David Koyzis
10 min read ⭑
“We too easily fall for ideologically charged rhetoric or, as some express it, simply vote our pocketbooks. I hope my new book, along with the first, will help people reflect on their God-given responsibilities to manifest their love for God and their neighbor politically.”
David T. Koyzis firmly believes that Jesus is Lord over every aspect of our world, including culture and politics. His goal is to help believers demonstrate authentic love for God and their neighbor, including with their vote. To that end, he spent 30 years teaching undergraduate political science and has written books such as “Political Visions & Illusions,” “We Answer to Another” and “Citizenship Without Illusions.” Even now as a retiree, he engages in international academic ministry through Global Scholars Canada, researching, teaching and mentoring students around the world who will go on to influence their societies for Christ.
Keep reading for a refreshing conversation with David about his academic work, his efforts in translating the Genevan Psalter into modern-day lyrics, his past battles with depression and messages of joy and hope he’s received from the Lord.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
Many of us associate specific foods with memories that stand out in our lives. Because of my father’s Cypriot birth, I associate Greek food with family events, especially with an aunt who would cook for us on Orthodox Easter. I grew up in the Chicago area, and my father seemed to know personally every restaurateur in the region with Greek origins. My parents are gone now, but several years ago, we ate at the Greek Islands in Lombard, Illinois, with members of our extended family. It was the last time we all assembled for such a meal, and I think I knew even then that it would be the last, which made the occasion all the more poignant.
When I was younger, I was likely to order moussaka, consisting of layers of meat, eggplant and potatoes smothered in a béchamel sauce. Greek comfort food to the max! But as we age, we have to watch our weight, so I now prefer to eat calamari or grilled octopus and, of course, the ridiculously healthy village salad, a combination of tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, onions, kalamata olives and slabs of feta cheese — all dressed with wine vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil.
I’ve lived in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, for nearly four decades now. There is a Greek bakery downtown where we go for our olive oil, olives, baklava and other typical eastern Mediterranean fare. Although we live far from family, we still carry on the culinary traditions to some extent.
Rishi Saxena; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity (or activities) do you love engaging in, which also helps you find essential spiritual renewal?
I don’t think there are really any “nonspiritual” activities. Our lives are more integrated than such language might suggest. That said, although I am an academic political scientist by trade, I have a huge love for music and the arts, which have been part of my life from the outset. In fact, in my youth, I had wanted to become a professional musician and even majored in music my first year in university.
Although I changed to political science during my second year, music is more than a sideline for me. My latest obsession is the “Genevan Psalter,” a metrical Psalter completed in 1562, in which several people set the biblical Psalms to verse and composed melodies for them, some of which were based on familiar Gregorian chant tunes. It took me from 1985 to 2021, but I set all 150 Psalms to verse in English meter so they could be sung to these tunes. I hope to publish this collection eventually, and I’ve received funding from two sources for this project. During the past week or so, I have recorded guitar performances of several of these tunes and posted them on my YouTube channel.
Many contemporary Protestants don’t know that their forebears sang the Psalms, but they did — right into the 19th century. Some traditions still do so, but they are a minority, sad to say. My ultimate goal is to revive the ancient practice of singing the Psalms, which should be an integral part of all Christian liturgies.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you hide it?
Well, I’ve long struggled with depression and anxiety. At the moment, I’m feeling really well, but it hasn’t always been like that. I had to take antidepressant medication after the premature birth of our daughter. Born at 26 weeks, she was in the hospital for 10.5 weeks while my wife and I traveled back and forth between home and the hospital twice daily to be with her during an exceedingly trying time.
Then I had an especially bad bout with depression in 2006. As I was sitting at the table with our 7-year-old daughter, she suddenly turned to me and said, “Daddy, God will give you healing in the name of Jesus Christ.” As you might imagine, I was stunned at this. But after that point, the doctor put me on a higher dose of medication, and I began to improve. I think God was speaking to me through our daughter, and I’ve come to see her words as a turning point in my struggle with the condition.
I’ve never tried to hide my propensity to depression. In fact, it’s made me more empathetic with others who have similar struggles, especially young people, and I can share some of my own experiences with them. Although these episodes were painful as I was going through them, I found myself thinking afterward that I didn’t want to go back to being the same person I had been before.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?
Although I am officially retired from teaching for seven years now, I continue to work under an organization called Global Scholars Canada, which started in the mid-1990s and places Christian academics in universities overseas for limited periods. When I joined in 2019, I inadvertently pioneered a new model. Rather than relocating overseas, I work out of my home office and communicate with people around the world through online platforms. This involves recording video lessons, podcast interviews, reading and writing. Since retirement, I revised my book “Political Visions & Illusions” (IVP Academic, 2019), originally published two decades ago and now in a second edition, which took off after Tim Keller endorsed it in 2020. This month, my new book, “Citizenship Without Illusions,” is being published. It’s a sequel to my first book, with the “illusions” in the title being an allusion to the title of that earlier book.
I really believe Christians need to think more deeply about their status as citizens of their respective political communities. We too easily fall for ideologically charged rhetoric or, as some express it, simply vote our pocketbooks. I hope my new book, along with the first, will help people reflect on their God-given responsibilities to manifest their love for God and their neighbor politically.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
I’ve had a vivid sense of God’s presence ever since I was a small child. It would be difficult for me to shake it or deny it. I recall one episode when I was 5 years old. The index finger on my right hand became severely infected, and the doctor had to remove my fingernail, and I cried mightily while he did it. The doctor and my parents told me it would likely not grow back, but I kept telling them that God would make it grow back. Somehow, I knew this in my heart, but more than six decades later, I can’t tell you how. Sure enough, in a few weeks, the nail started to come in again. My parents expressed surprise, but I was not at all surprised.
I’ve had other experiences like this over the decades, including dreams I knew were visions from God. No new revelations or anything like that, of course. Just messages of assurance in times of crisis and need, similar to the one that came through my daughter during that bout with depression. I was well into adulthood before I recognized the pattern. I really believe that my current work is an outgrowth of God’s guidance in my life.
Others might have similar experiences if they are open to them. I don’t think I’m unique here.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you right now?
When I was in my early 20s, I discovered the ancient pattern of prayer known as the daily office or divine office, and it ended up transforming my prayer life. During a visit to the bookstore of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, I purchased a copy of Herbert Lindemann’s 1965 volume, “The Daily Office,” published by Concordia. It contained orders for daily morning and evening prayer throughout the church year. I had never seen such a thing before, despite the fact that our remote ancestors almost certainly followed a similar pattern in their own prayers.
Decades later, I still adhere to this basic pattern, praying through the Psalms on a monthly basis, as prescribed in the “Book of Common Prayer,” reading through the New Testament a chapter per day at morning prayer and through the Old Testament two chapters per day in the evening. Then there are the songs of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79) and Mary (Luke 1:46-55) after the Scripture lessons and then prayers of thanksgiving, petition and the Lord’s Prayer.
All of this has helped to keep me in constant communication with God and grounded in his Word. And it has carried me through the rough patches in life.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed the game and changed your heart? What radically altered your life? What changed your reality?
During my second year as an undergraduate, I encountered the writings of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) and Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), which changed my life. Kuyper was a polymath who served as prime minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905. He famously wrote: “There is not a square inch in the whole of creation over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” Dooyeweerd was a Dutch legal philosopher in the Kuyperian tradition whose works are gradually being translated into English, Portuguese and other languages.
I was utterly taken by their comprehensive understanding of the lordship of Jesus Christ over the whole of creation, including political and social life. I wrote my dissertation at Notre Dame on Dooyeweerd’s political thought, comparing it to that of Catholic philosopher Yves R. Simon (1903-1961). My writing since then has reflected Kuyper and Dooyeweerd’s influence.
As an undergraduate, I also read H. Richard Niebuhr’s “Christ and Culture” (1951), a magisterial treatment of five typical ways Christians have related their faith to culture. It’s a great book, and I’ve read it multiple times over the decades. At this late date, I can more easily see the flaws in Niebuhr’s analysis, but we still use his categories, as I do in passing in my new book.
Another more recent book is Jim Skillen’s “God’s Sabbath With Creation” (2019), one of the best books on eschatology I’ve read.
We all have things we cling to to survive (or even thrive) in tough times — times like these! Name one resource you’re savoring and/or finding indispensable in this current season, and tell us what it’s doing for you.
This past year I’ve read two books that I’ve found inspiring and intriguing respectively. The first is Tim Keller’s first book, “The Reason for God” (2008). After he died last year, I realized that he had actually read more of me than I had of him. I don’t read a lot of apologetics, but I really liked his central argument. If I were an unbeliever, I would definitely have to consider what is in this book carefully.
The book that intrigued me most was cowritten by a great friend of mine, Bill Witt, and his Trinity Anglican Seminary colleague Joel Scandrett. It’s called “Mapping Atonement: The Doctrine of Reconciliation in Christian History and Theology” (Baker, 2022). As a non-theologian, I had always thought that the only two alternatives to understanding God’s redemptive actions through Jesus were penal substitutionary atonement and the moral example theory championed by confessional liberals. Reading Witt and Scandrett showed me a diversity of (small-o) orthodox approaches to redemption rooted in the church fathers, medieval theologians, the Reformers and more recent theologians. I gained a renewed appreciation for Karl Barth, Thomas Torrence and the prolific N.T. Wright. Reading this prompted me to add a relevant paragraph to a manuscript I am trying to sell to a publisher.
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
Although I am approaching my three score years and 10, I remain active and intend to continue working for as long as God gives me the strength to do so. I mentioned the manuscript I am working on. I see it as the first volume in a tetralogy, in which my three published books form volumes 2 through 4. It is an introduction to the Christian faith based on the Heidelberg Catechism (1563).
Although other books have been written on the Catechism, mine undertakes to draw out its significance for public life. The Heidelberg famously begins with this question: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”, to which comes this memorable reply: “That I am not my own but belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful saviour Jesus Christ.”
That we are not our own — that we do not belong to ourselves — runs against the grain of the larger culture’s faux-redemptive narrative. It is difficult to imagine a more countercultural confession. I hope with this next book to prompt readers to rethink their status before the God who has created and redeemed them.
I also hope to publish my collection of Genevan Psalter versifications and perhaps even a book about my personal journey with the Psalms. And then I have a manuscript for a novel I began writing 10 years ago under somewhat weird circumstances that I needn’t get into here. I pray God gives me the time to complete these.
I couldn’t help but smile as David shared his experience of losing his fingernail and confidently asserting God would make it grow back. Have you ever gone through something similar? A time when experts told you one thing, but you knew in your heart God would do another?
That’s called faith. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (ESV).
May God grant us such faith to see good, impossible things happen in our lives and world. He can surely do it.
David T. Koyzis (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) is affiliated with Global Scholars Canada. He is the author of “Political Visions & Illusions” (2019), “We Answer to Another” (2014) and “Citizenship Without Illusions” (2024). He also writes at Notes from a Byzantine-Rite Calvinist and The Genevan Psalter. He lives with his family in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
