TRANSITIONING FROM
CHRISTIANITY TO FASCISM

INTRODUCTION

There has been a spate of books - both Christian and secular - which have appeared recently that attribute Nazism and fascism to the intrusion of eastern mysticism and Hinduism into the West in the latter half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, an aberration having little or nothing to do with the mainstream of Western Civilization and the Christian tradition.

However, nothing could be further from the truth! The plain fact of the matter is, mythologies that have defined the West for well over a millennium and a half were responsible - mythologies which no doubt were taken to the extreme, but mythologies which nonetheless can clearly be found in the Western Tradition without any recourse to the traditions of the East.

The great danger in passing Nazism off as merely a cultural aberration - an anomaly which can be guarded against merely by expunging the influence of eastern mysticism and Hinduism from Christianity - is that in doing so, Christians have left themselves unguarded for the reappearance of fascism in the guise of a Euro-based, Christian-centered "civilization identity."

NOTE: Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University writes, "The West is now at an extraordinary peak of power in relation to other civilizations. Its superpower opponent has disappeared from the map ... The West faces no economic challenge. It dominates international political and security institutions with Japan [acting largely as a "copycat" junior partner to the West - Huntington] in the international economic arena. Global political and security issues are effectively settled by a directorate of the United States, Britain, and France; world economic issues by a directorate of the United States, Germany, and Japan, all of which maintain extraordinarily close relations with each other to the exclusion of lesser and largely non-Western countries." [Huntington]

So great has Western domination of the world progressed that decisions made at the United Nations or in the International Monetary Fund are essentially Western decisions reflecting Western values - they are not world decisions at all. Huntington writes, "The very phrase, 'the world community' has become (nothing more than) a euphemistic collective noun ... to give global legitimacy to actions reflecting the interests of the United States and other Western powers ... (and) through the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and other international economic institutions, the West promotes its economic interests and imposes on other nations the economic policies it thinks appropriate." [Huntington]

Moreover, the movement of Western Civilization back to its mythological (i.e., religious) roots (as opposed to its Biblical roots) under the impress of a multiculturalism gone mad is today producing throughout the West - and the United States in particular - an Angst very similar to the Angst which sixty years ago produced Hitler and the Third Reich; a West which is today, however, many times more powerful than was the Germany of 1939.

GETTING BACK TO THE BASICS:
THE ARTHURIAN LEGENDS

C. Warren Hollister of the University of California traces the primary source of Western mythology to the Germanic tradition. He writes that the core essence of Western Civilization is built -

"... upon a synthesis of three cultures: Classical, Christian, and Germanic" - and that only with the final fusion of the classical and Christian traditions to the Germanic tradition "... can it be said that Western Civilization was born."

It is this fusion of the German element with the older Graeco-Roman and Christian traditions which gave us what we today call "Western Civilization;" it is also that which has given Christianity "heterodoxy" - the mixture of Western traditions with the Christian religion. What all this has essentially accomplished is to tie Christianity - which should have been, by any fair reading of the New Testament, universal - to a single civilization: the Western.

Five elements of Germanic tradition have proved to be of special endurance in the mythology of the West, traditions which predate Christianity but which today have become so intertwined in the mythos which surrounds the West that most people seem hardly aware of their ancient origin; and while it may be true that many people would not be able to make the scholastic connection between these elements and their own situations today, each of these elements - when placed in their modern contexts - would be easily identifiable to them.

1. The Grail Quest: the Search for Inner Purity.

2. Brotherhoods: Comitatus or Gemeinschaft Prinzip

3. Siege Paranoia: Angst Prinzip

4. The Germanic tradition of Leadership: Fuhrer Prinzip

5. Elitism: Obermensch Prinzip

Finally, it should be noted that each of these elements, both in combination and standing alone, approximate - at least on the surface - Christian ideals, although they arrive at these ideals as a result of occultism rather than from any Christian perspective; together, these ideals aim at the creation of an earthly kingdom not unlike Plato's Republic, and a ruling class not unlike Plato's "philosopher kings." And this is why so many Christians - especially Christians who have been enraged by the direction that secular-humanism has taken the country over the last twenty years - find it so easy to "connect" with Nazis and fascists like Willis Carto and Roger Pearson - people who have really no interest at all in the gentle Carpenter of Nazareth and the faith He bequeathed to the world, but who find common cause with Christians in their similar political concerns.

NOTE: Erickson says that the concepts enunciated by Plato became extremely important in medieval thinking, even prompting many medieval thinkers to conclude that Plato had been a "pre-Christian" in the sense that the medieval mindset applied that term to the Jewish prophets. Plato was, of course, no such thing. But so enamored were medieval thinkers with Plato's concepts of a ruling class (the "Philosopher-Kings"), and so parallel was this kind of thinking to the concepts which swirled around the various brotherhoods of Crusader Knights, that it was easy for Christians to draw such a conclusion. It is precisely these kinds of similarities, similarities having to do with an elite ruling class - Christians on the one hand: i.e., the "Manifested Sons of God," the "New Breed," "Joel's Army," etc; and Nazis on the other: "Aryans," the "Germanic Brotherhood," the "Ordnung," etc. - which inexorably draw the two groups - Christians and Nazis - together, sometimes without the former (i.e., the Christians) ever realizing what's happening, as was the case with the Medieval Church and Plato.

THE GRAIL QUEST: THE SEARCH
FOR MORAL PERFECTION

Norris J. Lacy and Geoffrey Ashe write that the Grail Quest -

"... represented the fusion of ... (Germanic traditions involving Valhalla and Camelot) with sacred history." 

The Quest recounts the progress of the "Grail Seekers" - Perceval (Parsifal), Gauvain (Gwain), Galahad and others - for moral perfection. The goal of the Quest was a vision of God; the means of achieving the goal was moral perfection. The failure of the Quest meant destruction.

Interwoven into the Quest by the Grail Searchers is the effort to heal a mysterious, Arthurian, Christ-like figure known as the "Fisher King" (sometimes known as the "Grail King") who has been wounded by a spear or lance. It is said that when this mysterious king is healed, he will rise and restore the earth's fallen estate to perfection. He is the Restitutor Orbis or World Restorer - "The Once and Future King."

In the Grail Quest, spiritual vision is the index of spiritual progress. At the apex of all human visions is the "Vision of God" (see note below). It is this hoped for climax that impels the Grail Seeker's struggle towards perfection - the "mystic understanding through an intensity of feeling" expressed as vision.  Carolly Erickson writes,

"Vision (i.e., the "mystic understanding of God through an intensity of feeling") ... determined each being's likeness to God. It was man's visual capabilities, Macrobius wrote, that determined the degree of his participation in the divine mind" - his likeness and closeness to God - in other words, his spirituality."

NOTE: Macrobius, in Somnium Scipionis, was a major medieval reference on dreams and visions; it set out a graphic model of the "continuous act" of divine creation.

The stories involving both the Grail Quest and the Fisher King were introduced to the world first as pagan Germanic folklore, but over the years were transformed into Christian myths pregnant with meaning. And here it should be clearly understood that the mythology which undergirds the Grail Quest has little or nothing to do with Biblical Christianity. Indeed, it's the antithesis of this kind of Christianity. In Biblical Christianity, perfection is imparted to the believer through Christ's work on the cross, not on anything the believer has done (or can do). In the Grail Quest, the exact opposite is true - nonetheless, this kind of thinking has seeped deeply into today's Christianity and into the Western Tradition - so much so that most people accept this mythology as a vehicle which imparts Christian truth - and the degree of its acceptance can be measured by the degree to which Grail terminology [i.e., "Vision of God," "Seeker of Truth," "The Quest," (e.g., "my quest," "your quest," "his quest," "her quest,") etc.] has crept into "Christian-speak" today.

The plain fact of the matter is, such terminology is seldom used in the Bible; moreover, the inordinate emphasis on "other worldliness" and "hyper-spirituality" in many so-called "Christians" is more often than not the result of "Grail Christianity" and Grail concepts than it is of Biblical Christianity. And the same is true with regard to the over emphasis on extraordinary visions and dreams. This is not to say that visions and dreams are not legitimate Christian experiences; it is only to say that all too often such experiences are not Biblical experiences at all, but result from a Grail mentality - for example, the experiences alluded to by devotees of the so-called "Kansas City Prophets," a Protestant group associated at one time or another with such mainline charismatic groups as John Wimber's Vineyards, the Foursquare Church, and the Word of God Communities [a Catholic group connected to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR)] and other Catholic groups like Opus Dei and the Jesuits.

NOTE: In the unfinished Perceval by the Frenchman, Chretien de Troyes (born @1160), Perceval observes the Grail procession: a youth enters a hall with a bleeding spear or lance and is followed by youths carrying candelabra. Then "a beautiful maiden enters, holding a grail in her hands ... The grail was worked with fine gold and was encrusted with many precious stones, which were among the richest and most expensive in the world." The procession excites Perceval's curiosity, but having earlier been instructed not to talk excessively, he refuses to ask about the Grail. He later learns that, had he inquired, his question would have cured the maimed Grail King. Importantly, he learns that his failure to ask was due to an earlier sexual sin.

Curiously, sexual sin is the besetting hindrance which all Grail Seekers must overcome in their quest for the Vision of God. Sexual sin beclouds Perceval's moral vision and ruins his quest. Lancelot and Tristan also fail in their quests because of sexual sin - their adulterous love for women (Guinevere and Isolde) who belong to other men. The destruction of Grail Searchers through sexual sin is a never ending theme running through the entire fabric of the Grail Quest. The massive, even colossal, gravity of sexual sin in the mythology of the Grail Quest has no parallel in the Bible. So great does the fear of sexual sin loom in the eyes of the Grail Seekers, that strict forms of chastity come to encompass all those who enter the quest - a chastity under which the Templars, the Hospitalers, the Teutons, etc. all labored - and it's interesting to note in this connection that one of the hallmarks of the coming "anti-messiah" is his hatred and loathing (one might even say, fear) of women. (Dan. 11:37)

It's no accident, therefore, that the same chastity - the kind which leads to the actual fear of women as a contaminating influence - has come to encompass many Christian sects; but again, the fear so generated has nothing to do with the Bible and everything to do with the Grail Quest - and the extensive degree to which this kind of thinking has trickled into Christianity gives some indication as to the influence that Grail thinking has had on Western Christianity. Leaving aside the obvious example of the Roman Catholic Church, with its refusal to let its priests marry, take William Branham. Branham's influence on American Pentecostalism cannot be over estimated. C. Douglas Weaver has written,

"Branham's ministry must ... be considered ... as (the) precursor of the Faith/Confession movement (to say nothing of Latter Rain) ... Kenneth Hagin ... is the founder, and is the acknowledged 'prophet' of the movement. Other prominent voices - all of whom consider Hagin their spiritual father - include Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price, John Osteen, Kenneth Hagin, Jr., and Charles Capps."

Throughout his entire career as a minister and as a faith-healer, Branham - like all Grail Seekers - exhibited a paranoid fear of women; it was woven into his entire ministry and was the main topic of one of his most repeated sermons, "The Serpent's Seed," a sermon in which he wove a truly lurid tale of female treachery, impurity, and seduction - and a sermon which paralleled in its conceptual form almost every aspect of Wagner's Parsifal. All of these men - i.e., Hagin, Copeland, etc. - exert powerful influences on today's charismatic movement, and most are at the forefront of the Christian Unity movement which today is encompassing both conservative Catholics and Protestants. [Please see our article, "Phallus Worship and the New Charismatics."]

THE GERMANIC CONCEPT OF COMITATUS

The myth of the Grail Quest takes on added meaning when linked to the tradition of Western militarism and "civilization expansion" - Comitatus.

Lacy and Ashe write that the Comitatus was a kind of medieval military brotherhood based on honor, fidelity, courage, and mutual respect between leader and men; in warfare, the leader was expected to excel his men in courage and prowess and should the leader be killed, his men were honor-bound to fight to the death even if their cause should appear hopeless. The tradition of Comitatus has always existed in Western armies - and continues to this day. The term Comitatus was a word used by the Romans to describe certain fierce (some would even say "fanatical") German military organizations which fought Rome's intrusions into their homeland from about 100 B.C to 300 A.D. Tacitus first used the word to describe those specific German "military brotherhoods" which required their adherents to submit to a highly ritualized religious initiation in which the initiate was required to swear a "blood oath" of enduring loyalty first to the leader of the brotherhood and then to the organization and membership in general (i.e., the Posse).

John Toland, in describing the relationship of Comitatus between leader and men which existed in the German Army in both World War I and World War II, writes,

"Life at the ... (front) brought officers and men closer together in a brotherhood of suffering and blood. The men worshipped the one who led them into desperate hand-to-hand combat. 'To them he was not their commanding officer; he was their Fuhrer! And they were his comrades! They trusted him blindly and would have followed him into hell itself if it were necessary'. Together they formed a frontline relationship of democracy ... The miles of trenches were isolated from the rest of the world and became, in effect, a 'monastery with walls of flame'."

The concept of Comitatus served as the backdrop to the legends which came to surround Valhalla and later Camelot. In addition, the concept of Comitatus came to undergird the entire system of feudal knighthood and the various military brotherhoods of "Crusader Knights" which supported Christian "civilization expansion" - the Teutonic Knights, the Templars, the Knights of St. John, etc.

Again - like the Grail Quest - it should be clearly understood that the concept of a "military brotherhood" was totally foreign to Biblical Christianity; its origins lay not in the Bible (i.e., the New Testament), but in Germanic mythology. But so thoroughly did these concepts come to enshroud Christianity, Lacy and Ashe write, that the ideals and codes of conduct which prevailed at Camelot - and even Valhalla after its "Christianization" - continue to inspire ordinary people today.

Lacy and Ashe continue,

"At the risk of oversimplifying we may say that these knights were expected to serve God, king, justice, and morality, their ladies, and the cause of persons in need. They were expected to develop their military skills, perfect their moral state, and exhibit appropriate social behavior."

The tradition of the Grail Quest, when combined with the tradition of Comitatus, produced the concept of "civilization expansion" using military force as a MORAL IMPERATIVE. When combined with Christianity, it justified the expansion of God's kingdom on earth through the force of arms which a simple resort to Biblical Christianity could never justify; but when Christianity was combined with the German traditions of the Grail Quest and Comitatus, such thinking was easily justified and almost effortlessly sustained, not only as a civilization imperative, but as an individual imperative capable of producing moral perfection and a vision of God in the individual warrior or Crusader.

The taking up of arms and the dedication of one's life to a crusade or a church sanctioned military expedition, therefore, became one of the quickest and surest ways to achieve inner spirituality and heavenly vision. Thus, when Hitler and Mussolini spoke of the ennobling effect of warfare on both the individual and the civilization, they were not necessarily drawing from eastern mysticism and/or "New Age" sources, but from metaphysical reservoirs which were deeply embedded in Christian and Western traditions. Indeed, it is this kind of thinking which impelled Spain's conquest of the Moors - and the consequent development of the El Cid mythology, Spain's counterpart to Germany's Parsifal and England's Arthur - and its expansion into Central and South America; and not only Spain's expansion, but England's expansion into North America, India and Africa; Germany's expansion eastward, etc. But, again, this is heterodoxy, pure and simple - and has little or nothing to do with Biblical Christianity. And again, one makes a great mistake in believing that the kind of thinking which produces "military brotherhoods" is dead and gone. On the contrary, it's alive and well.

NOTE: The military and religious Order of the Poor Knights of Christ, was founded in 1119 by Hugues de Payen and Godfrey de Saint Adhemar, with seven other knights; they took to themselves solemn vows of sexual chastity, poverty, and obedience, and undertook the defense of pilgrims to the Holy Land. Baldwin II, king of Jerusalem, granted the knights quarters in his palace, which had been built on the site of the old Jewish Temple; hence the popular name of the order, "The Templars." The rule of the order was severe and ascetic. It was drawn up by Bernard of Clairvaux. In 1172 the Templars were set free from the jurisdiction of kings and bishops and made dependent on the pope alone; they were further allowed to confess to chaplains of their own order. Their houses, castles and fortresses had the right of sanctuary, and their property was exempt from all taxation - and in consequence their establishments were frequently used as treasuries.

The military history of the Templars is without parallel in the history of the West, except perhaps for the Order of Teutonic Knights - and plainly exemplifies the heroic virtues of the Western tradition of military brotherhoods - the Comitatus. To them, rather than to the miscellaneous hordes of crusaders which periodically swarmed into the Holy Land from Europe, was due the long stay of Christianity in Palestine (almost 200 years). Over twenty thousand Templars perished in the attempt to hold the Holy Land, and most of their Grand Masters died on the field of battle.

In addition to its possessions in Syria and Asia Minor, the order came to own numerous lordships in almost every country in Europe - over 9,000 manors and castles according to Matthew Paris. Their annual income drawn from European sources alone - not counting their sources elsewhere - is estimated to have been about 6,000,000 pounds sterling - an unheard of amount of money for the time. At the height of their power they had become - for all practical purposes - the bankers of Europe, a trust which they held largely as a result of their strict honesty, the charges of their enemies notwithstanding. Because of their great wealth and their independence of all local authority, the Templars had by the middle of the thirteenth century become an object of hatred and envy to almost all the royal houses in Europe, and most especially, the royal house of France.

As a result, European monarchs began circulating stories which charged the order with licentiousness, apostasy, treachery and being in league with the devil and the Jews (a story which anti-Semites circulated largely because the Templars had, in the closing days of their stay in the Holy Land, and unlike most other crusaders, undertaken the defense not only of Christian pilgrims, but Jewish ones as well - thus the charge that they were in league with the Jews, and ipso facto, the devil); these stories, of course, were nothing but pure fabrication. Finally, in 1307, Philip of France, finding himself in a particularly impoverished condition, entered into an intrigue with many of his brother monarchs to enrich himself by seizing the Templar's treasuries and destroying the order. By the fall of that year he had enlisted the support of the pope, Clement V, who had become, for all practical purposes, Philip's ward. Clement summoned the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, to appear before Philip in Paris.

On October 16, the Templars, dressed in their gleaming armor and white tunics emblazoned with the red Cross of Christ and the symbols of their order, entered Paris in a great procession. Paris had never before seen anything like it. It is said that the people of Paris threw their garments down before the Templars as they rode by - mimicking Christ's entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. But Philip had decided to play the part of Herod, and after persuading the Templars to disarm, invited de Molay and 140 of his leading brother knights to a feast in their honor. At the conclusion of the feast, Philip seized de Molay and threw him and the others into prison. There, by resort to torture and the most shameless travesty of justice, Philip exacted "evidence" against the Templars. The whole episode was such a farce, that most of the other monarchs of Europe were put to shame, and in remorse found de Molay and the Templars innocent. Nonetheless, Philip executed de Molay in 1314. With the execution of de Molay, the order came to an end, and a great persecution against the remnants of the order broke out - one which coincided with a bloody and cruel pogrom directed against the Jews which Philip believed were the Templar's allies.

GORDON WENDALL KAHL
& THE POSSE COMITATUS

Posse Comitatus is the term Gordon Wendall Kahl, a North Dakota farmer, gave to his far-right militia organization of local farmers and ranchers which he founded in North Dakota in the early 1970s to fight further federal and state encroachments into their local affairs. Kahl (63) was killed on June 3, 1983 by federal law enforcement officers in a confrontation at a farmhouse in the Arkansas Ozarks.

Kahl and those who followed him saw themselves as "freedom fighters" waging war against what they considered to be the "illegal encroachment" of "outside" authorities (i.e., federal and state bureaucrats) into their private (and local) affairs. Kahl viewed himself and his organization in the same light as that of the old Germanic warlords in their long ago battle against the imperial (i.e., extra-local) pretensions of ancient Rome. Kahl's Posse Comitatus was a forerunner of today's widespread "militia movement" which, which although severely suppressed during the last fifteen years, continues as a force to be reckoned with. [Please see our articles, "The Civilian Militias and the Mythology of the Religious Right," "Dominionism: The Theology of Today's Anti-Government Movement," and "A Growing Rage in America's Heartland."]

Indeed, Kahl is hailed today as an early hero and martyr among radical right militia activists who see his death as evidence of a federal government conspiracy to deny Americans their rights. Books and songs saluting him have been written, and shirts and bumper stickers eulogizing him have become collector's items. Kahl, in keeping with Posse Comitatus doctrines recognizing no government authority above the county (i.e., local) level, had refused to renew his state driver's license in 1974. In 1977 he was charged with tax evasion on his 1972-'74 taxes and was placed on five years probation. An arrest warrant was issued for him in March 1981 when Kahl failed to report to a Bismarck probation officer. On February 13, 1983 Kahl killed two U.S. marshals and wounded three others in an ambush which federal authorities had set to capture him [some say "kill" (i.e., murder) him] in Medina, North Dakota. Kahl escaped and a four-month search ensued. In June 1983, Kahl was discovered hiding out in an Arkansas farmhouse and was killed (Comitatus adherents say, "gunned-down") in the shootout which followed with law enforcement officers. There are many today who see Kahl's death as presaging the Ruby Ridge and Waco tragedies some seven and fifteen years later.

The leadership principle inherent in Comitatus thinking, however, is not necessarily unique to the radical fringe; indeed, it has undergirded and sustained the fighting spirit of all Western armies for more than a millennium - and it is this spirit of brotherhood - this "pact of blood" - which more than anything else explains why combat veterans in Western armies detest the thought of sharing their "brotherhood of blood" with female soldiers. There is no room for women in such brotherhoods - and it is precisely this kind of reasoning that is behind the Catholic Church's loathing with regard to women in the priesthood. Indeed, the refusal of the Catholic Church to admit women to the priesthood has little or nothing to do with legitimate Biblical injunctions against such a concept (after all, the Catholic Church has never allowed Scripture to stand in its way in other matters); instead it flows out of the priesthood's belief that it is a special brotherhood of holy warriors based on the Germanic concept of Comitatus - a brotherhood of "blood and iron" in which there is no place for women - and, indeed, a place where women are held in utter contempt, despite the priesthood's sometimes transparent efforts to maintain a front of gallantry and chivalry towards them. Moreover, and contrary to all the efforts of the multicultural elite to promote the idea of "gender equality" in the military (which ultimately must translate into the idea of "women in combat") - the macho concept of Comitatus is still alive and well in the "mass culture" as anyone who has taken the time to see movies like Rambo, etc. and/or have followed what's happening in such male "brotherhoods" as the "Bloods," the "Crips," the "Latin Kings," the "Aryan Brotherhood, etc." - and these, after all, are the "manpower pools" from which our army today is "manned."

It would, therefore, be a great mistake to think that the concept of Comitatus is dead and gone - that the "Tailhook Scandal" and the admission of women into Western armies has ended this kind of thinking. War does strange things in reawakening old gods - and it does it in ways that would be incomprehensible in more peaceful times. Furthermore, although few military officers would now be prepared to admit it, the fact is that in the heat and barbarity of actual combat, few men would be willing to follow a female officer.

MODERN-DAY TEMPLARS:
NELSON BUNKER HUNT

Moreover, one doesn't need to resort to the use of "wild-eyed crazies" - the kind that live up near Hayden Lake, Idaho - or even the more obvious example of the Militia Movement; take the example of Nelson Bunker Hunt. In his investigation of private spies, author Jim Hougan learned that Nelson Bunker Hunt, the close confidant and fund raiser for such Religious Right luminaries as Tim LaHaye and Pat Robertson, once organized a paramilitary force called the "American Volunteer Group" which he intended to use - death squad style - against political opponents. 

Hunt, the CNP's third president after Tim LaHaye and Tom Ellis - and just before Pat Robertson - is also a member of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, a racist "brotherhood" modeled after the Hospitalers which is based in Scotland and tied to the late Senator Jesse Helms. The Order has been linked to the late Lady Malcolm Douglas Hamilton. She and her husband, Lord Malcolm Douglas, were the hosts to Rudolf Hess, Hitler's third in command, when - in 1940 - Hess made his secret flight to England. [Please see our articles on the CNP, "The Council on National Policy" and "The Ideological Origins of the CNP."]

Hess was seeking to meet with the British aristocratic and "High Church" circle known as the "Cliveden Set." Sympathetic to Hitler's war aims - including his policies towards the Jews - the "Cliveden Set" tried to get England out of the war it had declared against Germany in September, 1939 - after Germany had invaded Poland. Hess was arrested and imprisoned. 

NOTE: Hess was imprisoned after the war by the victorious Allies. He was placed in solitary confinement and held incommunicado during the entire length of his stay at Spandau Prison. He was the only prisoner who was never released. The refusal of the Allies to release Hess was blamed on Soviet intransigence. The reason now appears to have been British intransigence.

Towards the end of his imprisonment, the Allies came under increasing pressure to release him for "humanitarian" reasons - and he was at last given a release date. However, he died under mysterious circumstances shortly before his scheduled release. His death was blamed on suicide. But why would Hess have committed suicide? - the question was never adequately investigated, nor were the immediate circumstances surrounding his alleged suicide. At the time of his death, the British were in charge at Spandau and they were the ones in charge of the "official" investigation into the suicide.

Many have become convinced that Hess was in fact murdered under pressure by former members of the Cliveden Set (and other members of the British aristocracy), many of whom would have been greatly embarrassed by the revelations Hess could have made regarding his ties to them and his as yet very mysterious and still unexplained trip to England in 1940.

MORE LATTER-DAY TEMPLARS: MARANATHA
AND THE WORD OF GOD COMMUNITIES

Then there's Maranatha Ministries and the Word of God Communities (the WOGs). Both are "Latter Rain" - one a Catholic group (the WOGs), the other Protestant (Maranatha). Like most groups connected to the theology (perhaps the better word is "World-View" or Weltanschauung) known as "Latter Rain," the WOGs and Maranatha are charismatic, and as such practice "speaking in tongues," receive "prophetic utterances," practice exorcism, are extremely authoritarian, hold to a hostile view of modernity, and believe in a coming world holocaust which will pit the church against the "secular-humanist" forces of Satan.

NOTE: Al Dager, an acknowledged authority on this subject, writes, "Some two decades before Pentecostalism found its way into the (mainstream) denominations (i.e., the Episcopalians, the Catholic Church, etc.) as the Charismatic Renewal, it experienced a new surge of experience-oriented theology within its own ranks. It was from this neo-Pentecostal experience - what came to be called the "Latter Rain Movement" - that Charismatic Dominionism sprang. The more prominent leaders of that movement blended Pentecostal fervor with teachings that the Church was on the brink of a worldwide revival. That revival would result in a victorious Church without spot or wrinkle ... (which) would inherit the earth and rule over the nations with a rod of iron. In one way or another Franklin Hall, William Branham, George Hawtin, Percy G. Hunt, Herrick Holt, George Warnock, Bill Britton, Kathryn Kuhlman, Oral Roberts, Ern Baxter, Don Basham, Bob Mumford, Charles Simpson, Derek Prince, D. James Kennedy, William Banks, Marilyn Hickey, Demos Shakarian, Ralph Martin, Steve Clark, Kevin Ranaghan, etc. have all been involved in "Latter Rain."

The eschatology (or doctrine of "end times") which the WOGs and Maranatha embrace is a type of "post-millennialism" that has come to be known as "Dominionism" - a militant theology which pictures the seizure of earthly (temporal) power by the church as the only means through which the world can be rescued; only after the world has been thus "rescued" can Christ return to "rule and reign."

NOTE: Dager writes, "A basic premise of dominion theology is that when Adam sinned, not only did man lose dominion over the earth, but God also lost control of the earth to Satan, Since that time, some say, God has been on the outside looking in, searching for a 'covenant people' who will be His 'extension' or 'expression' in the earth to take dominion back from Satan ..."

It is in this context that the practice of "shepherding" and "discipleship" inherent in many Latter Rain groups must be understood; the practice is meant to "discipline" and train the members for the coming war. The WOGs and Maranatha maintain a passion for secrecy and are pledged to keep their aims hidden from the "enemy and his agents." [Please see our articles on "shepherding and discipleship," "Today's Church: Making Zombies out of Christians" and "The House on 24^th Street."]

NOTE: "Shepherding" and "discipleship," is a practice begun by some "Latter Rain" groups in the 1970s that requires initiates and members to "submit" themselves to "elders" which have been placed over them. The entire scheme resembles a pyramid in which members are submitted to a "shepherd" which has been placed above them; in turn, they are placed as "shepherds" over others (usually two or three, called "disciples"), who in turn act as "shepherds" to two or three others and so on down to the base.

The control exercised by the "shepherd" extends well beyond theological matters and involves such "life decisions" as the selection of a spouse, where to live, the choice of cars, which schools their children should attend, and even such mundane matters as one's weekly schedule of activities. Moreover, the practice of linking people to others in the pyramid crosses church and denominational boundaries, often bypassing - and in the process, neutralizing - the (often) more moderating influence of local pastors and other denominational authorities.

Both groups have links to Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute which is largely dedicated to recruiting and training young Christian conservatives in the methodologies of radical right-wing politics. Blackwell has worked out a particularly close relationship with Bob Weiner's Maranatha Ministries. Blackwell told the Wall Street Journal that at any one given time, ten percent of his trainees were from Maranatha.

NOTE: Blackwell is also the founder and chairman of the Conservative Leadership PAC and is the eastern state vice chairman of the Virginia Republican Party; he was a former Special Assistant to President Reagan for Public Liaison; a former staff member for the Senate Republican Policy Committee; a former policy director for US Senator Gordon J Humphrey; an overseer for the 1980 Youth for Reagan effort; a member of the CNP; a former editor for The Right Report; and a former contributing editor to the Conservative Digest. He works closely with Paul Weyrich. Blackwell - like Weyrich - is first and foremost a politico (a "card-carrying" member of the Secular Right). Blackwell was one of the New Right activists who (with Viguerie, Weyrich, Phillips, etc.) attempted to take over the neo-fascist and anti-Semitic American Independent Party in 1976.

And just how dedicated Weiner's "Christian foot-soldiers" are in pursuit of Blackwell's conservative dreams can perhaps best be judged by a statement Weiner made in 1985:

"The Bible says we (i.e., Christians) are to ... rule. If you don't rule and I don't rule, the atheists and the humanists and the agnostics are going to rule. We should be the head of our school board. We should be the head of our nation. We should be the Senators and the Congressmen. We should be the editors of our newspapers. We should be taking over every area of life."

Blackwell also works closely with Pat Robertson - and one of the Leadership Institute's largest chapters is located at CBNU (now Regent University). Blackwell claims that he is creating a "Delta Force" of students pledged to go anywhere in 48 hours notice not necessarily to win souls to Christ, but "to win a close Senate race, tackle the 'liberal dinosaurs' on key issues, mobilize and activate the student grassroots and win back the battle for the mind of America" - all this from a man (Blackwell) who at one time thought nothing of allying himself with the fascist, anti-Semitic American Independent Party.

Now, let's pause for a moment and consider what we have here: a Secular Right organization - with fascist and Nazi ties - which has at its disposal what Blackwell has termed two "Delta Force units" of college age students - one group Catholic, the other group Protestant - pledged to go anywhere on 48 hours notice "to win a close Senate race, tackle the 'liberal dinosaurs' on key issues, mobilize and activate the student grassroots and win back the battle for the mind of America." While it's no doubt stretching the point a little, one cannot help but think of Roehm's SA units (the infamous "Brownshirts" of Hitler's Millennial Kingdom) who stood ready to carry out right-wing activity in another place and at another time. They too wore slogans which read, "Gott mit uns" - "God with us!" 

On the surface, it seems mindboggling to think that Christians like Nelson Bunker Hunt, Morton Blackwell, Bob Weiner, as well as legitimate Protestant and Catholic groups like Maranatha and the Word of God Communities could be thinking in such terms today - but maybe its not so difficult when one begins to grasp what the darker side of "Western Civilization" is all about, and the seductive allure this kind of thinking has for many whites - not all of them "nuts."

People like Hunt - and even Robertson and LaHaye - have come to sincerely believe that their civilization - Western Christendom - is under siege by a godless "Secular Humanism" bent on its destruction; they think of themselves as modern-day "Crusader Knights" united together in a "holy brotherhood" to confront this menace and that in doing so, they are doing nothing more than what the Templars, the Hospitalers and the Teutonic Knights did when confronting the Asian and Islamic hordes which were hurling themselves against Christendom a millennium ago, and who are beginning to do so again.

The magnetism of this kind of thinking should not be underestimated - and it's spreading! And be clear here, it's precisely this kind of thinking which produced the SS - Hitler's own Knight Templars.

Moreover, one should not think that the "Latter Rain" movement out from which most groups like Maranatha and WOG emanate is a fringe movement. That would be a grave mistake. In one way or another Franklin Hall, William Branham, George Hawtin, Percy G. Hunt, Herrick Holt, George Warnock, Bill Britton, Kathryn Kuhlman, Oral Roberts, Ern Baxter, Don Basham, Bob Mumford, Charles Simpson, Derek Prince, Marilyn Hickey, Demos Shakarian, Ralph Martin, Steve Clark, Kevin Ranaghan, John Wimber, etc. have all been involved in "Latter Rain."

Finally, secularists would be greatly underestimating the influence of these men to write them off as disconnected "rednecks" and "country hicks." On the contrary, they are all very well "connected;" take one example, Demos Shakarian's Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International (FGBMFI). FGBMFI includes within its membership Joseph Coors; former Secretary of the Interior, James Watt; former assistant to the Attorney General, Herbert Ellingwood; former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Vessey; General Ralph E. Haines, former Commanding General of the Continental Army Command; General Dick Shaefer, former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force in Europe, former Chief of Plans in Vietnam and former Deputy Director for Plans and Policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

CHRISTENDOM UNDER SIEGE: THE GENESIS
OF WESTERN PARANOIA OR ANGST

There is also within the Western tradition a recurring theme which portrays Christendom under relentless pressure from godless forces which have surrounded it and are seeking its destruction, and it is this tradition that manifests itself in many of the millenarian belief systems which are currently in vogue throughout Western Christianity - belief systems which go far beyond Biblical Christianity and produce within their adherents a paranoiac negativism that is more reminiscent of Valhalla's "Twilight of the Gods" than it is of a confident looking forward to Christ's return. And when such thinking goes beyond pre-millennialism to post-millennialism - in other words, when it manifests itself in a paranoiac drive "to set things right" not only in the "sweet bye and bye" but in the present "here and now" - "Political Christianity" is the result, the drive by Christians to confront the threat through the political process and/or the force of arms (i.e., "Reconstructionism," "Latter Rain," "Charismatic Dominionism," etc.).

This tradition, however, was not created in a vacuum; it is not without some basis in historic fact. Since 600 A.D., Europe has suffered under the harsh press of Islamic expansion and Asian assaults.

In 711 the Muslims crossed Gibraltar and conquered Spain, driving the Christians into the mountainous north of the Iberian Peninsula. Next the Muslims transversed the Pyrenees and threatened Burgundy, Aquitaine, and much of southern France. They were finally stopped at Tours by a Crusader army led by Charles Martel. In the middle of the thirteenth century the Mongols invaded Russia, Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary - defeating three great Crusader armies before mysteriously pulling back just as it seemed all of Europe lay open to them. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Turks, and the Balkans fell shortly thereafter. By the late 1400s, the Turks had reached the gates of Vienna, one of Europe's greatest cities; they were finally repulsed after great loss of life and the destruction of two more Crusader armies.

These three great invasions - two by the Muslims and one by the Mongols, liberally interspersed by marauding bands of pagan Vikings from the north, pirates from the Mediterranean, roving criminal bands which regularly descended on Europe's farms and villages from their forest and mountain sanctuaries - all bent on murder, rape and pillage - threw a fright into Christian Europe from which it has never really recovered. The fear produced by these invasions worked deeply into the European psyche, producing a siege mentality - an Angst - which is never free of menace and disaster, and an Angst which is being re-awakened by what Europeans perceive as a never ending flow of migrants from the Islamic countries of North Africa and the Middle East and the nations of the Orthodox east as a result of the fall of communism and the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism.

THE URGE TO SET THINGS RIGHT: DEFENDING
CHRISTENDOM FROM THE INFIDELS

When the first rumors of the Mongol invasion of Russia and Hungary reached Europe early in the thirteenth century, Frederick II of Germany wrote letters to his brother monarchs describing the imminent peril to the West. The king wrote:

"Bursting forth from the abodes of Tartarus, the Horde is even now battering like a sudden tempest at Germany, the 'door of Christendom'. Yet the day will come when Christendom will rise victorious against all her enemies, when Germany, rising with rage and zeal to battle, and France, that mother and nurse of chivalry; the warlike and bold Spain, with fertile England, valorous in its men, and protected by its fleet; Almaine, full of impetuous warriors, the maritime Dacia; untamable Italy; Burgundy, that never knows peace; restless Apulia, with the piratical and unconquered islands of the Grecian, Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas ... when bloody Ireland, with active Wales; Scotland, abounding in lakes, icy Norway, and every noble and renowned country lying under the royal star of the West, shall send forth their chosen ornaments preceded by the symbol of the life-giving cross ..."

One sees in this letter of a thousand years ago the manifestation of the same paranoia that even today grips the Political and Religious Right; and not only that, but the urge to "set things right" through unified Christian military and political action. But one finds it difficult to conceive of the gentle Carpenter of Nazareth confronting his enemies in such a fashion; however, the emperor of Germany was apparently under no such restraint; and neither, so it seems, is the Religious Right.

THE MIRACULOUS POWER OF SANCTITY

When this paranoia was combined with the concepts of the Grail Quest and Comitatus, a psychotic dimension was added to the Western World which haunts it still, and this is especially true when combined with certain elements inherent in the Grail Quest which implied that disaster and failure were the results of sin - in this case, "civilization sin." It is the lesson of Perceval, Lancelot, and Tristan applied to an entire civilization - and it is this kind of thinking which so intrigued Richard Wagner in Lohengrin, and Tristan and Isolde.

Moreover, this kind of thinking, the kind which links "civilization success" to individual purity within a community of believers - what Carolly Erickson calls "the miraculous power of sanctity," a situation which approximates Camelot - is re-awakening in the Christian World, phoenix-like from the ashes of Valhalla. For example, take the late Rouses John (R.J.) Rushdoony. Rushdoony makes the same linkage between "civilization failure" and sin that Wagner makes in Parsifal - and even Gotterdammerung and Die Walkure. Rushdoony believes that it is the primary responsibility of government to maintain godly purity within a society; because Christians have allowed their government to be usurped by atheists and humanists, the role of government and the institutions of Western Christendom have been perverted and will, as a result, experience God's judgment if the situation is not quickly rectified. Moreover, not only will the atheists and humanists be judged, but believers who have allowed this to happen will likewise experience God's wrath. The penalty will fall on unbelievers and believers alike. It is the Church's responsibility, therefore, to place itself in the forefront of political and social action to take back the reins of government from out of the hands of the ungodly.

To be sure, Rushdoony is applying "Old Testament Law" or theology here - and what he is saying cannot be said to have been necessarily derived from Germanic mythology as such. But very few people are as steeped in this kind of theology as he is, and it's not too difficult to believe that most people who seize upon Rushdoony's teachings will be doing so more out of mythological motivations than any kind of theological motivation - and Christians who believe otherwise are only kidding themselves. Indeed, this is already happening in charismatic and "Latter Rain" circles where many people are simply seizing upon anything which sounds scholarly to justify their activity, whether they understand it or not. The fact is that within Latter Rain and charismatic circles, it is not so much the whispering of angels one hears as it is the shriek of Wagner's Valkyries bestirring themselves and preparing to take flight again, this time in the service of "Political Christianity."

Moreover, whether the motivation behind political Christianity is theological or mythological, the goal is the same, and has little if anything to do with Biblical Christianity, a Christianity which by its very nature cannot be tied to political power.

THE LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: FUHRER PRINZIP

The word Fuhrer has developed a sinister and menacing aura around it largely as a result of its connection to Hitler. But in its original meaning, the word was meant to convey a most marvelous and wonderful image which no comparable word in the English language is capable of conveying. The word means leader - but it means much more than just that. It conveys the thought of a man willing to lay down his life for the welfare of his men; a person who enjoys their absolute trust and confidence because of his inner virtue, character, selflessness and love towards those who follow him; a man capable of eliciting his men's willing obedience not necessarily because they have to obey, but because they want to obey in order to please him. He is their "elder brother," their "Father Confessor" who loves and honors them more than life itself; who puts their welfare ahead of his own; who would never ask them to do something that he was unwilling to do; a man who will willingly lay down his own comforts and share their misery; a man who would never think of bedding down in the comfort of a house when his men have to sleep outside in the cold.

A German officer was never given the title of Fuhrer by the state; he had to earn that title from the men whom he led. Indeed - and contrary to the thinking of many in the United States - the German Officer Code looked on those officers who had to resort to the use of brute force and naked threats to lead as failures. And it is precisely this kind of leadership that is at the heart of Western mythology - the kind which has encompassed such Western leaders as Barbarossa, Charlemagne, Martel, Wallace, El Cid, Nelson, Washington, Lincoln, Custer, Jim Bowie, Col. Travis, etc. and enshrouds them in a mystical and almost magical aura. It is the stuff out from which Western legends are made and the ideal towards which Western leaders press. This is the ideal of leadership which the German word Fuhrer is meant to convey.

Erickson writes,

"Since antiquity Western rulers had been set apart from ordinary men by the mysteries of coronation and sacring (making sacred) ... In the generations following the first crusade, the figure(s) of Charlemagne (and Barbarossa) were so embellished by legend that their heroic dimensions dwarfed their descendants ... In England, the Celtic chieftain Arthur took on a similar aura ... The king (or leader) was (clearly) in the circle of the miraculous."

THE IDEAL OF LEADERSHIP TOWARDS WHICH
"POLITICAL CHRISTIANITY" IS PRESSING

Lacy and Ashe write that the end towards which the concept of Western leadership - at least in its highest form - presses envisions leadership as a kind of messianic calling; the Western leader is patterned after a longed-for "... messiah persistently imagined and hoped for in ... antiquity, the Restitutor Orbis or World Restorer - 'the Once and Future King' - who would end civil strife and usurpation, subdue the barbarians, defeat ... (Christendom's) ... enemies, and bring back peace and prosperity."

And, as we indicated earlier, it is an ominous fact that underneath the facade of today's messy and corrupt Western democracies (the leaders of which seem intent on only one thing: enriching themselves by "buying and selling" privilege at the expense of their citizenry) lie all the "old heroes" still - Arthur, Parsifal, Guinevere, Roland, Lancelot, Barbarossa, Tristan and Isolde, etc. - and, yes, even Siegfried, Brunhilde, Kriemhilde, Hagen, Wotan and the Valkyries, even the Nibelungen - all, like Merlin, dressed up by the end of the Dark Ages in suitable "Christian attire."

And - like the Grail Quest, Comitatus, and Angst - one should not be too quick to dismiss this concept of leadership as one which is no longer viable in the West. That would be a great mistake!

NOTE: The fact is, it clearly persists today and is easily discernible every four years during the presidential election when candidates leave no rock unturned to prove their religious credentials. Indeed, the more successful presidential candidates can be in establishing an aura of "spirituality" around themselves - whether that aura embraces the Camelot mystique of the Kennedy Administration or the effortless religiosity of the Reagan Administration - the more successful the leader. Garry Wills writes, "... candidates have intuited enough of this truth to put in church time during their campaigns, even the secular Michael Dukakis resuming his exiguous ties to the ... church ... Yet his coolness in this area was in striking contrast to the easy religiosity of Ronald Reagan - a contrast that, no doubt, had something to do with their differing successes at election time ..."  And the fact that Reagan was deeply and openly involved in astrology did little to impinge upon his Christian credentials - all of which tends to confirm the heterodoxy of today's Christianity.

The ideal of the Fuhrer Prinzip is - like all other Germanic ideals - far too deeply imbedded in our collective memory to ever be rooted out by the fleeting fashions of modernity. The fact is, it clearly persists today within Western religious circles - after all, is this not the concept which surrounds the Papacy, even today? And not only the Papacy, but - in one way or another, and to a greater or lesser degree - most charismatic and Pentecostal leaders as well? - extending even to non-charismatic fundamentalists? Clearly it is! And is this not the concept of leadership that men like Reuven Doren, Mike Bickle, Paul Cain, Bob Jones, Rick Joyner, John Wimber, William Branham, Bennie Hinn, Oral Roberts, Larry Lea, etc. would press upon us now if they could? - i.e., a form of leadership which is predicated on the "miraculous power of sanctity" and on the leader's ability to successfully invoke God (and/or manipulate supernatural forces). Erickson believes so! [Please see our articles, "The God-Men of the American New World Order System" and "Luciferic Christianity."]

Erickson writes that the kind of leader for which many in the West long is one which is free of the sordid and even scandalous "buying and selling of privilege" which has become all too closely linked to the Western democracies. Erickson believes that what the people long for today is a leader which possesses "the aura of majesty," of "sanctity," and - most especially - the "power of the enchanted world." He must be a "wonder worker!" (Mark 13:22)

Moreover, if Huntington is right about the movement of Western Civilization back to its religious (mythological) roots, then so much the more will this leadership principle be restored to vogue within the political realm - and should it proceed to its ultimate end, it could very well lead to the same fusion between religion and politics that has occurred in the Islamic World. This, at least, is certainly what some Religious Right circles are pressing for.

But, as we indicated earlier, there is a dark and foreboding side to all this that goes beyond the heroic to the demonic: first, it is the product not of Biblical Christianity, but of heterodoxy; and second, the particular leadership principle inherent in this kind of mysticism - when taken to the extreme - is precisely that which produces the David Koreshes and the Jim Joneses of our world, and it goes a long way, as we have already said, in explaining the death-like embrace of Hitler and the German people - one with the other - as they careened towards their final destruction in the waning days of World War II.

NOTE: The widespread popularity of fascism and Nazism in the West prior to the Second World War - including the United States - has been greatly underplayed by historians, and understandably so - it's a great embarrassment. Nonetheless, fascism's popularity throughout the West - in Holland, Denmark, Belgium, France, etc. - can be measured to some extent by gauging how widespread resistance really was in these countries to the German occupation; it was virtually nil. The fact of the matter is, there never really was a resistance in any of these countries; indeed, the French Resistance is to a large extent nothing more than a myth concocted after the war by Frenchmen to mask the extent of their own collaboration. What little resistance was mounted to the Nazi occupation was organized by the socialists - which to some extent explains the popularity of the Nazis: they were seen by countless numbers of Western Europeans as the only bulwark against the menace of socialism and atheistic communism. Measured against the threat of communism and Russia, Germany was seen as the better alternative. Similar attitudes towards fascism in the United States also prevailed, and help to explain the widespread popularity of Father Charles Coughlin's broadcasts in the 1930's, some of which were lifted verbatim from Joseph Goebbles' Nurenberg speeches. (Goebbles was Propaganda Minister for the Third Reich.). Again, as in Europe, these facts have to a large degree been swept under the rug in order to hide a very embarrassing episode in our history.

ELITISM: OBERMENSCH PRINZIP

Carolly Erickson writes that the "enchanted world" of Western Tradition -

"...was incorporated into the works of a chain of influential medieval thinkers, from Augustine through the mystical theologians of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was not a fringe doctrine but a part of the mainstream of medieval (Western) culture. It encouraged people to accept the existence of a wide range of (super)beings."

Moreover, it encouraged people to believe that supernatural power was not beyond the grasp of those who were pure of heart and dedicated to the Quest and the "Vision of God." The tradition of the Grail Quest postulated that individual sanctity conferred to individuals miraculous powers, what Erickson has called, "the miraculous power of sanctity." Moreover, it created a whole class of super-beings dedicated to the expansion of Christ's Kingdom on Earth - the Crusader Knights: the Templars, the Hospitalers, the Teutons, etc. - military brotherhoods who, if their hearts were pure, could not be vanquished.

The concept of a super-human brotherhood of believers, believers characterized principally by their purity and sanctity, permeates Western tradition. The myths which have come to surround the various Crusader brotherhoods - and most especially the Crusader Order of Templars - endowing them with miraculous power, epitomize this kind of thinking. Countless numbers of people up through the centuries have been captivated by the Templar Myth - a mystical, magical brotherhood of Christians dedicated to purity of character, the Grail Quest, the Vision of God, and the expansion of Christ's Kingdom on Earth. This is an extension of the Comitatus concept - but one which propels the concept of Comitatus from the mundane to the miraculous!

THE FASCIST OBERMENSCH

For example, take Jorge Lanz von Liebenfels, a former Cistercian monk who lived in Vienna at the turn of the century, and his friend, Guido von List. Both List and Lanz were devotees of the Grail Quest. Lanz created The Order of the New Templars; List began Armanen. 

NOTE: List was much more the pagan than was Lanz; he dedicated his fellowship to the German god, Wotan. List became a pioneer in reviving Teutonic folklore and mythology; but even here, it must be remembered that it's not such a long journey from Wotan's Valhalla to Arthur's Camelot - not as far as some people might want to believe. Indeed, Trevor Ravenscroft places List well in the mainstream of what he calls "Grail Christianity." And List's willingness to work with Lanz seems to bear Ravenscroft out on this matter. Together, List and Lanz joined forces in creating the Germanen Orden.

The membership of both groups was to a large degree interlocking. As a child, Lanz's greatest wish had been to become a Knight Templar. In 1893, at the age of nineteen, he entered the Cistercian monastery of the Holy Cross. The following year he published a work about the meaning of the Crusades. In 1899 he left the Cistercians and started his own order, usurping the name and rituals of his beloved Templars. Lanz quickly found people who were willing to believe - and some of the believers were very wealthy men, ready to help Lanz make his wildest dreams come true.

With the help of these wealthy devotees, he acquired three castles - one at Werfenstein in Lower Austria, one at Marienkamp near Ulm, and the third at Rugen, an island in the Baltic - where he conducted elaborate ceremonies based on the Grail Quest. Lanz taught the concept of "man-gods" - a notion which taught that through dedication to individual purity, man could progress to perfection - to the point where he could begin to take on god-like dimensions. And what exactly is so important about the concepts which List and Lanz were purveying? According to John Toland, the thinking of both men had a great and very profound impact on Hitler.

And what a powerful dream it was - the dream to be gods - to reach for the heavens; this dream permeates our legends and myths, and echoes back down through the corridors of time to Camelot and Valhalla. Indeed, for well over a millennium our poets, writers, priests and prophets have been telling and re-telling the legends and myths which swirl like ghostly apparitions around this dream: that there is within man a "divine spark" which longs to be set free in order to ascend to its Originator, God. Man is, therefore, divine and has a god's role in the universe. Through knowledge of "secret ways" - as elaborated in such myths as the Arthurian Legends, Excaliber, Tristan, and Parsifal - man has the potential to ascend into divinity. [Again, please see our articles, "The God-Men of the American New World Order System" and "Luciferic Christianity."]

But the dream that man can become a god, that He can share with God His divinity, is blasphemous. It's the dream that Lucifer had - a dream for which he dearly paid:

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

"For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

"I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High." (Isa. 14:12-14)

This is the dream which is behind all false religions - that man is a god and has a god's role to play in the universe. While this is certainly not what Biblical Christianity teaches, it is what Grail Christianity postulates!

NOTE: While God has indeed promised to make His home within us (John 17:21; Rev. 3:20) and to establish oneness with us, He has never promised to share His divinity intrinsically with us; we will never acquire a divinity of our own. The glory that we receive from Christ is a reflected glory (2 Cor. 3:18), not a glory that flows out of us as if it belonged to us in itself. That kind of oneness is an innate oneness - and is common only to the oneness that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit share. The oneness that we share with Christ is the kind of a oneness that a husband and wife share with one another - a oneness of fellowship; it's not an intrinsic oneness. The husband and wife never merge into one being. The husband is still the husband, and the wife is still the wife. They remain separate entities. So it is in our relationship with Christ. The Bible says:

"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it ...

 "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one ...

 "This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church." (Eph. 5:25, 31, 32)

We are God's sons through ADOPTION, not through blood. An adopted son does not share the same blood as the Father. The Bible says:

"When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

"To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the ADOPTION of sons.

"And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

"Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." (Galatians 4:4-7)

And the Bible goes on to say:

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of ADOPTION, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans 8:15)

And,

"Having predestinated us unto the ADOPTION of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will …" (Ephesians 1:5)

THE CHRISTIAN OBERMENSCH

Lanz aimed at creating a brotherhood of believers dedicated to personal purity, the acquisition of supernatural powers and the rescuing of Western Christendom from destruction by the Untermensch - those which divine providence had not destined to an election of grace, but had instead consigned to a fate somewhat more earthy and mundane - and in some cases, even hellish.

Such concepts (i.e., that man can become a god) are still taught throughout the West, and are widely accepted. And not just in obvious, straight forward occult circles, as some would like us to believe, but in Christian circles as well. Indeed, they are taught by many so-called "evangelical Christians" under guises which, to be sure, seem more "Christian" than those which surrounded the verbiage in Ostara - but concepts which nonetheless postulate the myth of the Obermensch - the "god-man." A simple perusal of the theologies taught by such well-known evangelicals as Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Bennie Hinn, etc; and in such movements as Latter Rain, Manifest Sons of God (MSG), Word-Faith, etc; and which encompass ideas like "the "Continuation of the Incarnation," "Divine Spark," "Overcomers," etc. - concepts which purvey the thought that when man accepts Christ into his heart, he becomes a "little Jesus," a "man-god" - would confirm this.

For example, D.R. McConnell, an acknowledged authority on this subject, writes that -

"Kenneth Hagin (one of today's most popular evangelical teachers) clearly ... teaches ... the doctrine of human deification."

Indeed, Hagin makes no secret about what he is teaching. His pronouncements on the subject are clear and unambiguous. For example, Hagin says that -

"... there is a real incarnation in the new birth."

He goes on to say that in the new birth, God imparts -

"His very nature, substance, and being to our human spirits."

Hence, Hagin maintains -

"... every born again man is an incarnation" and that "the believer is as much an incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth."

And lest the reader think that Hagin is only speaking metaphorically, one has only to consider the following additional quotations:

"That's who we are; we're Jesus;"

He goes on,

"In fact, in the Epistles, the Church is called Christ. The Church has not yet realized that we are Christ. When we do, we'll start doing the work we're supposed to do" - i.e., take over the world."

Charles Capps, another extremely popular evangelical, goes just as far as Hagin. He writes,

"In August of 1973, the Word of the Lord came unto me saying, 'If men would believe me, long prayers are not necessary. Just speaking the Word will bring what you desire. My Creative power is given to man in Word form. I have ceased for a time from my creative work and have given man ... my creative power'."

William Branham believed that it was possible to achieve such complete "oneness" and intrinsic unity with God that truly "holy men" - "Master's of the Faith" - could create ex nihilo through the use of their own words. These are the supermen of the "Manifest Sons of God," the "Manchild Company," the "First Fruits," "Joel's Army," the "Overcomers," the "New Breed," etc. - and it's no coincidence that these supermen of the "Christian Faith" bear a striking resemblance to the supermen of Hitler's Third Reich. C. Douglas Weaver relates a story which Branham frequently told; Branham, an avid hunter, said that God spoke to him during a hunting trip in Arizona:

"And something said to me: 'Now this is the beginning of your new ministry. Now ask what you will, and it shall be given to you'."

Branham asked for the creation of three squirrels, which he promptly shot and killed. And in this connection, it should be noted that almost all the present Word-Faith teachers promote the possibility of man attaining to "creative faith" (creatio ex nihilo) through purity of life. This is the Grail Quest, not Biblical Christianity.

McConnell continues,

"The ultimate end of ... (this kind of thinking) is deification (man becomes God). Deification may be defined as the process whereby men are transformed into gods ... man was created with the divine nature (in Eden), sinned (through the Fall), and was filled with the satanic nature; but through the new birth, he is again infused with the divine nature. To be born again ... is to receive 'the nature and life of God in one's spirit'."

Ralph Waldo Trine, a purveyor of deification in the late 1800s, explains further: he says that as a person cultivates his "inner spiritual sense" he is,

"... opened to the direct revelation and knowledge of God, the secrets of nature and life ... and made to realize his own deific nature and supremacy of being as the son of God ... The ultimate goal ... is the transformation of man into a god."

Once again, this is Grail Christianity, pure and simple.

Moreover, this kind of thinking is not confined merely to the Word-Faith, Latter Rain, and MSG movements; it has spread to other denominations which cannot be so easily "typed." Take for example, Paul Cain, a one-time associate of the late John Wimber of Vineyard International. Cain believes that it's possible for "Overcoming Christians" - i.e., those Christians which have been sanctified to God through purity of heart - to attain immortalization after coming to perfection under the authority of a "super-brotherhood" known as the latter-day "Apostles and Prophets." They will be able to move in and out of the supernatural and natural realms, even walking through walls. This is Paul Cain's interpretation:

"So my point is this, that there will be a manifestation of the sons and daughters of God. And it won't be this baloney that we've heard of in the past; I mean, there's been a few people tried to walk through a wall like this over here and knocked their brains loose, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a manifested son of God; if anyone walks through this wall over here, they're not going to tell you about it - I mean, they're just going to do it. And sons of God don't tell you they're sons of God, they'll just show you! Amen."

According to this kind of thinking, Jesus was the "pattern" for what God intended to do with men - to deposit a "spark" of the divine essence into them, creating for Himself a whole race of "God-men" after the pattern of Jesus - supermen ("Jesus Men" - the "First Fruits," the "Overcomers," etc.) who would conquer and subdue the world through the exercise of divine power and authority, bringing it into subjection to God. Commenting on this "God-Dream," McConnell writes,

"One of the more disturbing aspects (of this movement) ... is its tendency to create a ... class ... of 'supermen', the 'miracle class', ... 'god men'."

The "Faith" and "Latter Rain" supermen become "kings in life" and the "bondage breakers" for the rest of the human race. Indeed, the claim of the "Faith" and "Latter Rain" theology that God is intent on creating a "master race" of "bondage breakers" is akin, sadly, to the claim's of Himmler's SS - and one may be making a very grave mistake in thinking that the "supermen" of this form of Christianity differ to any great degree from Himmler's SS. [These are the kind of concepts purveyed by Pastor John Hagee, who still remains close friends with John McCain despite their recent "falling out." (Please see "Things Aren't Always What They Seem to Be" and "Jews Spring to the Defense of Pastor John Hagee: Are They Making a Mistake;" also, for an in-depth discussion of Hagee's theology, please see "The Superman Theology of the International Christian Embassy's Feast of Tabernacles."]

The fact of the matter is, there is a great deal of talk within certain Christian circles - not all of them on the fringes of evangelicalism, but some within groups thought to be well within the mainstream - of the necessity of a "cleansing action" to heal the church of her "pollution" and bring peace to the world through the destruction of secular-humanism. For example, Jack Deere, another associate of the late John Wimber, prophesying on a predicted great "cleansing" - one which is to be carried out by a supernatural brotherhood known as "Joel's Army," has said

"When this army (i.e., Joel's Army) comes, it will be large and mighty. It's so mighty that there's never been anything like it before ... 'begin the slaughter and begin it in the temple (i.e., the church) and begin it with the elders, the leaders of my people'. And they walk through the land and they start and they begin to slaughter ... He has already started the slaughter ... and it is coming now among the church. He'll start with the leaders, but he'll move out into the church (and beyond)."

Naturally, many will say that we are bending the truth too far in drawing a parallel between what Jack Deere is saying here, and what Hitler predicted in 1933. Of course, in 1933, people said the same thing about those who tried to point out the fact that Hitler just might be serious in what he was saying. Words are words, and more often than not, they convey exactly the meaning they are meant to convey. It's only those who don't want to hear what's being said that try to "water down" the meaning of such words and say that people don't really mean what they have so plainly said.

THE AGGREGATE RESULTS
OF THE WESTERN TRADITION

When combined with Christianity, what then do all these concepts in the aggregate produce? - a civilization which clearly sees itself as the one unique bearer of Truth and genuine civilization to the rest of the world; a civilization which does not shrink from the use of armed force in order to carry out its "civilization mandate" - indeed, one which sees in that armed struggle (crusade) a vehicle through which individuals and societies can achieve perfection; and a civilization which, when individuals and societies within that civilization fail to achieve success, attributes that failure to moral imperfection - both individually and corporately; and finally, a civilization which, when it faces defeat, is prone to look to a "Restorer" (an Arthur-like figure) which will lead the people back to moral perfection, and from there to final victory.

But - again - what do any of these concepts have to do with Biblical Christianity? - the answer is obvious, nothing! These are all Germanic concepts which predate Christianity. Like Valhalla, they have simply been dressed up in Christian garb - Valhallas have been transformed into Camelots; Valkyries and Nibelungen have been transformed into angels; Siegfrieds, Brunhildes, Kriemhildes, Hagens, and Wotans have been civilized (though not tamed), Christianized and transformed into Lancelots, Gwains, Parsifals, Guineveres and Arthurs.

And just how effortlessly the Siegfrieds can meld into Lancelots, the Valhallas into Camelots, the Nazis into Christians can readily be demonstrated by measuring the ease that people from both groups can pass back and forth from one community to the other without even causing a ripple in today's Christian community. Take David Balsiger and Robert Grant, for example; specifically, Balsiger's relationship with Anthony Mazeika of the Baltic American Freedom League and Robert Grant's relationship with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. Both Balsiger and Grant are considered "big hitters" in the Christian Right and generally enjoy close relations with others in the Christian community.

Balsiger's friend, Anthony Mazieka has been a long-time leader in the effort to block U.S. Justice Department investigations of Nazi war criminals. The Baltic American Freedom League draws much of its membership from East European who were deeply associated with the Nazis during the Second World War; they fled Europe in order to escape Soviet wrath - a wrath which had fallen upon them not so much because of their democratic proclivities, but because of their Nazi collaboration! As a result, this organization and organizations like it have been at the forefront of attempts to block all investigations aimed at uncovering this rather unseemly aspect of their past. Unfortunately, they have been largely successful in their efforts.

Balsiger runs an organization called the "Biblical News Service" out of Southern California. He is intimately associated with Robert Grant, Colonel Doner and Gary Jarmin all prominent leaders in the Christian Right.

Robert Grant himself has also been associated with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). In May 1988, Grant was invited as the keynote speaker for the ABN's annual conference. The dominant leadership of the ABN comes from the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Bandera (OUN-B), an extremely right-wing group of Nazi collaborationists who fought alongside Hitler in World War II. The ABN itself is a confederation of fascist forces brought together from Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the Ukraine, the Baltic states, Slovakia, and other nations. A booklet published in 1960 by the ABN acknowledged its members' alliance with Hitler and that it was justified because the Nazis were defending Western Civilization and the Christian Religion from the atheistic forces of communism:

"That many of us fought on the German side ... can be justified (on Christian grounds) ... "

Russ Bellant writes:

"The ABN is the high council for the expatriate nationalist groups that formed the police, military, and militia units that worked with Hitler during World War II. Some were organized as mobile killing teams that exterminated villages and sought to murder whole ethnic, racial, and cultural groups."

Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson describe the ABN as -

"The largest and most important umbrella for Nazi collaborators in the world ... A prime criterion for membership appears to be fealty to the cause of National Socialism; ABN officers constitute a virtual Who's Who of those responsible for the massacre of millions of civilians in the bloodiest war in history."

THE DANGER OF PASSING NAZISM OFF AS
MERELY THE INSANE RESULT OF OCCULTISM

As we indicated earlier, the great danger in passing Nazism off as merely a cultural aberration - an anomaly which can be guarded against merely by expunging the influence of eastern mysticism and Hinduism from Christianity - is that in doing so we may be unwittingly insuring that it will reoccur in some other form - and that we may be a part of it! The plain fact of the matter is, the principles enumerated above - all plainly part of the Western Tradition - are as capable of producing an Adolph Hitler and a fascist state, albeit one with more of a "Christian flavor," as that which was produced by Nazi Germany in the 1930s. The Fuhrer Prinzip (the idolization of the leader, the attribution to him of "magical" and "spiritual" qualities above that of normal people, etc.), the desire to be swallowed up in a cause greater than oneself (i.e., the corporate state or Comitatus), the Western drive towards "civilization expansion" (the German Drang nach Osten to bring "civilization" to the Slavs and other "lesser peoples"), the feelings of racial and cultural superiority (e.g., Cecil Rhodes and "Racial Christianity"), the emphasis on purity, etc. - all of these are not foreign to Western concepts, or merely to be found on the fringes of Western Civilization, but are clearly to be found in its mainstream.

Moreover, while of late the occultic leanings of fascism have been given a great deal of "play" throughout the Christian West, the plain fact of the matter is, this occultism was never given such "play" in Germany before or during the war. Only within the SS and other more or less closed Nazi circles were the occultic tendencies of the Third Reich given any great "play," and even here, Himmler was fond of saying that he had patterned the SS after the "Crusader Knights" of Western Tradition.

Indeed, Hitler took great pains to cloak his state in "Christian garb" - at least insofar as the general public was concerned.

The over-emphasis on the Third Reich's occultism - as real as that occultism was underneath the surface - makes it possible to write the Third Reich off as an aberration - the result of eastern mysticism and theosophy; absolves Christianity of its involvement; and allows fascism to reappear in more of a "Christian garb" than it did in the 1930s. Moreover, in absolving Christianity of any blame for the Holocaust, and blaming the Holocaust on occultism, it removes the Holocaust as a barrier to the reemergence of fascism from within conservative evangelical and Catholic circles.

Expecting fascism to reappear along its old axis of advance, a Maginot Line has been established against it using the shame of the Holocaust as the main means of defense. But in doing so, we are in as much danger as the French were in 1940 of being outflanked and blindsided by the Nazis coming from another direction - a Christianity which has bought into all the old Arthurian myths, moving down through the Ardennes singing Crusader songs, dreaming of Camelot, and shouting out its love of the Jews and the Jewish state - a love which is as prone to turn to hate as Luther's initial love of the Jews did 400 years ago when the Jews refused to convert.

Indeed, there are more "Merlins" loose in Christianity in this day and age than most Christians care to admit - men like Reuvin Doren, Mike Bickle, Paul Cain, Bob Jones, Rick Joyner, John Wimber, William Branham, Bennie Hinn, Oral Roberts, Larry Lea, etc. - all bent on calling us back to a sinister, but very compelling past.

More next time!

Until then, God bless you,

S.R. Shearer,
Antipas Ministries

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