Reuben H. Sawyer

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Reuben Herbert Sawyer (* 1866 ; † 1962 ) was an American clergyman. As an important exponent of Anglo-Israelism , he combined religious beliefs with ultra-conservative and radical political activism.

Life

Sawyer was originally a pastor of the East Side Christian Church in Portland . Here he built up a strong group of Anglo-Israelites with the Anglo-Israel Research Society until the early 1920s . He was also instrumental in founding the British Israel World Federation in London in 1919. Sawyer was a sought-after speaker and gave up his pastorate in 1921 to devote himself exclusively to lecturing on the Pacific coast and in western Canada , especially in Vancouver .

In addition to his commitment to the Anglo-Israelite movement, Sawyer helped establish the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon . Sawyer mainly appeared as a speaker, sometimes speaking in front of several thousand listeners. In 1922 he also took over the management of the women's organization of the Klan Ladies of the Invisible Empire , founded by the leader of the clan in Oregon, Fred Gifford . In 1924 he fell out with Gifford and left the clan.

Sawyer argued that one could distinguish between the true Israelites, from whom the Anglo-Saxons were descended, and "false" Jews. Influenced by the publication of the series of articles The International Jew in the Dearborn Independent weekly newspaper, edited by Henry Ford , Sawyer began to identify the "wrong" Jews with un-American goals and Bolshevism . He mainly counted Jews of Ashkenazi and Eastern European origin in this.

Fonts

  • The Jewish question. Crown Printing Works, Mere Wilts 192-?
  • Bible religion. Or, the church of the scriptures. Standard pub. Co., Cincinnati, Ohio 1900.
  • The livery of heaven. The CM Clark Pub. Co., Boston 1910.
  • The truth about the invisible empire. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; a lecture delivered at the Municipal auditorium in Portland, Oregon, on December twenty-second, nineteen twenty-one, to six thousand people. Pacific Northwest Domain, Portland, Or. 1922.

literature

  • Randall Herbert Balmer: Encyclopedia of evangelicalism. Baylor Univ. Press, Waco, Tex 2004, ISBN 9781932792041 , p. 602.
  • Michael Barkun: Religion and the racist right. The origins of the Christian Identity movement. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1997, ISBN 0807846384 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sawyer, Reuben H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sawyer, Reuben Herbert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH 1866
DATE OF DEATH 1962