Faculty Research and Publications

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The zen of Stampede
(Calgary Herald, 2000) von Heyking, John
Offers insights into our political culture through reflections on the Calgary Stampede. Focuses on virtues such as heroism and democratic principle of equality.
From a wooded summit : learning to love through augustinian meditation in Ascona
(Konigshausen & Neumann, 2004) von Heyking, John
This paper focuses on the way ... Eranos scholars used Augustinian symbols to explicate the tensional relationship between time and eternity, finitude and infinity, creation and God, and human being and God that Eranos scholars have theorized about, and that thinkers have been grappling with since Plato characterized human existence as a cave and wondered how to convince philosophers to reenter it.
Disarming, simple, and sweet: Augustine's republican rhetoric
(Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005) von Heyking, John
The riots of Ramadan
(Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, 2005-11) von Heyking, John
The riots of Ramadan strike at the basis of the French state and its political culture with possibly greater significance than the 1968 riots.The riots of Ramadan constitute a revolutionary moment for Europe, and people in other parts of the world will hope the revolution gets contained.
Iran's President and the politics of the Twelfth Imam
(Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, 2005-11) von Heyking, John
Western observers need to be able to understand the ideological and religious overtones of the current situation in Iran. Ahmadinejad’s peculiar references to the Twelfth Imam are no mere eccentricity to be taken lightly. Nor do they seem to be the rhetorical ploy of a politician manipulating the excitable masses
Politics between the Earthly City and the City of God in Christianity
(Cardus Centre for Cultural Renewal = Cardus Centre pour un Renouveau Culturel, 2006-06-08) von Heyking, John
Paper presented at "The Cooperation of Church & State Conference" for the Cardus Centre for Cultural Renewal, Calgary on June 8-9, 2006. "Ever since Jesus stated his kingdom was not of this world, Christians have been struggling to determine the appropriate relationship between political power and the church."
Why exclude Oedipus? On the incoherent statism of same sex marriage
(Interim, 2006-09) von Heyking, John
When Canadian parliamentarians reconvene the same-sex marriage debate this fall, they may wish to ponder the enormity of changing a law whose simple change affects the basic functioning of society. The political battle to redefine marriage to include same-sex marriage (SSM) carries numerous implications about which no partisan can predict.
Friendship and language
(Valparaiso University, 2007) von Heyking, John
Americans, even when not stranded on their rooftops, seem to have lost the art of friendship. They seem to be unsure just what to do with a friend. They know how to unite their bodies, but not their souls. They seem to have forgotten a rich heritage in Western thinking on the meaning of friendship. The ancient Greeks thought that friendship at its best involved conversing about the noble and the good.
Is political friendship possible in the modern age?
(2007) von Heyking, John
Lectures presented for the Chester Ronning Centre for Pluralism at Augustana University College (Camrose, AB) and The Kings University College (Edmonton, AB),
“Sunaisthetic” friendship and the foundations of political anthropology
(International Political Anthropology, 2008) von Heyking, John
Aristotle’s friendship teaching has been called the “peak” of his moral teaching. His understanding of sunaisthesis (joint perception/awareness) as the activity of virtue friendship has been called the “peak of the peak”. Furthering this line of inquiry, this paper considers how friendship is embedded in the nature of the intellect in sunaisthesis. By considering the manner that Aristotle thought the very activity of thought is to know and to love one’s friend, we see how friendship constitutes the foundation of politics, while also pointing beyond politics to the contemplation of the good. Friendship is built into the very way human beings think and act toward one another as moral agents, which shows its foundational role for political life. Because sunaisthesis cannot be judged by a standard or rule outside of itself, the paper considers the emphasis Aristotle places on the practice of friendship.
Law and religious pluralism in Canada : review
(University of British Columbia Press, 2008) von Heyking, John; Moon, Richard
Book review of Law and religious pluralism in Canada edited by Richard Moon. The essays in this volume ponder the nature of religious freedom and pluralism in Canada. In addition to considering recent case law, the authors inevitably reflect upon the nature of religion, freedom (and the nature of the individual endowed with freedom), equality, autonomy, and the meaning of “secular” and “secularism.” In terms of these deeper political questions, this collection of essays by mostly legal scholars is a mixed bag because they raise important questions without moving beyond the horizon of liberal (and, as I shall argue, religious) assumptions concerning the good society.
Religious education and the Canadian regime: some considerations remarks prepared for roundtable on religious education
(2008-04) von Heyking, John
Canadians struggle with 2 questions concerning education & political order. The meaning of secular & meaning of civic education. The civilizational question & its place in the particularities of the Canadian regime
Civil religion and human rights in Canada
(Conference on ”Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Conscience, Right for Unification: International and Russian Experience of Application: The 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights., 2008-04) von Heyking, John
One of the reasons why religious pluralism flourishes to the degree it does in Canada and the United States is because, as immigrants, we have inherited a cultural attitude of healthy skepticism toward what politics can achieve. We have a cultural inheritance of recognizing that religious persecution is frequently the result of attempts by political rulers to establish political uniformity with dubious and overreaching civic ideals. Wehave a cultural inheritance of recognizing that human happiness is better achieved within religious communities, through education, than in larger political communities where those ideals are enforced with the sword. In short, we have a cultural inheritance of recognizing the limits of state power and laws to promote public morality, which sustains a public understanding of the limits of what politics can achieve in promoting human happiness and virtue.
The Canadian political crisis
(Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, 2008-12) von Heyking, John
Canada faces a political crisis, and potentially a crisis of national unity, that it has never seen before. Harper’s Conservatives won a minority government in October. Yet, in just six short weeks, his government is facing defeat in Parliament, and the country is faced with the prospect of government being taken over by a coalition of Liberals, New Democrats, and Bloc Quebecois who currently form the Opposition.
Friendship in light of the modern philosophical revolution
(Redeemer Pacific College, 2009) von Heyking, John
"Modernity constitutes a completion over antiquity in the sense that it establishes the incompleteness of philosophy in a way antiquity failed to see. If Socrates represents the greatestinsights of antiquity, Kierkegaard represents the modern thinker who saw this advance the most clearly. I wish to assess Walsh’s claim with reference to friendship, the culmination of the ethical life – or existence – for the ancients. The modern philosophical revolution, with its turn toward existence, deepens our awareness of the unconditioned, personal love at the heart of existence."
The charter and civil religion
(Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009) von Heyking, John
"Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, along with the Supreme Court, is the focal point for an evocation of civil religion ... The manner in which important constitencies speak of the Charter ... reveals an attempt ... to create a civil religion based upon the language of rights found in the Charter that postulates Canada participates in the unfolding of a progressive history toward a more democratic and egalitarian future in which individuals are thought to be unencumberedby history, nature, religion, tradition, or community."
God's co-workers: Remi Brague's treatment of the divine law of Christianity
(Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2009-04) von Heyking, John
Our imprudence is related to our confusion about the nature of law, which, as Rémi Brague demonstrates in his The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea, derives from the modern rejection of certain presuppositions of divine law found among the three Abrahamic traditions, especially in the understandings expressed during the Middle Ages.
Obstacles to liberal education in the modern university
(Southern Utah University Press, 2010) von Heyking, John
To be a teacher of the humanities at a university means participating in a community dedicated to enquiring into the good for human beings. As members of a community of teachers, scholars, and students, we share an equality on account of the fact that no individual possesses a firm grip on the truth of that good. As teachers, we are unequal to our students by virtue of the fact that we have dedicated our lives, at least to a certain extent either professionally or even in amateur fashion (in the original meaning of amateur), to the pursuit of the truth to a degree greater than others. Thus, the community a teacher shares with a student, and perhaps with other teachers, is qualified.
The persistence of civil religion in modern Canada
(2010) von Heyking, John
Lecture presented at the Ninth Annual Lecture on the Hill, Ottawa, Ontario.
Periagoge : liberal education in the modern university
(Southern Utah University Press, 2010) von Heyking, John
Chapter contained in the book The Democratic Discourse of Liberal Education". One of the common criticisms of the contemporary university is that it lacks individuals unwilling or incapable even of conversing. Critics such as Anthony Kronman and Stephen Miller rightly observe that there’s something about contemporary culture and the contemporary university hostile to the arts or habits of conversation. Conversation has had a place in liberal education going back at least to the Platonic dialogue, if not back further, should one wish to see things this way, to the point in the evolution of bipeds that sat conversing so long that as apes, they lost their tails and became human beings.2 Conversation as the primary mode of liberal education is not meant to produce “results” but is an ongoing quest for understanding the human condition in all its manifold.