Ep. 89 / Faith and Politics Without Illusion or Idolatry with David Koyzis

Politics can feel like a faith test right now. If you’ve ever wondered why public life pulls so many Christians toward either retreat or rage, you’re not alone and you’re not crazy for feeling the tension. In this episode we sit down with Dr. David Koyzis, a political theologian and professor whose latest book, Citizenship Without Illusions: A Christian Guide to Political Engagement, has helped evangelicals think more clearly about Christian citizenship and the limits of politics. 

We dig into a challenging idea: political ideologies can function like modern idolatry, offering a faux-salvation story that mimics the biblical narrative while quietly demanding our ultimate loyalty. We talk about how liberalism can turn individual autonomy into an idol that weakens community, how Marxism borrows a redemption arc with a different “messiah,” and why any movement can become spiritually dangerous when it starts carrying religious weight.

From there we get practical. We explore how to develop discernment in an era of culture wars, social media polarization, and constant labeling of people as left or right. We argue for a posture of humility and listening, because the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. We also revisit Abraham Kuyper’s vision of Christ’s lordship over all of life, along with common grace and the need to make a persuasive, peaceable place at the public table rather than trying to take it over.

If you'd like to learn more from Dr. David Koyzis you can purchase his latest book, go to his website and YouTube Channel, or follow him on social media. And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube! 

____________________

▶ Watch Interviews on YouTube

▶ Sign Up for FREE Dispatches From the Global Village

▶ Free Downloadable eBook "Here's Hope"

▶ More Info: evangelical360.com

#evangelical360

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Brian Stiller 0:10

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller. Today on Evangelical 360, I'm pleased to welcome a Christian political theologian and professor whose work has helped evangelicals think more clearly about faith and public life. David is best known for his influential book, Political Visions and Illusions, where he examines how modern political ideologies often take on religious significance and how Christian faith both affirms and critiques them. Writing from a reformed perspective, David emphasizes the Lordship of Christ over all of life while carefully insisting on the limits of politics himself. At a time when many Christians feel pressure either to withdraw from public life or to invest ultimate hope in political movements, his work calls for discernment, humility, and faithfulness. I'm grateful to have him with us today. David, thanks for joining us on Evangelical 360.

David Koyzis 1:12

You're very welcome. I'm happy to be here.

Brian Stiller 1:14

David, you're a political scientist. You've uh written much on the kingdom of God and uh evangelicals and politics. So

Why Evangelicals Feel Politically Trapped

Brian Stiller 1:25

it's uh it's a good time for you to be with us because we really need your help.

David Koyzis 1:30

I'll do my best.

Brian Stiller 1:31

We're living in an age of uh political consternation. Uh we're in North America. You and I are Canadians, we live here in Canada, but we are greatly influenced by the American juggernaut to the south.

David Koyzis 1:48

Absolutely.

Brian Stiller 1:49

Uh, which is not only has political, economic, and social influence, but as a body of people, you have a large per minority, but a large percentage who are evangelical of the the kind of the religious tribe that you and I are a part of. And yet over the last few years there's been, in my view, a political shift to the place that the evangelical faith, the biblical faith centered in Christ, has been has been caught up, has been intermeshed with a political ideology that seems to tear me away from what I believe as essence in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I'm expressing frustration and concern of many. But now let me turn to you with that as an opener and say, how are you seeing it from 30,000 feet or 10,000 meters?

Political Ideologies As Modern Idolatry

David Koyzis 2:48

Well, I I guess I would start by saying that being a Christian does not by any means insulate you from the allure of political ideologies. Um I wrote a book, my first book was called Political Visions and Illusions. And it's a uh a Christian analysis of the major political ideologies that have uh influenced the Western world. Not just the Western world, of course, but you know, clear around the world now, insofar as the West has had this global influence. And um in that book, I made an argument uh that the political ideologies are an example of um or manifestations of the phenomenon that we know as idolatry. In other words, they take something that is good out of God's creation, elevate it to a to the position where they make a sort of god out of it. You know, not necessarily overtly, but maybe, maybe in a covert way, they effectively do that. And um uh liberalism is arguably the most dominant ideology in the Western world. Liberalism revolves around freedom of the individual. You know, the the freedom of the individual is is a good thing. It's it's a positive thing. I think we should be rightly grateful that that that liberals have championed individual freedom.

Brian Stiller 4:07

Now we you use the word liberal, you're using it in the European sense of the autonomy of the individual, not being a liberal like a Democrat liberal or a liberal in Catholic.

David Koyzis 4:17

Well, that that's part of it. But but but but there's a much wider tradition that has had this huge impact around the world, especially in the West, in which uh in which in the the individual has come to be seen as as sovereign. So you go back to John Locke, you go back to Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, uh, the idea that that the state is simply an aggregation of contracting individuals. And that has been hugely influential. It's been influential on the church as well. There are many of us who I think uh uh tacitly accept John Locke's definition of a church. And for him, a church is simply uh a collection, uh voluntary collection of of individuals who believe that God wants them to worship in in a particular way. And and I would argue, and I think this is the biblical understanding of church, that the church is is the is the community of those who are called together in Christ. So it's not fundamentally a voluntary association, but it's something which um to which we something that shapes us and something to which we owe a debt of gratitude. And the idea that that um that politics is simply a collection of of individuals, that the state is a collection of individuals who have gotten together and and believe in certain things. They want the state to do various things for them. I don't think that's an adequate understanding of the state, because the state, I believe, uh there's a normative structure of the state uh in which God has called the state to do public justice, to do justice to the various individuals and communities that are found within its jurisdiction.

Brian Stiller 5:54

So are you saying that you're you're looking at our our uh national construct, America or Canada, and you're seeing it as being idolatrous? It's it's been it's bec it's made this notion of individual autonomy they've made it uh an idol?

David Koyzis 6:15

I I think so, yes. Yes, yes. And I I think you know if if there is a um uh uh uh an established religion in Canada, I think it might be the the religion of of human rights, individual rights, if you will. And and and and very often they come at the expense of the communities that have shaped us and in which we are embedded. And we we have lost the

When Individual Freedom Becomes An Idol

David Koyzis 6:38

ability to understand communities in a way, in in um in um uh in a robust way, uh, as being more than simply the aggregation of individuals. So I believe that God has called the family into existence for a particular purpose. Marriage has a particular purpose. I believe the state has a particular purpose, and then there are a variety of communities that I would call um taken together, I I use this expression pluriformity in my books to describe the various structures, the various communal structures that we find all around us and and of which we are a part.

Brian Stiller 7:13

So we live as citizens, as individuals, but also in a collective sense.

David Koyzis 7:19

That's right, yes.

Brian Stiller 7:21

How does the gospel speak into that world?

David Koyzis 7:24

The gospel tells us that um that we are created in God's image. We have fallen into sin, um, as recorded in Genesis 3, um, and then the whole rest of the scripture uh is about God's uh um entering into history to save to save his people. And I think that that's uh that is a story that we find in the scripture. Each one of the ideologies that I analyze in my first book um has its own faux redemptive story that it tells about how we will not be saved by God, but how we will undertake to save ourselves.

Brian Stiller 8:02

Give me two or three of those uh uh ideologies that have become idols.

David Koyzis 8:07

Yeah, yeah. I think the most obvious one is is is Marxism. Uh, you know, Marx, it's been it's been often said that Marxism is a kind of Christian heresy. I would take that further and say that all of the ideologies are in some respect Christian heresies. In other words, they they take something, they take the biblical story, and they have come up with an alternative story that they tell, and they want people to be part of that story. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Brian Stiller 8:32

Use an example.

David Koyzis 8:34

Liberalism uh uh has uh the especially the early liberalism of uh Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the idea that there's a kind of state of nature in which human beings are um in a state of warfare. If we're talking about Hobbes, if we're talking about Locke, it's a state of potential warfare. And that at some point people weary of that state, and they decide to come together to form a community uh that will grant them the security that they need. And so uh um uh and and that's the the the liberal myth of how the state has come to be formed. And so uh um uh depending on which variety of liberalism we're talking about, and I and I track the development of liberalism in terms of five stages in my first book, Political Visions and Illusions, um, in the uh in the first stages of liberalism, there's uh the notion that we have gained these freedoms. Now we have to try to protect those freedoms against those who might come after them. In the later stages of liberalism, and this is where you were talking about like the Democratic Party in the United States, or perhaps the New Democratic Party or the Liberal Party here in Canada, there's this idea that we are in a struggle to constantly expand the scope of individual freedom. And if it runs up against the boundaries of communities, then that's too bad. We um we're willing to sacrifice those communities in order to expand the range of individual um freedoms and individual choices.

Marxism And The Counterfeit Gospel Story

Brian Stiller 10:08

You see you use Marxism as your first example of uh of of an ideology that's become an idol. What would be the other other another one that you

David Koyzis 10:17

Well, and I didn't go into much detail in Marxism. So Marx um believed that there was a kind of primitive communism, if you will, a little bit a little bit like the Garden of Eden. It's a counterpart of the Garden of Eden. Then um the counterpart to the fall into sin of uh of Adam and Eve eating the fruit is the first division of labor that happens sometime in prehistory. And then the division of labor uh yields class economic classes, and those classes begin to struggle with each other for supremacy over the means of production. And then uh that keeps taking place. There's the slaveholding society, there's there's feudalism, there's there's uh capitalism, and then finally uh the proletariat, the working class, is the counterpart to Jesus Christ. It's a messianic proletariat who enters the historical stage and brings about the classless society, which is the counterpart to the consummation of God's kingdom. And so in Marx it's easy to see, and many people have have uh have taken note of how Marx has been influenced by the biblical redemptive narrative, but has uh has falsified it in his own understanding of history. Now, the other ideologies that I analyze in my in my book, those are those are much more subtle. You're gonna have to look at them in a little bit more depth to see how they they mimic the biblical redemptive narrative. And all of them, with the with the possible exception of conservatism, because I think that's a that's that's something different from the other ideologies, um have uh a narrative, a story, an implicit story that they are telling in some fashion that they are asking people to believe in.

Brian Stiller 12:03

Okay, so you have a person who says, Brian, I want my government, I want my country to be more Christian. Right. And I guess there's nothing wrong with that. That's a good thing, it's anonymous idea. But how do I want my country to be more Christian? And so you have ideas that seem to interlope with the gospel or intermesh. So if you believe the gospel, you want the levers of government to insist that its people live according to these Christian values.

David Koyzis 12:40

Right, right. Right.

Brian Stiller 12:43

How do we as Christians, as citizens, face the potential ideology and the idolatry of of our of our of our political enterprise without being caught up in it?

David Koyzis 12:54

I'm not sure that it's altogether possible to do that. Uh, you know, in my in my book Political Visions and Illusions, there are some people who think that, well, maybe we can use this in the the ongoing culture wars. You know, so I I I I have leveled a uh a spiritual root-level critique of liberalism, socialism, nationalism, something I call democratism as well. Uh and uh the spiritual root-root critique. Some people will say we can use this as a kind of tool to go after the liberals, or go after the socialists, if you will. But the reason I wrote the book is not so much that we can use it as weapons against others, but as we we turn it around and use it as uh a magnifying glass to our own hearts. In other words, idolatry is not something which is out there, but it's something that's in here. That's something which the um the famed 20th century Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn understood very well in his Gulag Archipelago, in which he described what happened in Stalin's forced labor camps during the middle of the 20th century. Um he has this one phrase that has been quoted by by very many people. He says that the the line between good and evil runs through every person's heart. In other words, we can't simply say, you know, as as evangelicals, you know, well, we are the good, we are the good, and er, and evil is out there because evil, sin is found within our own hearts.

Brian Stiller 14:24

So on the political, as we're talking about our engagement as citizens, as Christians in our society, um how do

The Idol Is In Here

Brian Stiller 14:34

we discern that line? How do we understand what is going on that's good or bad within our own selves if that line runs through us? A

David Koyzis 14:42

What I've tried to do in my books is to is to get people to see clearly. And I think seeing clearly is key to um proper living, uh living out the gospel of Christ, not only in our own lives or lives of our families, but in the way that we relate to the larger world. If we recognize reality for what it is, then that is uh that is a huge step in the right direction because in one way or the or another, the various political ideologies uh distort reality. They believe that rather than seeing liberalism, rather than seeing communities, we're just going to see collections of individuals. You know, if you're a socialist, you're you're going to say, well, everything ultimately boils down to economics. And uh especially if you're a Marxist, you know, you will say, anybody who claims, well, I'm doing this for this motive, and and a Marxist will say, no, you're doing it for for for basic economic motives. And they are reducing the full complexity of human motivations to uh to one single motive. And I don't think we can do that. The various ideologies would would would have us looking at God's reality, society as as God has um created humanity developed uh culturally and and socially, um, they would they would have us uh misidentify communities as simply aggregations of individuals. I used to tell my students, I mean, just uh that um I would um I would come into the into the classroom, I would be standing in front of them, I said, anybody who comes into this classroom, and if they're a convinced liberal, they would say, ah, you know, so many individuals, you know, 45 individuals in the in the in in this and and then they would say, Well, now we have to decide what's going on here. Whereas in the real world, anybody coming into the classroom, seeing me standing in front of a uh a whole room of 18 to 23 year olds, they would know exactly what was going on because their intuition would tell them that. In other words, there's a classroom. They would know it's not a family community, they they they would know that I couldn't possibly have that many children, you know, who don't look a thing like me. Uh you know, they would know that it's not a parliamentary body, uh, they they would know that it's not uh um a church congregation meeting to worship, they would know that it's a classroom. Uh and in some fashion, the various ideologies would have us suppress that um that knowledge, that intuitive knowledge, because their own accounts would try to put a different spin on what's going on.

Brian Stiller 17:14

You talked about seeing to understand.

David Koyzis 17:16

Yeah.

Brian Stiller 17:17

What are what are the ways of seeing? How do you see the world? Are there various lenses through which you see to understand?

David Koyzis 17:27

Yeah, I I think we do. You know, and I and I I I've worn glasses for the last 60-something years, you know. Uh and and it's, you know, so that's something that the results are.

Brian Stiller 17:36

I I need them sometimes. I I need them, I need a little bit of bifocal in the bottom to see the the work. But I don't need to need them to see you.

David Koyzis 17:45

Yeah, yeah. You're very fortunate. You're very blessed because I have very bad eyes. Okay. But uh but all

Scripture As Spectacles For Clear Vision

David Koyzis 17:52

of us

Brian Stiller 17:53

you have different glasses.

David Koyzis 17:54

That's right, yeah. Yeah.

Brian Stiller 17:56

To see, to understand.

David Koyzis 17:58

Well, you know, uh John Calvin uh spoke of the scriptures as the spectacles that enable us to see clearly. So now we now we get to the Bible, you know, and in many respects, I think um, you know, sometimes we might want to say that we have to start with a Bible, but I think we're we've already started. You know, we we were born at a particular uh period, you know, we we've been walking since we were about one or two years old. Um, you know, we've been eating, uh, you know, um, drinking, and doing everything else that a human life is is all about. But then we start reading the scriptures, and the scriptures are there to direct our paths. Um, Psalm 119, uh verse 105. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. And I think that is absolutely key to understanding the role of the scriptures. And of course, evangelicals believe in scriptures, they you know, very strongly in the scriptures, believe in scriptural authority. Uh that that's key to understanding the role that the scriptures play in our life. So, you know, we're not, we're we're we're not going to the scriptures to find out exactly what we should do from one day to the next. You know, when I get up in the morning, um, I do pray. You know, I say morning prayer, I say evening prayer as well, I pray. But um uh I I go down, get my breakfast ready, pour myself some cereal, put it put on hot water for tea, pour myself uh vegetable juice or orange juice or what what whatever. And then I eat breakfast, you know, and and but always conscious that God is there. And that's something that since I was a small child, I've had this very vivid sense of God's presence. And it's not something that I could easily, easily shake. I if I if I go down this path any further, I'm gonna start start shedding tears here. But it's the it's something that um that that you know that and and I and I have a discipline in which I I read through the uh a chapter a day from the Old Testament New Testament in course, two chapters a day from the Old Testament, takes me through the Old Testament about uh about every 13 months, New Testament um at least twice a year, and then the Psalms uh every month as set forth in the in the Psalter section of the Book of Common Prayer. And and and I think I think all of us need ways to keep grounded within the scriptures.

Brian Stiller 20:15

So those are your those are your glasses. That's what you're seeing life through.

David Koyzis 20:19

Exactly.

Brian Stiller 20:19

Your devotional life.

David Koyzis 20:21

Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah. So not just but but just not just as an individual, because you know, we are members of church communities, we're members of the larger body of Christ. And so we need each other. Uh, you know, last year was the 1700th anniversary of the uh the Council of Nicaea that um that formulated the first part of what we call the Nicene Creed. Uh, you know, it was expanded on um later in that century uh to uh to cover the Holy Spirit as well. We, you know, all of us go through periods of doubt. But I think uh if we recognize that we're part of a larger community, and that community is something that goes back 2,000 years and is something that um that even when we go through those doubts, then we can rely on that larger community to show us the way. And I think that has profound implications, not only for um for our congregational life, not only our lives and families, but I think it also has uh uh implications for political life as well.

Brian Stiller 21:21

In what way?

David Koyzis 21:22

Because we are our our citizens, ultimately, of course, we're citizens of God's kingdom. And that's our our ultimate uh loyalty. But below that, we are also members of various earthly communities as well. Okay, and and one of those is the state. So there are people around the world, sad to say, who are stateless. I think of Palestinians, perhaps, or people who have have fled their homelands, are no longer accepted in their homelands, but do not have citizenship elsewhere. Um to be a citizen means to be subject to the laws of. The state where we were born, but it also means to be an active member of the state, to participate when we are called upon to do so. And uh um, and you know, we might like to think that, okay, we're out to conquer the world in the name of Jesus Christ. Um ultimately, uh, I don't think that um that's something that we can do in the here and now. I think that's something that that God Himself will bring about eventually at the return of Christ. But what we are called to do in the present hour is to be faithful to God, to be faithful to his commandments, faithful to um to the gospel, in the way that we live out our lives, in the company of our fellow citizens, um, and in the young um and and as as active members of a political community of some sort.

Serving Neighbors Without Grabbing Power

Brian Stiller 22:56

David, you've written this book, Citizenship Without Illusions, a Christian guide to political engagement. What's a Christian's call to political engagement? If Jesus said give to Caesar what's Caesar's and what God's what's God's, is there is there a bifurcation in my loyalty?

David Koyzis 23:19

So Absolutely not.

Brian Stiller 23:20

No, it's I'm a Christian and I vote some political party. Yeah, what what is my call to engagement as a Christian in the in the political dynamics of of my particular town or city or province or state or community?

David Koyzis 23:37

When Jesus talks about give to Caesar what is Caesar and to God's what is God's, um the uh um Caesar himself is a servant of God. And I think we have to read it through the through those lenses. There are some people who take a an overtly dualistic understanding. Well, there's some things we owe to God, some things we owe to Caesar, but ultimately we owe our entire lives to God. And we are responsible to live, um, to live out our um um our election to eternal life uh within the context of our of our earthly existence. And that has to do not just with citizenship, but it also has to do with our workplace community, it has to do with uh our leisure activities, it has to do with the way that we relate to our families, our you know, immediate families and extended families. And um uh and and I think that's um that that that is something that we need to keep in mind as we are as we look at the at political life, because there are some people who will say, well, politics is the realm of the devil. Christians should not have anything to do with politics. Um and to which I say um you are right, of course, that that sin is rife within the political realm, but it is found in every single um avenue of service in which human beings could possibly get involved. So so politics in that respect is not fundamentally different, not essentially different from other areas of life in which we are called to service.

Brian Stiller 25:11

I was raised in a community where the notion of political engagement was almost a robbing of my time when I should be giving myself to getting people ready for eternity.

David Koyzis 25:26

Okay, yeah.

Brian Stiller 25:27

And as I look at the US, much of the evangelical world was also formed within that general attitude. Right, right. But now with with the religious right in America, Christian nationalism is a term that's often used, or dominion theology, uh, it's as if the levers of power I want to take a hold of and utilize to ensure that the country lives by Christian values, that its policies and its and its its government decrees fit what I think should be Christian. So we've made this switch. Have we been wrong in making that switch?

David Koyzis 26:11

Not entirely, because I think I think politics is a fit realm for hum for service to God and to our neighbors. But um the idea that somehow we can um take over the political realm and somehow steer it in a way the the toward towards God. Um I think that uh presupposes a naive view of what politics is. There was a British political scientist by the name of Sir Bernard Crick, born, I think, around 1929, died in 2008, and he wrote this famous book in 1962 called In Defense of Politics. And it went through a number, I think about six editions before he died. Excellent book. If you want to know something about the structure of political life, that's a good place to start. And he was an influence on my own writing. Um I mentioned him in the first chapter of Political Visions and Illusions, my my first book, to which the one you just mentioned is a um is uh is a sequel. Uh that politics is the task of conciliating peacefully the diversity that we find in a political community. Uh uh within a particular unit of rule is the way that he puts it. So to peacefully conciliate diversity within a particular unit of rule. In other words, people are different. People have different interests, people also have different opinions as to where they think the polity ought to be going. Now, we cannot simply uh hope to plow over those people who might object to the to uh to our proposals and say, well, that doesn't matter because God wants us to do such and such. Um because maybe God doesn't want us to do that. You know, we have to we have to remain humble and recognize that uh our understanding of what justice might call for at a particular moment in time, that's going to be a fallible conception. You know, we are all affected by sin in some way. So within the political realm, one of the things that we ought to do as Christians is to listen to other people. Now there's a novel idea. To listen to other people, exactly. Yes. So not rather than start talking and start saying this is what God wants us to do, we need to listen to other people. Because those people uh may have seen things that we in our blindness, and we're all blind uh in many ways. They may have seen things that we're unable to see. So believing Muslim within our political community, observant Jews, um, even um devout secularists, if you will, you know, socialists, liberals, and the like may have seen things that we have not seen. So I think we have to start uh from a posture of humility and listen and take into account what we're hearing from other people before we um um before we form our own convictions on political life.

Brian Stiller 29:24

I read a book once Politics isn't everything, but everything is political. Yes. Because politics is about us learning figuring out ways of living together.

David Koyzis 29:38

That's correct.

Brian Stiller 29:39

So people will say, I don't go to church because it's political. Well, yes, the church is political, is it not? Yeah. In the church, you have to figure out how you work together in community.

David Koyzis 29:49

That's right.

Brian Stiller 29:49

So politics is everywhere, but it's not everything.

David Koyzis 29:53

Absolutely not. No. Absolutely not. And I would be the first to admit that. I used to tell my students uh when I was teaching the introductory courses, I would I I frame them in such a way that I would um try deliberately to attract people to to study political science, you know, it were. And and um uh, you know, but but at the very end, you know, I would at the very beginning I would preach a sermon, at the very end I would preach a sermon, I would actually talk about biblical passages where that speak about justice, mostly from the Old Testament. Um and but at the end I would say, you know, I I although I'm a political scientist, uh I am not going to tell you that politics is the most important thing in life. You know, I would tell the students, if you want to study mathematics, more power to you. You know, if you want to study sociology, if you want to study economics, if you want to study um history or or uh or or English literature or something like that, more power to you. Because I myself am something of a um uh I don't know, maybe I've I I've been called a polymath before. I have interests that are all over the map. And I would be the first to admit that that politics is not everything. It is important because um politics has to do with our neighbor. Uh you know, the the people who are in charge in our um in the cards of power on a local or provincial or national level, uh the policies that they make are going to affect us and they're going to affect our neighbors as well. So even if we think that um that we're not interested in politics, politics is definitely interested in you and is interested in your neighbors' lives as well. And part of our calling as to live before the face of God is to is to to recognize the that uh that we have an obligation to our neighbors. And that's that that uh that part of that is a political obligation, but there are other obligations as well.

Beyond Left And Right In A Polarized Age

Brian Stiller 31:43

David we are we are in a moment in our cultural history uh in North America, and this could this could spin out to many other places as well where there seems to be a cultural bifurcation. The left and the right, I suppose, is a simple way of describing it. It's fueled cultural wars, we call them. We use that word, cultural wars. And and I I can see arguments. I read and of course the social media just is a way of of spewing out hate and venom. But but we do live in that world. So as as a young person coming into their early twenties, uh looking at that world where their parents are fighting with each other over Thanksgiving dinner, or they see the arguments on television or the demonstrations on the streets, and I look at that that morass of political turmoil and deep divide. How do I come to that? What sh what should I be looking for? And what should I be doing and practicing as a way to deal honestly with what I see as a Christian in ways that are honoring to Christ and are faithful to the scriptures? It's a big question, I know, but let me put that to you.

David Koyzis 33:02

Once again, I think I think we simply have to be clear uh have as clear vision as we can possibly manage to have. And unfortunately, um even the the categories of left and right in the in the in the first chapter of My Political Visions and Illusions, I I I critique the notion of left and right. And honestly, I I I would love to see people stop using that language altogether because it's a way of of of labeling people. It's a way of uh of saying, well, you know, they're they're just rightists. And as soon as you identify them, then you don't have to hear them anymore.

Brian Stiller 33:35

Okay, so b we are going to change those names, but how how can we live as if those are not relevant postmarks?

David Koyzis 33:43

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think we need to I think we need to take people as they come. I think we need to listen to people, and if they have concerns, and especially fears. And unfortunately, I think social media tend to um exacerbate people's fears and maybe even build on those fears. And I don't know how all these algorithms work with places like Facebook and and they they work when you create fear. Aaron Powell Well, I think they do, yes. I think they they exacerbate the toxic character of political cultures because they they they polarize people into corners. Um you see what you want to see, you're going to get opinions that you agree with, and and you're going to assume that everybody else is somehow off the rails and you don't need to listen to them or communicate with them anymore. And I think that has it's gotten worse, especially in the United States. I was born in the United States. Um especially since the turn of the millennium, things have gotten quite a bit worse. Although I think it was it was already starting in the late 80s and into the 90s as well.

Brian Stiller 34:45

So I'm a citizen. I'm a citizen of this country. Uh I want to serve Christ. Uh if I have in my mind the possibility of serving in some kind of political leadership, how would you counsel me to prepare myself as I move towards that as a possible vocational calling?

Start Local And Actually Help People

Brian Stiller 35:07

I would start with a local level.

David Koyzis 35:10

Um, you know, in in many municipalities, local elections are nonpartisan. People have different partisan sympathies, to be sure, and and and that's fine. But uh, but on the local level, in in this book, this new book that came out just over a year ago, Citizenship Without Illusions, um, as I was writing it, I found myself focusing more on the local level than I had intended to when I when I first proposed the book. And uh because it's at the local level that we are most likely to see the positive results of our efforts. Uh you know, sometimes looking at the national level, you know, it can fuel our anxieties, it can fuel our anger, but basically we treat it as though it's a kind of spectator sport. We're watching all of this happen on the national or um uh you know whatever television broadcast we're seeing, or we're watching it on YouTube or wherever. You know, we're watching um uh uh uh an uprising in Iran, uh, you know, or we're watching demonstrations this past weekend in the United States after that um um that woman was was killed in Minneapolis. Uh you know, we watch those those things and we get hot and bothered about it. But but at that level, we may end up becoming paralyzed, as it were, uh, maybe catatonic because we recognize that we're just one person. What are we gonna do about that? The local level is where we're most likely to see the results of our of our efforts. So I live in the city of Hamilton, I've lived in Hamilton since 1987. There are groups of people, I'm actually part of a group, my wife leads that group through McNabb Street Presbyterian Church that goes around into the neighborhood just north of the railway tracks that run alongside the church and distribute bags of useful items to homeless people that hang out in that in the in those areas, you know. And it's that's a way of of trying to be a healing presence within a community that is that is suffering at the moment through through the crisis of homelessness. And you know, we we hope and pray, we try to work as best we can to see that our um provincial governments, our federal government um tries to do something to address that, the municipal government as well. But uh but my wife has made connections within the within with in on the city council in Hamilton and and is is doing her best to raise awareness of the issue in Hamilton. And I think there are other communities in Canada that are in in similar straits.

Kuyper Common Grace And A Seat At The Table

Brian Stiller 37:44

Let me go to a a different part of this conversation and ask you about a uh the uh Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Abraham Kuyper, who was who whose views on Christians and politics has been so influential, I think, in North America. And uh you as a uh uh out of your reform theology would have uh great attachment to him and his notion of sphere sovereignty.

David Koyzis 38:16

Absolutely.

Brian Stiller 38:16

And I I know it sounds a bit theoretical to people who are listening. I think it would be helpful in this conversation for you to unwrap that idea and how it applies in your view to how we as Christians engage in the political and political world of today.

David Koyzis 38:32

Yeah, Abraham Kuyper, he was um um uh a Christian um who was started out as a as a minister. Um he founded a university in the Free University of Amsterdam. He founded a political party called the Anti-Revolutionary Party. Um served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands under Queen Wilhelmina between 1901 and 1905. Um and uh um and he was able to rally um Christians uh in the Netherlands, uh, uh reformed Christians in in particular, um, around an effort to gain equality, legal equality for Christian schools. And he was ultimately successful, uh, not during his own premiership, but in 1917, uh when um uh changes were made in the middle of the in the middle of the Great War. The Netherlands was neutral, but they wanted to make sure that people were together as much as possible. And then he died in in 1920. I had never heard of Kuyper when I was growing up, but I've I learned about him when I was about 20 years old, so this is just over half a century ago. And uh um Kuyper is probably best known for um for this saying that that he wrote in the um in the the address at the opening of the Free University in 1880. He said, there there is not a square inch of this whole uh domain of the universe over which Christ does not say mine. Now, that's not an exact quote, but that's that's the general gist of what he says. The idea that the whole of life belongs to God. That's um what Kuyper said that inspired so many people, such as myself. Um at the same time, Kuyper was also a practical politician, and he knew how to compromise when he had to. Uh you know, the the um um he was able to put together a coalition of uh Protestant anti-revolutionaries. He was he founded the first political party in the Netherlands, the first Christian Democratic Party in the world, even though Christian democracy would come later to be associated mostly with Catholicism in Europe and Latin America. Um and uh but he also recognized that in in the present era, we need to recognize that not everybody is going to agree with us. So we have to try to make a place for ourselves at the table. Um we don't expect that we're gonna take over the table and simply run everything from our uh presumed wisdom, but we'll we we we want a place at the table. We're going to make our convictions known at at the table, at the public table, and uh and in in in a way that that um um that will persuade people to come on side of uh of our agenda, whatever that might be. And uh and and and Kuyper understood something that that he called common grace. Common grace means that that God's grace uh in creation has been given to all human beings in some fashion. And this is why you can have somebody like one of my favorite composers is Maurice Ravel, the French composer, 1875, 1937. Most of his works are just absolutely love, love his music. He was not a Christian as far as far as we know. But nevertheless, because of God's common grace and because of the huge musical gifts that God gave Maurice Ravel, he was able to produce some amaz, absolutely amazing music. And you know, you could say that about countless composers and artists, Picasso and the like, through God's common grace, uh, you know, we we we benefit from the uh from the cultural works of Christians and non-Christians alike. And Kuyper understood that. And it may be that many Christians today who believe that they're following Kuyper's example have forgotten that element of of Kuyper's um of Kuyper's approach.

Brian Stiller 42:25

And that approach was to appreciate that God is at work in everyone.

David Koyzis 42:30

Exactly. That's right.

Brian Stiller 42:31

Not just in me. That one line about his him saying that there's not one square inch of creation that God doesn't say mine.

David Koyzis 42:38

That's right.

Brian Stiller 42:39

That that riveted me as well. Yeah. Uh raised in a in a in a world where uh the church was was God's kingdom and the rest of the world was, well, you look after it, I'll do the real things of God. Of course. But to come to understand that there is nothing in creation that that is outside of God's concern, interest, and creative activity.

David Koyzis 43:00

Exactly. That's

Hope Without Naivete And Final Charge

David Koyzis 43:01

right.

Brian Stiller 43:01

So when it comes to so coming back as we as we land this conversation, uh David, my political engagement as a Christian, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Caesar, the dynamic of of living as a follower of Christ within whatever political sphere I'm in. Again, what is the way that I would want to walk, you would want to walk as you as you engage politically? Just finish up with a with a with a thought, a line that that seems to sum up uh how you have learned to live and see politics.

David Koyzis 43:36

Yeah, I think um I I guess I've I've had to cut back my expectations of of what we can expect in the in in the here and now, you know, in between the two comings of of Jesus Christ. Um in the first part of this book, Citizenship Without Illusions, I tell something of my own story and how as a young man I found myself at once cynical about politics, but idealistic as well. A rather uneasy combination of being cynical and idealistic. And at some point, as I as I grew older, um I recognized that that's not going to be a good basis. Neither one of those is a good basis. Trevor Burrus, Jr. So how do you manage your cynicism? I think by by by recognizing that um that it's not just about the other person, but it's about me as well. You know, so there are many of uh uh the former pastor of our church, he said that that you know, if people people would tell him, you know, well, I don't want to come to church, it's it's full of hypocrites. And the pastor would say to this this person, well, you know, we can take one more. Yeah. So it's a way of saying that um that you know, if if if we if we look at people out there and we become cynical about about how they're conducting themselves in in political life, we also have to turn that around and place the magnifying glass again in our own hearts. And I think we have to recognize, you know, uh um even even the best people, even the best Christian leaders will um um will fumble in some fashion. So I think we need to be realistic about about about our own lives, about the about the lives of other people as well. And when miracles do occur, wow. Wow. And I've seen some miracles over the course of my life, you know, things that just left me breathless to say, wow, I didn't know God was gonna do that. But we don't go into life demanding those miracles. We don't go into the into life saying, uh, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna make a miracle. Because that's not how God works. And and God can surprise us, and God has surprised me uh countless times throughout my life.

Brian Stiller 45:47

So not being cynical, but live expectantly.

David Koyzis 45:52

Exactly, yeah. And hope is the word I think that we use as Christians, you know, as hope. It's you know, we're not blindly optimistic. Things are gonna get better from here on in, you know. That the um but there's hope, and our hope is always in Jesus Christ in his coming kingdom.

Brian Stiller 46:07

David, wonderful to have you in Evangelical 360.

David Koyzis 46:10

Thank you. I've I appreciated being here.

Brian Stiller 46:12

Thanks, David. David, your political understanding today helps us relate to the call of Jesus to join in his kingdom, which is so critical in helping us understand the times. To my listeners, thank you for being a part of the podcast. And be sure to share this episode with friends and join the conversation on YouTube. If you'd like to learn more about today's guests, check the show notes for links and info. And if you haven't already received my free ebook and newsletter, just go to BrianStiller.com. Thanks for joining us today. Until next time.