Kirsten Smeets is a theologian and scholar of religion. She is a lecturer and researcher, specialised in the relationship between philosophy, politics and religion. 

Kirsten Smeets has an interdisciplinary background rooted in theological ethics, Islam and political philosophy. She studies the relationship between religion and ethics and how this affects the design of, and potential dangers to, democracy. In her current NWO-funded research, she explores how processes of globalisation, secularisation and individualisation have influenced the degeneration of Western democracies and the rise of the European far right. She does this by applying an interdisciplinary method in which she combines political philosophy with data analysis (e.g. social media research) and insights from political science, sociology and religious studies. By bridging the various disciplines, she aims at gaining insight into the factors that are important in establishing a healthy democracy.

Kirsten Smeets teaches BA and MA courses at Utrecht University and University College Utrecht in the academic fields of philosophy and religious studies. The focus lies on religion in Europe, with themes such as secularisation, religion and conflict, religion in the anti-immigration discourse of the far right and religion and Islamophobia on social media. She teaches the following courses:

• Christianity in a Changing Europe
• Ethiek en Religie 
• Complottheorieën van Armageddon tot QAnon
• Ethics and Religion (UCU)
• Religie en Geweld
• Filosofie en Religiekritiek