Christian identity: the apocalyptic style, political religion, palingenesis and neo‐fascism

Abstract Aggressively dualistic versions of the Christian Identity theology in the United States are accurately described as neo‐fascist. This study will examine one such group, Aryan Nations, to illustrate how Gentile's theory of fascism as a totalitarian system that promotes the sacralisation of politics, and Griffin's theory of fascism as a form of palingenetic trans‐class populism, are complementary; and fit into a broader scholarly trend that classifies certain social movements as forms of apocalyptic millenarianism. This claim creates an Escher‐like picture in which the ‘sacralisation of politics’ leads up the down staircase to groups that add a theological dimension to a totalitarian political ideology that is palingenetic, and which began in fascist Italy as an attempt to create a secular form of sacred nationalism, thus producing a relationship between religion and politics that is fraught with irony and paradox. Notes Emilio Gentile, ‘The Sacralisation of Politics: Definitions, Interpretations and Reflections on the Question of Secular Religion and Totalitarianism’, trans. Robert Mallett, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 1/1 (2000), p.18. Ibid. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, new edn., new prefaces (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973 [1951]); Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, reprinted edn. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989 [1961]); and Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). Paul M. Hayes, Fascism (New York: Free Press, 1973); see especially the chapter on ‘The Concept of the Totalitarian State’, pp.39–50. Arendt (note 3). See Gentile (note 1), p.4: ‘By defining totalitarianism as an experiment, rather than as a regime, it is intended to highlight the interconnections between its fundamental constituent parts and to emphasise that totalitarianism is a continual process that cannot be considered complete at any stage in its evolution’. Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (New York: St Martin's Press, 1991), p.xi. Leonard Zeskind, The ‘Christian Identity’ Movement (Atlanta, GA: Center for Democratic Renewal/Division of Church and Society, National Council of Churches, 1987); Patrick Minges, ‘Apocalypse Now! The Realized Eschatology of the “Christian Identity” Movement’, paper presented at the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion, 1994; Kenneth S. Stern, A Force Upon the Plain: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996); Michael Barkun, Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement, rev. edn. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997 [1994]); Jeffrey Kaplan, Radical Religion in America: Millenarian Movements from the Far Right to the Children of Noah (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997), pp.47–68; Susan DeCamp, ‘Locking the Doors to the Kingdom: An Examination of Religion in Extremist Organizing and Public Policy’, in Eric Ward (ed.), American Armageddon: Religion, Revolution and the Right (Seattle, WA: Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment [Peanut Butter Publishing], 1998), pp.13–43; and Daniel Levitas, The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right (New York: Thomas Dunne/St Martin's, 2002). For early examples of how British Israelism came to the Americas, see J.H. Allen, Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright, 15th edn. (Haverhill, MA: Destiny Publishers, 1917 [1902]); and W.G. Mackendrick (The Roadbuilder), The Destiny of Britain and America, rev. edn. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1922). Howard B. Rand, Segregation: A Divinely‐Instituted Precept, pamphlet, (Merrimac, MA: Destiny Publishers, 1961). Zeskind (note 8); see also Barkun (note 8); and Kaplan (note 8). For detailed explanations of variations within Identity on the ‘seedline’ theories of Jewish heritage, see Zeskind (note 8); and Burkun (note 8). Levitas (note 8), p.24–37. Ibid., p.81. While I dissent from Levitas when he implies that the right‐wing populist armed militia movement is virtually identical to the neo‐fascist Christian Identity movement, the Levitas book is nonetheless an exceptionally detailed study of the Christian Identity role in the Posse Comitatus movement, and contains a tremendous amount of original research. Barkun (note 8), pp.68–71. Bill Morlin, ‘Verdict Busts Butler: Jury Orders Aryans To Pay $6.3 Million’, Spokesman‐Review, 8 September 2000; ‘Aryan Buildings Bite The Dust Symbols Of Racist Past Come Tumbling Down’, Spokesman‐Review, 24 May 2001; and ‘Butler Names Ohio Follower As Successor’, Spokesman‐Review, 7 December 2002; online archive. Aryan Nations, ‘What We Believe’, http://www.aryannations.org/an/goals.html, accessed 3 August 2004. With few exceptions, obvious typos from websites have been corrected. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Aryan Nations, ‘Platform For The Aryan National State’, flyer, no date, c.1990, on file at Political Research Associates. Online version http://www.aryannations.org/an/goals.html, accessed 3 August 2004. These are patterned, in part, on the ‘Programme of the NSDAP’, issued 24 February 1920, online (with some variation in text) at several sites, including: http://www.hitler.org/writings/programme, accessed 8 August 2004. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Moishe Postone, ‘Anti‐Semitism and National Socialism’, in Anson Rabinbach and Jack Zipes (eds.), Germans and Jews Since the Holocaust: The Changing Situation in West Germany (New York: Homes and Meier, 1986), pp.302–14; and Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons, Right‐Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort (New York: Guilford, 2000). Paul A. Lombardo, ‘ “The American Breed”: Nazi Eugenics and the Origins of the Pioneer Fund’, Albany Law Review 65/3 (2002), pp.743–830; see also William Tucker, The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002). On contemporary manifestations, see Barry Mehler, ‘Foundation for Fascism: The New Eugenics Movement in the United States’, Patterns of Prejudice 23/4 (1989), pp.17–25; Barry Mehler, ‘In Genes We Trust: When Science Bows to Racism’, Reform Judaism 23 (Winter 1994), pp.10–13, 77–9; and Barry Mehler, ‘Race and “Reason”: Academic Ideas a Pillar of Racist Thought’, Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center (Winter 1999), pp.27–32. http://www.twelvearyannations.com, accessed 2 October 2003. Email exchanges with Jeffrey M. Bale and Kevin Coogan, August and December 2003. Both argue that Christian Identity, even in Aryan Nations, is too rooted in homegrown American ideologies such as fundamentalism, xenophobic nativism and generic notions of white supremacy to be considered neo‐fascist. As an avowed Sternhellian, Bale also argues that the ‘Aryan Nations version of Christian Identity – or any other form of Christian Identity, for that matter – is not neo‐fascist because’ he argues ‘it lacks both the radical nationalist components and any of the left‐leaning (anti‐capitalist, syndicalist, and non‐Marxian socialist) ideological components characteristic of European proto–fascism, “Fascism of the first hour” in Italy, and most other’ fascist and neo‐fascist doctrines; quoted from email. See Jeffrey M. Bale, ‘Fascism and Neo‐Fascism: Ideology and “Groupuscularity”, A Response to Roger Griffin’, Erwägen Wissen Ethik 15/1 (2004), a draft of which was supplied to the author by Bale. This is sometimes called the Thomas Theorem. William I. Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas, ‘Situations Defined as Real are Real in their Consequences’, in Gregory P. Stone and Harvey A. Farberman (eds.), Social Psychology Through Symbolic Interaction (Waltham, MA: Ginn Blaisdell/Xerox, 1970), pp.154–5, quoted p.154. Two studies of members of hard Right groups in the US have found that they are roughly similar in demographics and apparent mental health to others in the surrounding population. James A. Aho, The Politics of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1990); Kathleen M. Blee, Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002). Eschatology is the study of the prophesied End Times. Exegesis in Christianity is primarily the analysis of biblical text to find core meaning. See as examples pamphlets from sermons by Wesley A. Swift, ‘Mystery Babylon’; ‘The Children of the Beast’; ‘Who are the Jews?’; ‘Was Jesus Christ a Jew?’; The Bible and the Race of Destiny’; ‘Michael, Prince Of Space’; http://churchoftrueisrael.com/swift, accessed 8 August 2004. Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, revised and expanded (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970 [1957]; London: Serif, 1996 [1967]); Michael Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974); James M. Rhodes, The Hitler Movement: A Modern Millenarian Revolution (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1980); Robert Wistrich, Hitler's Apocalypse: Jews and the Nazi Legacy (New York: St Martin's Press, 1985); Robert Ellwood, ‘Nazism as a Millennialist Movement’, in Catherine Wessinger (ed.), Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases (Syracuse, IL: Syracuse University Press, 2000), pp.241–60; and Richard K. Fenn, The End of Time: Religion, Ritual, and the Forging of the Soul (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1997). Roger Eatwell, ‘The Nature of the Right, 2: The Right as a Variety of “Styles of Thought” ’, in Roger Eatwell and Noël O'Sullivan (eds.), The Nature of the Right: American and European Politics and Political Thought Since 1789 (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990 [1989]), pp.62–76, quoted p.72. See also Frederick Wall, ‘The Fate that Hate Produced: Religion, Science, and Fiction in New Millennial Racialism’, in Martha F. Lee (ed.), Millennial Visions: Essays on Twentieth‐Century Millenarianism (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000), pp.71–93. Rhodes (note 32), p.18, citing the work on apocalypticism by Cohn and on gnosticism by Voegelin. For Cohn, see note 32. For Voegelin, see Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952); idem, Science, Politics, and Gnosticism (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1968); From Enlightenment to Revolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995). Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1999), p.563. Joel Kovel, Red Hunting in the Promised Land: Anticommunism and the Making of America (New York, Basic Books, 1994), p.77. Gentile (note 1), p.35. Ibid., p.20. Ibid., p.24. Ellwood (note 32), pp.241–3. This analysis of apocalyptic demonisation and millennialism is drawn primarily from the following sources: Norman Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith, revised and updated (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001 [1993]); Cohn (note 32); Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1992); Charles B. Strozier, Apocalypse: On the Psychology of Fundamentalism in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994); Stephen D. O'Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Lee Quinby, Anti‐Apocalypse: Exercises in Genealogical Criticism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); Robert C. Fuller, Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Damian Thompson The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998 [1996]); and Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan (New York: Vintage, 1996). Portions of this section first appeared as papers for the annual meetings of the International Sociological Association and American Sociological Association, which were converted into an article: Chip Berlet, ‘Dances with Devils: How Apocalyptic and Millennialist Themes Influence Right Wing Scapegoating and Conspiracism’, Public Eye 12/2–3 (Autumn 1998); http://www.publiceye.org/apocalyptic/Dances_with_Devils_1.html, parts of which were incorporated into Berlet and Lyons (note 24). For extended discussions from which snippets from this section were also plucked (and in the spirit of full copyright compliance), see Chip Berlet, ‘Apocalypse’, ‘Conspiracism’, ‘Demonization’, ‘Demagoguery’, ‘Totalitarianism’ and ‘Year 2000’, in Richard A. Landes (ed.), Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements (New York: Routledge, 2000); idem, ‘Apocalypse’, ‘Nativism’, ‘Devil and Satan’ and ‘Illuminati’, in Brenda E. Brasher (ed.), Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism (New York: Routledge, 2001); and idem, ‘Three Models for Analyzing Conspiracist Mass Movements of the Right’, in Eric Ward (ed.), Conspiracies: Real Grievances, Paranoia, and Mass Movements (Seattle: Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment [Peanut Butter Publishing], 1996), pp.47–75. Cohn (note 32), especially the ‘Introduction’; David G. Bromley, ‘Constructing Apocalypticism: Social and Cultural Elements of Radical Organization’; and Catherine Wessinger, ‘Millennialism With and Without the Mayhem’; both in Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer (eds.), Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements (New York: Routledge, 1997), pp.31–45 and 47–59 respectively. Cohn (note 41). Pagels (note 41), p.182. See, for example, Gerry O'Sullivan, ‘The Satanism Scare’, Postmodern Culture 1/2 (January 1991); Susan Harding, ‘Imagining the Last Days: The Politics of Apocalyptic Language’, in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (eds.), Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements, Fundamentalism Project 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp.57–78; and Ted Daniels (ed.), A Doomsday Reader: Prophets, Predictors, and Hucksters of Salvation (New York: New York University Press, 1999). Strozier (note 41), pp.223–48; and John M. Bozeman, ‘Technological Millenarianism in the United States’, in Robbins and Palmer (note 43), pp.139–58. Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003). Boyer (note 41), pp.21–36, 189–90; Fuller (note 41), pp.14–30; and Philip Lamy, Millennium Rage: Survivalists, White Supremacists, and the Doomsday Prophecy (New York: Plenum, 1996), p.37. Robert Alan Goldberg, Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), p.67. Fuller (note 41), pp.15, 26; and Lamy (note 48), pp.36–7. Goldberg (note 49), p.67. Fuller (note 41), pp.27–30; Lamy (note 48), pp.32–6; and George Johnson, Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order (New York: Knopf, 1995), pp.308–13. Michael W. Cuneo, The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and Victor Balaban, ‘The Virgin and the Millennium: Marian Sightings in the United States’, paper presented at a conference of the Center for Millennial Studies and Boston University School of Theology, 20 January 1998. For examples, see issues of the magazines Wanderer and Fatima Crusader, for example, Charles Martel, ‘The Antichrist’, Fatima Crusader (Summer 1994), pp.6–9. Michael Barkun (ed.), Millennialism and Violence, Cass Series on Political Violence (London: Frank Cass, 1996); Robbins and Palmer (note 43); David S. Katz and Richard H. Popkin, Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998); and Catherine Wessinger (ed.), Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000). Stephen Jay Gould, Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown (New York: Harmony Books, 1997). Gould examines the difference between ‘millenarian’ groups and ‘millennial’ expectation. Cohn (note 32). Boyer (note 41), pp.80–5. The classic study of millenarianism is Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of ‘Cargo’ Cults in Melanesia, 2nd rev. edn. (New York: Schocken Books, 1968). Preface to Revelation, New International Version of the Holy Bible [Protestant ‘NIV’ version] (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1984 [1973]), p.1698. Boyer (note 41), pp.80–112. Harding (note 45), see especially her explanation of how fundamentalists who expect to be Raptured can nonetheless justify becoming politically active, pp.69–71; note that this does not make them post‐millennialists according to their own theology. See also: Gershom Gorenberg, The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount (New York: Free Press, 2000). Grace Halsell, Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1986). Frances FitzGerald, ‘The American Millennium’, New Yorker, 11 November 1985, pp.105–96; quoted p.106. Lamy (note 48), p.155. See also Boyer (note 41), pp.327–31. Sara Diamond, ‘Political Millennialism within the Evangelical Subculture’, in Charles B. Strozier and Michael Flynn (eds.), The Year 2000: Essays on the End (New York: New York University Press, 1997), pp.206–16, cited on p.210. Gary H. Kah, En Route to Global Occupation (Lafayette, LA: Huntington House Publishers, 1991); Pat Robertson, The New World Order: It Will Change the Way You Live (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991); S. a New World Order: The Countdown to Church of the 1990); The of and the New World Order CA: 1994); and the of the Antichrist’, 1990); and the New World See, for example, Boyer (note 41), Strozier (note 41), (note 41), Fuller (note 41), Sara Diamond, by Politics The Influence of the Christian Right (New York: Press, 1998), idem, The Politics of the Christian Right (Boston: End Press, idem, ‘Political Millennialism within the Evangelical Subculture’, in Strozier and Flynn (note Frederick The Struggle and 1997), Jesus and the The that in Right‐Wing America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), and The and the Christian Right (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), Berlet and Lyons (note Richard ‘The in American in The in American Politics and Essays (New York: A. Knopf, David (ed.), The Fear of Conspiracy: of from the Revolution to the NY: University Press, Richard and Thomas M. (eds.), Conspiracy: The Fear of in American History (New York: and George Johnson, of Conspiracy and in American Politics Frank P. The and the American Right: and Culture (Westport, CT: 1985); David H. The of The American Far Right from to the Militia Movement, rev. edn. (New York: Books, (note and Goldberg (note Frank J. The of The and of Political Intelligence (New York: Vintage, (note Ibid., Thompson (note 41), Barkun (note 8), (note 8), ‘What We (note apocalyptic Christian movements that in are called this it Christ they and it for one the Second of Christ to be the see also note I it is to Aryan Nations Christian Identity theology as a form of (note 8), W. The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, MA: Hannah Arendt (note Arendt to the of the the are as no to an at See (note David Norman ‘The Social of Jews and the of Sociological Theory and The University Press, 1986). Berlet and Lyons (note in Peter N. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Social History (New York: 1994), the when I the Landes in in Richard and Thomas M. (eds.), Conspiracy: The Fear of in American History (New York: and The and the and in Ancient and Modern America (New York: Basic Books, 1991), Landes (note (note James A. Aho, This of A of the of the (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1994), (note A trans. University Press, 1994), (note Fuller (note 41), (note 41), Zeskind, Ideas on Conspiracy for a New Historical in Ward (note from Movements, Conspiracy and A Response to Chip in Ward (note quoted (note 41), Patrick (note 8), Kathleen M. Blee, Conspiracy: Women in and in Ward (note from See also Kathleen M. Blee, and of Millennial Studies (Summer 1999), on the Millennium, online version accessed 4 2004. Portions of this section are from that appeared in other see note the into any that is a Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (eds.), Fundamentalism Project (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, George M. Fundamentalism and American The of Oxford University Press, idem, Fundamentalism and (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. 1991); and American in Marty and Appleby (note American are the broader of the as by the University of Chicago studies in their Fundamentalism see Marty and Appleby (note Catherine Wessinger, and Revolutionary New October accessed 8 August 2004. This was at the conference on and Apocalyptic for at the by the Boston and the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, November 2003. The is on a theological of the the of and the both and and to justify the on some The for (New York: Books, 2001 see also David C. Militant Movements and in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (eds.), and the and Fundamentalism Project 3 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, see Wessinger (note in the of The Global of Religious Violence (Berkeley, CA: University of 2000), (note citing in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott An on a in Marty and Appleby (note (note Ibid., Paul Boyer, and Bible of February Daniel Levitas, for Reform Judaism online version accessed November Chip Berlet and Religion, and Middle Policy’, Right online version accessed 4 2004. (note (note and Stern, in the of Religious (New York: 2003). the are G. A History of University of Press, 1995), and Roger (ed.), Oxford Oxford University Press, 1995), Since fascist movements were can be from (ed.), Encyclopedia of the (New York: 1990); S. The War Against the Jews (New York: Books, and The Holocaust: The of European (New York: Schocken Books, with and The of Fascist trans. David University Press, (note does not the J. New Encyclopedia Hill, For see and Scott The Last The in University Press, Ideology and The of in the Press, 1991); and M. The and the A History of Fascism in and and Center for 2001); on the role in and see Rhodes, The in the of (London: and on see Michael The Church and the University Press, 2000), and and the in in Michael R. (ed.), The Nazi section to the (Westport, CT: For example, the ‘Political a group, promotes for the Movement, and a of as a in a accessed October (note Ibid., citing N. (note Roger the in a of exchanges in October 2001 were to some of the which are at the of this This was of a Robert and Matthew N. Berlet and Lyons (note For on see on The Social and Political of (Grand Rapids, MI: 1992); and (note Charles and (eds.), and the of the in University Press, Christian National

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