Brian Dijkema
Brian Dijkema is the Vice President of External Affairs with Cardus, and an editor of Comment. Prior to joining Cardus, Brian worked for almost a decade in labour relations in Canada after completing his master's degree with Cardus Senior Fellow, Jonathan Chaplin. He has also done work on international human rights, with a focus on labour, economic, and social rights in Latin America and China.
Bio last updated May 23rd, 2023.
Articles by Brian Dijkema
Whispering in Public
By Brian Dijkema
August 2, 2012
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory A whisper which says: "Listen, I have something to tell you—a great mystery
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Buildings Encouraging Idiocy?
Brian Dijkema
July 26, 2012
Can the shape or condition of a room change you? Eric Jacobsen, for instance, has thought about this in great depth, encouraging Christians to consider the way in which built environments shape us, and how we can shape built environments in ways which account for our complexity—and potential ...
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A Culture on Fire?
Brian Dijkema
July 13, 2012
A Christian novel? Its characters are far too flawed, the story far too complex, and its threads too loose and frayed to fit into what publishers traditionally place in this category Much of it is focused on the implications of Pentecostalism on the church, the state, and the economy—sociological ta...
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Wisdom Cries Out in the Streets
Brian Dijkema
July 4, 2012
But Quebec youth know the new priests—those who work in the temple of the National Assembly—are as corrupt as the former priests they hate so much ...
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Apocalypse & Gloria
Brian Dijkema
July 1, 2012
In the blackness of a southern Ontario summer storm, Brian Dijkema sees the light of Christ.
For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you ...
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Reaping the Whirlwind
Brian Dijkema
June 29, 2012
What would our governance, our conversations, our work—our civilization—look like if above us, in each institution and context in which we live and work, was a sign that said, "In a thousand years, it will all be lost"? Perhaps, what needs saying, despite Mendelhson's sobering recognition that much ...
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Taking the Heidelberg Catechism to Work
Brian Dijkema
June 21, 2012
Peter Stockland's excellent blog this week reminds us that "we are called to engage in the political life of our country not to win but to witness ...
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Absurd, and Good
Brian Dijkema
June 14, 2012
Vaclav Havel is probably the best example of this marriage between politics and absurd theatre The connection between politics and the theatre of the absurd typically occurs when there has been a breakdown of some kind on behalf of the ruling party ...
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Why the Queen is Better Than We Are
Brian Dijkema
June 7, 2012
Coyne tells us that "the people love her not because she is some sort of saint, but because she is Queen, and she is Queen for no other reason than because she is the eldest child of the late King The monarchy will only be popular, and will only survive—it should only survive—as long as it continues...
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What kind of culture of generosity do we want?
Brian Dijkema
May 31, 2012
A culture of generosity is one which is indeed marked by increased giving and volunteering, but which is also marked by the stability that comes from a group of citizens who give and care not about public adulation: ...
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Cultivating Civic Virtue
Brian Dijkema
May 24, 2012
Persuasion is integral to a healthy democracy, and persuasion can only take place when you routinely interact with people different than yourself ...
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Sick Schools, Sick Students, Sick State
Brian Dijkema
May 8, 2012
Young William Swinimer wore a bright yellow t-shirt emblazoned with the words "Life is Wasted without Jesus" to school There is more to the story, of course: the boy says that he had been "bullied" about his faith prior to this incident; the school maintains that he was suspended not only because of...
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A little thin, isn't it?
Brian Dijkema
May 4, 2012
The report as a whole reads like more like policy proposals from a political party or think-tank than the work of a church The United Church of Canada's recent report on Israeli and Palestinian policy made front-page news this week ...
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Canada Includes the State, But Is More than the State
Brian Dijkema
April 27, 2012
This budget gives pretty clear signals of a different Canada, perhaps hard to get at because it is not about building but about dismantling: not dismantling the state—witness the expanded use of the coercive criminal law power and the build up of our military and security apparatus—so much as rollin...
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The Race to the Top
Brian Dijkema
April 18, 2012
If you place these numbers alongside wage statistics from the ILO, which suggest that wages in these same places have grown anywhere from 15% in Latin America to a whopping 109% in Asia, one wonders if the CAW is concerned about its counterpart auto workers, or whether it's more interested in mainta...
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A Band of Love
Brian Dijkema
April 12, 2012
But does the musical landscape of our day—the type of music we hum when we're in the shower, the type that surrounds us and that drips down deep into the recesses of our mind—give us life? A world in which gospel hymns and jazz were ubiquitous meant that a room of elderly came to life singing songs ...
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Please, do my job for me
Brian Dijkema
April 4, 2012
If journalists and politicians, through their use of the English language, ask you, "Please, will you do my job for me?" I suggest do it! After all, it's not the fact that politicians speak to us like children, it's that they and the journalists who cover them take the tone of uppity school marms wh...
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Truly, God never abandons
Brian Dijkema
March 29, 2012
But seen through Augustinian lenses—the type of lenses worn by many of the Christians on the island, and worn even by the pope himself—the trip was a success even if it was disappointing ...
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Centrist politics: the problem, not the solution
Brian Dijkema
March 26, 2012
The most interesting thing about this weekend's NDP leadership election is not that Thomas Mulcair won and that Brian Topp lost ...
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What's a Soul Worth?
Brian Dijkema
March 22, 2012
We believe markets to be the best way—no, the only sane way—to structure interactions in economic life What role should markets play in public life and personal relations? How can we decide which goods should be bought and sold, and which should be governed by nonmarket values? Where should money's ...
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Government Addictions
Brian Dijkema
March 15, 2012
OLG, the government corporation which oversees gambling in the province of Ontario, recently rolled out a new business plan which clears a whole new path and purpose for gambling in Ontario Here's what the Ontario government said when it spent the first pennies of revenue from gaming—a $3.5 million ...
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Contesting the Defence of Liberal Hegemony
Brian Dijkema
March 1, 2012
the suggestion that exposing children to a variety of religious facts in itself infringes their religious freedom or that of their parents amounts to a rejection of the multicultural reality of Canadian society and ignores the Quebec government's obligations with regard to public education ...
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Condemnations, contradictions, and rich ironies
Brian Dijkema
February 24, 2012
Ken Lewenza, the head of the union representing the workers at the EMD plant, suggests that the closure "open[s] a door for multinational corporations to feel confident they can do whatever they want, to destroy communities and the lives of people and get away with it In a richly ironic way, Mitch D...
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Ignoring a Key Reason for the Decline of Unions
Brian Dijkema
February 16, 2012
Speaking to the American union movement (a community in worse shape than Canada's), Daly suggests that while the technical problems noted by unions such as CAW and CEP are important and require technical solutions including, perhaps, the merger that CAW and CEP are proposing, First, that trade union...