Lunatic Fringe
By Wes Bredenhof Published July 13, 2026 "You might hear it and think you’re insulated from these developments. Let’s say you’re like me and you’re way out here at the end of the earth in Tasmania. I’m in the Free Reformed Churches of Australia. Some of these views are bubbling up in churches like the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and United Reformed Churches." Back in the 1980s, when I was growing up in Alberta, there was an infamous high school teacher named Jim Keegstra. His parents were Dutch immigrants and they were members of a Reformed church. He became infamous while teaching social studies at the Eckville public high school. It came to light that Keegstra was an anti-Semitic holocaust denier who was promoting his views in the classroom. This led to his firing and a lengthy court battle. The case was national news. It highlighted the fact that there were extremist views living in Canada. When I started at the University of Alberta in 1992, the Internet was jus...
