When I read reports of Larry Ashbrook's horrible assault on a Ft. Worth Baptist Church recently, I felt more than my usual emotions. Along with the shock, the outrage, the sympathy, and the sorrow was a sense of fear.
Why? Because of how Larry Ashbrook was portrayed. You see, the first account of it I heard said that Ashbrook entered the church uttering "anti-religious" statements. I feared that perhaps some anti-religion nut had finally snapped and gone on a rampage. I feared that we freethinkers would be held to the same light as Ashbrook and who knew what could happen then?
I'm not exaggerating. One of my biggest fears is that one day we will no longer have even the little freedom from religion we currently have. I fear our country turning into an oppressive, violent theocracy (if that's not redundant).
But Larry Ashbrook was no more an atheist than the Pope. Larry Ashbrook, in fact, was tied to a religion-inspired hate group known as the Phineas Priesthood.
A regular reader and sometime contributor of this page sent me an email that reprinted a newspaper article from the Houston Chronicle. (Thanks, Kenneth!) The article was quite long, and contained more than is relevant for this article, but I'm quoting some passages from it here. The article was by Evan Moore and Jim Henderson, and is copyright 1999, The Houston Chronicle.
Larry Ashbrook, the gunman who killed seven people and himself at a Baptist church here Wednesday, identified himself three years ago as a member of a small, violent group that advocates killing Jews and minorities.While police Thursday said they had found no link between the 47-year-old gunman and hate groups, John Craig, co-author of an academic study of such groups said Ashbrook in 1996 boasted of membership in the Phineas Priests.
Ashbrook was interviewed three years ago by Craig, one of the three authors of the book, Soldiers of God, White Supremacists and their Holy War for America, and he identified himself as a Phineas Priest.
Craig said that organization was outraged at Southern Baptists for their efforts to convert Jews to Christianity. At the time of the church shooting, Baptist churches in Fort Worth were openly praying for Jewish conversions during the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
"When I heard about the shootings Wednesday night and I heard that the gunman was wearing black and killed himself, I knew it had to be a Phineas Priest," said Craig, whose book, Soldiers of God, White Supremacists and their Holy War for America, appeared in 1998.
"I called some people I know in the white supremacist movement, and they told me it was Larry Ashbrook."
Craig said he attempted to notify Fort Worth police of Ashbrook's racist connections and the possible motive for the shootings Wednesday night, but his telephone calls were not returned.
"My concern is that this is the tip of the iceberg," he said. "There are other Phineas Priests out there, and they feed off one another's actions."
Other Phineas Priest members linked to violence include Buford Furrow, who allegedly shot children in a Los Angeles Jewish day-care center, fugitive Eric Rudolph, the abortion center bomber also suspected in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, and three men arrested in a string of bank robberies and bombings in 1996.
Craig, a former undercover operative and private investigator who lives in Houston, said he considers members of the group among the most dangerous because of their willingness to die in the process of killing Jews, people of color or anyone who aids those groups.
"They are extremely violent loners who don't particularly want to draw attention to themselves except in death," Craig said. " ... He (Ashbrook) obviously had no intention of coming back. He intended to kill himself and become a martyr to his own kind."
A lot is contained in these few paragraphs. First, it's obvious that the statements made by Ashbrook, labeled as "anti-religious," were in fact only anti-Baptist policy. While this does nothing to reduce the tragedy of his actions, it does put me at ease a little bit about the immediate future. Also, the article shows that the authorities (and I use that term loosely) don't seem to be paying attention to Craig's information. Is this a deliberate act, perhaps? Do the cops not want to acknowledge that such a heinous act is the result of a Bible story? And, at least for me, was the article's mention of the very existence of the Phineas Priesthood. I'd never heard of it before.
After reading the article, though, I did a little digging. Here's a description of this group, as taken from the Los Angeles County Sheriff Emergency Operations Bureau's homepage:
Phineas Priests are right wing White supremacists; most follow Christian Identity teachings. They believe in violence to defend their interpretation of God's law. They have been involved in numerous bank robberies and murders, as well as, abortion clinic attacks (bombings and assassinations). They are violently opposed to abortion (although some think it is fine for non-whites). The Phineas Priesthood cannot be classified as an extremist organization. It is not an organization at all. There are no meetings, nor membership cards. One does not join the Priesthood; he is "called" to it. Note the 'he,' for women are not allowed to become Phineas Priests. One becomes a Phineas Priest not by adopting a set of beliefs, but by taking action, often violent. In other words, a Phineas Priest is by his very existence required to become a terrorist. The term "Phineas Priesthood" comes from the Old Testament of the Bible. The Book of Numbers, Chapter 25, describes how an Israelite man "enters into an unlawful union with a woman from another tribe (the Midianites) and brings down the wrath of Yahweh (God)" upon the Israelites. One outraged tribesman by the name of Phineas kills the race-mixing couple and thus appeases God. The action, according the UDI's Scott Mann forged a 'covenant of everlasting Priesthood' between God and Phineas. This Biblical account provides the justification asserted by Phineas Priests for directing retribution against those who are perceived to by the enemies of god. The symbol of the Phineas Priest is a cross, rounded at the top to form the letter "p," with "#" symbol and number 25 set below it. The emblem can be found on the walls of identity churches and embossed on the belt buckles of many CI followers.
Pretty scary, huh? Not to mention pathetic. But then, that's what we've come to expect from radical Christians, isn't it?
Christian Identity groups, frankly, scare the piss out of me. To know that people hold beliefs like these just blows my mind. And they could be anywhere, or anyone. I don't know about you, but I'll be keeping an eye on people's belt buckles from now on.
My late mother was married to non-white men twice in her life. To know that there are people out there who would think that she should be killed because of this is just sickening to me. My younger brother is of mixed race. Would these same people desire to put him to death as an abomination?
But the most frightening thing, I think, is the fact that the public at large will never take seriously the fact that the "holy bible" directly inspires such madness. They will continue to wave off groups like the Phineas Priests as being aberrant, as not really understanding the "word of God." And all the while, they will think nothing of the minor excesses of more mainstream religious groups, whose oppression is more wily, whose violence is (for the time being) hidden.
I wish the actions of people like Furrow and Ashbrook would wake up the rest of the country. Not wake them up to follow their examples, but wake them up to the reality of the danger of religious belief. How many more murders in the name of God will it take?
