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Tactical Civics is a right wing Christian nationalist movement in the United States that wants to change not only American society, but the governing process. The group uses fear, conspiracies, hate, and God to mobilize individuals to work towards a country governed by biblical law while banning Islam in the nation. While writing this piece I became fascinated by the Repentant Remnant and will be writing more about these Christian nationalist movements.

 On November 8th I am part of a panel at uw to discuss the results of the 47th Presidential election. Experts in international relations, American culture and history, religion and politics, and me with conspiracy and Extremism will analyze the lead to up to the election and implications of the new president.

It will be held at the University of Waterloo at 3pm in Hagey Hall. If you’re in Waterloo come join in on the discussion. Veronica Kitchen, Andrew Hunt, and Scott Kline, are incredibly smart so this panel will be informative, entertaining, and thought provoking.

In 2025, I will have a manuscript published: Constructed Victimhood next year. The book contextualizes the role of a sense of persecution of white, Christian, men express on social media, providing an persona of victimhood allowing them to pursue an ideology of anti-immigration, anti-feminism, and anti-LGBTQ2SA communities. They are not alone, with some Christian women online, articulating the same victim status helping to mobilize a Christian nationalist movement across North America. Please check back for more details!

During my Postdoctoral Fellow position at the Disinformation Project at Simon Fraser University, we created a novel approach to coding conspiracy theories and right-wing extremists’ use of these theories to spread their ideologies. The entire group including Dr. Ahmed Al-Rawi, are the authors of The Canadian Far Right and Conspiracy Theories, with Routledge’s Far Right Series. Stay tuned for updated publication dates!

In May of 2023, I was part of a panel for the Interfaith Conference in Waterloo. The topic of the conference was finding common ground in a time of polarization, and I presented on conspiracy theories and religion, and the role of Christian nationalism leading to populism in North America. It was a great conference, and I was able to present with two of my favourite scholars, Dr. David Hofmann from New Brunswick University and Dr. Ahmed Al-Rawi from Simon Fraser University. The conference presentation was written into an article for Wilfrid Laurier University’s Concensus Journal.

I was recently interviewed by Jordan Bonaparte for the Nighttime Podcast to discuss the religious beginnings of the self-declared Queen of Canada, Romana Didulo. The interview was based on the article Dr. Amarnath Amarasingam and I recently had published on our research into her religious connections to religious movements from the 1930s and 1940s.

A few years ago I was digging around in a pile of books for sale at the University of Toronto and I found a treasure. In my hands I had an original copy of the proceedings from the first Parliament of World Religions, that was tattered and worn, but it was soon to be all mine. I posted endless pictures of the book’s pages on my social media and it soon took a place of prestige on my bookshelf.

Fast forward a few years and I was shocked and honoured to be invited as a panelist for the 2023 Parliament of World Religions being held in Chicago. I will be joining experts in the field of religion and extremism to discuss the “Rise of White Christian Nationalism: Threats to US Democracy.” The rise in Christian nationalism across the globe is something society as whole needs to be cognizant of and respond to. There are numerous panels and conversations which address the role of religion in society, polarization, fears and hopes at this year’s Parliament, which is being made held in a hybrid format.

Working with the team at the Disinformation Project at Simon Fraser University we researched the role of influencers within hate groups on the social media platform Telegram. Social media influencers (SMI) play a significant role in the spreading of hate ideology on platforms, recruiting new members, and organizing political social movements offline, in eruptions such as the events on January 6th on Capitol Hill or the Freedom Convoys in Canada. Research on SMI’s impact on conspiracy theories, social movements, and the spreading of hate is a relatively new field of research, and this work plays an important role in our understanding of the social capital power these individuals can have.

During the pandemic, and even currently, there are many hurdles to be faced with communication. What is the truth? Who are those we can trust. These issues continue to flourish as Chat GPT creates havoc with the line between real and computer generated faux reality. The Association for Canadian Studies invited scholars and policy makers to address this issue specifically with the pandemic, for their journal Canadian Diversity. My article looks at the way that conspiracy and extremism became prevalent in anti-mandate groups online.

Join us at a conference in Waterloo, ON on May 7-9, where academics and religious leaders will gather and speak about polarization in religious communities. Former Premier Kathleen Wynne, and Yale Theologian Miroslav Volf, will be engage through various panels and keynote speeches to help us all understand conspiracy, extremism, fear, and volatility that is the polarization we encounter in our religious institutions and flocks.