Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 20
contradiction to the general thrust of their propaganda, they argue that the races are not
necessarily inferior or superior. They are just different, in the same way that cattle are
different to dogs or humans, and have different roles, rights, and entitlements. Tim Houser,
an Identity follower, has said:
Identity is not racist. Jews and blacks are what they are. God chose to ...
make blacks with the animals, we didn‘t. I have to believe God, and he
spelled it out clear in the Bible. I‘d give the shirt off my back to a black man
if he came to my door. But I can‘t make him the same as me (Cited by Dyer,
1998, p.94).
Nevertheless, it follows that American cities will go up in flames, as race war escalates, and
that Christian Identity followers will then reconstruct a new Israel in America (Zeskind,
1986 Katz &Popkin, 2000). Thus, the creation of in-groups versus out-groups is at the
very heart of Christian Identity theology. It is this dynamic, unleashed by the belief system,
which inherently points its proponents in the direction of cultic forms of organization.
Of course, the reluctance of many Identity followers to accept that their belief system is
racist, a term with powerfully negative connotations is a useful means of avoiding cognitive
dissonance. In essence, we are motivated to imagine that our feelings, attitudes, and
behavior are much more consistent with each other than they actually are (Cialdini, 2001).
When an apparent contradiction within this trinity arises we experience an unease that has
been described as dissonance (Festinger, 1957). For many supremacists an acceptance of
the term ―racist‖ would jar with their self-image as a righteous and God-fearing people,
creating dissonance. However, if they can avoid attaching racist labels to their belief system
it becomes possible to maintain two objectively contradictory positions at once --a racist
perspective, and a self-image as practicing Christians motivated by a love for humanity.
What Orwell memorably termed ―Doublethink‖ thrives precisely through such Olympian
displays of linguistic gymnastics. The disavowal of negative labels may also have the effect
of facilitating ever more extreme behaviors and attitudes, since the rejection of clear
linguistic categories ensures that nothing disturbs the person‘s positive self-image.
Within the Identity movement, Jews are regarded as having an even worse point of origin
than people of color. They are depicted as the direct biological offspring of the Devil. Either
the Devil or one of his underlings had sex with Eve in the Garden of Eden. Cain was the
progeny of this union, and Jews are viewed as his direct descendents. This means that they
have an unalterable capacity for evil. It is in their blood, and even conversion to Christianity
is not sufficient to change it. This strand of Identity theology has a long genealogy, but was
firmly in place by the early 1960s. Since then, it has become ever more dominant. As
Barkun (1994) has pointed out, it distinguishes the bigotry of Christian Identity from even
the most virulent plagues of anti-Semitism in previous periods of human history. In the
past, it was frequently argued that Jews were the products of interbreeding between people
and animals. Their continued existence would lead to the defilement and degradation of the
human race. Nevertheless, they were at least granted a common point of origin among the
species of this world. The distinctive contribution that Christian Identity makes to anti-
Semitic theory is viler and potentially more destructive than any of its racist precursors.
In the world of the far right, religion and politics are inseparably intertwined. For example, a
creedal statement produced by the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations and the tautologically challenged
Church of Jesus Christ Christian declares:
WE BELIEVE that there are literal children of Satan in the world today. These
children are the descendants of Cain, who was a result of Eve‘s original sin,
her physical seduction by Satan. We know that because of this sin, there is a
battle and a natural enmity between the children of Satan and the Children
of the Most High God ...

Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 21
WE BELIEVE that there is a battle being fought this day between the children
of darkness (today known as Jews) and the children of light (God), the Aryan
race, the true Israel of the Bible. (Cited by Barkun, 1994, p.189)
In part, this explains the fascination that so many on the far right display for the person of
Hitler. His photographs frequently adorn white supremacist sites on the Internet. Aryan
Nations is a fan club for Hitler, but one that seeks to move beyond homage and achieve the
enactment of his program in modern day America. Hence, Jews are not only demonized for
their alleged satanic origin. It is also argued that they are engaged in a tightly organized
and well-advanced conspiracy to take over the world. In some cases this conspiracy is
presented as having already come to fruition. The US Government is often referred to as
ZOG -the Zionist Occupation Government. Hate literature offers what its authors take to be
indisputable evidence for this assertion, such as long lists of Jews who have belonged to
President Clinton‘s cabinets. During his presidency, Clinton himself was frequently described
as ―President Klinton.‖
It follows that Jews routinely engage in inhuman practices. Aryan Nations produces a paper
entitled Calling Our Nation. It has regularly published accounts of Jews committing human
sacrifices as a normal part of their religious rituals.
Once such attitudes are acquired, those infected by them seek out evidence that supports
their belief system and ignore anything that suggests they might be mistaken. This practice
(of selective attention) is central to the maintenance of uncritical enthusiasm for all cultic
belief systems. It is also a cognitive defect that is widely shared and afflicts among many
people who would be appalled by the suggestion that they harbored racist ideas.
Researchers have found that most of us interpret minor differences between groups, such
as skin colour, as a barometer of much greater difference (Brown, 1995). It has also been
found that even those whites outside the Identity tradition, who observed or heard about a
solitary black person‘s negative attitudes, had their critical outgroup perceptions
strengthened (Henderson, 1996). In addition, they were more likely afterwards to avoid
contact with black people or minimize the duration of such contact when these proved
unavoidable. Furthermore, a single negative event involving a black person was sufficient to
lead participants into expressing in-group favoritism.
This may be partly because unusual events stand out in our memory, precisely because
they are unusual (Dawes, 1994). However, when an action out of the ordinary is performed
by a member of a minority group it stands out all the more both because the event is
unusual and because the source is a member of a minority group (Brown, 1995). The
Christian Identity milieu is clearly predisposed to highlight ―bad‖ behaviors on the part of
those who belong to the stigmatized out group, claim that it is typical of everyday behaviour
by all concerned, diminish instances of normal functioning by such people, and claim that
the exceptional events they highlight as typical constitute a terminal threat to the survival
of the white race.
Accordingly, those influenced by Identity theology now assume that the Jewish conspiracy
has assumed vast proportions. It involves the International Monetary Fund, the Federal
Reserve, the United Nations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS). Taxation is generally viewed as a threat to individual freedom. The primary aim of
the conspiracy is to erode white rights. Identity followers believe that gun control is nothing
more than a cunning ploy to render whites helpless in the face of the Zionist enemy.
Thus, in-group favoritism (e.g. ―American whites are the chosen people‖) is inexorably
combined with the stigmatization of out-groups (e.g., ―Jews and blacks are at best sub-
human‖). What others see as random or unrelated events are depicted as part of an orderly
conspiracy, directed with great cunning by the designated out-groups. The result is an
overwhelming sense of moral righteousness, persecution, isolation and contempt for