Contributor

David T. Koyzis

David T. Koyzis is a Fellow in Politics at the St. George’s Centre for Biblical and Public Theology and taught politics for thirty years at Redeemer University College. He is the author of the award-winning Political Visions and Illusions (also translated into Portuguese) and We Answer to Another: Authority, Office, and the Image of God. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with his wife and daughter.

Christianity and Ideologies

Embracing the rich diversity of God's world helps us resist distorting it.

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David T. Koyzis Mar 27, 2014

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Sweetness and Power

Thinking about an upcoming Scottish referendum forces us to think beyond the United Kingdom and into Canada, Crimea, and elsewhere.

David T. Koyzis Jul 16, 2012

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Challenging our Century’s Faux-Tolerance

“Tolerance” now seems to imply a general nonjudgemental attitude towards the conflicting truth claims of different worldviews. To express disagreement at all is to risk the accusation of intolerance.

David T. Koyzis Sep 9, 2011

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Why We Need Authority

Isn’t it sometimes necessary to break with authority to see justice done?

David T. Koyzis Feb 11, 2011

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Illuminating Civil Society

For anyone interested in the current debate over the relationship between state and civil society, Chaplin’s Herman Dooyeweerd: Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society makes a significant contribution and deserves a wide readership.

David T. Koyzis Jun 26, 2009

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Religion and democracy: Habermas vs. Flores d’Arcais

Christians have an inescapable political responsibility. In light of the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Paolo Flores d’Arcais, I would suggest that the first item on the agenda is to challenge the liberal claim to neutrality and the related claim to be uniquely positioned to preside impartially over the particularistic, and potentially conflicting, expressions of the traditionally religious.

David T. Koyzis Dec 1, 2006 Building business

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Getting engaged (or not)

Institutions like family, business, government, church, law . . . Christian political theorist Jacques Ellul argues that all of these are stop-gap measures made necessary only after the fall into sin.
A dialogue on the Christian’s redemptive role.

David T. Koyzis Dec 1, 2006

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Living with Liberalism: six strategies for faithfulness

Liberalism is a powerful cultural force that protects individuals and human rights, but hangs marriages and families out with the rest of the laundry. It banishes historical religious convictions, only to promote its own faith-in-reason structures instead. How does one go about living under the influence of such idolatry?

David T. Koyzis Mar 1, 2006 City & country

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The city and its renewal

Late, long-time U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil thought “all politics is local.” David Koyzis doesn’t think either urban or rural life is normative, but points to how cities could be nurtured to become more livable and sustainable over the long-term.

David T. Koyzis Dec 1, 2005 What is to be done?

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The Calgary School and the Future of Canada

The Calgary School and its advocates are often accused of wanting to Americanize Canada. Heavily influential in the Conservative Party of Canada and in this country’s broader public debate, the School is a collection of political theorists, pundits and public intellectuals, including Rainer Knopff, F.L. “Ted” Morton, David Bercuson, Barry Cooper and Thomas Flanagan. What shall we make of the Calgary School?

David T. Koyzis Aug 1, 2005 The best of Comment

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Neocalvinism and Social Justice

There is a rather quaint way of describing the modern maldistribution of the world’s goods between haves and have-nots. The fact that some people live in want while others live comfortably—that some go to bed hungry while others risk obesity—is summed up in this term: the social question.

David T. Koyzis Jul 8, 2005

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Building Institutions: Political parties

What role should Christians play in the building and strengthening of political parties? Should we shun them? Should we attempt to gain control of or, more modestly, to try to influence, one or more of them? Should we found our own distinctively Christian political party as an alternative?

David T. Koyzis Nov 1, 2004

Modernity and Differentiation

According to Pearse, the peculiarly modern civilization of the West bears a number of characteristics deemed threatening to pre-modern civilizations in other parts of the world. The emphasis in particular on the autonomous exercise of personal choice is highly dangerous to communities whose very survival is dependent upon the subordination of individual preferences to communal norms.

David T. Koyzis Sep 1, 2004

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Westernization or clash of civilizations?

As the Cold War was coming to an end in 1989, Francis Fukuyama, then an official with the US State Department, published a ground-breaking article, “The End of History”. Fukuyama’s thesis is only the most recent manifestation of the general belief that history not only has a purposeful character, but at some point will reach its final consummation, a notion owing much to Christian eschatology, albeit in secularized form.

David T. Koyzis Jun 1, 2004

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Commercialization and the Death of Singing

In the film ,My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), there is a wonderful scene that elicits laughter from the audience. A table full of people, both young and old, suddenly and surprisingly burst into song. All present seem to know from memory Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s 1967 hit, “I Say a Little Prayer,” and they sing it lustily. Even the young teens, who could hardly have been born when this song was climbing the charts, have no difficulty singing it.

David T. Koyzis May 1, 2004

George Grant and the Primacy of Economics

Some 25 years ago, I discovered the writings of the late George Parkin Grant (1918-1988), who during his lifetime came to be regarded as Canada’s foremost philosopher. Although he is probably best known for Lament for a Nation, a passionate book written in 1965 in the wake of the defeat of John Diefenbaker’s Conservative government two years earlier, Grant wrote a number of essays, most dealing in some fashion with the ongoing interaction of tradition, society, politics, and technology.

David T. Koyzis Apr 1, 2004

Of a Number of Things: Sovereignty versus Pluriformity

Among the courses I most enjoy teaching at Redeemer University College are two history of political theory courses… This course features a grand total of one visual aid, a diagram placing the several modern political theorists along two parallel lines, one of which is labelled sovereignty and the second pluriformity.

David T. Koyzis Mar 1, 2004

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Of a Number of Things: Diversity in God’s World

As Christians, we are probably most impressed with the diversity of God’s creation when we walk in the woods, visit a tropical rain forest, or scuba dive in the Caribbean. Yet if we would bother to think a little more deeply on the matter, we would likely admit that even human culture and society admit of a similar diversity that could be summed up by Stevenson’s poetic dictum.

David T. Koyzis Jan 1, 2004

Making a Good Constitution Better

Janet Ajzenstat asks whether in its Constitution Act, 1867 Canada can be said to have a good constitution (Comment, January 2003). The question arises because of the seeming consensus among certain historians, political scientists, constitutional scholars, and...

David T. Koyzis Jan 1, 2004

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Subsidiarity and Federalism

The revival of Roman Catholic social teaching in the late nineteenth century introduced the word subsidiarity into the English language. Although the word itself was something of a neologism, the concept it signifies extends back to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas.