Politics & International Studies

POLIS at Redeemer is predicated on three fundamental beliefs which shape our whole curriculum and worldview. First, that our civilizations and our societies are inevitably shaped by, and work out, incurably religious visions, of God, and of cosmic and social order. Human response to that God, and his order, manifests obedience or idolatry, what in politics are sometimes called ideologies. Second, we are not, in the words of Bonhoeffer, “to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself,” and — consequently — to answer the biblical call to love God and our neighbours through loving faithful institutions, building the blocks of a just global society. The tools of labourers for global justice include politics and economics, but are also not limited to them.

Third, and finally, POLIS is built around the conviction that we are not simply homo sapiens (“the knowing one”) but rather homo liturgicus (“the worshiping one”): we are desiring, imaginative creatures, whose “beliefs” are manifest more in what we do, and what we worship, than what we think. So POLIS prepares students with practical, applied experiences, both through classes taught by elite practitioners who work in areas like policy, law, and development, and through access to vocational networks for internships or approved off-campus programs.