Lunatic Fringe
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 just starting to take off. Neo-Nazi racists were all over it like white on bread. I had one of those old fashioned Internet accounts that used a text-based app called Lynx for web-browsing. One of the first websites I encountered was an anti-holocaust denial site called Nizkor – Hebrew for “We Remember.” That was an education. I never realized how many Jim Keegstras there were. I put a link to that page on the earliest versions of my website. In case you’re interested, the website is still up.
Now I’m here in 2026 and we’re still dealing with holocaust denial or minimization. There are still people spreading vile conspiracy theories about the Jews. There are now “kinists” – people who argue with varying degrees of stridency that one should only marry within one’s “race.” There are “race realists” – people who argue that there are innate differences between the “races.” The thing that has changed is that these views are now being aired by those who claim to be Reformed Christians. I’m appalled and you should be too.
