President at Center for Public Justice
Washington D.C. Metro Area
President at Center for Public Justice
Washington D.C. Metro Area
Gideon’s vocational ends
1. Glorify God and enjoy him forever/Enjoy the comfort of belonging to Jesus
2. Love and cherish my wife
3. Love and educate my children
4. Help the people I encounter on the journey of my life to weave together their deepest loves, their everyday work, and their contributions to the common good
5. Help the organizations I am called to serve to cultivate clarity of purpose, generosity in relationships, accountability for good work, and wise stewardship
6. Teach wonder, heartbreak and hope
7. Be an active member of a world-wide family of churches that winsomely celebrates the reign of God
8. Wisely steward my health, household and livelihood, and offer hospitality to friends and strangers
I practice wonder, heartbreak and hope. I love stories. I study elegant techniques. I pay attention to patient cultivators of expertise. I read skillfully and voraciously. I design learning experiences imaginatively. I make connections between people who can help one another do good work. In my editorial work I have good intuition about content and authors. I am a skillful project leader and pay close attention to mission, morale, and money.
(Research industry)
2009 — Present (less than a year)
I am responsible for connecting the Center's rich legacy to its future constituency, in alignment with its purpose and mission.
Formally I only start work at the Center on October 1, 2009. Informally, I blog on behalf of the Center in the morning before I go to my current office, and dream about the Center whenever I am not taking care of the joys and responsibilities of marriage, family, church, and my other work.
(Think Tanks industry)
April 2000 — Present (9 years 4 months)
As a senior fellow at Cardus, Gideon was a participant in several research projects on the integration of faith and work by corporate executives, and co-author of the De Pree Leadership Center monograph To Honor God: Dacor’s pursuit of corporate virtue (2004). Gideon writes and lectures widely. His essay “My Africa Problem … and Ours,” which first appeared in the journal The New Pantagruel, was subsequently published in the volume The Best Christian Writing of 2006, edited by John Wilson (Jossey-Bass). In 2007 he gave the Lectures in Moral Formation at Wheaton College, and served as the keynote speaker for the Interdisciplinary Studies conference at the King’s University College in Edmonton, Alberta. In 2008 he gave the Zylstra Lectures at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, and was Fall Retreat speaker for the Manna Christian Fellowship of Princeton University.
(Think Tanks industry)
July 1999 — Present (10 years 1 month)
Comment is a journal that appears in print quarterly, with a weekly online edition. Comment seeks to communicate a Christian worldview and cultural strategy to the next generation of cultural leaders. See: http://www.cardus.ca/comment/. For Gideon’s own recent writing in Comment, see http://www.cardus.ca/contributors/gstrauss/.
(Non-Profit; Human Resources industry)
July 1999 — Present (10 years 1 month)
During Gideon’s tenure as director, the research and education department of teh Christian Labour Association of Canada has developed a comprehensive education program for CLAC staff, including the one year “CLAC College” for new staff (two week-long worldview retreats, a three-day workshop on negotiation skills, and a curriculum of interactive intranet-based supervised personal study), six-monthly two-day national educational retreats with about 100 of CLAC’s staff, and an annual educational retreat for managers. The department has also helped in the development of both workshop-based and video-based educational programmes for CLAC members. The department has engaged in a wide array of research programmes, has developed and managed innovative new programmes for the organization, and has provided an extensive series of reseach-based products (databases, publications, reports, advisory briefings). For a period of five years Gideon also managed the head office of CLAC.
(Higher Education industry)
July 2000 — May 2009 (8 years 11 months)
In Canada Gideon has taught three-credit courses at Tyndale College, Tyndale Seminary, Trinity Western University, and the Institute for Christian Studies, and he continues to teach an annual lecture on vocation at Tyndale College. Most frequently, however, Gideon has taught philosophy at Redeemer University College, alternating between an Introduction to Philosophy course in the Fall semester and an upper level course in the Winter semester (variously aesthetics, social philosophy, and modern philosophy). He is a demanding and imaginative teacher.
(Non-Profit; 1-10 employees; Non-Profit Organization Management industry)
2002 — 2002 (less than a year)
I served on the founding board of IJM Canada, an organization committed to fighting sexual trafficking, bonded labour, and illegal land evictions.
(Educational Institution; 501-1000 employees; Research industry)
March 1995 — December 1997 (2 years 10 months)
Did research on the economics of language in support of language policy work in support of the new democratic constitutional order in South Africa. Also provided simultaneous interpretation services to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (investigating gross human rights violations) chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the provincial government.
(Government Agency; 5001-10,000 employees; Government Administration industry)
May 1986 — February 1990 (3 years 10 months)
I served just more than three years of a six year community service assignment in the Department of Labour, as a conscientious objector to military service under the apartheid government. I studied full-time at night school at the same time.
Christian spirituality 1998 — 1999
Regent College was a time of sabbatical refreshing and personal development. I focused on learning to pray and read the Bible, tried to learn as much as I could from JI Packer and Eugene Peterson, and worked as a teaching assistant to Craig Gay. Our family loved Vancouver.
PhD , Philosophy and ethics , 1985 — 1995
I studied philosophy with good teachers. My mentor, Kobus Smit, introduced me to aesthetics, trained me in ethics, and supported my partner and I as we tried to come to grips with our political responsibilities against apartheid. There was much wrong with the university during the time I studied at it, most significantly the fact that it was an apartheid institution that excluded students on the basis of their race.
Matriculated , 1980 — 1984
Jim Fouche is an academically oriented public school in my birth town of Bloemfontein, South Africa. During the apartheid years it was complicit in the policies of racial segregation enforced by the then government.
Justice advocacy, poverty reduction, business studies, philosophy, literature (high and low), film, music (classical and world), business magazines, journals of public opinion, poetry, painting, environmental art (in the manner of Andy Goldsworthy), hiking, city living, zeitgeist analysis