Last Updated on August 17, 2018
The Christian Right shares white supremacy and anti-Semitism with the Christian Patriots, but they are not violent separatists. They recognize the legal system as legitimate, and focus on stealth electoral work rather than armed resistance. Christian Right and Christian Patriot beliefs intersect in the Ron Paul milieu, but the Christian Right does not promote militias.
The nullification nonsense espoused by property rights groups the Christian Right associates with can lead those frustrated with electoral politics down the path toward Christian Patriotism. Other Christian Patriot trappings regarding the Federal Reserve and the UN also infect the Christian Right, as does Constitutionalism.
So you get Christian Right politicians who might buy into white supremacy and the Jewish conspiracy, become obsessed about banking, gold and racist Constitutional amendments, but not become involved in armed conflict or organized crime like Christian Patriots do. Constitutionalists can sometimes be recruited into more violent behavior by their Christian Patriot brethren, but that is usually in response to a change in political climate, catalyzed by a perceived crisis like property rights groups promote as part of their Wise Use campaigns.
Concepts like nullification and constitutionalism — embedded in Christian Right/property rights propaganda, and promoted by white supremacist organizations like Citizens Equal Rights Alliance — help Christian Right individuals rationalize working with or joining Christian Patriots during times of elevated stress associated with hate campaigns. Thus the importance of exposing stealth Christian Right candidates, their beliefs, and their role in the Far Right spectrum.
Readers might recall CERA/property rights organizer Skip Richards’ remark about hosting Christian Patriot militias as, “just playing interest group politics.” Using them to intimidate political opponents of the Christian Right/property rights milieu is terrorism, but as a Wise Use agent provocateur, Richards was interested in electoral power, as are his friends in the Christian Right.
Creating a political climate of hate to the extent that Christian Patriots engage in armed violence is unusual, and I don’t see that happening in the Tea Party/Christian Right/property rights/CERA alliance against American Indian treaty rights. It is organized racism, but it is not murderous.
Keeping them in check is an achievement accomplished by exposure, confrontation and rejection. Hopefully, their exposure will prompt progressive religious networks to confront, and communities to reject, organized racism–before it turns violent.
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