Our Story
How It Started
The Ezra Institute was founded in 2009 by Joe Boot as an evangelical think-tank and worldview training organization, after years of travelling globally in the work of Christian apologetics and undertaking significant research in the areas of cultural and mission theology and philosophy. It was during this period that Joe also planted Westminster Chapel in downtown Toronto.
For the Word of the living God has come with its revealing light into our life, and all human life whether men are aware of it or not, is some kind of response to that Word.
Why Ezra began
Crisis Response
Observing that opposition and objection against the Christian faith were increasingly being framed in cultural, civilizational and political terms, the Ezra Institute was envisioned as a biblical response to what Joe understood to be a deep crisis in Western culture that had decisively impacted the church; a crisis rooted in the widespread loss of a comprehensive gospel, a distinctly scriptural worldview, and ultimately a failure to recognize the religious root of all human life and thought – from education and law, to politics, medicine, art and science. He believed such a loss required the constructive recovery of a full-orbed gospel and cultural apologetic capable of confronting systematic unbelief with systematic belief in every sphere of life.