The Christian Identity Movement - New Tool for Racists

The Christian Identity or Israel Identity movement is one of the most frightening products of modern religion. Those who hold to this belief are Christians who contend that Jesus Christ was not a Jew as we currently define that term. In one version of the Identity movement's creation tale, Jews are all descended from Cain, the offspring of Eve and Satan, a product of original sin. The non-white races were, in this scenario, created before Adam, the father of the "true" chosen people, and were intended by God to be governed by Adam and his descendants. You might think this would have all gotten sorted out during the flood, at which time all the wickedness was supposedly purged from the earth as Noah took with him only his immediate family, but some of those sneaky sons of Satan must have sneaked aboard.

If this is all a little too weird for you, then you're perfectly normal. But don't think we can totally ignore these fanatics and their particularly racist brand of Christianity. These ultra-fundamentalists command a sufficient number of adherents to pose a threat to their target groups. One of the most notorious of the Christian identity organizations is the redundantly named Church of Jesus Christ Christian, better know as the Aryan Nation. Another notorious group following similar religious principles is The Order. Both of these groups, though small, have made their presence felt through violent acts such as armed robberies, bombings and assassinations. One of their most infamous crimes was the murder of Jewish radio announcer Alan Berg in 1984. Befitting their religious beliefs, some of these groups have apparently made plans to commit violent act, as they say, "of truly biblical proportions."

Beyond the well documented violence of these groups, the most frightening aspect of their campaign is the very real prospect that, someday, they just may succeed in selling their brand of religion to a wide audience. Is it realistic to be concerned about the influence of such a small group? I think it is, and the reason for my concern is the success of another group which incorporated similar ideas: the Nazis. The Nazis, although not, strictly speaking, a Christian movement, embodied very similar themes of racial superiority as the Christian Identity movement. In Nazi mythology, hastily developed in the first few decades of this century, the native people of western Europe (confusingly referred to as "Aryans") were the descendants of gods. The other "races" were either merely inferior versions of humanity (such as Slavs) to be dominated by the Aryans, or they were Jews, the evil enemies of the Aryans. The fact that Nazis were able to control Germany for fifteen years means that we must not dismiss the threat posed by similar groups operating today.

The emergence of the Christian Identity movement from the folds of the dominant religion makes it, in the domestic context, in some ways more threatening than the Nazis ever were. In fact, during the thirties the Nazi philosophy and that of certain fringe Christian groups were so similar that there arose an alliance between these two groups, which appealed to the same socioeconomic constituencies. One of the most flamboyant and popular of the Christian leaders of that era, Father Coughlin, a catholic priest, went so far as to plagiarize one of his speeches directly from Nazi propaganda minister Goebels. Today's right wing fundamentalist Christians also find, and sometimes openly seek, common ground with the more blatantly racist Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, and skinheads. The potential for these groups to unite, or, at least, coordinate their efforts effectively in the political arena, much the way that mainstream conservative groups have done, cannot be overlooked. In fact, to say that these groups coordinate themselves with each other is somewhat misleading, since it often appears that these groups' interactions are externally orchestrated, or at least influenced, to the benefit of political and economic agenda beyond the scope of the groups' own benefit.

It is ironic that the most rigidly dogmatic movements are most frequently the ones subjugated to the whims of a single individual. Time and again we see the same thing happening: God is the source of all good, and dictates, through his ministers, all moral values. These values of course favor the persons who create the deity. This is no more than an expedient means of producing moral justifications on the fly for whatever occasion they might be needed. Need to seize a new land without moral pangs? Declare its inhabitants heathens in need of conversion. Got a war to wage, but you can't quite find the right excuse to initiate the killing? Declare your adversaries to be enemies of God, thereby both justifying the conflict and insuring victory. These consistently repeated patterns highlight religion's true nature. It is not a means to cultivate meaningful love and respect between individuals and groups so much as it is a tool to facilitate control and oppression. Nazism and the Christian Identity movement are only slightly less subtle examples of this use of religion to promote one group of people at the expense of others.