasper Knecht on the subject of Burgerschap zonder illusies, or Citizenship Without Illusions, my latest book.

Prior to the evening event, and shortly after supper, I met also with Marcel Koning, pastor of Mozaiek33, a large church congregation located just outside of Amersfoort, and a municipal councillor for ChristenUnie in Amersfoort. Koning will be writing a column on our conversation for Groen, the periodical of WI – CU. Here we are in one of the offices:

Nederland 2026, 7: Lunch with Don Ceder

The primary reason for our visit to the Dutch Parliament was to have lunch with Don Ceder, a member of parliament for the ChristenUnie, one of three explicitly Christian political parties which currently holds three seats in the Tweede Kamer. Ceder is a lawyer who has served in parliament since 2021. He studied law at the Free University (VU) in Amsterdam. He has paternal roots in Suriname, a former Dutch territory in South America that became independent in 1975, and maternal roots in Ghana. He had requested this meeting because he had read and appreciated my first book, Political Visions and Illusions. The three of us ate in the parliamentary dining room at Bezuidenhoutseweg 67, the temporary home of the Tweede Kamer during the Binnenhof's extensive renovations. We had a great conversation together, and I very much enjoyed getting to know Ceder, who struck me as being a thoughtful person and conscientious legislator.

Nederland 2026, 6: Tweede Kamer

From Nijkerk we drove the roughly 100 kilometres to the capital city of Den Haag, or The Hague. My host for this leg of the journey was Hildebrand Bijleveld, who read my Political Visions and Illusions during his studies at the Free University of Amsterdam (VU). Prior to my visit, I had hoped I would be able to visit the Binnenhof, the complex of buildings where the Dutch Parliament meets. Dating to the 13th century, it has been the seat of the Dutch government since the outbreak of the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648), by which the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands gained their independence from Spain. Unfortunately, the Binnenhof has been undergoing renovations for the past five years. These are not expected to be completed until 2031.

During this lengthy period, the Tweede Kamer, or Second Chamber, is meeting at Bezuidenhoutseweg 67, the former home of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A very modern-looking building, it could be plopped down in the middle of a North American city and would fit right in. To enter the building we had to undergo airport-level security clearance. Bags had to be checked and stored in a locker, and even my hat (an inexpensive Walmart trilby I use for travelling) could not accompany me inside the premises. But I did have my phone with me so I could make a photographic record of the visit.

Nederland 2026, 5: Theologische Universiteit Utrecht

Utrecht is a city of 378,000 people, the capital and largest city of the province of Utrecht. It is the home of University of Utrecht, established in 1636. The city itself is nearly 2,000 years old, dating to Roman times, although it did not receive official city status until 1122. It is the fourth largest city in the Netherlands and for centuries has been the centre of Christianity in that country. In 1579 the Union of Utrecht federated several northern provinces of the Low Countries in opposition to Spanish rule. Another Union of Utrecht brought together dissidents from the First Vatican Council in 1889, creating the Old Catholic Churches, which are not in communion with Rome but have been in ecclesiastical fellowship with the Anglican Communion since 1931.

On wednesday evening of 16 September the first of my speaking engagements took place at the Theologische Universiteit Utrecht (TUU), which had moved to this city from its previous home in Kampen, a much smaller city some 80 kilometres northeast. The move has been an altogether positive one for the institution, considerably boosting its student numbers. Prior to this event, several of us ate supper together at an Indian restaurant. Although a double interview with Gert-Jan Segers, former member of the Second Chamber and head of ChristenUnie, was to have taken place between supper and my address, this had to be postponed for lack of sufficient time. The interview has now been rescheduled and will occur online.

Neocalviniana review: a hopeful philosophy

Some months ago I indicated here that I was reading the new book by Maarten Verkerk, Gerrit Glas, and Suzan Sierksma-Agteres, The Intellectual Legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd 1894–1977: A Hopeful Philosophy for Our Time. My review of this book has just appeared in the journal Neocalviniana and can be read here. An excerpt:

I was first introduced to Herman Dooyeweerd’s philosophy just over half a century ago and almost immediately took to it. This was in spite of its contents being locked within the confines of a dense prose likely to put off the uninitiated or fainthearted. Although I would eventually write a dissertation on his political thought, I often found myself wishing that Dooyeweerd had possessed the wittiness of a G. K. Chesterton, who once observed that the madman is not someone who has lost his reason, but someone who has lost everything except his reason (Chesterton, Orthodoxy). This clever adage has always struck me as a Dooyeweerdian insight of the first order, given the Dutch philosopher’s obvious esteem for what he calls naïve experience and others call intuition. Incalculable harm has been done throughout recent history by intellectuals who have become enamoured of their own reasoning at the expense of sound judgement borne of a fuller human experience. 

The book can be ordered or downloaded in its entirety from this website.

Nederland 2026, 4: Maassluis and the Kuyper Library

After I had become accustomed to the UTC +2 time zone, the next few days were exceedingly full, as we moved in quick succession from one event to the next. Wednesday, 18 September was the first of these work days. In the morning we drove to the village of Maassluis, the birthplace of Abraham Kuyper, one of the key influences on my own thought. Unlike Leiden, with its frenetic youthful energy, Maassluis is fairly quiet, with a population of around 35,000. Located in the province of South Holland, it lies to the west of Rotterdam along the Scheur River, a branch of the Meuse at the Rhine delta. 

Here are some photographs of Maassluis:

Nederland 2026, 3: Leiden and environs

Monday and tuesday were spent in and around Leiden. Leiden is a famous university city, and as such there are a lot of young people walking and biking in it, raising the general energy level accordingly. These first days were given me to enable me to acclimatize to an as yet new environment. I quite enjoyed Leiden, a city that dates back to the 9th century AD. Living in Canada, it is difficult for us to comprehend the age of many European cities. What would it be like to live in a place where countless generations of one's ancestors had lived before oneself? Here are some photographs of Leiden:

 

Nederland 2026, 2: Arrival and Oud-Poelgeest

My journey began with an overnight flight from Toronto's Pearson Airport to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. The flight was about an hour late in leaving and took approximately seven hours in total. Having cleared customs, which takes some time for travellers with non-EU passports, I was greeted by my great friend Samuel Vandeputte, whom I was delighted to see again. As I wrote in my last post, we saw each other regularly during his studies in Canada. After he returned to the Netherlands and then entered graduate studies at Leuven, Belgium, we kept up with each other via regular online conversations. He now works in the field of journalism.

We deliberately kept monday and tuesday fairly free of commitments to allow me to adjust to the UTC +2 time zone covering western Europe. My first days were spent at the Hotel Landgoed Oud-Poelgeest in Oegstgeest, a village north of the city of Leiden. The hotel sits on a beautifully wooded property on which stands a kasteel, or castle. No, not a mediaeval castle, but a stately mansion in which lived the famed Dutch botanist and polymath Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738). During my stay there, I would walk around the property every morning after breakfast, enjoying the footpaths, water channels, and diverse flora, much of which is unfamiliar in North America. However, Boerhaave planted a famous tulip poplar that lived into the mid-20th century. Only shoots survive into the 21st. This tree is definitely familiar to me because we have one in our front garden. Many locals walk or run through this lovely property on a daily basis.

Nederland 2026, 1

I have recently returned from a week's visit to the Netherlands, a country to which I owe a deep debt of gratitude. This is due to the spiritual and intellectual influence that several notable Netherlanders have played in my own thinking, especially on the relationship between Christianity and politics, but more broadly on the cultural and social implications of the faith. I personally am heir to a tradition that extends back to John Calvin and includes such later figures as Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801-1876), Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), Bob Goudzwaard (1934-2024), and many others.

A broken communion

Christian Courier just posted my monthly column, titled, A broken communion. What about? "At Synod 2026, the CRC decided to withdraw from the World Communion of Reformed Churches. Was this the right choice?"

I do not normally weigh in on ecclesiastical issues in this space, but given my long association with and current membership in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), I think it is appropriate to comment on Synod 2026’s decision to withdraw from the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC). I understand that church denominations have to weigh their associations carefully to ensure that they align with their mission and identity. But I believe Synod was too hasty in ending our relationship with this global communion, and I hope it isn’t too late to correct this.

 Read more to learn my reasons for this conclusion.

Recent activities for September 2026

My Global Scholars Canada newsletter for September is now posted online. Activities for the past month include three remote lectures and conversations, an expression of gratitude from a Brazilian reader, a brief reflection on the "deep state," a comment on dominion theology, and the submission of the manuscript for my next book to the publisher. As always, I am grateful for your continued support for my work.