Lunatic Fringe
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.
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. These churches have taken a strong stand against these ideas and I heartily commend them for it. The FRCA is in ecumenical contact with those churches, working towards a relationship with them. The Canadian Reformed Churches, however, have had a relationship with them for a long time and there is a lot of membership back-and-forth, especially with the URCNA. That in turn can have a follow-on effect all the way down here to little old Tassie. If you’re in a Reformed or Presbyterian church, you can probably apply a similar logic. It’s something we all need to be aware about, regardless of our church affiliation.
According to this report from World, the Reformed Presbyterian Church recently excommunicated a pastor for kinism. Among other things, Samuel Ketcham wrote that it is not a sin to claim that white people are inherently superior. Situations like this led the RPC to make a statement that their churches “condemn without distinction any theological or political teaching which posits a superiority of race or ethnic identity born of immutable human characteristics and call to repentance any who would promote or associate themselves with such teaching, either by commission or omission.” That mentality is in keeping with the historical of the RPC in North America.
In the United States, the RPC unanimously ruled early on that no slaveholder would be permitted to take communion. In Canada, Rev. William Somerville (an RP pastor in Nova Scotia), published a pamphlet in 1864 entitled, Southern Slavery not founded on Scripture Warrant. The Covenanters have been consistently antiracist, never afraid to be bold in defence of what the Bible teaches about the human race.
We’re going to need more of that spirit in the days to come, I fear. Social media has only exacerbated what the Internet started in the early 1990s in terms of spreading extremist hatred and racism. People, old and young, are drinking it up and they are increasingly impossible to reason with. In the end, the Jewish Man who rules this world has given the keys of the kingdom to his church. The key of church discipline needs to be applied faithfully to deal with these heinous and unbiblical attitudes and behaviours.
P.S.: Shai Linne recently released his latest album, Lyrical Theology, Vol 3: Sociology. He’s got two songs related to the above. Give them a listen:
