Contributor

Robert Joustra

Robert Joustra is Professor of Politics & International Studies at Redeemer University, where he is also founding-Director of the Centre for Christian Scholarship. He is an editorial fellow with The Review of Faith and International Affairs and a Fellow with the Center for Public Justice, in Washington D.C. His writing and commentary appear in The Globe and Mail, The Washington Post, The National Post, and elsewhere.

 

Joustra received his B.A. (honours) in politics and history from Redeemer University in 2005, after which he taught in Asia, before returning to McMaster to complete an M.A. in Globalization Studies in 2008. He worked as a researcher and editor for Cardus from 2008 to 2013, on issues ranging from urban planning to education, to labor to freedom of religion or belief. In 2013 he defended his doctoral dissertation – The Religious Problem with Religious Freedom: Why International Theory Needs Political Theology – at the University of Bath (U.K.), under Scott Thomas, and began his full time appointment as a professor at Redeemer University that same July.

 

He is the author, editor, co-author or co-editor, of eight books and a wide range of articles, chapters, and papers. His work focuses broadly on comparative politics and religion, with an emphasis on understanding trends and ideas at home by placing them in historical and geopolitical context. His books include, God and Global Order: The Power of Religion in American Foreign Policy (Baylor University Press, 2010), How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith and Politics at the End of the World (Eerdmans, 2015), The Church and Religious Persecution (Calvin Press, 2015), The Church’s Social Responsibility: Evangelicalism and Social Justice (Christian Library Press, 2016), The Religious Problem with Religious Freedom: Why Foreign Policy Needs Political Theology (Routledge, 2017), Modern Papal Diplomacy and Social Teaching in World Affairs (Routledge, 2019), Calvinism for a Secular Age: A Twenty-First Century Reading of Abraham Kuyper’s Stone Lectures (forthcoming: Intervarsity Academic, 2021), and Christian Realism for Terrifying Times: A Reader (forthcoming: Wipf & Stock, 2022).

 

Robert is married to his better educated, and better liked, wife Jessica, and they live atop the escarpment in Hamilton, together with their son Jacob.

Justice After Atrocity

A Christian Realist perspective on the war in Israel.

READ

More From This Contributor

The Absurdity of Reconciliation

Religion is key in the work of reconciliation precisely because when it comes to the ineffable absurdity of “why,” the state, like the three friends of Job, is better suited to silence.

I Tweeted Hugo Chavez

Somewhere between full invasion and Facebook friends lies a new strategy for promoting democracy. But in the meantime, we’re out of ideas and money, so Internet freedom will have to do.

Social Justice

“Social justice” should win some kind of prize for buzz word of the year. It’s plastered all over campuses, publications, and pulpits. But we’re not at all sure what we mean by it, and the term has accrued some substantial baggage. So we asked some folks: “What is social justice?” and “Why, or why not, is it important for our cultural moment?”

The greatest invention in the history of mankind

Like never before, the compression of space and time which many call globalization brings the rich variety of cultures together, rubbing shoulders, tipping glasses, and lubricating the gears of academic and social life. But where to begin in this smorgasbord of taste and delight?

The line between good and evil

The malleability of the human conscience is awkward dinner conversation for polite Christians. None of us want to believe that what we hold dearest about right and wrong, good and evil could be so radically contested that we find ourselves acting otherwise.