Robert Joustra

Senior Fellow, Research

 

Robert Joustra is Associate 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.

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Writings

Why WE Wouldn’t Listen
Aug 5, 2020
Convivium Article
A Time for Holy Wisdom
Jul 28, 2020
Convivium Article
Hong Kong’s Fall Is No Arab Spring
Aug 27, 2019
Convivium Article
The Politics of the Good Samaritan
Jan 18, 2018
Comment Article
Do We Need a Foreign Policy Pope?
Jun 1, 2017
Comment Article
Who's Afraid of Secularism?
May 11, 2017
Comment Article
The Politics of Apocalypse
Apr 24, 2017
Convivium Article
Forcing Folks to be Free
Sep 12, 2016
Convivium Article
Whose Religion? Which Flourishing?
Feb 17, 2016
Comment Article
What's next for Canada's Office of Religious Freedom?
Nov 19, 2015
Convivium Article
On the Table
Feb 1, 2015
Convivium Article
Foreign policy makers: Suit up?
Nov 28, 2013
Convivium Article
Missing Nigeria to Rehash Quebec
Aug 28, 2013
Convivium Article
The Living Faith of the Dead
Aug 1, 2013
Convivium Article
Democracies' Anxious Youth
Jul 22, 2013
Convivium Article
Reasonable Accommodation in Reverse
Apr 26, 2013
Convivium Article
Three Cheers for Motion 382
Apr 25, 2013
Convivium Article
Gaming Out the Ambiguous Morality of Apocalypse
Apr 19, 2013
Convivium Article
All Hail the Twitterati
Apr 12, 2013
Convivium Article
Here Come the Wonksters
Apr 5, 2013
Convivium Article
I, for one, Welcome our new Ambassador of Religious Freedom
Feb 18, 2013
Convivium Article
Are Missionaries the Henchmen of Empire?
Feb 15, 2013
Convivium Article
Why I am For an Islamic Law School
Feb 8, 2013
Convivium Article
The Peril of Christian Humanitarianism
Feb 1, 2013
Convivium Article
Needed for Rebooting Conservative Aid Policy: Less Fox, More Foxes
Jan 11, 2013
Convivium Article
Pressing Upon the Imagination of the Cynical
Jan 3, 2013
Convivium Article
Bring on that Foreign Policy Review
Dec 13, 2012
Convivium Article
Stealth Fighter Fever
Dec 7, 2012
Convivium Article
Wishing for a Secret Agenda
Nov 21, 2012
Convivium Article
The Devil's Advocate
Nov 2, 2012
Convivium Article
Meet the New Boss
Nov 1, 2012
Convivium Article
The Kung Fu Panda Problem: Gangnam Style goes Global
Oct 26, 2012
Convivium Article
Religious Freedom and Social Architecture
Oct 16, 2012
Convivium Article
The Monsters under our Political Beds
Oct 12, 2012
Comment Article
Naughty News Makers
Sep 28, 2012
Convivium Article
Millennials Will Save Cities, and Destroy the Country
Sep 20, 2012
Convivium Article
The Absurdity of Reconciliation
Sep 7, 2012
Comment Article
Culture without War still needs Parties
Sep 6, 2012
Convivium Article
Alone in the Void
Aug 3, 2012
Convivium Article
The Caspian Sea Monster
Jul 27, 2012
Convivium Article
The Leaning Tower of Ivory
Jul 20, 2012
Convivium Article
The Chickens are Restless
Jul 12, 2012
Convivium Article
The Third Option
Jun 28, 2012
Convivium Article
A Revenant Renaissance
Jun 15, 2012
Convivium Article
Superheroes: the Saints of the State
Jun 8, 2012
Convivium Article
Time to Think
May 11, 2012
Convivium Article
Wiebo's War
May 3, 2012
Convivium Article
The Tyranny of Extroverts
Apr 19, 2012
Convivium Article
Our Dystopian Rut
Apr 11, 2012
Convivium Article
Does Canada have Social Conservatives?
Mar 30, 2012
Convivium Article
The Long, Slow, Nail-Biting Crawl to Harper's Federalism
Mar 29, 2012
CPiP Article
The Games of Yanks and Canucks
Mar 23, 2012
Convivium Article
Grab your Bag. It's On.
Mar 16, 2012
Convivium Article
Christian Labour as Competitive Advantage
Mar 2, 2012
Convivium Article
Vatican Foreign Policy Exposes Fault Lines Without, but also Within
Feb 17, 2012
Convivium Article
The Vanity of Foxes
Feb 10, 2012
Convivium Article
Don't let the smallness confuse you
Feb 3, 2012
Convivium Article
One Story to Rule Them All: Is there such a thing as a monoculture?
Jan 27, 2012
Comment Article
Union Metaphors
Jan 25, 2012
Convivium Article
The Instant Super Cities of Oil Empires
Jan 19, 2012
Convivium Article
Have think tanks stopped thinking?
Jan 10, 2012
Convivium Article
There can be no peace, after Westphalia
Jan 6, 2012
Convivium Article
Another Evangelical Conspiracy, The Office of Religious Freedom
Dec 9, 2011
Convivium Article
Foreign Affairs, Version 2.0?
Nov 25, 2011
Convivium Article
The Struggle for Canada's Soul
Nov 24, 2011
CPiP Article
Century for Sale
Nov 24, 2011
CPiP Article
The Globalization of Graffiti
Nov 18, 2011
Convivium Article
Is all foreign policy missiology?
Nov 9, 2011
Convivium Article
Unlikely Disciples and Damned Lies
Nov 3, 2011
Convivium Article
How to Tax the Rich
Oct 28, 2011
Convivium Article
Go Local, Young Man
Oct 27, 2011
CPiP Article
Some corrections from last week
Oct 21, 2011
Convivium Article
The Power of Pottermania
Jul 15, 2011
Comment Article
Is it Time for the Ideas Yet?
Jun 8, 2011
CPiP Article
I Tweeted Hugo Chavez
May 30, 2011
Comment Article
Fights We'll Wish We Had: a Four Sectors Analysis of the 2011 Canadian Federal Election
May 3, 2011
CPiP Article
The Embarrassment of Power: Does Constantine Need Defending?
Mar 25, 2011
Comment Article
When I Train I am Free
Dec 22, 2010
CPiP Article
"Editing" the Web
Nov 19, 2010
Comment Article
Social Justice
Oct 22, 2010
Comment Article
Is Bigger Better? Building a Thick Society
Oct 21, 2010
CPiP Article
The Ecumenical Social Justice Ship: Full Steam Ahead or Teetering Titanic?
Sep 24, 2010
Comment Article
Editorial: Seize the Quarterlife Crisis
Jun 1, 2010
Comment Article
Here there be Dragons
May 28, 2010
Comment Article
Saving the world takes more than an English degree
Apr 1, 2010
Comment Article
Cardus' 2010 Federal Budget Analysis: Long-Term Talk Masks Short-Term Thinking
Mar 10, 2010
CPiP Article
The Party Line: Responses From Canada's Major Political Parties
Mar 10, 2010
CPiP Article
Doing Public Life and (Still) Believing Stuff
Mar 1, 2010
Comment Article
Think Different
Nov 20, 2009
CPiP Article
Fair Trade and Dead Aid: "My Voice Can't Compete with an Electric Guitar"
Nov 6, 2009
Comment Article
Think Different
Aug 6, 2009
Research Report
Conversations: Geoff Ryan, "The Recession's Urban Impact"
Jun 8, 2009
Cardus Audio
World of Faith and Freedom by Thomas F. Farr
Apr 1, 2009
CPiP Article
Recovering Christian Realism in "Terrifying Times"
Mar 13, 2009
Comment Article
Editorial: Knee-deep in "Hot Fuzz"
Mar 1, 2009
Comment Article
What Others are Saying: The Think Tank Index
Jan 1, 2009
CPiP Article
What Others Are Saying: "Snap Shots" From Advocates and Associations
Jan 1, 2009
CPiP Article
"Globalization and Grace": public theology bridging global disparity
Jun 20, 2008
Comment Article
Giving ideas legs
Jun 1, 2008
Comment Article
Toronto the Good
Mar 1, 2008
Research Report
The greatest invention in the history of mankind
Feb 15, 2008
Comment Article
The line between good and evil
Feb 15, 2008
Comment Article

External Writings

Exit COVID: What have we learned, and where should Canada be focusing post-pandemic?

Cardus, 2021

Media Coverage