Thursday, June 11, 2009

Exploring the basis for two recent killings


Scott Roeder and James Von Brunn are two of a kind; their killings are connected to fringe groups concerned with anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories and racism. The killer of the abortionist, Dr. George Tiller, and the killer of the guard, Brian Lennon, at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. are both involved in such fringe groups.

Author Leonard Zeskind, who has written on racist groups for many years, wrote a column for "The Huffington Post" about Scott Roeder, Tiller’s killer. He traces Roeder’s interests back “to the so-called Christian common law courts and the militia movement,” explaining that the groups were and are involved in something called “‘sovereign’ citizen.”

The term implies that the members believe they are not required to pay taxes or obtain marriage or driver’s licenses because they are under an illegal government.1 Usually, these groups see the United States Government as controlled by Jewish people or Zionist. The Government has been referred to at times as ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government).

Zeskind writes, “The notion of "organic sovereigns" was first promoted by the Posse Comitatus, best known for its tax protest politics, but imbued also with the racist and anti-Semitic ideology known as
Christian Identity.” Zeskind looks at the history of several fringe ideas tracing the militia group, the Posse Comitatus, to the Freemen, the group that Roeder was associated with. Zeskind’s article is important. It can be read here, Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Murder of Dr. Tiller.

James Von Brunn, the killer of Brian Lennon, is profiled in an article on The Washington Post, “Updated: Details on White Supremacist Suspect.” The article lists several groups and also quotes by Brunn. “Noontide Press” a racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist publisher is one of the entities. Several quotes by Brunn are, “"There was no policy to mass murder Jews,” and "No order was given to mass murder Jews. There was no budget to carry out such a policy. There were no means (gas chambers, etc.) to carry out mass murders."

The author of the Washington Post article writes:

“Von Brunn's online book, "Kill The Best Gentiles," is hundreds of pages of conspiracy theories that include Holocaust denial, the ancient hoax of the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," and wild webs of fantasy seeking to link the Federal Reserve Bank, the Illuminati, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx in a grand, centuries-long story of Jewish plotting against white people.”


In the fall of 1992 I wrote an article on Christian Identity for Christian Research Institute Journal. Yet, as Zeskind points out in his article, “this particular iteration of white nationalism was pushed aside as other forms, some more openly national socialist in their orientation, took its place at the front of the movement.”

But the movement still operates in the mind and movements of men like Roeder and it dirties the good name of the pro-life movement as it skirts about the fringes. But it need not, it is the baser world of racism, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories that underlies the thoughts of such men as Roeder and Brunn. They use any pretense, abortion is but one, and such men as Roeder are careful to feed off of the Christian community. It is a pretext for legitimacy; it has happened before, it will happen again.

Those who know Jesus Christ as Lord know better. Their source isn’t muddy water. It is living water. Their hopes are not placed in some horrendous utopia overseen by either the far right or the far left. Instead they know the voice of truth.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To Him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” (John 10: 1-5)

1. At one point in my work with fringe groups I counseled by telephone and mail with the supposed wife of an Identity leader who was trying to decide if she should leave him because of abuse.I say supposed because I found out as we talked that they were not legally married because of this idea of sovereign citizen. Happily it made some of my suggestions a bit easier.

2 comments:

will spotts said...

Thanks for writing about this, Viola.

While I think pro-life groups have been unanimous in condemning Dr. Tiller's murder, other issues really need to be addressed here.

One of the main ones is the way in which racist and warped idealogies attach themselves to "Christian" groups. It causes confusion both within the church and to those outside of it. (Aside from anything else, I wonder how many members of groups targeted by 'identity' movements have come to regard that as representative somehow of the actual church. And again, I wonder how many have been deceived by our lack of coherent, clear teaching overtly rejecting these arguments (whether they appear to us as 'right wing' or 'left wing').)

Viola Larson said...

Yes Will, I think I will be writing some more in these areas after reading about the BNP getting the vote in the European Parliament. I don’t think some understand where this is coming from. And I know we have some of the same problems here.