Thread by @dogemperor

@brucewilson And arguably that particular imagery goes even more *directly* to Nazis, as one of the popular recruiting efforts by Nazis targeting monarchist Germans, etc. was the "stab in the back myth" (the claim that Jewish people had sabotaged the war effort for The Evulz)

1/x

@brucewilson And because two of the most notable opponents of Nazis involved Jewish people (who did not want to be unalived) and Communists, eventually Nazis claimed communism itself was a Jewish plot (particularly in 1935 Nazi party congress): encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/fil…

2/x

@brucewilson So this is a trope with an old, and *EXCEPTIONALLY* nasty, history.

Christian Nationalists would also later claim civil rights movements were a "Communist plot" (even heard this from my own parents, regarding MLK in particular, pretty much my whole life until their deaths)

3/x

@brucewilson and even in the 70s and 80s, you did actively have KKK groups and neo-Nazi groups claiming that the entire Civil Rights movement was a Communist plot and the Commies were controled by *teh j00s* including in Christian Identity

4/x

@brucewilson Now, with NAR Christian Nationalism in particular, this gets *very* important *very* fast, because there's been non-negligible cross-pollination between Christian Identity and the Manifest Sons of God movement (from which the NAR evolved) since both split from Lanhamism

5/x

@brucewilson and honestly the two groups share some PARTICULAR eccentricities of their theology, particularly variants of "Serpent Seed" theology (which is an absolute distinctive of Lanhamism and its descendants)

They also do share theologies regarding endtime apocalyptic conflict

6/x

@brucewilson And these parallels existed well before the NAR started using that branding, or the Joel's Army or Third Wave branding, we're talking all the way back to when Tim LaHaye (who later wrote his own fictionalization of this in the Left Behind series) founded the COR and CNP

7/x

@brucewilson And, well...at least one notable bit of cross-pollination that was taken up by NAR groups is a particular book by Christian Identity preacher Richard Hoskins, called "Vigilantes of Christendom" which turned out to be influential beyond the racist right proper

8/x

@brucewilson "Vigilantes" (from this point referred to as VOC) is basically a bog-standard "Turner Diaries" fictionalization of a Racial Holy War, of the sort that was and is common among racist "survivalist" and "Christian Patriot Militia" groups and Posse Comitatus sorts

9/x

@brucewilson and one particular imagery--the idea of Phineas (sic) Priests being essentially domestic terrorist for White Christian Protestantism--is notable as it's given wide inspiration to both far-right and Christian Nationalist terrorists.

10/x

@brucewilson One of the latter scenes in the book effectively has the Phineas Priests conducting a January 6th style overthrow of the US government, followed by establishment of an incredibly genocidal Christian Nationalist dictatorship (shades of what *almost* happened on J6!)

11/x

@brucewilson But most of the rest of the book has various terrorists committing various acts of terrorism and outwardly appearing to be "lone wolves" but in fact being part of effectively an MLM-like cell...basically the "leaderless resistance" promoted in militia groups

12/x

@brucewilson And Hoskins was writing books using Phinehas imagery (which I will get into shortly) even before VOC: as far back as 1985, in a white supremacist tract called "War Cycles, Peace Cycles" where he advocated domestic terrorism to spark a race war

13/x

@brucewilson And there are three groups that have glommed to "Phineas Priest" imagery like (pardon the pun) white on rice:

a) Christian Identity linked terrorists,
b) the Army of God domestic terrorist movement, and
c) the New Apostolic Reformation.

(We'll get into details shortly.)

14/x

@brucewilson Now, before we get into the overlapping of sets a), b) and c) (and from a LONG time, at that)...it's probably good to diverge just a little bit to explain more on what I mean by "Phineas (sic) Imagery"

(Yes, the racist author of VOC did in fact misspell Phinehas)

15/x

@brucewilson So Phinehas...is a priest in the Bible that is notable for a) being *very* fundamentalist, and b) willing to engage in a lot of epic violence to get people to toe the religious line

It's probably not an exaggeration to call him the Torquemada of ancient Israel

16/x

@brucewilson The particular imagery that Christian Identity glommed on to was...well, one of the notable actions by Phinehas after the religious war in the Bible that made him famous (which was, to whit, launching a crusade against Moabites and Israelis following the Old Religion)

17/x

@brucewilson And that particular action, as noted in the Book of Numbers Chapter 25, involved...Phinehas catching a particular couple having intercourse in the Temple (a common fertility ritual in pre-Abrahamic religions)...and pretty much speared them like a kebab mid-coitus

18/x

@brucewilson And, well, there was also an ongoing plague happening (where something like 24,000 people were dead of an epidemic) and...Phinehas's little CLEANSE AND PURIFY brigade, including the Spearing Incident, is credited for apparently having stopped this plague

19/x

@brucewilson Phinehas wasn't done with his remarkable Bronze Age act as Inquisitor-General of ancient Israel, though; one of his specific orders was to kill every boy or man, kill every woman who'd had sex, and to take the girls and women who were virgins as spoils of war...

20/x

@brucewilson and this eventually resulted in a pretty complete genocide of the Midianite people (as described later in Numbers 31), but again, Phinehas was Not Done

Later (as described in Joshua 2), there were two tribes of Israel (and a 3rd "demi-tribe") who'd recently reclaimed land

21/x

@brucewilson And so (just to reconsecrate that land) they built a temple on it, and Phinehas pretty much *immediately* interpreted this as A Secessionist Movement Where They Might Be Backsliding Or Founding Their Own Branch (like the Samaritans would eventually do)

22/x

@brucewilson And what ensued was a de facto civil war, where Phinehas led the *entire* Israeli army against the people of Reuben, Gad, and Manassah and was ready to do a repeat of what he'd done to the Midianites until (thankfully) the misunderstanding was cleared up

23/x

@brucewilson Now, racist-right sorts like Christian Identity promoters pretty much see Phinehas' war against the Midianites as the first Racial Holy War, and Phinehas's Spear Incident as God's own indictment on interracial marriage and even admixture of races and cultures...

24/x

@brucewilson and Christian Nationalists, particularly of the NAR bent, do love how Phinehas is pretty much the Ur-Zealot (sensu "someone willing to go full Warhammer 40K-style BURN THE HERETIC KILL THE ALIEN PURGE THE UNCLEAN").

So that's Phineas (sic) Imagery in a nutshell

25/x

@brucewilson Now, going back to domestic terrorism and the crossover of the three groups that glommed to this imagery (and have had a history of sharing some very, very nasty imagery with very anti-Semitic roots, as an aside--again, should probably do a dedicated thread on it)

26/x

@brucewilson So the first group that really glommed to the "Phineas Priesthood" imagery are Christian Identity folks, who effectively doubled down on the anti-Semitic implications of "Serpent Seed" theology, and early on tagged themselves as "Phineas Priests" in terrorism-as-cosplay

27/x

@brucewilson There's actually a pretty good article on the Christian Identity variant of this imagery from an opsec group focusing on terrorist threats (borealisthreatandrisk.com/today-in-terro…) but CI versions are known from 90s (washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nationa…) (chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-19…)

28/x

@brucewilson And much as in the book, there's not specifically a full on group calling itself that, but it's more of a tag (in both the CI variants, and Army of God and NAR imagery as we'll get into) of "willing to engage in domestic terrorism and murder for sake of religio-fascism"

29/x

@brucewilson And it's the other two branches I have actual personal familiarity with in regards to groups using "Phineas Priesthood" imagery.

One of these being the Army of God domestic terrorist network

(And yes, it is very much a loose network, as I'll explain)

30/x

@brucewilson So the Army of God (as a terrorist network) honestly has roots as far back as the early 80s, probably earliest you saw of Christian Nationalist terrorists using that name was 1982 in a kidnapping of an OB/GYN at a women's clinic

I remember mention of AOG back in mid-80s

31/x

@brucewilson The Army of God organizes itself in loose cells (that do inter-communicate), but are also designed in the manner of "people's revolutionary cells" to not show a distinct leader (so an early example of "leaderless resistance")

This is VERY important to note for what follows

32/x

@brucewilson So, the cell responsible for the kidnapping turned out to be Michael Bray's cell, and he himself conducted clinic bombings in the DelMarVa area in the mid-80s; a second cell (operating out of Topeka) which involved Shelley Shannon targeted Dr. George TIller from 1993 on

33/x

@brucewilson Bray himself is *probably* now leading the Army of God cell in Wilmington/Cincinnati, OH (which has been active since the 80s) and is the likely author of the Army of God terrorist manual--which explicitly uses Phineas (sic) Priesthood imagery

34/x

@brucewilson Shelly Shannon is explicitly shouted out in the terror manual, under her terrorist-codename "Atomic Dog" (in general, the manual uses codenames to refer to active Army of God terrorists conducting bombings/assassinations, versus mere doxxing, etc.)

35/x

@brucewilson Shannon was also known to have met with Scott Roeder, who was also a member of the Topeka-area Army of God cell, and Roeder is himself (along with Eric Rudolph, who was active in an Army of God cell covering Birmingham and Atlanta) an example of cross-pollination

36/x

@brucewilson Roeder, interestingly, apparently got recruited into Army of God terrorism via sovereign-citizen groups, got recruited into a Christian Nationalist group (and there was one particular church in the area well known for mixing both that was NAR-linked)

37/x

@brucewilson Roeder was also in communication with David Leach, who was the *publisher* of the Army of God terrorist manual, was the author of multiple statements defining assassination of clinic workers as "justifiable homicide" (again using "Phineas Priest" imagery),

38/x

@brucewilson and was apparently the direct conduit of communication between Roeder and Shannon (indicating he's also part of that same regional Army of God cell network).

There was also a call made by Roeder to Operation Rescue after he murdered Dr. Tiller,

39/x

@brucewilson and both Operation Rescue and Operation Save America (the latter being effectively the national split from the original OR) have pretty much always acted as the Sinn Fein to the Army of God's "Real IRA", so to speak.

That said: Arrmy of God terror has multiple levels

40/x

@brucewilson I'd mentioned that Wilmington, OH Army of God cell, as that cell has been active in a tri-state area with domestic terrorism. From the late 80s onward, there were fake anthrax mailings to women's clinics in OH/KY/IN; Clayton Waagner was eventually busted for SOME of these

41/x

@brucewilson (He was definitively linked with a series of these mailings in the late 90s/early 2000s, but again, these had been occurring since late 80s in the area, so either his actions were happening far longer than that or (more likely) there were multiple perps involved.)

42/x

@brucewilson And Army of God terrorism doesn't just extend to this, or just to women's clinics. Eric Rudolph (who again, was part of a cell active in Birmingham and Atlanta) actually primarily targeted LGBTQIA nightclubs and gathering places as well as women's clinics and the Olympics

43/x

@brucewilson A lot of what the Army of God does as well (and this is a tactic that's since been adopted by other groups) is doxxing--often with cooperation of Christian Nationalist cops (we'll get into *that* in a moment on how that works), private investigators, etc.

44/x

@brucewilson Probably the most notorious example being the "Nuremburg Files" (where extremely detailed dossiers of workers at women's clinics--and their families, and their doctors, schools, etc.--were kept with an explicit goal to assassination), which led to RICO Act sanctions

45/x

@brucewilson But separately, an *extremely* detailed dossier was kept personally on Dr. George Tiller and his family up to the point of his assassination (likely by David Leach or associates), and both Army of God terrorists and Christian Nationalists linked to them use similar tactics

46/x

@brucewilson And the Army of God, in and of itself, serves (along with the entirety of the "Christian Patriot militia" paramilitary movement, including lesser known groups like Missionaries to the Preborn et al) as a watering hole for both racist-right and Christian Nationalists

47/x

@brucewilson And Roeder's recruitment into the Army of God is pretty much a canonical example of how people get recruited from the sovcit > "patriot militia" > Christian Nationalist terrorism gateway, but now I'll talk about the OTHER gateway and the third group using Phineas imagery

48/x

@brucewilson And this is where I get to spill a whole lot of tea about the cult I was raised in, and the specific reasons why the Southern Poverty Law Center considers a whole lot of Christian Nationalist groups to be bona fide hate groups

tl;dr they've ALWAYS been close to bad actors

49/x

@brucewilson So. As many of you know, I'm an #exvangelical. I was raised in an extremely anti-LGBTQIA group, which also served as state headquarters for both the state branches of Operation Rescue and AFA, and was an early proto-NAR and NAR church.

They were also VERY AOG sympathetic

50/x

@brucewilson Along with wanting to conduct genocides against LGBTQIA people as far back as Reagan's first run for President, and having actual genocidaires touring along with Ollie North...their own "right to life" newsletter gleefully reported on Army of God terrorism

51/x

@brucewilson They, and the newsletter promoted by the deacon which ran what started out as a church activist group, then became the state AFA branch, then became a PAC for the state AFA branch when they were found to have been engaging in electioneering law violations in the 90s,

52/x

@brucewilson ...well, they were extremely early promoters of the Army of God and its antics, and the Army of God's "White Rose Banquets" (aka toasts to all those who paid the price for all their Criming for God and claims that literal assassins were "political prisoners" et al),

53/x

@brucewilson and at the same time they were among the earliest promoters of the Army of God terrorist manual when it was first published, and also probably one of the first promoters of Scott Lively's works of extreme anti-LGBTQIA hate speech

54/x

@brucewilson (Such as "The Pink Swastika", which promotes a rather unique form of Holocaust denial in claiming that not only were LGBTQIA people not targeted in the Holocaust, that they were not among its first victims, but...that The Gays Did The Holocaust For The Evulz)

55/x

@brucewilson (And Lively did a followup that was ALSO aggressively promoted, "The Poisoned Stream", which can be best described as "Take 'Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion' or 'The International Jew', replace 'Jew' with 'Homosexual', and 'Race traitor' with 'Homosexualist'")

56/x

@brucewilson Note: This was all stuff they were actively doing in the 80s and early 90s. That's actually in part how I know that fake anthrax mailings were happening at that point--the actual newsletter was gleefully and happily reporting on it, along with other Army of God terrorism

57/x

@brucewilson And though I can probably never prove it, I am almost certain in retrospect there was probably an Army of God cell actively operating, or at least people in communication with the Wilmington, OH cell, just because of info published AND similarity of tactics

58/x

@brucewilson (And this is where I talk on Christian Nationalist cops)

One of the things that local activists did, and still do, was target people visiting...women's clinics, and LGBTQIA gathering places, and adult bookstores.

They'd record license plate numbers in parking lots.

59/x

@brucewilson This group, which actually had a dedicated "cell church" sub-group organizing this (and I'll get into THAT connection in a bit) had a friend who was a PI who could pull records given a name and address...and a friendly in the county police who'd pull registration info

60/x

@brucewilson And so what they'd do is they'd have their friendly in the police force (who was a church member, as an aside) pull license and vehicle registration info, and VIN records if the surveillance team could get that, and pull up the owner in NCIC records

61/x

@brucewilson And they'd provide this info to the group, who'd provide it to the PI, who would give them a lovely dossier back...

And they'd proceed to use this info to make their target's life a veritable living hell, in the exact way that the Army of God does to clinic workers

62/x

@brucewilson They'd send (if the target was a woman) lurid pictures of dismembered stillbirths claiming these were aborted fetuses, or (if the target was LGBTQIA) extremely hateful stuff claiming they were a groomer and a pedophile and far worse

63/x

@brucewilson and if this was an adult bookstore visitor it'd be all stuff on how they were being Unfaithful in Marriage, and how Porn was Evil, and...

...*they wouldn't just target these people, but everyone they did business with or knew*.

64/x

@brucewilson Spouses would get postal mail addressed to them from anonymous sources with photos of "Do you know what your spouse is doing?"

Employers would get shots of people going to LGBTQIA nightclubs and women's clinics (in a state which had no protections).

65/x

@brucewilson If the PI found the person targeted was the subject of a divorce, their spouse would get postal mails encouraging them to not allow visitation of kids.

Employers would get mails to get people fired. Landlords would get mails to get people evicted.

66/x

@brucewilson If a church could be identified for people, their pastors would get mails detailing that their parishoner was Living In Sin.

And they also had a habit of doing this, and *WORSE*, to anyone who spoke out against the group and its terror tactics

67/x

@brucewilson They were actively not above "dead agenting" (in the $cient0logy sense of "literally making up horrible claims and manufactured evidence against a target") notable critics, including political opponents (including the father, and later AG and governor, of the state)

68/x

@brucewilson And at least some of this was so nasty that it swung two aldermen to voting *for* a law to protect LGBTQIA people in the city, but it gives an example of just HOW extreme they were even in the 90s
dailykos.com/stories/2006/1…
dailykos.com/stories/2007/1…

(both are important here)

69/x

@brucewilson And again--I'll never be able to prove it in a court of law, but I'd not be a bit surprised to find out in retrospect there was an active Army of God cell in the church I left...and I can say with the Topeka Army of God cell, this very well may have been the case

70/x

@brucewilson So, it's also important to discuss how a lot of NAR cell churches are set up (this is another minor side-track but it does relate).

Many, if not most, use a setup that's really not unlike how MLMs are set up, and was developed to grow churches huge dailykos.com/stories/2007/8…

71/x

@brucewilson And this means that, just like AmWay and Herbalife et al, these churches do have functional "downlines", and this is actually how paradenominational networks within the New Apostolic Reformation work as well as networks and "small groups" within large megachurches

72/x

@brucewilson And sometimes cell groups can be particularly specialized, like you'll see functional downlines for "women's ministry" or "music ministry" or "Christian homeschooling small groups"...and this explicitly includes political activism in New Apostolic Reformation churches

73/x

@brucewilson And at least some of these are focused on "stealth evangelism" (disguising themselves as ecumenical or nondenominational groups and targeting mainline Christians), but some are very, very focused and work with specific activism in Christian Nationalist circles

74/x

@brucewilson It is not a coincidence that the church that originated this is pretty much the epicenter of the proto-NAR movement that fomented multiple "outpourings" in the US from the 60s well into the 2000s, from Ft. Lauderdale and earlier to Brownsville dailykos.com/stories/2006/1…

75/x

@brucewilson And it's also not a coincidence that the entire MLM structure, including and especially as implemented in "discipling and shepherding" groups and in NAR megachurches, almost guarantees undue influence and becoming a coercive group dailykos.com/stories/2007/8…

76/x

@brucewilson It is also noteworthy here that multiple Christian Nationalist groups, including "The Family" nee "The Fellowship", the Institute for Religion and Democracy, etc outside of the NAR as well as even Joel Osteen's church *AND* "Christian Patriot militia" paramilitaries...

77/x

@brucewilson have used historic examples from the far-left and far-right of MLM-like "leaderless resistance" "revolutionary cells" (including Hitler Youth as well as Maoist and Leninist "people's revolutionary cells")...

dailykos.com/stories/2008/4…
dailykos.com/stories/2009/1…

78/x

@brucewilson ...oh, and there's at least one (blessedly, for now, fictional, despite the efforts of chuds to defictionalize it) example that's been used by no less than Rick Joyner:

Hoskins' "Vigilantes of Christendom" and the "Phineas Priests".

dailykos.com/stories/2008/5…

79/x

@brucewilson And I'll note, as an aside, the book "Vigilantes of Christendom" is NOT published by a mainline printing house, and is sufficiently obscure that you're not going to be quoting it or invoking imagery from it--unless you're already familiar with that bit of tripe

80/x

@brucewilson But Rick Joyner, who pretty much inherited Jimmy Bakker's televangelism empire when PTL went down in flames in light of his sex scandal, who pretty much founded Morningstar Ministries on the actual grounds of Heritage USA which he bought for pennies on the dollar...

81/x

@brucewilson pretty much the leader of one of the major "downlines" in what has become the New Apostolic Reformation and what was still known as "Joel's Army" when I FIRST wrote on this, the same Rick Joyner who has Jimmy Baker as a regular guest on his show, POTUS Shield Rick Joyner...

82/x

@brucewilson the same Rick Joyner in charge of the Oak Initiative, the same Rick Joyner who's besties with Actual Convicted Seditionists the Pr*ud B*ys... who's supported OTHER seditionists linked to J6...

rightwingwatch.org/report/potus-s…
rightwingwatch.org/post/the-jan-6…
rightwingwatch.org/post/what-you-…

83/x

@brucewilson The selfsame Rick Joyner who after J6 overtly called for civil war, and the same Rick Joyner who was literally lighting the balefires along with Lance Wallnau and Eric Metaxas for the events of January 6th himself:

rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-joyn…
rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-joyn…

84/x

@brucewilson The selfsame Rick Joyner who lit the balefires of seditious plots to kidnap and take over state legislatures by Christian Nationalists even before January 6th, as well as attempted coups against state governments on J6:

rightwingwatch.org/post/how-the-p…

85/x

@brucewilson The same Rick Joyner who may have well organized what was the *second* of many balefire events leading up to J6 (only predated by a late September push by the Pr*ud B*ys that happened around Rosh Hashanah 2019): rightwingwatch.org/post/plans-for…

86/x

@brucewilson The same Rick Joyner who's actually a Christian National historical revisionist re American history: rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-joyn…

Who may have actually *PREDATED THE PR*UD B*YS* in calling for actual seditious conspiracy:

rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-joyn…

87/x

@brucewilson The same Rick Joyner who threatened a J6-style event if James Comey was not prosecuted for whistleblowing on the Trump admin as far back as *MARCH OF 2019* (and who also declared criticism of TFG as effectively blasphemy against the Holy Ghost): rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-joyn…

88/x

@brucewilson Yeah. THAT Rick Joyner...literally invoked "Phineas (sic) Imagery" in his book "The Harvest".

"The Harvest" was released in two volumes, published initially in 1989 and 1993...right around the time Hoskins was publishing "Vigilantes of Christendom"

89/x

@brucewilson This was also around the time that the first editions of the Army of God terrorist manual were coming out--right around 1990 or so--and even at that time "Phineas (sic) imagery" was remarkably common in NAR *and* Christian Identity circles

90/x

@brucewilson Sufficiently common, in fact, that Paul Hill--an Army of God domestic terrorist who was ultimately executed for the assassination of OB/GYN Dr. John Bayard Britton and his escort, and part of a Florida-area Army of God cell--explicitly invoked the imagery,

91/x

@brucewilson specifically terming his terrorist act as "Phineas (sic) Actions" and even writing a manifesto in prison explicitly calling for domestic terrorism and assassination as "Phineas (sic) actions"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Jenn…

92/x

@brucewilson And I will note that well before the publication of VOC, well before "The Harvest", there was a LOT of cross-pollination within "Christian Patriot militia" paramilitary groups, and even Christian Nationalist political movements and parties (like the Constitution Party)

93/x

@brucewilson I'd even go so far as to say it's probably been going on *at least* as long as the Posse Comitatus and the Army of God have been around: dailykos.com/stories/2008/5…

(Arguably even earlier, all the way back to Lanhamism and early "white Pentecostalism": dailykos.com/stories/2006/1…)

94/x

@brucewilson There is also a very good argument to be had that Christian Nationalism (even in the strictly political sense, much less NAR "coercive religious group with political aspirations") was ALWAYS inherently racist and cross-pollinating with Birchers et al,

95/x

@brucewilson particularly in the early history of the movement when it was still strongly connected with segregation, "massive resistance" and the loss of both voucher programs and (eventually) tax exemptions for "segregation academies"

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1540787…

96/x

@brucewilson And a more recent thread I've done regarding the history of Christian Nationalism and "segregation academies" and "massive resistance" in particular: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1661537…

(They didn't start with abortion but integration.)

97/x

@brucewilson And speaking of the NAR variety of Christian Nationalism specifically (as this is the stuff, and the extremism, I saw firsthand)...the face you're seeing now, where they openly partner with the racist right, is whom they've *always* been on some level

98/x

@brucewilson The main essential difference between now and 2007 is that The Former Guy embraced both, and effectively gave societal permission for both the racists and the religio-fascists to go full mask off--so y'all are seeing what's been going on IN those churches for 70+ years

99/end

@brucewilson @threadreaderapp unroll