Is Terrorism Tied To Christian Sect?
Religion May Have Motivated Bombing Suspect
By Alan Cooperman - Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 2, 2003; Page A03
The arrest of alleged Olympic bomber Eric Robert Rudolph may finally
allow authorities to answer a question that has loomed since the
beginning of the five-year hunt for him, but that has taken on deeper
resonance since Sept. 11, 2001: Is he a "Christian terrorist"?
The question is not just whether Rudolph is a terrorist, or whether
he considers himself a Christian. It is whether he planted bombs at
the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, two abortion clinics and a gay
nightclub to advance a religious ideology -- and how numerous,
organized and violent others who share that ideology may be.
Federal investigators believe Rudolph has had a long association with
the radical Christian Identity movement, which asserts that North
European whites are the direct descendants of the lost tribes of
Israel, God's chosen people. Some investigators also think he may
have written letters that claimed responsibility for the nightclub
and abortion clinic bombings on behalf of the Army of God, a violent
offshoot of Christian Identity.
"We declare and will wage total war on the ungodly communist regime
in New York and your legaslative bureaucratic lackey's in Washington.
It is you who are responsible and preside over the murder of children
and issue the policy of ungodly preversion thats destroying our
people," one of the letters said, in childish penmanship riddled with
errors.
"Based on what we know of Rudolph so far, and admittedly it's
fragmentary, there seems to be a fairly high likelihood that he can
legitimately be called a Christian terrorist," said Michael Barkun, a
professor of political science at Syracuse University who has been a
consultant to the FBI on Christian extremist groups.
Investigators have said, however, that it is unclear whether Rudolph
genuinely was part of an Army of God or merely claimed to belong to
an organized group. According to Barkun, most Christian Identity
followers are nonviolent, and the movement's militants generally
adhere to the principle of "leaderless resistance," believing that
government surveillance is so pervasive that organized groups are
bound to be penetrated and it is wiser to act alone.
Another expert on such groups, Idaho State University sociology
professor James A. Aho, said he is reluctant to use the
phrase "Christian terrorist," because it is "sort of an oxymoron."
"I would prefer to say that Rudolph is a religiously inspired
terrorist, because most mainstream Christians consider Christian
Identity to be a heresy," Aho said. If Christians take umbrage at the
juxtaposition of the words "Christian" and "terrorist," he
added, "that may give them some idea of how Muslims feel" when they
constantly hear the term "Islamic terrorism," especially since the
Sept. 11 attacks.
"Religiously inspired terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon, and every
major world religion has people who have appropriated the label of
their religion in order to legitimize their violence," Aho said.
Not only in Rudolph's case, but also in the case of Oklahoma City
bomber Timothy J. McVeigh and Muslim suicide bombers, "there's always
the question of what comes first, is it the religious belief or the
violent personality?" Aho said. "I'm inclined to believe that people
who are violent in their inclinations search out a religious home
that justifies their violence."
Rudolph, 36, appears to have found his religious home during his
impoverished family's wanderings in his fatherless teenage years.
The FBI believes he was exposed to Christian Identity's ideology in
the early 1980s when his mother brought him to live for four months
with the Church of Israel, a congregation in Schell City, Mo. Federal
investigators have said that after that experience, when he was about
14, Rudolph periodically made contact with Christian Identity groups,
including the Aryan Nations, an Idaho-based group that has been
influential in the militia movement.
But the Church of Israel's pastor, Dan Gayman, strongly disassociated
himself from Rudolph in a telephone interview yesterday.
"We very clearly and emphatically teach that all Christians have a
duty and an obligation to respect all law enforcement authorities. If
Eric Rudolph had listened to his lessons here, he would have learned
that acts of violence were absolutely and completely out of order and
something this church would never have condoned," Gayman said.
Gayman, 66, recalled that Rudolph's mother arrived at the church in
the Missouri Ozarks about 1981 or '82 with Eric and Jamie, one of his
four brothers, and presented herself as a "widow in very destitute
condition, with two boys to feed and without money to buy food or
gas." He said his congregation took them in "just long enough for
them to get back on their feet."
The Church of Israel does not call itself a Christian Identity
congregation. But its teachings echo the movement's, which are
generally traced to two 19th-century British ministers, John Wilson
and Edward Hine, who justified colonialism on the grounds that the
British nation was descended from the 10 lost tribes of biblical
Israel.
Asked to explain the Church of Israel's racial views, Gayman
said, "We teach that God is the creator of all races, that He created
them separately and distinctly with their own unique talents and
characteristics, and that every race has a purpose in God's plan."
As to the purpose of whites, he said: "I would simply say that we
believe that the Caucasian people are the literal descendants of the
lost 10 tribes of Israel, and they would occupy a place of prominence
in the plan of God."
Because the Christian Identity movement is loosely organized and
keeps no membership rolls, its numbers have been estimated at
anywhere from 2,000 to 100,000, including many informal chapters in
prisons. Many adherents are strongly anti-Semitic, considering
themselves to be the true Israelites and Jews to be impostors.
Barkun said the anti-gay and antiabortion positions that may have
motivated Rudolph's alleged bombings "are a rather subordinate theme"
in Christian Identity. He noted, however, that members of Rudolph's
extended family have said he viewed abortion not just as the taking
of life, but as a threat to the white race.
"The notion that there are significant numbers of white mothers
having abortions, and therefore the race is being endangered, is
interesting, because racial genocide is a major theme in Christian
Identity," Barkun said.
A deeper mystery, perhaps, is the motive for the Olympic bombing,
which took place at a rock concert in downtown Atlanta, killing a 44- year-old woman and injuring more than 100 others. Barkun speculated
that the Olympics "may have symbolized for Rudolph the mixing of
races and cultures." Or, he said, the Games may have
triggered "pervasive fear of a global tyranny run from the United
Nations and destroying American independence and so on."
But, he added, "anti-Olympic sentiment is not a motif in Christian
Identity, and it still strikes me as an odd target."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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