Christian terrorism

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The Ku Klux Klan with a fiery cross

Christian terrorism can be defined in legal terms as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”[1], “motivated in whole or part by an offender’s bias,” [2] specifically, Christian bias.

In a 2002 interview on religion and terrorism, Bruce Hoffman offered his opinion: "Even when terrorists are religious, the fact that they may worship in churches, may have been devout in their practices, is almost immaterial. The key is whether they are using liturgy or religious texts to justify or explain the violence or attract recruits and whether there is some sort of clerical figures involved in some leadership roles."[3]

In recent periods, examples of Christian terrorism are overwhelmingly tied to individuals and small groups, drawing condemnation from various institutional church bodies.[4] Incidents involving hate groups and hate crimes motivated by religious bias directed at the U.S. government or the American population may be investigated as acts of domestic terrorism.[5] "The victim of a hate crime may be an individual, a business, an institution, or society as a whole."[6]

Lynchings, Cross Burnings, & the Noose

Lynch mobs, "the assemblage of two or more persons, without color or authority of law, for the premeditated purpose and with the premeditated intent of committing an act of violence upon the person of another,”[7] can be considered vigilante terrorists,[8] and during the late nineteenth century in the United States, Great Britain and colonies, lynching as a form of terrorism coincided with a period of high imperialism violence and organized religious inspired protest which denied people participation in white dominated society on the basis of race or gender after the Emancipation Act of 1833.[9] In "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Mob: Violence against Religious Outsiders in the U.S. South, 1865-1910", Patrick Q Mason describes a wide range of activities involving lynching, including murder, attempted murder, rape, beating, tar-and-feathering, and whipping. In addition, mob violence took the form of property destruction, such as when vigilantes burned or ransacked homes, businesses, and churches.[10] Cross burnings and nooses are two well known emblems of terror and primary symbols of the Ku Klux Klan made infamous during lynching in the late nineteenth century and still in use today. “A noose is a symbol of America’s oldest form of domestic terrorism.”[11] A rash of noose incidents reported in the months after three white students were suspended from school for hanging nooses in a tree in 2006 and the arrests later of six black students on attempted murder charges in the related beating of a white student in Jena, Louisiana have reintroduced the frightening and offensive symbol of segregation-era lynchings to the US. Some of the publicized incidents include nooses left in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag, on the office floor of a white officer who had conducted race-relations training in response to the incident, in the locker room at a Long Island police station which recently touted its efforts to recruit minorities, in a tree near a building on a Maryland college campus housing several black campus groups, and on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York. "The noose is replacing the burning cross in the mind of much of the public as the leading symbol of the Klan."[12] Cross burnings, while not that common compared to overall crime, still take place in the US today and have a huge impact on the victim and the entire community. Cross burnings are generally covert acts performed in rural areas where there are scarce witnesses and bonds between conspirators, especially if part of an organized hate group, are strong. "They are a poisonous kind of hatred and can increase racial tension that may already exist in the area."[13] Neal Chapman Coombs, 50, of Hastings, Fla., was charged with knowingly and willfully intimidating and interfering with right to fair housing[14] by threat of force and the use of fire and pleaded guilty to a racially-motivated civil rights crime involving a cross burning to prevent the purchase of a house by an African-American family. Coombs was sentenced to 14 months in prison in January, 2007.[15] "Cross burning remains a vicious symbol of hatred."[16]

Inter-religious violence in Poso, Indonesia

On July 26, 2007, 17 Christians were convicted of religion-inspired terrorism under Indonesian law. A Christian mob attacked, murdered, and beheaded two Muslim fishermen in September 2006, reportedly as retaliation for the execution in 2006 of three Christian farmers, who were convicted of leading a militant group which killed hundreds of Muslims in Poso in 2000, an execution that attracted a plea for clemency from the pope, and accusations from Amnesty International that the trial was unfair.[17][21]

The convictions come in the context of seven years of violence between Christian and Muslim groups in the province, including the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls on the way to school [22] and the deaths of hundreds of Muslims and Christians, and campaigns of religious cleansing on each side.

As part of the conflict numerous individual acts of terror have been perpetrated by both sides.

Current Christian Crusades: War & Proselytization

During the first Gulf war, in violation of Saudi law and a US agreement with its government that there would be no proselytizing, Franklin Graham sent thousands of Arabic-language New Testaments to US troops in Saudi Arabia to distribute amongst civilians. When Gen. Norman Swarzkopf sent a complaint via a chaplain, Graham replied he was under 'higher orders'. There is a legal basis for restraining evangelism. "The notion that these groups have an unencumbered right to march in and evangelize is simply not so in law - in a military law context, severe restrictions are permissible."[18]

Christian terrorist organizations

National Liberation Front of Tripura

The National Liberation Front of Tripura is a Fundamentalist Christian militant group in India, demanding a separate Christian state. Allegedly funded by the Baptist Church of Tripura, it is accused of ethnic cleansing[19] and bombings that have killed hundreds, as well as forcing gunpoint conversions. They were declared a terrorist organization under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in 2002.[20]

Freedomites

Freedomites (also Svobodniki or Sons of Freedom, Canada, 1902-present)[21]

Christian Identity, White Supremacy, and the ARA

Peter Kevin McGregor Langan and Richard "Wild Bill" Guthrie, founders of the Aryan Republican Army (ARA) and their paramilitary gang have been connected to hate fueled terrorist attacks involving train derailments, assassinations, bombings and a string of professionally executed armed bank robberies planned to finance an overthrow of the US Federal government. Similar social, cultural, and personal motivations have linked the ARA to a loose network of extreme radical right paramilitary cells including the White Supremacy movement and Christian Identity, a theology that supports a racist cause.[22]

Brothers Jacob Albert Laskey, age 25, and Gabriel Doyle Laskey, age 21, both self-avowed white supremacists, pleaded guilty in United States District Court in a Federal hate crime case to charges of conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil rights and intentionally damaging religious property for an attack on October 25, 2002 in which a group of men threw stones etched with swastikas through a Jewish synagogue's windows during religious services in Eugene, Oregon. Defendants admitted to intent to commit acts of violence and destruction against Jews, African-Americans, and members of other ethnic and racial groups. Jacob Laskey also pled guilty to solicitation to murder witnesses, soliciting a bomb threat against a federal courthouse, two counts of obstruction of justice, and being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.[23]

Criticism of the concept of "Christian Terrorism"

Critics of the concept of "Christian Terrorism" have maintained that the moniker is a false pretext used by the radical left and radical secularists to discredit Christianity with those that have little affiliation with or are not really motivated by Christianity, much like many who oppose the term Islamic terrorism. [24] As one commentator put it: "Watch closely and see how the Leftist media raises up the image of Rudolph as a 'Christian terrorist' as its latest tactic to damage and discredit Christianity." [25] An expert on extremist groups, James A. Aho, of Idaho State University, said he is reluctant to apply "Christian terrorist" to Eric Rudolph because he considers it to be an oxymoron. Instead he prefers "religiously inspired terrorist" because most mainstream Christians consider Christian Identity a heresy.[26] U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations does not categorize terrorist organizations by specific ideologies. However, incidents involving hate groups and hate crimes motivated by religious bias directed at the U.S. government or the American population may be investigated as acts of domestic terrorism.[27] "The victim of a hate crime may be an individual, a business, an institution, or society as a whole."[28]

See also

References

  1. ^ Code of Federal Regulations (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85)[1]
  2. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation – Civil Rights - Hate Crimes – Hate Crime Overview [2]
  3. ^ RELIGION AND TERRORISM: Interview with Dr. Bruce Hoffman, Religioscope 22 Feb. 2002 [3]
  4. ^ On Crusades: Tyerman 2006; On small networks tied to Christian anti-abortion terrorism: Mason 2002; On Christian terrorism and violence: Juergensmeyer 2000; On small, marginal, fragmented nature of Christian Identity: Barkun 1994, pp. viii-xi; On condemnation of Christian Identity and terrorism by National Council of Churches: Zeskind 1987; On Inquisition: Lea 1961.
  5. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation - Civil Rights - Hate Crime Overview [4]
  6. ^ Hate Crime Statistics, 2006 [5]
  7. ^ S.C. Code of Laws Title 16 Chapter 3 Offenses Against the Person [6]
  8. ^ "Exploring Roots of Terrorism" Dipak K. Gupta, Department of Political Science & Fed J. Hansen, Institute for World Peace San Diego State University[7]
  9. ^ The Discourse of Violence: Transatlantic Narratives of Lynching during High Imperialism, Smith, Thomas E., Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Volume 8, Number 2, Fall 2007 [8]
  10. ^ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Mob: Violence against Religious Outsiders in the U.S. South, 1865-1910 [9]
  11. ^ Noose: ‘Shameful' sign makes ominous return, by Darryl Fears, Washington Post [10]
  12. ^ Rash of noose incidents reported across country in wake of Jena, La., case; International Herald Tribune, October 10, 2007 [11]
  13. ^ DECIDELY UNCIVIL: Cross Burnings in the 21st Century [12]
  14. ^ Title 42, U.S.C., Section 3631 [13]
  15. ^ HASTINGS MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO CROSS BURNING [14]
  16. ^ TWO MEN PLEAD GUILTY IN KENTUCKY CROSS BURNING CASE [15]
  17. ^ http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSJAK25548520070726?pageNumber=2&sp=true
  18. ^ A Crusade After All?; Jane Lampman; The Christian Science Monitor, April 17, 2003 [16]
  19. ^ http://www.stephen-knapp.com/christian_terrorists_kill_44.htm
  20. ^ http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/tripura/terrorist_outfits/nlft.htm
  21. ^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,842462-1,00.html
  22. ^ In Bad Company: America's Terrorist Underground, By Mark S. Hamm [17]
  23. ^ Guilty Pleas In Federal Hate Crime Case White supremacists guilty of attacking a Jewish synagogue [18]
  24. ^ Christian Terrorism? By Lowell Ponte, FrontPageMagazine.com, June 4, 2003
  25. ^ Christian Terrorism? By Lowell Ponte, FrontPageMagazine.com, June 4, 2003
  26. ^ Is Terrorism Tied To Christian Sect? By Alan Cooperman, Washington Post, June 2, 2003
  27. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation - Civil Rights - Hate Crime Overview [19]
  28. ^ Hate Crime Statistics, 2006 [20]
  • Barkun, Michael. 1994. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement, revised. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press.
  • Hedges, Chris. 2007. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. Free Press.
  • Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2000. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California.

Lea, Henry Charles. 1961. The Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Abridged. New York: Macmillan.

  • Mason, Carol. 2002. Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
  • Tyerman, Christopher. 2006. God's War: A New History of the Crusades. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Belknap.
  • Zeskind, Leonard. 1987. The ‘Christian Identity’ Movement, [booklet]. Atlanta, Georgia: Center for Democratic Renewal/Division of Church and Society, National Council of Churches.
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