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Christian Patriot
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The Christian Patriot movement is a reference to claimed loose association of groups and people in the United States. Many of these groups may share common interests including militia or self defense, conspiracy theories, a Christian theology which places special emphasis on eschatology or covenant eschatology and apocalyptic matters, and interpretations of law, economics, and the United States Constitution not currently entertained by todays venues despite past rulings. The movement is generally considered to be part of the political far right in the United States, and is also described by some, as a movement which bridges the gap between the more mainstream evangelical Christianity and the racialist Christian Identity movement, two movements which otherwise have little in common with each other.

History

The origins of the movement are debated. Some researchers believe the movement is rooted in a wide array of American populist and xenophobic movements, including the Know-Nothing movement, the John Birch Society, Ku Klux Klan, Father Coughlin and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communism, America First, George Wallace's segregationism, and Barry Goldwater's conservatism and libertarianism. Other researchers more specifically locate the movement's origins in the rural economic depression and overwhelming debt in the 1980s combined with a feeling of disenfranchisement and anger among white males and private property natural rights advocates in response to rapid inflation and rise of federalised departments of education, the Civil Rights movement, and Feminism. The movement proper is thought to begin in the late 1970s or early 1980s, with especially strong followings in the Pacific Northwest and Upper Midwest, with the foundation of the Christian Patriot Association in Oregon and book publishers such as Emissary Publications. Posse Comitatus was a somewhat related albeit more radical movement which was also active at the time.

The movement came to public attention in 1992 when the U.S. Federal Government besieged Randy Weaver at his home in Northern Idaho, and in 1993 during a 51-day standoff between the U.S. Federal Government and the Branch Davidians outside of Waco, Texas, which ended in the deaths of 85 men, women and children. The Branch Davidians were not connected to the Christian Patriot movement at all, but supporters of the Christian Patriot movement were among the most vocal sympathizers of the Branch Davidians during the siege. The siege of the Montana Freeman, a Christian Patriot group, also brought continued attention. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the resulting War on Terror, the movement has fallen from public attention.

The term Christian Patriot came into "official" use by the current movement during the late 1970s or early 1980s following the establishment of the Christian Patriot Association of Boring, Oregon. There was a previous usage of the term during the Great Depression by at least one small group with similar political leanings.

Christian Patriots generally do not gather in large self-identifying groups, but exist in and associate with a wide variety of groups. Such groups include tax protester groups, homeschool groups, and conservative Christian churches. Their literature is sometimes available at gun shows and at "preparedness expos" which were held in some cities during the 1990s.

Views

Some views commonly associated with The Christian Patriot movement, sometimes considered synonymous with the Militia Movement, are generally organized around a belief that world events are secretly controlled by some group such as the Illuminati, the Council of Foreign Relations, international banking families, Communists, Jews, the United Nations, or some combination of the above, and that conspiracy will culminate in a new world order conspiracy, which is either present or impending.

Christian Patriots hold to a strict constructionist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, and are closely associated with the tax revolt movement. They may encourage people to get rid of their Social Security number, believing it to be an unconstitutional national identity card, and to stop paying income taxes, based on their belief that the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution is illegitimate. The Christian Patriot movement wants to abolish the Federal Reserve System in the United States, which they believe is part of the conspiracy. Christian Patriots are often hostile to banks and bankers in general, accusing them of usury. Some of them may support a state citizenship theory. They generally support gun rights and other conservative causes, along with some causes such as jury nullification which also have support from the left and libertarians.

Their Christian theology is Protestant and mostly fundamentalist. Some segements of the movement - notably those overlapping with Christian Identity and the Aryan Nations espouse anti-Semitism, lionize Adolf Hitler and call Christianity a White religion, but this is not a universal tenet of Christian Patriots. There are other Christian Patriots who reject white supremacism and whose views run closer to standard fundamentalist Christianity albeit with a heavy emphasis on the "Illuminati" conspiracy theory. Some Christian Patriots espouse anti-Masonic and anti-Catholic views as well. Christian Patriots are apocalyptic, though there are various versions of apocalypse, ranging from the Christian Dispensationalist doctrine of the impending second coming of Jesus to the impending imposition of martial law and revocation of the U.S. Constitution.

Some Christian Patriot views have crept into evangelical Christianity, most notably through evangelical Christian writers citing Christian Patriot works as references. Examples include Pat Robertson, whose book The New World Order used the writings of Eustace Mullins as a source; Jack Chick, who cites Christian Patriot writer Des Griffin's book The Fourth Reich of the Rich in several of his Chick Publications tracts; and John Todd, who caused a brief stir in the late 1970s claiming to have been a reformed member of the Illuminati. More recently during the late 1990s, Hank Hanegraaff and Richard Abanes wrote articles for the Christian Research Institute warning of the increasing popularity of Christian Patriot views among evangelicals, and urging evangelicals to avoid buying into these theories.

Legal theories

Christian Patriots advance a variety of theories on constitutional and statutory law. Many of these theories have the theme that some group of people has used legal trickery to usurp the authority of the United States government. They often have a metaphysical aspect, in that the theorist claims that the legal reality that most people believe is an illusion obscuring a deeper legal reality.

In addition to common tax protester arguments, Christian Patriots have repeatedly made the following legal claims:

    * The United States is in receivership.
    * Private individuals have sovereign immunity.
    * The United States is still a British Crown possession.
    * Various legal instruments carry hidden meanings indicated by typography.
    * The United States is under admiralty law, martial law or a state of emergency that suspends the Constitution.
    * The Titles of Nobility Amendment was ratified and later suppressed so that lawyers could make themselves nobles.
    * The federal government, Federal Reserve System, or Internal Revenue Service is a foreign or privately owned corporation.
    * The right to travel supersedes any requirements for automobile registration or driver's licenses.
    * Certain features of a United States flag, such as irregular dimensions, color schemes, or gold fringe, hold special meaning (usually that a court is under military jurisdiction).
    * The United States government deposits money in a secret bank account for every birth certificate issued in the U.S. since the 1936 Social Security Act, linked to the newborn American, and that through arcane legal maneuvers (including a Uniform Commercial Code lien), one can access that money via "sight drafts" (Also known as the "Redemption Movement" [1] [2]).

Courts that have considered these theories have consistently rejected them as frivolous.

Christian Patriot (http://www.answers.com/topic/christian-patriot)

I am shocked that I am somewhat grouped into being a terrorist.  Who ever wrote this, needs to do alot more research.  I guess to the devils viewpoint we are the ones to hold him back. So I guess I'll proudly wear the title of Christian terrorist againt evil. :D

Brother Bob,

I've not heard of these groups, but I noted some beliefs that aren't radical at all. Nearly all Christians believe strongly in the Second Coming of Christ and other Biblical Prophecy being fulfilled. There isn't anything radical about believing Bible Prophecy. I won't make it happen, but GOD will. JESUS CHRIST will come again, and no power on earth will be able to stop HIM.

Some things on the list are radical and have nothing to do with being a Christian, but it appears there is an effort to lump nearly all Christians in the same pot and label them as nuts. They've even tried to say that belief in basic Constitutional rights is radical and suggested that anyone who doesn't adopt modern liberal thought is some sort of whacko. It appears that they mixed in some "buzz words", racial elements, and things like "Hitler's" name to make it sound more radical.

I actually think that you could label about 85% of the population or more with some of the things on the list. What you would have left is most of Hollywood, the Ted Kennedys, and the Michael Moores of this world. Most of us have no desire to be associated with Michael Moore's Fan Club, nor would we accept a free membership. In fact, it would be cruel and unusual punishment to be associated with them.

 ;D   ;D   ;D

I do think it's interesting that they included the most basic Constitutional Right of self defense as being somehow radical. They also managed to include such terrifying folks as homeschoolers and conservative Christian churches. OH MY! - Those folks just scare me to death.  (NOT!)

What this actually appears to be is an uneducated first attempt to demonize conservative Christians. NEWS FLASH: the Michael Moore Fan Club members are the "fringe nut cases", not the conservative Christians. "Conservative Christian" is still a respected and LARGE portion of the population. In fact, we grossly outnumber those who might want to round us up and lock us away on funny farms. If Michael Moore has a militia, they need to stay in Hollywood where it's safe.

 ;D   ;D   ;D

I think the Founding Fathers fit some of the above description also. I wonder if Rosie helped the author of this article.

Brother Roger,

When I first read this article, I saw the radical elements, but I also saw what appears to be a first step of trying to start labeling Christians and begin the persecution of Christians in this part of the world. This particular article is a crude attempt, but we all know there will be more. All Christians need to wake up and realize what is already happening in most of the world. Christians are already being hunted and killed in many parts of the world. We all need a regular dose of reality and read Voice of the Martyrs frequently.

If one looks at Europe and other so-called civilized areas of the world, Christians are really not welcome right now. This really might be the few remaining portions of the world where Christians still enjoy freedom and have a strong voice that can't be silenced. Don't we all know that the devil wants us to sit down and shut up? We are watching an evolution of our society to exclude us, our ways, and GOD. They're having a hard time because we refuse to sit down and shut up, so trying to associate us with nuts and radicals is their best shot. The sad thing is that part of this will work, and they will keep chipping away until the job is done. After all, we certainly can't deny the success of folks like the ACLU. We do manage to get most of the rats back in their cages from time to time, but the damage is done and the rat population is growing. As for me, I'll sit down and shut up when GOD takes me home. Otherwise and LORD Willing - I will fight a good fight, run a good race, and finish my course.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Psalms 139:16 NASB  Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.

You are very right Brother Tom. Unfortunately there are many "Christians" that are helping in this very thing. We have seen some of those that have come here in the past. Those are the ones that claim to be Christian yet support abortion, homosexuality, changing of the history of America, going against Israel, the advent of islam and oppose all attempts to stop these things from happening. These are the "Christians" that are assisting the enemy and helping to bring about the persecution of Christians.