Archive/File: orgs/american/christian.identity chr-iden.06
Last-Modified: 1994/06/19

Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,alt.revolution.counter
From: clstampe@rodan.syr.edu (Chris Stamper)
Subject: "Identity:  A Religion for White Racists" (fwd)
Message-ID: <1994Jun19.170117.3066@newstand.syr.edu>
Sender: netnews@newstand.syr.edu (Network News Administrator)
Nntp-Posting-Host: rodan.syr.edu
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 1994 17:01:17 GMT
Lines: 583

---------- Forwarded message ----------

"Identity:  A 'Christian' Religion for White Racists" (an article from the
Christian Research Journal, Fall 1992, page 20) by Viola Larson. Copyright
1993 by the Christian Research Institute, P.O. Box 500, San Juan
Capistrano, CA 92693. 

SUMMARY

   "Christian Identity" is the name of a religious movement
uniting many of the white supremacist groups in the United States.
Identity's teachers promote racism and sometimes violence. Their
roots are deeply embedded in movements such as the Ku Klux Klan
and the Nazis. They consider themselves true Israel and view the
Jews as half-devils and arch enemies. They believe all but the
white race are inferior creations. Identity's religious views are
bizarre and occultic, and their view of history is often informed
by conspiracy theories. Identity's use of the name "Christian" to
promote racism and violence is blasphemous. Jesus Christ as
redeemer of all races is God's supreme answer to Identity's
outrageous claims.

TEXT

   The headline read "Separatist Surrenders in Idaho." The story
was about Randy Weaver, a man indicted for selling two sawed-off
shotguns to undercover federal agents. During the FBI's attempt
to force Weaver to leave his Idaho home and return to court,
three people were killed: a federal agent and Weaver's wife and
son. When the standoff was over, 15 handguns, shotguns, and
rifles were collected from his cabin.[1] Randy Weaver is a member
of a religious movement called "Christian Identity." This
"Christian" wing of the larger white supremacist movement is
composed of adherents who variously give allegiance to the
burning cross of the Ku Klux Klan and the sun sign - the twisted
swastika - of the Neo-Nazis.

   The movement, also called "Israel Identity," has become the
uniting force among many white supremacist groups. Included in
most religious teaching produced by its leaders are racist
statements that echo the statements of other white supremacists.
The most moderate groups publish hate literature; the more
radical groups turn to violence, including murder. Among those
attracted to Identity in recent years are racist and violent
young "skinheads" - some of whom were a part of the crowd of
three hundred people who chanted racial slurs at federal marshals
attempting to capture Weaver.

   Although Identity groups are small in number and diverse, their
penchant for social agitation attracts widespread media
attention. The recent discovery that racist groups in the United
States are supplying both literature and organizational help to
racist groups in Germany is of concern to the whole Western
world. One article by the Associated Press states that "violent
acts perpetrated by far-right German extremists rose from 270 in
1990 to 1,483 last year, mostly attacks on foreigners."[2] The
article goes on to say that "police investigating KKK activities
in Germany raided some 30 buildings in May."[3]

    Not understanding the violent and racist nature of Identity,
Christians sometimes connect with this movement because of
Identity's espousal of issues such as anti-Communism and the
right to life. Because of this vulnerability it is important for
Christians to know and understand Identity's false and racist
teachings. For the sake of non-Christians, it is also important
for Christians to differentiate between biblical Christianity and
Identity. Finally, it is the moral duty of Christians to stand
against the evil intent of this form of white supremacist
teaching. It is to further each of these three purposes that this
article has been written.


THE JEW AS THE GREAT ENEMY

   Identity adherents believe they are the only descendants of
Adam and the only chosen descendants of Abraham. This is the reason
for the name Identity - they are convinced they know their true
identity. They believe they are members of the supposed ten lost
tribes of Israel. Identity adherents of today would include the
British, Germanic, and Scandinavian peoples as those comprising
the tribes of lost Israel. On the other hand, the Jew has for
them become the great enemy. This insistence on singling out
Jewish people as the enemy of the white race is the Identity
movement's most clear link to Adolf Hitler and his Nazi ideas.
The more extreme groups believe in what is referred to as the
"serpent seed" teaching that Eve and Satan had sexual intercourse
and produced Cain, starting a line of half-devil people. For many
Identity groups this imagined half-devil line of Cain is the
Jewish race.

   Pastor Arnold Murray, an Identity preacher from Gravette,
Arkansas, calls them "Kenites" (an Old Testament people he
identifies as "Cainites") and believes they were associated with
Judah until they took over leadership of that tribe. These "Jews"
were the people who killed Christ. Pastor Murray teaches that
calling the Jews the chosen people of God is the gravest of sins.
He says, "Bless your heart if you have ever been deceived by the
Kenite, and I am speaking now on the spiritual level, if you have
ever really believed that group was the chosen of God you were
deceived by Satan. Repent of that even more so than your personal
sins in the personal sense."[4]

   Some other Identity teachers believe the Jews are children of
Satan only in a figurative sense. But this really does not change
their attitude toward Jewish people - their statements about the
Jews still reflect a deep hatred. One writes about the Jew: "We
know that as a race, they have the sly characteristics of the
serpent...We know they have intimidated and imposed their will on
our own government and every government in the nations of
Christendom, through their dominance of finance, government,
church, education, and the media."[5]

    In this scenario, a political position begins to emerge: the
Jews are placed in a position of conspirators with Satan to take
dominion over the world. In an awful reversal of their biblical
role, the true Jewish people are now cast as the archenemy of God
and humanity. Claiming the sacred history and the sacred Book for
themselves, Identity teachers remove all that is a part of the
Jew's humanity.

RACISM: THE BASIS OF IDENTITY TEACHING

   Racial bigotry extends far beyond the Jews in Identity
teaching. Since the white race alone has descended from Adam, the
other races are viewed as a _prior_ creation. They insist that
Genesis 1:24, which describes the creation of animals and is prior
to the creation of Adam, includes a description of all nonwhite
races. In that list of created beings - "cattle and creeping
things and beasts of the earth" - they single out the word _beast_
as a description of other races. This of course means they believe
the other races are inferior. All Identity teachers refer to the
word _beast_ to explain how other races escaped the flood; they
were included among the creatures that Noah and his sons rounded up
for the ark.

   Because Identity teachers hold that the other races are of a
different creation, they consider interracial marriage a sin.
Identity teachers insist that interracial marriage was the cause
of God's judgment on the people of Noah's time. Consistent with
this twisted view of Scripture, they believe that to marry
someone of another race is treason to one's own race. Pastor Pete
Peters of La Porte, Colorado informs us that he teaches his
children to never marry a person of another race. He adds: "I
teach them also that if they ever did such a thing - never to
come around my house with their mate or their half-breed children
because they've been traitors to their own sires."[6]

    Some teachers - such as Richard Butler and his Aryan Nations,
and Dan Gayman and his Church of Israel - see the black race as
aliens and cohorts with Satan, and all other races as creatures
who, like animals, have no spirits. In the fantasy world of
extreme Identity, when Lucifer rebels he uses spacecraft and
fights battles against God with the help of beings from other
planets. The alien beings are forced to earth according to one
tape: "For the fleet...came to earth like crumpled birds
and...some survived and...some were wiped out....the dark and
curly-headed ones never before seen upon the earth, the coming of
the Negroid race."[7]

   Although Arnold Murray affirms that all the other races are
good, he offers the public, without apology, the book _Tracing Our
Ancestors_ by Frederick Haberman. Haberman writes: "It must be
noticed that there is a great difference between the three
principal races of mankind...and there exists little relationship
between the three. The white race were unquestionably the last
comers, being in every way superior to the other two and
constituting their leaders and teachers."[8] Pastor Murray also
teaches that even among Christians the different races should
have no fellowship.[9] All Identity groups certainly see the white
race ruling over the other races.

IDENTITY'S RACIST HISTORY

   *Racism as Science and History.* Many of Identity's racist
ideas can be traced to the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Esoteric sounding theories, propagated by intellectuals and college
professors of the day, were used to prove the inferiority of some
races. These theories have been disproved by modern scholarship
but are kept alive by the racist of today. One of the terms
common to such theories was _physiognomy,_ an ancient method for
determining human character by the study of facial features. This
included comparing those features to animal ones.[10] Also, many
historians of the time were highly nationalistic and, therefore,
prone to write with a high regard for the white race.

   *Religious Racism.* Another form of racism developed along
religious and nationalistic lines. The growing concern of the
peoples in the West (including the United States) with their own
national interest led to some strange ideas about national
identity. In the United States a theory called "Manifest Destiny"
evolved. That view included the understanding that it was the
nation's God-given destiny to expand from the east coast to the
west coast, and perhaps even to the southern end of Mexico. In
England another movement began that would later blend well with
the Manifest Destiny ideas held by some in the United States.
This religious movement was nationalistic, assigning religious
worth more to race than to righteousness.

   The movement, Anglo-Israelism, began in 1870. It was founded by
the Rev. John Wilson, a nonconformist minister who expounded the
idea that the Anglo-Saxons were the supposed ten lost tribes of
Israel. Believing the nations of western Europe and the United
States to be God's chosen people, they expected them to receive
all the promises God gave to Israel in the Old Testament.

   Mr. Edward Hine brought the Anglo-Israelism movement to the
United States in 1870, the same year the movement began in
England. His efforts were mostly unfruitful, but his book,
_Identification of the British Nation with Lost Israel,_ is still
used by adherents of Identity in the United States. Hine's book
was first among a spate of Anglo-Israel literature published in
the  U. S. - including a periodical published by Yale Professor
Charles A. L. Totten called, _Our Race, Its Origins and Its
Destiny._[11] Today, with few exceptions (the Worldwide Church of
God being one), most adherents of Anglo-Israelism are in the
Identity movement.

   *The Turn toward Violence.* Extreme racism entered
Anglo-Israelism because some of its most prominent adherents were
also connected to the Ku Klux Klan, and the Klan in turn had become
interested in the Nazis. The KKK was born, without overt racist
intentions, in 1867. Thomas F. Gossett, author of _Race: The
History of an Idea in America,_ notes that "the Klan originated as
a lark among young men in southern Tennessee who - so the story
goes - chose this method of visiting their sweethearts attired in
their version of the costume of Knights of old and discovered
accidentally that they were terrifying the Negroes."12 The Klan
grew in its attempt to control black people during the
Reconstruction period. The methods included "assassination,
whipping, tarring and feathering."[13] The Klan during the 1920s
added Jews and Catholics to their list of enemies in an attempt
to attract more members. By 1923 membership had reached between
three and six million people. Decline came with the depression of
the 1930s and also with the Ku Klux Klan's overtures to the
American arm of the Nazi party before the Second World War.[14]

   The merging of Klan and Nazi extremism into the Anglo-Israelism
movement - which then produced the Identity movement - can
largely be traced to one man: Wesley Swift. However, it was not
Swift but Howard B. Rand (whose writings are published by Destiny
Publishers) who first coined the term _Identity._ According to
James Coates, Rand's intention was "to describe Hine's concept of
Anglo-Israelism, in which Jesus was not a Jew of the tribe of
Judah but an Aryan of the ten lost tribes of Israel and an
ancestor of the present British, Germanic and Scandinavian
people."[15]

   Wesley Swift was a prolific speaker and his tapes and written
messages are frequently used by Identity speakers. His
connections to the Nazism of Hitler's Germany are unquestionable.
Swift was at one time both a friend and advance man for Gerald L.
K. Smith, a racist whose radical career began when he joined the
"Silver Shirts," an American Nazi group formed by Willam Pelley.
James Ridgeway, author of _Blood in the Face_ (a "who's-who of
hate"), notes that "with Pelley as their 'Chief,' the Silver
Shirts openly supported Hitler, cooperated with the pro-Nazi
German-American Bund, and embarked on a program of vicious
anti-Semitism."[16]

   Swift was also a member of the Ku Klux Klan when he founded the
Identity Church of Jesus Christ Christian in 1946. Richard
Butler, who was led into the Identity movement by Wesley Swift,
inherited Swift's church and founded an Identity compound called
the Aryan Nations, located near Hayden Lake, Idaho. Butler is an
advocate of Nazism, and his yearly Aryan Nations meetings attract
Klan members, Nazi groups, and skinheads.

   Some Identity teachers, although racist, reject Nazism in name,
attributing its cause to the Jews. This trend has started a new
controversy within the ranks of Identity. The Identity groups who
reject Nazism also do so because they are perceptive enough to
recognize Nazism's ingrained hatred of true Christianity.

IDENTITY'S SPIRITUAL HISTORY

   The list of spiritual influences touching Identity resembles a
religious vanity fair. The Neo-Nazi movement embraces the zodiac
of astrology as easily as it does the teaching of the quietest
mystic Madame Guyon. Its teachers write against the New Age
movement while embracing occultist Edgar Cayce. They also welcome
the deliverance ministries (those ministries that specialize in
the controversial practice of casting demons out of Christians)
while embracing the world of the occult.

   *Occult Influence.* Some of the groups that reject Nazism seem
to feature less occult teaching within their published material.
However, except for racist literature, occult teachings have
probably had the greatest influence on most Identity groups and
individuals. This may have partly developed from prewar occultic
German groups that were also anti-Semitic. German cults such as
the Alder and Falken and the Geusen worshiped the sun. And one
influence on Hitler was a group whose emphasis on German
nationality was connected to their interest in the Druids - an
ancient pagan people many Identity groups also embrace.[17]

   Wesley Swift used occult legends as "truths" in his sermons.
His bizarre teachings included stories about Atlantis and Lemuria,
fictional civilizations included in most occult philosophy.
Identity teachers of today such as Pastor Arnold Murray maintain
that the great Pyramid was built by the Israelites and is a
second revelation of God. The idea that the measurements of the
pyramid are encoded with a revealed message is occultic, since
the message is both supernaturally given and esoteric, known only
by those initiated into that knowledge. Identity also embraces
astrology and occultic tales of Jesus visiting Britain.

   *Other Streams of Religious Influence.* Because many Identity
adherents are people with a history of looking for "new truths,"
they often come to Identity from other religious movements,
bringing some of their unique doctrines with them. Thus the
teachings of several smaller religious groups have been added to
the racist teachings of Identity. These include the Sacred Name
movement (using only _Yahweh_ for God and _Yehoshua_ or some
equivalent for Jesus); Jesus Only teaching (the belief that there
are not three persons in the Godhead, only three offices); and
the Manifest Sons of God teaching (the expectation that an elite 
group of the church will deliver creation, overcome death, and 
help God bring in the kingdom). A few people came out of the 
restoration and charismatic movements and added their unique 
doctrines to Identity. The restoration movement teaches that God 
is restoring lost doctrines to the church. Utilizing this framework, 
the Identity teachers include Identity as one of the lost doctrines. 
(It is important to point out that although Identity teachers 
variously link Identity to the above movements and teachings, 
properly speaking thesemovements have nothing to do with Identity.)

THE BONDING LINK OF CONSPIRACY

   The Identity stand against the Jews as a people without value
who are enemies of the white race aligns the movement with other
groups that feed constantly on conspiracy theories, including
ones that are Nazi without teaching Anglo-Israelism. This taste
for anti-Semitism is most responsible for the intermingling of
Identity, Neo-Nazi, and other racist groups. Different groups
will often use the same speakers at their various churches and
survivalist camps. And individual members of different groups
will order the same books from racist publishers.

   For instance, many Identity groups offer books by E. Raymond
Capt and also use him as a speaker, since his specialty is
supposedly archaeology and history. Capt's writing includes such
books as _Stonehenge and Druidism_ and _The Traditions of
Glastonbury: The Silent Years of Jesus between 12 and 30._ Another
speaker used by most groups is Lt. Col. Jack Mohr, whose specialty
is anti-Communism. Mohr offers such tapes as "Background to
Betrayal: How America Has Been Betrayed by Zionists Both Jewish
and Christian." Many racist groups, including Identity groups,
sell or refer to the book, _Protocols of the Elders of Zion._ This
fraudulent book is supposedly a document of conspiracy by Jewish
leaders to take over the world.

   Most conspiracy theories have developed from a particular fear
- and the need to master that fear, by identifying a cause and
then supposedly gaining control of the situation. For instance, the
cause of the Black Plague in the Middle Ages was attributed to
the Jew. The solution espoused was to kill or remove the Jews.
Then the plague would supposedly end. The disastrous condition of
Germany after the First World War was attributed to the Jew by
some fearful Germans. Eventually their evil solution brought
about the Holocaust.

   All of these groups together, both Identity and non-Identity
white supremacist, hold a dangerous sociopolitical view. Their
mutual solution to this supposed "Jewish control" is a race war.
This war is considered by many Identity teachers to be the last
great battle, Armageddon.

    According to these teachers, at the head of this conspiracy
that leads to the final battle is ZOG: Zionist Occupation
Government. Zionist Occupation Government simply means to Identity
adherents that the Jewish conspiracy has taken over the government
of the United States. Since they also believe that Jewish leaders
are using other races to destroy the white race, the final battle
pits the white race against virtually all others. And, because
they constantly feed on conspiracy theories that involve those
whose beliefs or politics oppose their own, Identity's political
and religious opposites are also considered their enemies.
Furthermore, they do not have to love their enemies because they
consider most of them subhuman.

THE PARASITIC EXISTENCE OF IDENTITY

   The farm crisis is an important source for Identity propaganda.
Using such tapes as "A Biblical Look at the Farm Problem," they
prey on farmers who are losing their farms.[18] Some Identity
teachers are suggesting that ZOG or the Jews are behind the loss
of the farms. They have managed to pull a few farmers into the
movement through these tactics. This kind of parasitic existence
is typical of Identity extremism. They appeal to other
conservatives concerning such issues as AIDS, abortion, and
prison reform. _This is where some Christians have been pulled
into the circle of Identity._

   Many Christians find they are facing a bewildering morass of
social problems. For some this has led to a deeper understanding
of God's sovereignty, and a greater dependence on His grace and
mercy to sinners. For others there is the enticing reach for the
quick answer. And this has meant a return to philosophies that
are _void_ of grace. At this point it is possible for the bits and
pieces of Identity to seep in. Christians who are far from
Identity's blatant racism nonetheless allow Identity's attitudes
and world view - including conspiracy theories - to touch the
core of their faith. Turning to ideas, news sources, and leaders
who lack an understanding of the true gospel, these Christians
accept into their beliefs and their publications concepts that
are not biblical.

GOD'S ANSWER TO RACISM

   The psalmist wrote, "Thy word I have treasured in my heart,
that I may not sin against thee" (Ps. 119:11). A lack of biblical
teaching in differing ages has often opened the door for both
heresy and sin within the Christian community.

   In the Nazi era a great deal of Old Testament Scripture had
already been rejected by many liberal scholars, mainly in
Germany. Unlike the Identity movement of today, which accepts all
of the Bible as inspired, the Nazis who considered themselves
"Christian" were able to divorce the Jewish foundation of
Christianity by simply disconnecting Christianity from both the
Old Testament and Paul. Most of the "German Christians" - those
loyal to Hitler - based their religious views on a kind of
nationalistic nonsectarian ethic.

   Franklin Littell, Professor of Religion at Temple University,
writes: "The 'German Christians' were at least logical enough to 
press the religion of the ethnic base, infused with spirituality, 
to its logical conclusion: antisemitism."[19]  The point is: 
without a biblical basis, without Jesus Christ as Lord, any 
religion, even one named Christian - _especially_ one named 
Christian, can produce gross evil.

   Although the religious teachers of "Christian Identity" do not
reject the Old Testament or Paul, they distort and twist
Scripture until little is left. The Identity teachers' conclusion 
that the British, Scandinavian, and Germanic peoples are the lost 
tribes of Israel is a case in point. _None of the tribes of Israel 
have been lost._ While many of the northern tribes of Israel - 
carried into exile by Assyria - intermarried with the peoples they 
lived among, there is no biblical reference that would encourage 
this teaching of lost tribes.

   Christ's statement that He "was sent only to the lost sheep of
the house of Israel" (Matt. 15:24) is not a reference to tribes
that had physically disappeared, but to a people who were lost _in
sin._ Earlier in the text Jesus had sent His twelve disciples "to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. 10:6), and the
disciples did not need to search for the people they were sent to
help. After the captivity of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and
the Babylonian captivity of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, all
twelve tribes - whether living outside of the homeland or within
the homeland - were referred to as _both_ Jews _and_ Israel. Both
the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah, books about the return
of God's people to Jerusalem after their captivity, use the two
terms, _Jews_ and _Israel,_ to refer to the same people (e.g., Ezra
2:26; 4:12; Neh. 1:6; 4:1-2).

   Paul refers to himself as both a Jew and an Israelite. Writing
of God's enduring of the "vessels of wrath" for the sake of those
He would show mercy to, he notes: "And He did so in order that He
might make known the riches of His glory upon the vessels of
mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He
also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among
Gentiles" (Rom. 9:23-24). In the same chapter he writes: "For I
could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for
the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who
are Israelites" (Rom. 9:3-4). Luke in the second chapter of Acts
records the fact that Jerusalem was filled at Pentecost with Jews
from many lands, and when Peter addresses them he refers to them
as "men of Israel." Jesus explained to the Samaritan woman that
"we worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews"
(John 4:22), not only calling Himself a Jew but pointing her
toward the Jewish people, whom God had chosen to bless the world
through the promised Messiah.[20]

   Once the error of Anglo-Israelism is exposed it leaves the
Identity believer in a very damning position - Identity adherents
are not the chosen people, rather they are the ones _attacking_ the
chosen people, the Jews. And they are also the ones ranting
against the true church of Christ. They are, in fact, attacking
God, for their attempt to relegate other races to an earlier and
inferior creation is an attack on the love of God, as well as the
image of God in all humanity. It is the image of God in humans
that sets them apart from all other creatures and prepares the
way for Christ to take unto Himself human flesh and redeem people
of all races. The biblical themes of redemption, the Incarnation,
and the unity of humanity ("every nation and race") are
constantly blended together in Scripture.

   When Paul preached to the Athenians on Mars Hill he appealed to
their common humanity as creations of the true God when he
stated: "And He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on
all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed
times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should
seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him,
though He is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:26-27).
Genesis 10:1-32 names most of the nations that developed from the
three sons of Noah. Derek Kidner, author of _Genesis_ in the
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, writes: "Not every nation
known to the Old Testament is enrolled here, but enough are
present to make the point that mankind is one, for all its
diversity, under the one creator. Possibly the seventy names (Lxx
72) influenced our Lord's choice of this apparently symbolic
number of emissaries in Luke 10:1."[21]

   Jesus Christ is God's answer to racism. Paul admonishes the
Galatians that they are to make no distinctions among those
belonging to Christ; they are to be _as one:_ "For all of you who
were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free
man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in
Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:27-28). In the Book of Revelation, where
Christ is pictured as both "the Lion that is from the tribe of
Judah" _and_ "a Lamb standing, as if slain," the 24 Elders sing to
His glory: "For Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with
Thy blood men from _every tribe and tongue and people and nation._
And thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God;
and they will reign upon the earth" (Rev. 5:9-10).

   The church, those redeemed not by race but by the blood of
Christ the Lamb, understand Christ as both lion and lamb, both
sacrifice and King. Wilhelm Niemoller, one of the members of the
Confessing Church in Germany during the time of Hitler, wrote of
what it meant to confess Christ as the only Lord under that regime:
"One of my friends concluded a sermon of his in 1934 or 1935 by
saying: 'O Lord, Thou alone art our hope, apart from Thee, I know
none!' He was arrested, put on trial, and later released. The
enemies that listened to him had noticed that the Third Reich was
put in a difficult position wherever the 'One Word of God' made
its appearance."[22]

   The Neo-Nazi groups and those who feed on their hate literature
are simply a part of the rising paganism in America. They are
also an extreme example of groups who like to use Christian
terminology while laying foundations on extrabiblical revelation.
The need for present security, elitism, power, and a revelation
not anchored in Christ and the Word of God is the mark of
anti-Christian religion.

   The believer's only haven is Christ. This means there is no
present worldly security - the believer is not an elite person.
Instead, members of Christ's church are often the ones hated and
despised by the nations. The only power given is that which
_Christ_ gives, so that His followers may be able to faithfully
love, serve, and suffer in this present world. Finally, the
believer finds racial pride to be sin, because the only
exaltation a Christian knows is God's unmerited grace, freely
offered to _all_ in Jesus Christ.

Previously the director of Apologetics Resource Center,
Sacramento, California, Viola Larson is a graduate student in
history at California State University, Sacramento.

NOTES

1 John E. Yang, "Separatist Surrenders in Idaho," _Sacramento
  Bee,_ 1 September 1992, part A.
2 "U.S. Hate Groups Spread Their Venom to Germany," _Sacramento
  Bee,_ 14 August 1992, part A.
3 _Ibid._
4 Arnold Murray, _Grace: Baptism_ (cassette #406) (Gravette, AR:
  Shepherd's Chapel, n.d.).
5 Jack Mohr, "Seed of Satan: Literal or Figurative?" (Louis, MI:
  n.p., n.d.) 26.
6 Pete Peters, _Inter-Racial Marriage,_ part l (cassette 170) (La
  Porte, CO: Scriptures for America, n.d.).
7 Wesley Swift, _Dwellers in the Deep_ (cassette 350)
  (Waynesville, NC: New Beginnings, 1964).
8 Federick Haberman, _Tracing Our Ancestors_ (n.p., n.d.), 10.
  Reference is made within the book to Hitler in Germany, dating
  the book sometime before World War II.
9 Murray, _Grace: Baptism._
10 Thomas F. Gossett, _Race: The History of an Idea in America_
  (New York: Schocken Books, 1965), 71.
11 James Coates (New York: Hill and Wang, Farrar, Straus, and
  Giroux, 1987), 181; Gossett, 192.
12 Gossett, 259-60.
13 _Ibid.,_ 260.
14 Coates, 33-36.
15 _Ibid.,_ 93.
16 James Ridgeway, _Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan
  Nations, Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture_ (New
  York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990), 45.

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor