A new classical college in Wyoming has hired as its president the pastor “exiled” from Canada after he prayed and sang the national anthem at a lockdown protest in Ottawa two years ago. On Jan. 23, the decorated veteran Harold Ristau’s legal team also prevailed in a court case against the Canadian government that argued treating peaceful dissent as terrorism violated Canadians’ civil and constitutional rights. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government vowed to appeal.
“We’re really, really, excited about coming to the States. Thank you, America,” Ristau told The Federalist Tuesday on a Zoom call from Kenya, where he has been teaching pastors and missionaries as academic dean at the Lutheran School of Theology.
After Canada’s government threatened Ristau’s family under terrorism provisions for peacefully attending a lockdown protest, they moved to Kenya in August 2022. This April after classes at the Kenyan seminary conclude, Ristau’s family will move again, to Casper, Wyoming, where he will begin helping build a new college from the ground up. Between now and then, Ristau will also train pastors in South Sudan, where white travelers are told not to take airplanes for their safety and to pack only what they’re willing to lose to robbery.
“He is indisputably brave,” said Pastor Christian Preus, chairman of Luther Classical College‘s board of regents, which hired Ristau. “He’s been on the frontlines ministering to soldiers and knows what it means to lead in difficult situations. His courage is also displayed in what he did in Canada.
