Aryan Nations: Origins, Ideology, and Decline

Introduction

The Aryan Nations (AN, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ Christian) is a white supremacist, Christian Identity-based hate group that was prominent in the 1980s, with roots dating back to the 1940s. The organization encompassed neo-Nazi, skinhead, Ku Klux Klan (KKK), white supremacist, and militia factions, many of which congregated and networked at the AN compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho (Lambert, 2011). The group worked to unite disparate organizations around the common belief in white supremacy over all other races. It achieved some degree of organizational success, and one splinter group even stole four million dollars with the stated goal of overthrowing the United States government. This analysis examines the origins of the group, the activities it engaged in at the peak of its momentum, and the reasons and factors behind its steady decline from that peak.

Background and Origins

The roots of the AN movement can be traced back to at least the 1940s, when numerous Christian Identity movements began organizing around the belief that white Aryans were God's "chosen" people. Adherents also believed that Black people were subhuman and that Jewish people were descended directly from the devil.

In 1970, Richard Girnt Butler — newly ordained by the American Institute of Theology (AIT), which reflects Christian Identity beliefs — took over a large Christian Identity congregation in Lancaster, California, after its leader, Wesley Swift, died. In 1973, Butler moved the congregation to a compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and established the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. In 1978, Butler founded the church's political arm, the Aryan Nations (Lambert, 2011).

Butler was an aerospace engineer who relocated to the Pacific Northwest in the early 1970s and purchased land on an old farm in Idaho, which later became the home of one of the most notorious American hate groups: the Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations (Southern Poverty Law Center, n.d.). The twenty-acre compound housed many individuals who subscribed to the belief in the supremacy of the Aryan white race, and a significant number of these individuals had criminal backgrounds.

Butler was the leading patriarch of the group and was convicted of crimes including kidnapping and plotting to overthrow the government. His organization — formally called the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, Aryan Nations — taught, among other things, that Jesus Christ was not Jewish and that Jewish people were descendants of Satan (Balch, 2006). White people were held to be the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, while racial minorities were labeled "mud" races and portrayed as pawns of the Jews. The Aryan Nations served as the political arm of this movement.

Despite the many criminal charges Butler faced, it was ultimately a civil lawsuit that dealt the decisive blow to the organization. On July 1, 1998, a car stopped in front of Butler's compound and apparently backfired, producing a loud noise. The Aryan guards on the premises mistook this for an attack and pursued the vehicle belonging to the Keenan family, shot at them, and forced them into a ditch before finally releasing them (Southern Poverty Law Center, n.d.). The Southern Poverty Law Center took the family's case and filed a civil suit, ultimately winning a judgment of over one million dollars, a substantial portion of which was directly owed by Butler for hiring ex-convicts and providing them with no training (Southern Poverty Law Center, n.d.).

Ideology and Organizational Goals

The goal of the Aryan Nations was to unify the descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel — identified as the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Teutonic, Scandinavian, and Celtic peoples of the earth. Adherents believed that Jewish people were the descendants of Cain, who was produced as a result of Eve's original sin and was therefore inherently evil. The true descendants of Israel and the descendants of Cain were thus seen as locked in a perpetual struggle for domination. All other racial minorities were deemed irrelevant, their lives considered without value.

The group's religious beliefs served as one of the primary rallying points for organization. Christian Identity is an idiosyncratic form of Protestant religious belief holding that white Christians in the United States are descended from the twelve tribes of Israel and are therefore God's "Chosen People." Christian Identity evolved from a pre-existing theology called Anglo-Israelism (or British Israelism), which grew as a movement in the late nineteenth century and made similar claims about white Christians in the British Isles. At its core is the claim of a historic covenant with God expressed through the nation, defined as a biological, racial entity (Berlet, 2004).

Conclusion

There are many reasons the Aryan Nations was able to organize and establish social norms within its ranks. The leaders used religiosity and apocalyptic imagery to instill conformity. They constructed narratives tracing the lineage of white peoples back to the Bible and the twelve tribes of Israel, designating them as God's "Chosen People." Leaders such as Butler convinced members that other races were "out-groups" devoid of intrinsic value and that Jewish people were the descendants of Satan. Members were led to believe they were engaged in an epic, existential war, and this belief reinforced conformity to the group's objectives.

The group's demise can be attributed to multiple factors. Although many observers cite the devastating loss of resources following the civil suit initiated by the Southern Poverty Law Center — which resulted in a judgment of over six million dollars awarded to the victims — primary data indicates that the organization was already suffering from internal divisions, and several key members had resigned before that point. Additionally, disagreements over the use of violence and various theological disputes contributed to further fragmentation, all of which slowly led to the AN's dismantling.

Bibliography

Balch, R. (2006). The rise and fall of Aryan Nations: A resource mobilization perspective. Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 81–113.

Berlet, C. (2004). Christian Identity: The apocalyptic style, political religion, palingenesis and neo-fascism. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 469–506.

Durham, M. (2008). Christian Identity and the politics of religion. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 79–91.

Lambert, L. (2011). Aryan Nations. In The SAGE encyclopedia of terrorism.

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). Richard Butler. Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org