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<!--do not add incidents of violence by Christians - only terrorism terrorism that is motivated, or possibly justified, by Christian beliefs-->
'''Christian terrorism''' is [[religious terrorism]] by groups or individuals, the motivation of which is typically rooted in an idiosyncratic interpretation of the [[Bible]] and other Christian tenets of faith. From the viewpoint of the terrorist, Christian scripture and theology provide justification for violent political activities.<ref>B. Hoffman, "Inside Terrorism", Columbia University Press, 1999, p. 105–120.</ref>

==Christian terrorist organizations==
===Anti-abortion terrorists===
{{Expand-section|date=June 2008}}
{{seealso|Abortion-related violence}}

Women's health clinics that provide abortions have been targets of violence. Christian terrorists and terrorist organizations include the [[Army of God]], [[The Lambs of Christ]], [[Clayton Waagner]], [[Mike Bray]], [[James Kopp]], [[Paul Jennings Hill]] and [[Eric Robert Rudolph]].

===Transnational groups===
====Christian Identity====
[[Christian Identity]] is a loosely affiliated global group of churches and individuals devoted to a racialized theology that asserts [[North Europe]]an whites are the direct descendants of the [[Ten Lost Tribes|lost tribes of Israel]], God's [[Jews as a chosen people|chosen people]].<ref name="loner">{{cite news|publisher=CNN|title=Eric Robert Rudolph: Loner and survivalist|date=2003-12-12| url=http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/05/31/rudolph.profile/index.html}}</ref><ref name="tied">{{cite news|publisher=Washington Post|title=Is Terrorism Tied To Christian Sect?|author=Alan Cooperman|date=2003-06-02| url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1196-2003Jun1?language=printer}}</ref> Christian Identity includes such Christian terrorist groups as [[The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord]] (CSA), [[Phineas Priesthood]] and the [[Oklahoma Constitutional Militia]], also known as the Universal Church of God. Christian Identity is also related to other groups such as [[Aryan Nations]], [[Aryan Republican Army]] (ARA) and the [[Patriots Council]].{{Fact|date=January 2008}}

Christian Identity has been associated with terrorist [[Eric Robert Rudolph]], who carried out a series of bombings across the [[southern United States]], which killed three people and injured at least 150 others, because he violently opposed [[abortion]] and [[homosexuality]] as contrary to Christian doctrine. His mother spent time with [[Nord Davis]], a Christian Identity ideologue who wrote propaganda claiming that the world was controlled by Jews, and which advocated killing gays and those who engaged in mixed-race relationships.<ref name="loner"/> Rudolph's sister-in-law claimed that he was a member of the sect, but Rudolph himself claims to have only been a member of a Christian Identity church for six months because he was dating the daughter of Identity Pastor Dan Gayman, and wrote "I was born a Catholic, and with forgiveness I hope to die one."<ref name="AP">{{cite web| url=http://legacy.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/050414/rudolph.shtml|title=Eric Rudolph, proud killer|accessdate=2006-12-11|publisher=[[Associated Press]]/[[The Decatur Daily]]|year=2005|author=Kristen Wyatt, Associated Press|work=Newspaper online version|format=HTML}}</ref> Idaho State University sociology professor James A. Aho said, "I would prefer to say that Rudolph is a religiously inspired terrorist, because most mainstream Christians consider Christian Identity to be a heresy."<ref name="tied"/>

Christian Identity has been associated with Peter Kevin McGregor Langan and Richard "Wild Bill" Guthrie, founders of the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), a paramilitary gang which has been connected to hate fueled terrorist attacks involving train derailments, assassinations, bombings and a string of professionally executed armed bank robberies planned to finance an overthrow of the US Federal government.<ref name="hamm"/><ref name="tied"/> Similar social, cultural, and personal motivations have linked the ARA to a loose network of extreme radical right paramilitary cells including the White Supremacy movement and Christian Identity.<ref name="hamm">{{cite book|publisher=Northeastern|year=2001|isbn=1555534929|title=In Bad Company: America's Terrorist Underground|author=Mark S. Hamm}}</ref>

South African branches of Christian Identity have been accused of involvement in terrorist activity, including the [[2002 Soweto bombings]].<ref>{{cite book|title= 'Volk' Faith and Fatherland: The Security Threat Posed by the White Right|author=Martin Schönteich and Henri Boshoff|isbn=1919913300|publisher=Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies|year=2003|url=http://www.iss.co.za/Pubs/Monographs/No81/Chap4.html}}</ref>

====Identity doctrine====
{{Onesource|section|date=November 2008}}
[[Identity Christianity]] asserts that disease, addiction, cancer, and sexual venereal disease (herpes and AIDS) are spread by human "rodents" via contact with "unclean" persons, such as through "race-mixing".<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|85}} The [[1 Enoch|first book of Enoch]] is used to justify these social theories; the fallen angels of Heaven sexually desired Earth maidens and took them as wives, resulting in the birth of abominations, which God ordered [[Michael the Archangel]] to destroy, thus beginning a cosmic war between Light and Darkness.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|85}} The mixing of separate things (e.g. people of different races) defiles both, and is against God's will.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|86}}

Identity preachers proclaim that, according to the King James Bible, "the penaltys for race-mixing, homo-sexuality, and usury are death."<ref name="aho">{{cite book|title=The Politics of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism|publisher=University of Washington Press|year=1995|page=86|author=James Alfred Aho|isbn=029597494X}}</ref>{{rp|86}} The justification for killing homosexuals is provided by {{bibleverse||Leviticus|20:13|KJV}} "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." {{bibleverse||Exodus|22:21-22|KJV}}, {{bibleverse||Leviticus|25:35-37|KJV}} and Deuteronomy explicitly condemn usury.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|92}} {{bibleverse||Ezekiel|18-13|KJV}} states "He who hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him." and is quoted as justification for killing Jews, since Jews have traditionally had a large presence in the [[usury]] business.

Identity doctrine asserts that [[Eve (Bible)|Eve]] was seduced by [[Satan]] (the Hebrew word "nasha" can mean deceive or seduce), and she then seduced [[Adam (Bible)|Adam.]] [[Cain]] was evil because he was the spawn of Satan, which explains why he killed Abel. He was cast down to the [[Land of Nod]], where he married a pre-Adamic woman, creating a spawn of Satan bloodline which would eventually become the Jews.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|98}} This is reinforced with the message "What God created was good. Therefore Jews could not be God's creation."<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|98}} Thus the Biblical concepts of [[Lucifer]], his fellow angels, and their witchwomen mates have now been turned into "Jews", representing the modern world's evil conspirators.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|88}} According to doctrine, when [[Constantine I]] [[Edict of Milan|legalised Christianity]] in 313 A.D., the Jews sought to destroy it from within by introducing "[[Babylonian]]" practices (priestcraft, pontifical authority, and vestal virgins), resulting in the gigantic Christian "fraud" known today as Roman Catholicism.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|88}}

Identity doctrine asserts that the "root of all evil" is paper money (in particular [[Federal Reserve Note]]s), and that usury and [[History of banking|banking]] systems are controlled by Jews.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|87}} The creation of the [[Federal Reserve Corporation]] in 1913 shifted control of money from Congress to private institutions and violated the Constitution. The money system encourages the [[Federal Reserve]] to take out loans, creating trillions of dollars of government debt and allowing international bankers to control America. Credit/debit cards and computerised tills are seen as the fulfillment of the Biblical scripture warning against "the beast" (i.e. banking) as quoted in {{bibleverse||Rev|13:15-18|KJV}}. Identity preacher Sheldon Emry claims "Most of the owners of the largest banks in America are of Eastern European (Jewish) ancestry and connected with the (Jewish) [[N M Rothschild & Sons|Rothschild European banks]]", thus, in Identity doctrine, the global banking conspiracy is led and controlled by Jewish interests.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|91}}

Identity doctrine disputes the traditional interpretation of the word "Israel".<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|100}} The Biblical quote "Blessed is the Lord God of ''Israel''; for He hath... redeemed His people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David."{{bibleverse||Luke|1:68-71|KJV}} is used to support the assertion that "the [[Saxons]] are Israel", and that Identity followers can't be anti-Semitic, since the true [[Semites]] "today are the great White Christian nations of the western world", with modern Jews in fact being descendants of the [[Canaanites]].<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|101}}

"Israel" was the name given to [[Jacob]] after battling the angel at Peniel in {{bibleverse||Genesis|32:26-32|KJV}}. "Israel" then had twelve sons, which began the twelve tribes of Israel.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|101}} In 975 B.C. the ten northern tribes revolted, seceded from the south, and became the [[Kingdom of Israel]].<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|101}} After being subsequently conquered by [[Assyria]], the ten tribes disappear from Biblical record, becoming the [[Lost Tribes of Israel]].<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|101}}

According to Identity doctrine, {{bibleverse|2|Esdras|13:39-46|NRSV}} then records the history of the nation of Israel journeying over the [[Caucasus mountains]], along the [[Black Sea]], to the [[Siret River|Ar Sereth]] tributory of the [[Danube]] in [[Romania]].<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|101}} The tribes prospered, and eventually colonised other European countries. Israel's leading tribe, the [[Tribe of Dan]], is attributed with settling and naming many areas which are today distinguished by place names derived from its name - written ancient Hebrew contains no vowels, and hence "Dan" would be written as DN, but would be pronounced with an intermediate vowel dependent on the local dialect, meaning that ''Dan'', ''Den'', ''Din'', ''Don'', and ''Dun'' all have the same meaning.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|101}} Various modern place names are said to derive from the name of this tribe:<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|101}}

* [[Macedonia]] - Mace''don''ia - derived from Moeshe-don-ia (Moeshe being "the land of Moses")
* [[Danube]] - ''Dan''-ube, [[Dneister]] - ''Dn''-eister, [[Dneiper]] - ''Dn''-eiper, [[Donetz]] - ''Don''-etz, [[Danzig]] - ''Dan''-zig, [[Don River (Russia)|Don]] - ''Don''

The Identity genealogy of the [[Davidic line]] can be traced from its beginnings right down to the Royal rulers of Britain and [[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Queen Elizabeth]] herself.<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|102-105}} Thus [[Anglo-Saxons]] are the true [[Israelites]], God's chosen people who were given the divine right to rule the world until the [[Second Coming of Christ]].<ref name="aho"/>{{rp|101}}

===Groups in the United States===
====Army of God====
The [[Army of God]] is an [[Anti-abortion violence|anti-abortion terrorist organization]] which holds that their activity is lawful and theologically justified: using deadly force to end abortion in the [[United States]].<ref>{{Dead link|url=http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=28 |title=Terrorism Knowledge Base: Army of God|publisher=The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism}}</ref> Their ultimate goal is to establish a Christian theocracy through violence, and the group claims that the murder of doctors who perform medical abortions is "justifiable homicide,” exemplifying the group’s evolving philosophy from violence against property to violence against individuals.<ref>{{cite news|publisher=National Organization for Women|title=Kopp Lays Groundwork to Justify Murdering Abortion Provider Slepian|date=2002-12-02|author=Frederick Clarkson|url=http://www.now.org/eNews/dec2002/120202kopp.html}}</ref> The group utilize [[leaderless resistance]], a tactic of irregular warfare used against the American government by some members of the radical right - the group "is not so much an organization” but more of “a shared set of ideas and enemies.”<ref>{{cite news|title=Finding a Common Foe, Fringe Groups Join Forces|author=John Kifner|publisher=The New York Times|date=1998-12-06|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9401E2DB1E3BF935A35751C1A96E958260}}</ref><ref name="lr"/> The Army of God dates back more than 20 years and is linked to an underground movement whose members are trained to evade surveillance and to use violence as a method of protest including opposition to abortion.<ref name="lr">{{cite journal|title=Leaderless resistance|author=Jeffrey Kaplan|journal=Terrorism and political violence|volume=9|issue=3|year=1997|pages=80–95|publisher=Routledge|url=http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a788814971~db=all|doi=10.1080/09546559708427417|doi_brokendate=2008-06-21}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Hate crime in the American radical right|author=Christopher J. McKinlay|url=http://www.sasa.org.uk/papers/publication/christophermckinlay.pdf|format=PDF|publisher=Scottish Association for the Study of America}}</ref> Army of God members have records associated with numerous acts of violence including bombings, shootings, and killings.<ref>{{cite news|title=Rudolph Had White Supremacist Background; CNN.com Transcripts|publisher=CNN|date=2003-06-02|author=Anderson Cooper|url=http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0306/02/se.05.html}}</ref> The Army of God is considered a violent offshoot of Christian Identity{{Fact|date=March 2008}}, a white supremacist religion considered anti-gay, anti- Semitic and anti-foreigner.

In 1985 Rev. [[Mike Bray]], the "chaplain" of the [[Army of God]],<ref name="fall"/> was convicted of destroying seven abortion facilities in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, causing damages of over $1 million.
Rev. [[Paul Jennings Hill|Paul Hill]], an associate of the [[Army of God]], shot and killed Dr. John Britton in Pensacola, Florida in 1994.<ref name="mind">{{cite book|title=Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence|author=Mark Juergensmeyer|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=0520240111}}</ref>{{rp|11}} [[James Kopp]], a member of the Army of God, shot and killed Dr. [[Barnett Slepian]] in 1998.<ref name="kopp">{{Dead link|url=http://www.tkb.org/KeyLeader.jsp?memID=31|title=Terrorism Knowledge Base: Kopp, James C.|publisher=The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism}}</ref>

In 1998, letters were sent to news organizations and law enforcement claiming the Army of God carried out several of the attacks attributed to [[Eric Rudolph]].

In 2001, at the height of the [[2001 anthrax attacks|United States anthrax attacks]], more than 170 abortion clinics and doctors offices in 14 states received letters containing white powder and the message "You have been exposed to anthrax. We are going to kill all of you. Army of God, Virginia DARE Chapter."<ref>{{cite news|title='Army Of God' Anthrax Threats|date=2001-11-09|publisher=CBS News|url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/11/09/national/main317573.shtml}}</ref> In December 2003 [[Clayton Waagner]] was convicted for these attacks.<ref name="fall">{{cite news|publisher=Salon|url=http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/12/10/waagner/|title=The quiet fall of an American terrorist|author=Frederick Clarkson|date=2003-12-10}}</ref> Waagner had entered the home of antiabortion militant [[Neal Horsley]], tied him up and held him at gunpoint, and then made a taped confession. Ann Glazier, director of clinic security at the [[Planned Parenthood Federation of America]], said that during the trial Waagner had "repeatedly bragged that he had been the most wanted man in America and that he was a terrorist. It was unbelievable."<ref name="fall"/> [[Salon magazine]] reported that whilst the press had generally called Waagner a terrorist, they "studiously avoid use of the word 'Christian'".<ref name="fall"/> [[Chip Berlet]], senior analyst at [[Political Research Associates]], said "If Waagner had been a self-identified Muslim terrorist instead of a Christian terrorist, he'd have been lynched by now...But if it's fair to say if we can see the religious motivations in the [[Taliban]], we ought to be able to see them in Waagner or Eric Rudolph."<ref name="fall"/>

An Army of God manual found buried in the yard of Rochelle "Shelly" Shannon, an Oregon activist convicted of shooting Wichita doctor George Tiller, provides detailed and explicit instructions for home-brewing plastic explosives, fashioning detonators, deactivating alarm systems, cutting phone, gas, and water lines, and includes the statement: "Annihilating abortuaries is our purest form of worship." However, according to records compiled over a period of twelve years by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and besieged clinics which included 123 cases of arson, 37 bombings in 33 states, and more than 1,500 cases of stalking, assault, sabotage and burglary, a large portion of staff time was devoted to routine women's reproductive health care - pap smears, teaching and supplying birth control methods, and treating sexually transmitted diseases – not to abortions. Some of the clinics targeted did not provide abortion services but were subjected to violence nonetheless.<ref>{{cite news|title=Clinic Killings Follow Years of Antiabortion Violence|author=Laurie Goodstein and Pierre Thomas|publisher=Washington Post|date=1995-01-17|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/abortviolence/stories/salvi3.htm}}</ref>

====Aryan Nations====
[[Aryan Nations]] is a white supremacist group founded by [[Richard Girnt Butler]] as an arm of the [[Christian Identity]] group [[Church of Jesus Christ-Christian]], with headquarters listed as a Lexington, S.C. post office box. Aryan Nations followers admire Adolf Hitler and claim that minority group members are "mud people" and spawns of Satan. Aryan Nations doctrine follows that of Christian Identity which claims that Europeans are the lost tribe of Israel, Jews are satanic, blacks are subhuman, and the Federal Government is illegal.<ref>{{cite news|title=Hate Groups Hanging On in Idaho Haven|author=Timothy Egan|publisher=The New York Times|date=1992-10-30|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CEFDC123AF933A0575BC0A964958260}}</ref>

In August 1999 [[Buford O. Furrow, Jr.]], a Christian identity activist and member of Aryan Nations, carried out the [[Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting]], injuring three little boys and two female workers.<ref name="mind"/>{{rp|19}} Authorities quoted Furrow as saying he wanted his act to be "a wake-up call to America to kill Jews." Less than an hour after the attack, Furrow gunned down Joseph Ileto, a [[Filipino-American]] employee of the [[United States Postal Service]]. Furrow told investigators that he considered killing the mail carrier a "good opportunity" because Ileto was non-white and worked for the [[Federal government of the United States|federal government]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Postal Worker Joseph Ileto mourned as President Clinton sends condolences|publisher=CNN|date=1999-08-15|url=http://www.cnn.com/US/9908/15/california.shooting.01/}}</ref> Furrow received two life sentences plus 110 years in prison for the attack.<ref>{{cite news|title=Jewish Center Gunman Gets 2 Life Sentences|author=Dree DeClamecy|publisher=CNN|date=2001-03-26|url=http://archives.cnn.com/2001/LAW/03/26/buford.furrow/index.html/}}</ref> Furrow had once told police that he often fantasized about suicide, while neighbors, associates, and court records stated that Furrow had a long history of mental illness and had interests in white supremacist religion and paramilitary. Furrow, who was an officer of the internal security force of the Aryan Nations, reportedly stockpiled weapons and ammunition, abused his wife, and once daydreamed about shooting people at random in a shopping mall near Seattle.<ref>{{cite news|title=L.A. Suspect Dreamed of Killing - History of erratic behavior, ties to neo-Nazi group|author=Jaxon Van Derbeke, Bill Wallace, Stacy Finz|publisher=San Francisco Chronicle|date=1999-08-12|url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1999/08/12/MN48243.DTL}}</ref>

Furrow was reportedly second husband to Debbie Mathews, the widow of [[Robert J. Mathews]], domestic terrorist who died in a shootout with Federal authorities in 1994 and the founder of a U.S. neo-Nazi group called [[The Order (group)|the Order]] which was involved in a campaign of assassinations, bombings and robberies. The Order was supposedly broken apart by arrests, internal dissent and killings; however, some members vowed to strike at targets in small groups or alone, committing violent acts against Jews, blacks, homosexuals or abortion providers thereby earning membership in a loose-knit fraternity of racists who call themselves priests, the [[Phineas Priesthood]]. Richard Kelly Hoskins, author of many books about race and banking, one of which was found in Furrow's van, wrote, "As the kamikaze is to the Japanese, as the Shiite is to Islam, as the Zionist is to the Jew, so the Phineas Priest is to [[Christiandom]]." Interviewed from his home in Lynchburg, Va., Mr. Hoskins said the book found in Furrow's possession, "War Cycles/Peace Cycles," was about "the history of usury," including what he called "the traditional Jewish presence in banking," and wrote on his Web page that the book explains "the necessity for assassination of national leaders."<ref>{{cite news|title=Shooting in Los Angeles; The Suspect; Acquaintances Describe Loner Bent by Rage|author=Timothy Egan|publisher=The New York Times|date=1999-08-12|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E4DF1439F931A2575BC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print}}</ref>

In 2007, a 36-year-old man, Jason Hamilton, who had ties to the Aryan Nations, fatally shot himself in a [[Presbyterian]] church after killing his wife, a police officer, a [[Sexton (office)|church sexton]], and wounding three men.<ref>“Moscow, Idaho police: Shooter had Aryan Nations ties”; [[May 22]], [[2007]]; SignOnSanDiego.com by Union Tribune; [http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070522-2151-wst-idahoshootings-aryan.html]</ref>

====Christian Patriots====
The anti-federalist, extremist tax-resistance movements, seditious beliefs, religious and racial hatred of the American militia movement and other contemporary white supremacist organizations in association with the broader [[Christian Patriot movement]] actively incorporate Christian scripture and biblical liturgy to justify and support violent activities.<ref name="inside">{{cite book|author=Bruce Hoffman|title=Inside Terrorism|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=0231114680}}</ref>{{rp|105–120}} [[Timothy McVeigh]] who, along with his accomplice [[Terry Nichols]], carried out the [[Oklahoma City bombing]] on [[April 19]], [[1995]], has admitted to a belief in Christian Patriotism and involvement in Patriot activities.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Oklahoma suspect awaits day of reckoning|publisher=The Sunday Times (London)|author=Tim Kelsey|date=1996-04-21}}</ref>

====Ku Klux Klan====
[[Image:Burning-cross2.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Ku Klux Klan with a burning cross]]
The [[Ku Klux Klan]] are proponents of a fundamentalist Christian theology strongly influenced by [[Christian Reconstructionism]], hoping to "reconstruct" the United States along biblical (primarily Old Testament) lines and establish a white-dominated theocracy.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_kkk.html|title=The rise and fall of Jim Crow: Ku Klux Klan|author=Richard Wormser|publisher=PBS}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/western/bldef_kukluxklan.htm|title=Ku Klux Klan||publisher=About.com}}</ref> They have often used terrorism, violence, and acts of intimidation, such as cross burning and lynching, to oppress African Americans and other social or ethnic groups. Hundreds of indictments for crimes of violence and terrorism have been issued against them, and many Klan members have been prosecuted.<ref>''White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction'' by Allen W. Trelease, Louisiana State University Press (Reprint edition) April 1995.</ref>

The Ku Klux Klan consists of many subgroups who have individually carried out terrorist acts. One example is the [[Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan]], who in 1998 were found guilty of burning a 100-year-old black Baptist church to the ground.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.splcenter.org/legal/docket/files.jsp?cdrID=29|title=Macedonia v. Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan|publisher=Southern Poverty Law Center}}

The Ku Klux Klan was founded as the secret terrorist arm of the Democrat Party in the old southern confederate states of America soon after America's Civil War. Its intent was drive white Republicans out of southern states, and black Republicans away from the voting booth. Its Christian connections are thin at best. </ref>

===Groups in Indonesia===

On [[July 26]], [[2007]], 17 Christians from [[Poso]], [[Indonesia]], were convicted of religion-inspired terrorism under Indonesian law. Fourteen year sentences were given to two of the seventeen for their main roles in the killings, while ten were sentenced to twelve year terms. Five were convicted in separate hearings and received eight year sentences for their part in the "acts of terrorism by the use of violence." A Christian mob attacked, murdered, and beheaded two [[Muslim]] fishermen in September 2006, reportedly as retaliation for the execution in 2006 of three Christian farmers, who were convicted of leading a militant group which killed hundreds of Muslims in [[Poso]] in 2000, an execution that attracted a plea for clemency from the pope, and accusations from Amnesty International that the trial was unfair.<ref>{{cite news|publisher=Reuters|url=http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSJAK25548520070726?pageNumber=2&sp=true |title=Indonesia jails Christians over Muslim killings}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|publisher=The Daily Telegraph|title=Amnesty protests Sulawesi execution|date=2006-09-22|url=http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20456749-5006506,00.html}}</ref>

The convictions come in the context of seven years of violence between Christian and Muslim groups in the province, including the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls on the way to school and the deaths of hundreds of Muslims and Christians, and campaigns of religious cleansing on both sides.<ref>{{cite news|publisher=BBC News|title=Three Indonesian girls beheaded|author=Tim Johnston|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4387604.stm|date=2005-10-29}}</ref>

===Groups in India===
{{seealso|Insurgent groups in Northeast India|Terrorism in India}}

====National Liberation Front of Tripura====
The [[National Liberation Front of Tripura]] (NLFT) is a rebel group operating in [[Tripura]], [[North-East India]]. The NLFT were declared a [[terrorist]] organization under the Indian [[Prevention of Terrorism Act (India)|Prevention of Terrorism Act]] in 2002. The NLFT manifesto says that they want to expand what they describe as the kingdom of God and Christ in Tripura.<ref name="bbc_nlft"/> They are accused of forcing indigenous tribes to give up Hinduism and become Christian in areas under their control.<ref name="bbc_nlft"/> In 2000 the Indian government of Tripura announced that it had hard evidence that the [[Baptist Church of Tripura]] was backing the NLFT.<ref name="bbc_nlft"/> Nagmanlal Halam, secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, was arrested and found to be in possession of a large quantity of explosives.<ref name="bbc_nlft">{{cite news|publisher=BBC News|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/717775.stm|title='Church backing Tripura rebels'|author=Subir Bhaumik}}</ref> Halam confessed to buying and supplying explosives to the NLFT for the past two years.<ref name="bbc_nlft"/> The [[National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism]] classified the [[National Liberation Front of Tripura]] (NLFT) as one of the ten most active terrorist groups in the world in 2003.<ref name="mipt_nlft">{{cite web|url=http://www.mipt.org/pdf/2004-MIPT-Terrorism-Annual.pdf|format=PDF|title=The MIPT terrorism annual 2004|publisher=National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism|year=2004}}</ref> They wrote:<ref name="mipt_nlft"/>{{cquote|The NLFT, like the ATTF, focuses its activities in the Indian state of Tripura. However, the impetus driving the NLFT’s armed struggle is the creation of an independent state in Tripura that is governed by Christian principles. With many of the group’s members motivated by Christianity, the NLFT manifesto seeks to end "Indian colonialism" and "neo-imperialism." The organization, operating from Bangladesh, uses its numerous bases to execute subversive terrorist activities in India... Typical NLFT targets include Indian government employees and officials, as well as civilians. Members of the rival Communist Party of India and their family members are also victims of NLFT attacks. Bombings and kidnappings are the tactical measures used most often by the NFLT... the group ranks as one of the most active terrorist groups in terms of both incidents and fatalities... the organization reportedly receives financial assistance from Christian supporters in India, enabling the organization to implement its operations... The NLFT has managed to maintain contacts with various terrorist organizations, such as the National Liberation Front of Bodoland, an organization active in Assam; the Nagaland-based [[National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah]] (NSCN-IM); and the Manipur-based [[Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup]] (KYKL). The NLFT has, likewise, cultivated transborder linkages in Myanmar and Bhutan, which are also rather accessible, and has formed strategic networks with intelligence organizations in [[Pakistan]].}}

The stated goals of the NLFT include the overthrow [[imperialism]], [[capitalism]] and neo-[[colonialism]] by way of armed struggle so they can form a distinct and independent [[Borok]] civilization in Twipra.<ref name="nlft">{{cite web|url=http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/tripura/documents/papers/nlft_const.htm|title=Constitution of National Liberation Front Of Tripura|publisher=South Asia Terrorism Portal}}</ref> They state that they have been completely marginalized by the immigration of nonnative peoples, been oppressed socio-politically, and economically exploited. They believe they are facing an identity crisis due to chauvinism and imperialism from what they call the so-called Aryan descendants of Hindustan(India).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/tripura/terrorist_outfits/nlft.htm|title=National Liberation Front of Tripura, India|publisher=South Asia Terrorism Portal}}</ref><ref name="nlft"/>

====Nagaland Rebels====
The [[Nagaland Rebels]] is a coalition of rebel groups operating in [[Nagaland]], [[North-East India]]. The largest of these is the [[National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah]] (NSCN-IM), which is fighting for the establishment of a "Nagaland for Christ".<ref name="nscn">{{Dead link|url=http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=4585 |title=Terrorism Knowledge Base: National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM)|publisher=The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ipcs.org/ManifestooftheNationalSocialistCouncilofNagaland.pdf|format=PDF|title=Manifesto of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland}}</ref> The NSCN-IM have carried out numerous acts of terrorism against the Indian Army, other ethnic groups, and opponents within their own ethnic group.<ref name="nscn"/> The insurgency has been waged since the 1947 Indian declaration of independence, and has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.<ref name="nscn"/>

Baruah writes that "Christianity is an essential part of Naga identity"; the NSCN-IM estimate that 95% of Nagas are Christian.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Confronting Constructionism: Ending India's Naga War|author=Sanjib Baruah|journal=Journal of Peace Research|volume=40|issue=3|year=2003|pages=321–338|doi=10.1177/0022343303040003005}}</ref> According to Gordon Means "the religious issue cannot be overlooked... A great number of Nagas are Christians... the Naga Federal Government (NFG) could play upon the fear of many Nagas that within the Indian Union the religious freedom of a small Christian minority would be compromised. An independence movement that can cloak itself in the garb of both nationalism and religious righteousness has an initial advantage. And there can be no doubt that the rebel Nagas are a sincerely pious lot. By all accounts, hymn singing and prayers constitute an important part of their daily routine in their jungle hide-outs. The vice-president of the NFG, Mr. Mhiasiu, was a preacher before joining the underground. Serving as chaplains for the Home Guards are many Baptist ministers."<ref>{{cite journal|title=Nagaland-The Agony of Ending a Guerrilla War|author=Gordon P. Means and Ingunn N. Means|journal=Pacific Affairs|volume=9|issue=3/4|year=1966-1967|pages=290–313|doi=10.2307/2751423}}</ref>

===Groups in Lebanon===
====Guardians of the Cedars====
The [[Guardians of the Cedars]] is the paramilitary wing of the banned [[Lebanese Renewal Party]], and one of several [[Lebanese_Civil_War#Christian_militias|Christian militias active in the Lebanese Civil War]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=Review of Lebanese Christian Nationalism: The Rise and Fall of an Ethnic Resistance by Walid Phares|author=Kirsten E. Schulze|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=28|issue=4|year=1996|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=612–614}}</ref> From 1973 their slogans have included "No [[Palestinian people|Palestinian]] will remain on Lebanese soil" and "A good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian".<ref name="room"/> It should be noted that, the [[Palestinian people]], like the [[Lebanese people]], may be either Christian or Muslim. Neither Lebanese nor Palestinians are exclusively Christian or exclusively Muslim.

According to Judith Tucker, "the Guardians of the Cedars played an important role in terrorist strategy throughout the wars in Lebanon... They are best known today for the numberous attacks and cold-blooded murders of Palestinian civilians in the [[Sidon]] region."<ref name="room">{{cite journal|title="There is No Room for Any Palestinian in Lebanon"|author=Abu Arz; Judith Tucker|journal=MERIP Reports, No. 118, Lebanon: The State and the Opposition|year=1983|publisher=Middle East Research and Information Project|pages=14–15}}</ref> In an interview carried out by the [[Jerusalem Post]], leader [[Abu Arz]] said that Palestinians should be [[ethnically cleansed]] from Lebanon "We shall drive them to the borders of 'brotherly' Syria and tell them to keep walking. Anyone who looks back, stops or returns will be shot on the spot. When I suggest that such harsh procedures might put the Christian world against them, he simply says: 'We are the Christian world.'"<ref>{{cite journal|title=Israel's Christian Allies|journal=Journal of Palestine Studies|volume=11|issue=4 Special Issue: The War in Lebanon|year=1982|publisher=University of California Press|pages=225–226|doi=10.1525/jps.1982.11.4.00p0027n}}</ref>

====Lebanese Forces====
The [[Lebanese Forces]] (also known as the Christian [[Phalang]]ist Militia) was a right wing secular group,<ref>Abraham, A. J. 1996. ''The Lebanon war''. Westport, Conn: Praeger. p 183.</ref> who had support from the [[Maronite]] community, during a civil war based not on religious beliefs, but on the control of political and economic power.<ref>[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/lebanon.htm Lebanon (Civil War 1975-1991)<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=A Lebanon Primer|author=Tom Russell|journal=MERIP Reports|issue=133|year=1985|page=17-19|publisher=Middle East Research and Information Project|quote=Lebanese Forces; military wing of the Lebanese Front, dominated by the Phalange party and militia. Ideological support of Maronite monks is significant for the Lebanese Forces.}}</ref> The Lebanese Forces were one of several [[Lebanese_Civil_War#Christian_militias|Christian militias active during the Lebanese Civil War]];<ref>{{cite book|title=Going All the Way: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventures, and the War in Lebanon|author=Jonathan C. Randal|publisher=New York Viking|year=1983|isbn=0670422592}}</ref> it carried out the [[Sabra and Shatila massacre]] in which an estimated 700-3500 Palestinian refugees were massacred. The attack on the camps occurred within a few days of the assassination of the Maronite Christan president of Lebanon. The Lebanese Forces attacked the camps after being let in to them by Israeli soldiers who sealed off the two camps for three days. Attacks against Israel by Palestinian guerrillas, led Israel to invade and occupy southern Lebanon in 1982.<ref>[http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/09/16/palestinians.anniversary.reut/ CNN.com - Beirut Palestinians recall Sabra, Shatila massacre - September 16, 2000<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

In 2000, [[Asaad Shaftari]], who was second in command of the Lebanese Forces during the civil war, made a public apology to his victims, admitting that the LF had carried out acts of terror, such as calling in hoax bomb threats to movie theaters and then attacking the fleeing civilians with heavy artillery, and the kidnapping and execution of random civilians, and that "he had signed many orders for captives to be executed and how, when he felt pangs of conscience, he was unburdened of them by a priest who granted him absolution to kill hundreds more.".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.lebanonwire.com/aa-lbopeds/02030104DS.htm|title=Nation still in civil war denial|publisher=The Daily Star|date=2002-03-01|author=Joseph Samaha}}</ref> In his apology he stated "I apologize for the horror of war and what I did in this civil war in the name of `Lebanon' or `the cause' or `Christianity... I apologize because while defending what I thought was Christianity I was not practising any kind of true Christianity which is the love of others free from violence."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KZH/is_3_13/ai_30125584|publisher=Gale Group|title=Lebanon begins to remember|date=2000-06|author=Michael Henderson}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Apology of Lebanese figure breaks silence on civil war|url=http://listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0003&L=justwatch-l&D=0&T=0&P=61022|publisher=The Boston Globe|date=2000-02-28|author=Charles M. Sennott}}</ref>

===Groups in Northern Ireland===
====Religion as a factor====
Several people have stated that religion was a contributing factor to [[The Troubles|terrorism in Northern Ireland]]:

[[Mark Juergensmeyer]] wrote "Like residents of Belfast and London, Americans were beginning to learn to live with acts of ''religious terrorism'': shocking, disturbing incidents of violence laced with the passion of religion - in these cases, Christianity"<ref name="mind"/>{{rp|19}} and "The violence in Northern Ireland is justified by still other theological positions, Catholic and Protestant."<ref name="mind"/>{{rp|20}} and "The ferocity of religious violence was brought home to me in 1998 when I received the news that a car bomb had exploded in a Belfast neighborhood I had visited the day before.<ref name="mind"/>{{rp|4}}

[[Martin Dillon]] interviewed paramilitaries on both sides of the conflict, questioning how they could reconcile murder with their Christian convictions.<ref name="dillon">{{cite book|title=God and the Gun: The Church and Irish Terrorism|author=Martin Dillon|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0415923638}}</ref> His interviewees included Kenny McClinton, a convicted murderer who once advocated beheading Roman Catholics and impaling their heads on railings, and who is now Pastor of the Ulster/American Christian Fellowship Ministry, and [[Billy Wright (loyalist)|Billy Wright]], a [[Born again Christian]] preacher who became one of the most feared paramilitary figures in Northern Ireland, and who accepts that, although his faith calls for him to defend his people, his own actions in this defense could lead to [[damnation]] (see [[Christian_terrorism#Notable_individuals|Notable individuals]]).

[[Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister|First Minister of Northern Ireland]] The Revd. and Rt. Hon. [[Ian Paisley]] often cast the conflict in religious terms. He preached that the Roman Catholic Church, which he termed the "[[Popery]]", had deviated from the Bible, and therefore from true Christianity, giving rise to "revolting superstitions and idolatrous abuses". Paisley once said "The Provisional IRA is the military wing of the Roman Catholic Church"<ref>{{cite news|publisher=The Sunday Times|date=2006-10-16|title=Alec Reid shows even the best of men can be blind|author=Liam Clarke|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article578999.ece}}</ref> and has claimed several times that the [[Pope]] is the [[Antichrist]], most famously at the [[European Parliament]], where he interrupted a speech by [[Pope John Paul II]], shouting [[Denunciation of Pope John Paul II by Ian Paisley|"I denounce you as the Antichrist!"]] and holding up a red poster reading "POPE JOHN PAUL II ANTICHRIST".<ref>{{cite news|last=MacDonald|first=Susan|title=Paisley ejected for insulting Pope|publisher=[[The Times]]|date=1988-10-02}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Chrisafis|first=Angelique|title=The Return of Dr. No|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|date=2004-09-16|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1305503,00.html}}</ref>

[[Alan Campbell (pastor)|Pastor Alan Campbell]] has also identified the Papacy as the Antichrist, and has described the IRA as "Roman Catholic terrorists". Campbell preaches a [[Christian Identity]] theology; he is strongly against race-mixing, and supports the [[British Israel]] hypothesis, claiming that the Celto-Anglo-Saxon people of Ulster are the true "Israel of God".

Steve Bruce, a sociologist, wrote "The Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict. Economic and social considerations are also crucial, but it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality".<ref>{{cite book|author=Steve Bruce|title=God Save Ulster|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1986|page=249|isbn=0192852175}}</ref>{{rp|249}} Reviewers agreed "Of course the Northern Ireland conflict is at heart religious".<ref>{{cite journal|journal=The English Historical Review|publisher=Oxford University Press|volume=104|issue=413|date=1989-10|title=God Save Ulster: The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism by Steve Bruce (review)|author=David Harkness}}</ref>

John Hickey wrote "Politics in the North is not politics exploiting religion. That is far too simple an explanation: it is one which trips readily off the tongue of commentators who are used to a cultural style in which the politically pragmatic is the normal way of conducting affairs and all other considerations are put to its use. In the case of Northern Ireland the relationship is much more complex. It is more a question of religion inspiring politics than of politics making use of religion. It is a situation more akin to the first half of seventeenth‑century England than to the last quarter of twentieth century Britain".<ref>{{cite book|author=John Hickey|title=Religion and the Northern Ireland Problem|publisher=Gill and Macmillan|year=1984|page=67|isbn=0717111156}}</ref>

[[Padraic Pearse]] was a devoted believer of the Christian faith, a writer, and one of the leaders of the [[Easter Rising]].<ref name="pearse">{{cite paper|author=T. Baakman|title=Connolly and Pearse: Rebels with Pens as Swords|publisher=University of Utrecht|year=2006|url=http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/student-theses/2007-0316-200711/Connolly%20and%20Pearse%20-%20Rebels%20with%20Pens%20as%20Swords.doc}}</ref> In his writings he often identified Ireland with Jesus Christ to emphasise the suffering of the nation, and called for his readers to resurrect and redeem the nation, through self-sacrifice which would turn them into martyrs.<ref name="pearse"/> Browne states that Pearse’s "ideas of sacrifice and atonement, of the blood of martyrs that makes fruitful the seed of faith, are to be found all through [his] writings; nay, they have here even more than their religious significance, and become vitalizing factors in the struggle for Irish nationality".<ref name="pearse"/>

[[William Edward Hartpole Lecky]], an Irish historian, wrote "If the characteristic mark of a healthy Christianity be to unite its members by a bond of fraternity and love, then there is no country where Christianity has more completely failed than Ireland".<ref>{{cite book|author=William Edward Hartpole Lecky|title=A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century|year=1892}}</ref>

Sweeney argued that [[self-immolation]], in the form of [[Hunger Strike#Irish republicans|hunger strikes by Irish republicans]], was religiously motivated and perceived.<ref name="sweeney">{{cite journal|title=Self-immolation in Ireland: Hungerstrikes and political confrontation|author=George Sweeney|journal=Anthropology Today|volume=9|issue=5|date=1993-10}}</ref> He wrote "[[Easter Rising|The Rising]] catapulted the cult of self-sacrifice to centre stage of twentieth century Irish militant politics in a strange marriage of Catholicism and republicanism. A religious and a sacrificial motif can be detected in the writings of those who participated in the 'bloody protest'. [[Brian O'Higgins]], who helped in the rebel capture of Dublin's GPO in O'Connell Street, recalls how all the republications took turn reciting the [[Rosary]] every half hour during the rebellion. He writes that there 'was hardly a man in the volunteer ranks who did not prepare for death on [[Easter]] Saturday [sic]<ref>It would have been [[Holy Saturday]]; [[Easter Saturday]] is a week later.</ref> and there were many who felt as they knelt at the altar rails on Easter Sunday morning that they were doing no more than fulfilling their Easter duty - that they were renouncing the world and all the world held for them by making themselves worthy to appear before the Judgement Seat of God... The executions reinforced the sacrificial motif as [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]] followed Mass for the dead leaders, linking them with the sacrifice of [[Christ]], the ancient [[martyrs]] and heroes, and the honoured dead from previous revolts... These and other deaths by hungerstrike transformed not only the perceived sacrificial victims but, in the eyes of many ordinary Irish people, the cause for which they died. The martyrs and their cause became [[sacred]]."<ref name="sweeney"/> Sweeney goes on to note that the culture of hunger strikes continued to be used by the [[Provisional IRA]] to great effect in the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in a revamped [[Sinn Fein]], and mobilising huge sections of the Catholic community behind the republican cause.<ref name="sweeney"/>{{rp|13}}

[[The Guardian]] newspaper attributed the murder of [[Martin O'Hagan]], a former inmate of the Maze prison and a fearless reporter on crime and the paramilitaries, to the revival of religious fundamentalism.<ref name="mckay">{{cite news|title=Faith, hate and murder|author=Susan McKay|publisher=The Guardian|date=2001-11-17|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2001/nov/17/weekend7.weekend9}}</ref>

====Groups====
Organized paramilitary crime, including drugs and racketeering, have threatened civil society in Ireland as gangs with both Catholic and Protestant ties have engaged in activities such as "drug dealing, counterfeiting and forgery, money-laundering, benefits fraud, car theft, arms trading, extortion and cross-border smuggling" and influencing employment.<ref>{{cite news|publisher=New York Times|title=In the Ulster Spring, Seeds of Peace Lie Dormant|journal=Belfast Journal|author=Warren Hoge|date=2001-04-25|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E2DF1739F936A15757C0A9679C8B63}}</ref>

Although often advocating nationalist policies, these groups consisted of and were supported by distinct religious groups in a religiously partitioned society. Groups on both sides advocated what they saw as armed defence of their own religious group.<ref>{{cite book | last = English | first = Richard | authorlink = | title = Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA | publisher = [[Pan Books]] |year=2003 | pages = p. 119 | doi = | isbn = 0-330-49388-4 }}</ref>{{rp|134-135}}

Notable '''[[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]]''' groups include:

* [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]].
* [[Official IRA]]
* [[Irish National Liberation Army]] (also known as the Catholic Reaction Force)
* [[Irish People's Liberation Organisation]]
* [[Continuity IRA]]
* [[Real IRA]]

Notable '''[[Protestant]]''' groups include:

* [[Ulster Volunteer Force]]
* [[Ulster Defence Association]]
* [[Loyalist Volunteer Force]]
* [[Red Hand Commandos]]
* [[Ulster Resistance]]

===Groups in Russia===
Many Russian political and paramilitary groups combine racism, nationalism, and [[Russian Orthodox]] beliefs.<ref name="verkhovsky">{{cite journal|journal=Institute of Governmental Affairs|publisher=University of California, Davis|author=Alexander Verkhovsky|title=Ultra-nationalists in Russia at the beginning of the year 2000|url=http://www.panorama.ru/works/patr/bp/finre.html}}</ref> "In Russia, on the other hand, even extreme nationalism was always coloured by Orthodoxy, and, consequently, was to be considered traditionalist".<ref name="parland"/>

At the murder trial of Russian National Unity leader Igor Semenov, Vladimir Gusev, a Russian Orthodox priest, testified that "Judaism does not have any positive conception in the Christian sense", and he identified [[Hasidic]] and [[Ashkenazic]] Jews as members of totalitarian sects that "kill children, gather their blood, and use it to make [[matzah]]" (the [[Blood libel against Jews]]). He added that "The Jews should not celebrate [[Chanukah]] because it can insult the religious feelings of the Christians."<ref>{{cite web|publisher=Union of councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union|url=http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/aa111497.shtml |title=UCSJ Action Alert}}</ref>

====Russian National Unity====
[[Russian National Unity]] is an outlawed far right party responsible for several terrorist attacks, including murders on religious grounds, and the bombing of the US Consulate in [[Ekaterinburg]].<ref name="verkhovsky"/> In their manifesto "Bases of social conception of RNU" they advocate an increased role for the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] in all areas of life.<ref name="rnu">{{cite web|url=http://www.rne.org/vopd/english/concept.shtml|title=Bases of the social conception of Russian National Unity (RNU)|publisher=Russian National Unity}}</ref>

====Russian National Socialists====
The [[Russian National Socialist Party]] bases itself on four principles: Orthodox Christianity, a strong state, aggressive Russian nationalism and non-Marxist socialism. Party leader A. Barkashov has advocated "a Hitlerite racial biology, and proclaims the need for creating an armed resistance movement against the supposed Jewish dictatorship in Russia."<ref name="parland">{{cite book|title=The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia|isbn=0415341116|author=Thomas Parland|publisher=Routledge}}</ref>{{rp|7}} In August 2007, a 23 year old member of the group was arrested for distributing a video on the Internet that showed two Muslims apparently being beheaded and shot by a militant wing of the RNSP.<ref>{{cite web|date=2007-08-15|url=http://robertlindsay.blogspot.com/2007/08/russian-neo-nazi-beheading-video.html |title=Russian Neo-Nazi beheading video|publisher=Robert Lindsay}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|date=2007-08-15|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6946810.stm|title=Russian held over 'deaths' video|publisher=BBC News}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|date=2007-08-16|url=http://www.kommersant.com/p795771/Video_execution/|title=An Execution Link Led to Its Master|publisher=Kommersant}}</ref>

====Tsar Lazar Guard====

The [[Tsar Lazar Guard]] is the paramilitary wing of the [[Movement of Veterans of Serbia]]. Its president Željko Vasiljević called it the "first uniformed Christian militia squad, comprised of war veterans from all over Serbia".<ref>{{cite news|title="Tsar Lazar Guard" rounds up Kosovo volunteers|publisher=B92|date=2007-04-28| url=http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2007&mm=04&dd=28&nav_id=40959}}</ref> The group was officially formed at a swearing in ceremony at the [[Lazarica Church]] in [[Kruševac]] on [[5 May]] [[2007]]. The group is said to have 5,000 troops.<ref name="eth">{{cite web|url=http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=18400|title=Kosovo: Armed for independence|publisher=International Relations and Security Network, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich}}</ref> The United Nations and NATO have classed Tsar Lazar's Guard as a terrorist group.<ref name="eth"/> Tsar Lazar's Guard threatened to attack United Nations and NATO troops if Kosovo declared independence, and have stated their desire to detonate a nuclear bomb in Kosovo.<ref>{{cite web|title=Kosovo Task Force Prepared for Conflict, Commander Says|author=John J. Kruzel|publisher=United States Department of Defense|date=2007-12-05|url=http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48330}}</ref>

====White Eagles====

The [[White Eagles (paramilitary)|White Eagles]] were a Serbian paramilitary group which carried out a number of atrocities, massacres, and acts of terror over the non-Serb population both before and during the [[Yugoslav wars]].<ref name="omerovic">{{cite web|title=Terrorism, violence and organised crime in Sandzak|author=Elvedina Omerovic, Helsinki Commitee for Human Rights in Sandzak|publisher=Austrian Armed Forces|url=http://www.bmlv.gv.at/pdf_pool/publikationen/crime_omero.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ussartf.org/terrorism.htm|title=Terrorist Group Profiles|publisher=United States Search and Rescue Task Force}}</ref> [[Mirko Jović]], leader of the White Eagles, called for a "Christian, Orthodox Serbia with no Muslims and no unbelievers".<ref name="sells">{{cite book|isbn=0520216628|title=The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia|publisher=University of California Press|year=1998|author=Michael Sells}}</ref>{{rp|80}}

Clarence Augustus Martin, in the book "Understanding Terrorism", classified the White Eagles as terrorists and accussed them of practicing "gender-selective terrorism against men" for their deliberate targetting of Muslim civilian males.<ref>{{cite book|title=Understanding Terrorism|author=Clarence Augustus Martin|isbn=1412927226|year=2006|publisher=Sage Publications}}</ref>{{rp|312}} Due to the widespread collusion between the Christian Serb regular forces and paramilitaries, local leaders classified acts of violence as "state terror. The Bosnian Muslims were being killed without any compunction. Those so-called Christian paramilitaries were all over, but in reality, they were an arm of the state... local Christian Serbs believed Bosnian Muslims were terrorists, while Bosnian Muslims felt terrorized by ethnic Christian Serb paramilitaries".<ref>{{cite book|title=Frontiers and Ghettos: State Violence in Serbia and Israel|publisher=University of California Press|year=2003|isbn=0520236572|author=James Ron}}</ref>{{rp|76}}<ref>{{cite journal|title=Boundaries and Violence: Repertoires of State Action along the Bosnia /Yugoslavia Divide|author=James Ron|publisher=Springer|volume=29|issue=5|year=2000|pages=609–649}}</ref>

[[Stipe Mesić]], the last president of the former [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslav Federation]], described the violence carried out by the White Eagles as "terrorist actions" in his political memoirs.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Demise of Yugoslavia: A Political Memoir|author=Stipe Mesić|isbn=9639241717|year=2004|publisher=Central European University Press}}</ref> The White Eagles were also described as terrorists by Elvedina Omerovic of the Helsinki Commitee for Human Rights in Sandzak.<ref name="omerovic"/>

The White Eagles were strongly [[anti-Semitic]], stating in an official document titled ''The Jewish Vampire Ball'' that Jews are "the sons and servants of the devil... There are not enough words to describe all their deceit, deviancy, and crimes against the holy Church of Christ, that is, the [[Orthodox Church]] and its believers... [they are] killers, thieves, tricksters, wanderers and vermin".<ref name="cohen"/> The document went on to accuse Jews of inventing [[AIDS]] "in their monstrous laboratories".<ref name="cohen">{{cite book|title=Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History|author=Philip J. Cohen and David Riesman|year=1996|publisher=Texas A&M University Press|isbn=0890967601}}</ref>{{rp|129}}

===Other national groups===
====God's Army, Burma====
[[God's Army (revolutionary group)|God's Army]] is a Christian revolutionary group in armed rebellion against the military government of Burma. God's Army consists of around 100-200 veteran fighters, and is led by two twin brothers, who are believed by their followers to be immune to bullets.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/gods_army.htm|title=God's Army|publisher=Federation of American Scientists|date=2000-01-24}}</ref>

====Sons of Freedom, Canada====
Sons of Freedom are a sect of religious anarchists who believe man owes allegiance only to God, part of a Russian nonconformist movement called the Doukhobors (literally "spirit wrestlers") who came to Canada in 1899. Until 1962, the capital of the Sons of Freedom was a village in British Columbia, Krestova (which in Russian means "City of the Cross", to which, in 1966, the Sons of Freedom returned. The Sons of Freedom have used violence, terrorism, arson and explosives in their defiance of all "worldly" authority including the Canadian government, rebelling against laws requiring their children to attend school, government efforts to force relinquishment of their squatters' rights, and Canadian taxes. In 1961, the Freedomites' violence peaked as they bombed towns from Nelson to New Denver, blaming the government for the 1924 murder of Peter Lordly. As signs of protest the Sons of Freedom have marched nude, blown up power pylons, railroad bridges, and set fire to homes, often targeting their own property.<ref>{{cite news|title=Taming the Spirit Wrestlers|publisher=Time Magazine|date=1966-02-11|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,842462,00.html}}</ref>

====The Lord's Resistance Army, Uganda====
The [[Lord's Resistance Army]] is a guerrilla army engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, and is accused of many acts of mutilation, torture, rape, abduction, the use of child soldiers and a number of massacres. It is led by [[Joseph Kony]], who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a [[spirit medium]], primarily of the Christian [[Holy Spirit]] which the [[Acholi]] believe can represent itself in many manifestations.<ref name="African Affaris vol 98">{{cite journal|journal=African Affairs|volume=98|number=390|author=Ruddy Doom and Koen Vlassenroot|title=Kony's message: A new Koine? The Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda|year=1999|publisher=Oxford Journals / Royal African Society|pages=5–36}}</ref> The group aim to establish a Christian state by replacing the Ugandan constitution with the Bible's [[Ten Commandments]].<ref>{{cite news|publisher=BBC News|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1917652.stm|title=Ugandan rebels raid Sudanese villages|date=2002-04-08}}</ref><ref name="African Affaris vol 98"/> The LRA has been known by a number of different names, including the "Lord's Army" (1987 to 1988) and the "Uganda Peoples Democratic Christian Army" (1988 to 1992).<ref>{{cite journal|author=K. Ward|title=The Armies of the Lord: Christianity, Rebels and the State in Northern Uganda, 1986-1999|year=2001|volume=31(2)|journal=Journal of Religion in Africa}}</ref>

The LRA insurgency has displaced nearly two million people and more than 10,000 have been killed in massacres, while twice that number of children have been abducted by the LRA and forced to work as soldiers, porters and sex slaves.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/2007/oct/20/about.uganda|publisher=The Guardian|title=Background: the Lord's Resistance Army|author=Xan Rice|date=2007-10-20}}</ref> LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle, but some Islam is mixed into their beliefs as well.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07E1DA123BF937A3575BC0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all|publisher=New York Times|title=Uganda's Terror Crackdown Multiplies the Suffering|author=Marc Lacey|date=2002-08-04}}</ref> The LRA uniform pips contain a white bible inside a heart.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/africa_ugandan_rebels_come_home/html/6.stm|publisher=BBC News|title=In pictures: Ugandan rebels come home|quote=One of the differences on the LRA pips is a white bible inside a heart}}</ref> Joseph Kony has justified murdering his own Acholi people with biblical references<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/03/wugand03.xml|publisher=The Telegraph|title= I killed so many I lost count, says boy, 11|date=2005-08-03|author=David Blair}}</ref> and has named one of his children from one of his 88 wives, "George Bush".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/560b19de-d395-11dc-b861-0000779fd2ac.html|publisher=Financial Times|title=Africa’s Most Wanted|author=Matthew Green|date=2008-02-08}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article3449276.ece|publisher=The Times|title=The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa’s Most Wanted by Matthew Green|author=Christina Lamb|date=2008-03-02}}</ref>

The LRA have been noted for cutting off the hands, lips, breasts and noses of their victims. Leader Joseph Kony has claimed this is justified by the Bible, "If you pick up an arrow against us and we ended up cutting off the hand you used, who is to blame? You report us with your mouth, and we cut off your lips. Who is to blame? It is you! The Bible says that if your hand, eye or mouth is at fault, it should be cut off."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/18/international/africa/18uganda.html|title=Atrocity Victims in Uganda Choose to Forgive|publisher=New York Times|author=Marc Lacey|date=2005-04-18}}</ref> (referring to {{bibleverse||Ezekiel|23:25-34|NRSV}}, {{bibleverse||Matthew|5:29-30|NRSV}}, {{bibleverse||Matthew|18:8-9|NRSV}} and {{bibleverse||Mark|9:43-47|NRSV}})

==Historical cases of Christian terrorism==
====Albigensian Crusade, 1208====

Some authors, such as Jonathan Barker, cited the [[Albigensian Crusade]], launched by Pope [[Innocent III]] against followers of [[Catharism]], as an example of Christian [[state terrorism]].<ref name="barker">{{cite book|title=The no-nonsense guide to terrorism|author=Jonathan Barker|year=2003|publisher=Verso|isbn=1859844332}}</ref> The 20 year war led to an estimated 1 million casualties.<ref name="massacre_pure">{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,897752-1,00.html|title=Massacre of the Pure|publisher=TIME Magazine|date=1961-04-28}}</ref> They worshiped in private houses rather than churches, without the sacraments or the cross, which they rejected as part of the world of matter, and sexual intercourse and the taking of oaths were considered sinful, but in other respects they followed conventional teachings, reciting the Lord's prayer and reading from Biblical scriptures.<ref name="massacre_pure"/> They believed that the Saviour was a "heavenly being merely masquerading as human to bring salvation to the elect, who often have to conceal themselves from the world, and who are set apart by their special knowledge and personal purity".<ref name="massacre_pure"/>

Cathars rejected the [[Old Testament]] and its God, who they named [[Rex Mundi]] (Latin for "king of the world"), who they saw as a blind usurper who demanded fearful obedience and worship and who, under the most false pretexts, tormented and murdered those whom he called "his children" They proclaimed that there was a higher God — the True God — and Jesus was his messenger. They held that the physical world was evil and created by Rex Mundi, who encompassed all that was corporeal, chaotic and powerful; the second god, the one whom they worshipped, was entirely disincarnate: a being or principle of pure spirit and completely unsullied by the taint of matter - He was the god of love, order and peace.<ref>See [[Catharism]] and [[Catharism#theology]]</ref>

===St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, 1572===

Gilmour has cited the historical case of the [[St. Bartholomew's Day massacre]] as an instance of Christian terrorism on par with modern day Islamic terrorism, and goes on to write, "That massacre, said [[Pope Gregory XIII]], gave him more pleasure than fifty [[Battle of Lepanto (1571)|Battles of Lepanto]], and he commissioned [[Vasari]] to paint frescoes of it in the Vatican".<ref name="gilmour">{{cite journal|title=Terrorism review|author=Ian Gilmour, Andrew Gilmour|journal=Journal of Palestine Studies|volume=17|issue=2|year=1988|publisher=University of California Press|pages=136|doi=10.1525/jps.1988.17.3.00p0024k}}</ref> It is estimated that ten thousand to possibly one-hundred thousand [[Huguenots]] (French Protestants) were killed by Catholic mobs, and it has been called "the worst of the century's religious massacres".<ref>{{cite book|author=H.G. Koenigsberger, George L.Mosse, G.Q. Bowler|title=Europe in the Sixteenth Century, Second Edition|publisher=Longman|year=1989|isbn=0582493900}}</ref> The massacre led to the start of the ''fourth war'' of the [[French Wars of Religion]].

===Gunpowder Plot, 1605===

[[Peter Steinfels]] has cited the historical case of the [[Gunpowder Plot]], when [[Guy Fawkes]] and other Catholic revolutionaries attempted to overthrow the Protestant aristocracy of England by blowing up the [[Palace of Westminster|Houses of Parliament]], as a notable case of Christian terrorism.<ref>{{cite news|publisher=New York Times|author=Peter Steinfels|date=2005-11-05|title=A Day to Think About a Case of Faith-Based Terrorism|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/05/national/05beliefs.html}}</ref>

===Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, 1649-53===

Lutz and Lutz cited the [[Cromwellian conquest of Ireland]] as terrorism; "The draconian laws applied by Oliver Cromwell in Ireland were an early version of [[ethnic cleansing]]. The Catholic Irish were to be expelled to the northwestern areas of the island. Relocation rather than extermination was the goal."<ref>{{cite book|title=Global Terrorism|publisher=Routledge|page=193|year=2004|author=Lutz,James M and Lutz Brenda J|isbn=0415700515}}</ref> [[Daniel Chirot]] has argued that genocide was originally the goal, inspired by the Biblical account of [[Joshua]] and the genocide following the [[Battle of Jericho]]:<ref name="chirot">{{cite book|title=Why Some Wars Become Genocidal and Others Don't|author=Daniel Chirot|publisher=Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington|url=http://jsis.artsci.washington.edu/jsis/Chirot-War.pdf|format=PDF}}</ref>{{rp|3}} {{cquote|Massacres of whole populations are an ancient phenomenon. The word genocide was first coined only in 1944, but the concept and the act are much older. We all remember the story of how [[Joshua]]'s men blew their trumpets and down came the walls of [[Jericho]], the first of the [[Canaanite]] cities to fall to the invading people of Israel. Children who are told Biblical stories in [[Sunday school]]s are not usually told what happened next. 'Then ' the story continues in Joshua 5, 'Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.' Only the family of the [[harlot]] who had protected Joshua's spies and betrayed her people was saved. Finally, and I quote again, 'they burned the city with fire, and all within it.' Lest you think this is just an ancient story, remember that it inspired [[Oliver Cromwell]] in the mid-17th century, whose army invaded Ireland explicitly using the [[Book of Joshua]] as an example in what began as a campaign to exterminate [[Catholicism]] from that land. He failed, and in the end the English were more practical and only subdued Ireland without wiping out the Catholics, but at the start of the campaign, the intent was there. Historians estimate that close to 20% of Ireland's population at that time died from war and the diseases and famine that always traveled with invading armies in those days.}}

===Southern United States, 1865-1910===

In the late nineteenth century southern United States evangelical Protestants used a wide range of terror activities, including lynching, murder, attempted murder, rape, beating, tar-and-feathering, whipping, and destruction of property, to suppress competition from black Christians (who saw Christ as the saviour of the black oppressed), Mormons, Jews and Catholics.<ref>{{cite book|title=Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Mob: Violence against Religious Outsiders in the U.S. South, 1865-1910|author=Patrick Q. Mason|url=http://etd.nd.edu/etd_data/theses/available/etd-07182005-134920/unrestricted/MasonP072005.pdf|format=PDF|publisher=University of Notre Dame|date=2005-07-06}}</ref>

===Iron Guard and Lăncieri, 1927-1945===

The [[Iron Guard]], also known as the Legion of the [[Archangel Michael]], was an Orthodox Christian [[anti-Semitic]] fascist movement in [[Romania]]. It splintered from the [[National-Christian Defense League]], and was, unlike similar European fascist movements of the time, overtly religious. According to Ioanid, the Legion "willingly inserted strong elements of Orthodox Christianity into its political doctrine to the point of becoming one of the rare modern European political movements with a religious ideological structure."<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Sacralised Politics of the Romanian Iron Guard|author=Radu Ioanid|journal=Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions|volume=5|issue=3|year=2004|pages=419–453(35)|doi=10.1080/1469076042000312203}}</ref> The Iron Guard justified their actions through claims that "[[Rabbinical]] aggression against the Christian world" was undermining society.<ref>{{cite book|author=Leon Volovici|title=Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism|page=98|quote=citing N. Cainic, ''Ortodoxie şi etnocraţie'', pp. 162-4}}</ref> According to Tinichigiu, the Iron Guard was a terror organization, which carried out terrorist activities and political murders.<ref>{{cite web|author=Paul Tinichigiu|publisher=The Central Europe Center for Research and Documentation|title=Sami Fiul (interview)|date=2004-01|url=http://www.centropa.org/index.php?id=91&page=rdetails&rtype=bio&table=biografien}}</ref> The Iron Guard were active participants in the Romanian [[Holocaust]] and carried out the [[Legionnaires' rebellion and Bucharest pogrom|Bucharest pogrom]].

[[Nichifor Crainic]], Professor at the Faculty of Theology, University of Bucharest, developed various theological justifications arguing "that the [[Old Testament]] was not Jewish, that [[Jesus]] had not been Jewish, and that the [[Talmud]], which he saw as the incarnation of modern Jewry, was, first and foremost, a weapon to combat the Christian [[Gospel]] and to destroy Christians."<ref name="yv">{{cite journal|journal=Background and precursors to the Holocaust|title=Roots of Romanian Antisemitism: The League of National Christian Defense and Iron Guard Antisemitism|url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/what_new/data_whats_new/pdf/english/1.1_Roots_of_Romanian_Antisemitism.pdf|format=PDF|publisher=Yad Vashem - The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority}}</ref>{{rp|24}} Crainic played a critical role in the formation of the National Christian Party from the National-Christian Defense League, and became its general secretary. Between 1935 and 1937 the paramilitary division of the National Christian Party, the [[Lăncieri]], were responsible for numerous acts of brutality against Jews.<ref name="yv"/>{{rp|26}}

The [[Romanian Orthodox Church]] had strong antisemitic leanings, both in its senior hierarchy and among local clergy.<ref name="yv"/>{{rp|24}} Conflict was encouraged by its leaders; [[Patriarch]] [[Miron Cristea]] said "One has to be sorry for the poor Romanian people, whose very marrow is sucked out by the Jews. Not to react against the Jews means that we go open-eyed to our destruction... To defend ourselves is a national and patriotic duty"<ref name="yv"/>{{rp|25}} and "The duty of a Christian is to love himself first and to see that his needs are satisfied. Only then can he help his neighbor... Why should we not get rid of these parasites [Jews] who suck Rumanian Christian blood? It is logical and holy to react against them."<ref>{{cite news|publisher=TIME magazine|title='Logical & Holy'|date=1938-03-28| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,759391,00.html}}</ref>

===Rexists, 1940-1945===
{{offtopic}}
[[Rexism]] was a Belgian movement which combined Christianity and fascism during the [[Second World War]] with the aim of abolishing democracy and replacing it with a [[corporatist]] society based on the teachings of the Church. It was the prescribed ideology of the Rexist Party, which was officially known as Christus Rex (literally [[Christ the King]]). Rexist followers supported the occupying Nazi forces, admired Adolf Hitler, and had similar [[anti-semitic]] leanings. The Rexist Party originally split from the ruling [[Catholic Party (Belgium)|Catholic Party]], and Catholic bishops increasingly cut the Rexist movement's ties with the [[Roman Catholic Church]]. The remaining Rexists developed financial links with, and incorporated moral support, for [[Nazi Germany]] into their teachings.

===Paris theatre attack, 1988===

In 1988 the film [[The Last Temptation of Christ]] was released.<ref name="ltoc">{{cite news|publisher=New York Times|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE6DD173BF936A15753C1A96E948260|title=Police Suspect Arson In Fire at Paris Theater |date=1988-10-25|author=Steven Greenhouse}}</ref> The film controversially portrayed Jesus fantasising about sexual intercourse with [[Mary Magdalene]], and was roundly condemned by Christians.<ref name="ltoc"/><ref>{{cite news|title=The Church vs the cinema: Philip Pullman's blasphemous materials?|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/news/the-church-vs-the-cinema-philip-pullmans-blasphemous-materials-760748.html|publisher=The Independent|date=2007-11-28|author=Ciar Byrne}}</ref> Following its release, the Saint Michel theater in Paris was burnt to the ground whilst showing the film, leaving 13 people hospitalised, 1 in a serious condition.<ref name="ltoc"/> Following the attack, a representative of the film's distributor, [[Universal International Pictures]], said "The opponents of the film have largely won. They have massacred the film's success, and they have scared the public". [[Jack Lang]], [[Minister of Culture (France)|France's Minister of Culture]], went to the St.-Michel theater after the fire, and said, "Freedom of speech is threatened, and we must not be intimidated by such acts".<ref name="ltoc"/> The [[Archbishop of Paris]], [[Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger]], said "One doesn't have the right to shock the sensibilities of millions of people for whom Jesus is more important than their father or mother."<ref name="ltoc"/> However, after the fire he condemned the attack, saying "You don't behave as Christians but as enemies of Christ. From the Christian point of view, one doesn't defend Christ with arms. Christ himself forbade it."<ref name="ltoc"/> The leader of [[Christian Solidarity]], a Roman Catholic group that had promised to stop the film from being shown, said, "We will not hesitate to go to prison if it is necessary".<ref name="ltoc"/>

The attack was subsequently blamed on a Catholic fundamentalist group linked to [[Bernard Antony]], a representative of the far-right [[National Front (France)|National Front]] to the [[European Parliament]] in [[Strasbourg]], and followers of Archbishop [[Marcel Lefebvre]], who was [[excommunited]] from the Roman Catholic Church for his fundamentalist beliefs.<ref name="markham">{{cite news|publisher=New York Times|date=1988-11-09|title=Religious War Ignites Anew in France|author=James M. Markham|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFDE103DF93AA35752C1A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all}}</ref> Similar attacks against theatres included graffiti, setting off tear-gas canisters and stink bombs, and assaulting filmgoers.<ref name="markham"/> At least nine people believed to be members of the Catholic fundamentalist group were arrested.<ref name="markham"/> Rene Remond, a historian, said of the Catholic far-right "It is the toughest component of the National Front and it is motivated more by religion than by politics. It has a coherent political philosophy that has not changed for 200 years: it is the rejection of the revolution, of the republic and of modernism."<ref name="markham"/>

===Concerned Christians, 1999===

The [[Concerned Christians]] were a group of "Apocalyptic Christians" that "planned to carry out violent and extreme acts in the streets of Jerusalem at the end of 1999" and believed that being killed by police would "lead them to heaven."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9901/03/israel.cult.arrests.02/index.html|title=Apocalyptic Christians detained in Israel for alleged violence plot|date=1999-01-03|publisher=CNN}}</ref> The group were planning to attack holy sites in Jerusalem; some fundamentalist Christians believe that the [[Al-Aqsa mosque]], one of Islam's holiest shrines in Jerusalem, must be destroyed and the [[Temple in Jerusalem]] restored in its place, before [[Second Coming|Jesus can return to Earth]].<ref>{{cite news|publisher=BBC News|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/251815.stm|title=Cult members deported from Israel|date=1999-01-09}}</ref> The group were deported from Israel and are said to currently reside in Greece.

===Radical Christian Activists, 2007===

In 2007 three teenagers from [[Burleson]], Texas were charged with attempting to destroy a church with an explosive device.<ref>{{cite web|publisher=US Department of Justice| url=http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txn/PressRel07/calaway_plaisted_ragon_indict_pr.html|title=Federal Grand Jury charges three Burleson, Texas, men with possession of unregistered firearm}}</ref><ref name="burleston">{{cite news|title=Burleson PD Arrest 3 For Attempted Church Arson|author=Kaushal Patel|publisher=CBS News|date=2007-07-07|url=http://cbs11tv.com/local/Burleson.Arson.Arrests.2.504217.html}}</ref> Police Commander Chris Haven said that the group believes that society has become too focused on self improvement and self gratification and has lost focus on the glorification of God.<ref name="burleston"/> On [[July 4]], police in Burleson, TX received reports of suspicious activity at a church and of a fire in a nearby field. Three men were subsequently arrested and charged with arson at a place of worship, a first-degree felony. A fourth suspect, a juvenile, who reportedly was not involved in the attempted arson, was not charged. Two of the suspects admitted to being involved in at least one other fire in a recycling bin at a different church during 2007 according to a police report. One of the three men also faced a charge of tampering/fabricating physical evidence.<ref>{{cite news|title=3 held in attempted church arson|author=Holly Yan|publisher=The Dallas Morning News|date=2007-07-06|url=http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/070707dnmetchurchfire.38f9706.html}}</ref> The three self-described radical Christian activists, part of a religious group that opposes organized religion and government, have pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered firearm categorized as a destructive device in the attempted bombings at the Burleson, TX church. Police found the bomb, a glass bottle containing a mixture of gasoline and chlorine with a cloth wick, propped against the church door after the men twice attempted to detonate the device. Michael Philip Plaisted and Jered Michael Ragon pleaded guilty [[December 4]], [[2007]] and Dayton Lee Calaway pleaded guilty [[February 5]], [[2008]]. Punishment faced is a fine of up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison.<ref>{{cite news|title=Third bombing suspect pleads guilty|author=Matt Smith|publisher=Burleson-Crowley Connection - Local News|date=2008-02-18|url=http://www.burlesoncrowley.com/publish/article_2078.shtml}}</ref>

==Notable individuals==
===George Habash===
[[TIME magazine]] identified [[George Habash]] as "Terrorism's Christian Godfather" and a leader of the [[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine]].<ref name="time">{{cite news|publisher=Time|title=Terrorism's Christian Godfather|author=Scott Macleod|date=2008-01-28|url=http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1707366,00.html?xid=rss-world}}</ref> Habash was a [[Greek Orthodox]] Christian by birth.<ref>{{cite news|title=George Habash|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/27/db2702.xml|date=2008-01-28|publisher=The Telegraph|quote=George Habash: A Christian Arab by birth}}</ref> A 1998 interview with the [[Washington Report on Middle East Affairs]] identified Habash as Christian.<ref>{{cite news|title=A visit with George Habash|url=http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0998/9809049.html|author=Grace Halsell|publisher=Washington report on Middle East Affairs|quote=Dr. Habash blames his fellow Christians in America...|date=1998-09}}</ref> In 2007 [[Global Politician]] identified Habash as being a Christian.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.globalpolitician.com/23436-terror-russia|publisher=Global Politician|title=Roots of Islamic Terrorism: How Communists Helped Fundamentalists|author=Antero Leitzinger|date=2007-11-09|quote=1) In December 1967, a Lebanese Christian, George Habash, who had been a Pan-Arabic national socialist, had broadened his field by founding the PFLP, a Palestinian organization 2) not only Habash, but also another Marxist Palestinian party leader, Nayef Hawatmeh of the DFLP, was a Christian. (IHT 9.8.1999) The PLO included many Christian Arabs,}}</ref> Habash died in 2008 and was buried at a Greek Orthodox Church in Amman, Jordan.<ref name="nys"/> At the time of his death, he was identified as a Christian by the [[New York Sun]] and [[Agence France Press]],<ref name="nys">{{cite news|title=George Habash|publisher=New York Sun|date=2008-01-29|quote=Dr. Habash, a physician, was a Christian whose funeral yesterday took place, according to the Agence France Press, at a Greek Orthodox Church in Amman, Jordan.|url=http://www2.nysun.com/article/70364}}</ref> and Jerusalem Newswire (quoting the [[BBC]]) described him as "a Christian, an Arab nationalist and a Marxist".<ref>{{cite news|publisher=Jerusalem Newswire|date=2008-01-27|author=Stan Goodenough|url=http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2307|title=Arch-terrorist Habash departs this world, for the next|quote=1) The man, described by the BBC as "a Christian, an Arab nationalist and a Marxist," was also a medical doctor sworn to save lives, not to take them 2) despite his group's waning influence since the 1990s, the "Christian" remained "a fierce opponent of Israel until the end."}}</ref> He was a professional [[physician]], who joined the anti-Israeli movement after Israeli forces [[Lydda massacre|massacred 250 people]] in his hometown of [[Lydda]] on the same night that his sister died from typhoid; he blamed the Israeli attack for preventing her from receiving medical attention. On being evicted by soldiers from his home, he said, "I remember asking one of the soldiers where we were supposed to go." Habash rejected Christianity then: "I was all the time imagining myself as a good Christian, serving the poor. When my land was occupied, I had no time to think about religion."<ref name="time"/> In regard to the moral justification for his use of violence, he said, "All the time I was believing from the bottom of my heart and brain that I am fighting for a righteous cause."<ref name="time"/>
He said all Arab revolutionaries "must be Marxist, because Marxism is the expression of the aspirations of the working class."<ref>{{cite news|publisher=New York Times|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/world/middleeast/27habash.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=9767c2c5b87668e6&ex=1359090000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss|title=George Habash, Palestinian Terrorism Tactician, Dies at 82|author=Edmund L. Andrews and John Kifner|date=2008-01-27}}</ref>

===Mark David Uhl===
[[Mark David Uhl]], a student at [[Liberty University]], planned to bomb and kill members of the [[Westboro Baptist Church]] at the funeral of [[Jerry Falwell]].<ref name="blum"/> [[Max Blumenthal]] called Uhl a "Christian terrorist", "a devout evangelical Christian who advocated religious violence in the name of American nationalism".<ref name="blum"/> On Uhl's [[MySpace]] page he called on Christians to die on the battlefield for "[[Uncle Sam]]." He quoted Biblical passages to justify his call to arms, and wrote "Christians, we have been given life after death and we should help others receive it and not sit here in our big buildings and sing to ourselves so we can go home and feel good about ourselves... Christians, fear of death, fear of death. The fear of death shows you don't believe. God needs soldiers to fight so his children may live free. Are you afraid??? I'm not. SEND ME!!!"<ref name="blum">{{cite news|publisher=The Huffington Post|author=Max Blumenthal|title=Diary of a Christian Terrorist|date=2007-05-23|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/diary-of-a-christian-terr_b_49167.html}}</ref>

===August Kreis===

The [[Aryan Nation]]’s anti-Semitic and racist ideology, inspired by the tenets of Nazi Germany, has been linked to other criminal acts involving bank robberies, shootouts with authorities, the murders of blacks, and others. [[August Kreis III|August Kreis]], an aspiring revolutionary with ties to the Aryan Nations, [[Posse Comitatus]], and the [[Ku Klux Klan]], has reportedly attempted to forge an alliance between white supremacists and al Qaeda, hoping to exploit their shared hatred of American government and Jews. Kreis has stated, "You say they're terrorists, I say they're freedom fighters. And I want to instill the same jihadic feeling in our peoples' heart, in the Aryan race, that they have for their father, who they call Allah." A collaboration between white supremacists and radical Islamists is not a new concept, and enemies who run things together for a shared cause is a common tactic of warfare. During World War II, Adolf Hitler entertained Jerusalem’s Muslim leader, the Grand Mufti, and after the war, places like Egypt and Syria became refuges for some Nazis. Ahmed Huber, an Islamic convert, devotee of Adolf Hitler, and admirer of Islamic revolutionist Ayatollah Khomeini, served on the board of directors of a Swiss bank and holding company that President Bush accused of helping fund al Qaeda. Huber reportedly wanted to forge a fresh alliance between Islamic radicals and neo-Nazis in Europe and the United States. Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, stated there was no indication of large-scale alliance although some U.S. extremists have praised the [[September 11]] attacks.<ref>“An unholy alliance: Aryan Nation leader reaches out to al Qaeda”;by Henry Schuster; CNN; 03-29-05 [http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/29/schuster.column/]</ref>

===Clifford Peeples===

In 1999 Clifford Peeples, Pastor of the Bethel Pentecostal Church, was sentenced to ten years imprisonment after being found in possession of hand grenades and a [[pipe bomb]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/1209673.stm|publisher=BBC News|title=Self-styled loyalist pastor jailed|date=2001-03-08}}</ref> In 2005 he was reinstalled as head of the Bethel congregation following a dispute over his distribution of anti-Catholic literature within the church.<ref name="peeples">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4606519.stm|publisher=BBC News|title=Church row splits congregation |date=2005-06-07}}</ref> Peeples had been distributing "Rome Watch"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.1335.com/rome.html|title=Rome Watch|publisher=Open - Bible Ministries|author=[[Alan Campbell (pastor)|Pastor Alan Campbell]]}}</ref> written by his associate [[Alan Campbell (pastor)|Pastor Alan Campbell]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/jun/12/northernireland.religion|publisher=The Observer|date=2005-06-12|author=Henry McDonald|title=In defence of bigotry}}</ref> Peeples was accompanied in his takeover of the church by Pastor John Somerville, who had previously received a life sentence for his part in the [[Miami Showband massacre]].<ref>{{cite news|publisher=Belfast Telegraph|url=http://saoirse32.blogsome.com/2005/06/12/pastor-pipe-bomb-peeples/|date=2005-06-12|title=Bomb preacher flees UVF mob|author=Ciaran McGuigan}}</ref> Displaced minister John Hull criticised him, saying "There seems to be this innate hatred of Catholics but the gospel is for everybody - Protestant and Catholic."<ref name="peeples"/> Peeples rejected these charges of [[bigotry]], but did say "I despise and dislike the Roman system. I do not hide that, I have never hid that, nor would I ever wish to hide that but individual Catholics I like and I love".<ref name="peeples"/> RUC chief constable, [[Ronnie Flanagan]] dubbed Peeples and his associates "the demon pastors" - specialising in recounting lurid stories of Catholic savagery towards Protestants, and in finding biblical justifications for Protestant retaliation.<ref name="mckay"/>

Before becoming a Pentecostal pastor, Peeples was the leader of the [[Orange Volunteers]], a group infamous for carrying out simultaneous terrorist attacks on Catholic churches. Peeples defended these attacks on the basis that Catholic churches were "bastions of the Antichrist".<ref>{{cite book|title=Religion, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland|author=Claire Mitchell|isbn=0754641554|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|year=2006|page=51}}</ref>

===Billy Wright===

[[Billy Wright (loyalist)|Billy Wright]] was one of the most feared paramilitary figures in Northern Ireland, known for terrorist attacks, cold-blooded murders, and running a lucrative drugs business and protection racket.<ref name="dillon"/>{{rp|97}} In 1977 he was jailed for terrorist activities, and in 1983 he became a [[Born again Christian]] preacher of old-style Protestant fundamentalism.<ref name="mckay"/> At that time he disavowed violence, but in 1986 was drawn back into paramilitary activity.<ref name="mckay"/><ref name="dillon"/>{{rp|95}}

Wright's religious faith had contradictory influences on his life. On the one hand, he argued that his faith drove him to defend the 'Protestant people of Ulster', while at the same time, he conceded that the way in which he had taken that fight to the enemy would ensure his [[damnation]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=Religion and violence: The case of Paisley and Ulster evangelicals|author=Steve Bruce|publisher=The Irish Association for cultural, economic and social relations|url=http://www.irish-association.org/archives/stevebruce11_oct03.html}}</ref> He said of this dilemma:<ref name="dillon"/>{{rp|94}} {{cquote|You can't glorify God and seek to glorify Ulster because the challenges which are needed are paramilitary. That's a contradiction to the life God would want you to lead. If you were to get yourself involved in paramilitary activity in its present form, or the form in which it manifested itself during the Troubles, then I don't think you could walk with God...

...There's always the hope that in some way, someday - and there are precedents within scripture - your hope would be that God would draw you back to him. All those who have the knowledge of Christ would seek to walk with him again. People would say, 'Billy Wright, that's impossible,' but nothing's impossible if you have faith in God. I would hope that he would allow me to come back. I'm not walking with God.... Without getting into doctrine, without getting too deep, it is possible to have walked with God and to fall away and still belong to God.}}

Wright was assassinated inside the [[Maze prison]] on [[December 27]], [[1997]]. Wright is considered a hero and martyr figure by hardline loyalists; gunmen at a paramilitary display in Portadown in 2000 told journalists "He did what he had to do to ensure that our faith and culture were kept intact."<ref name="mckay"/>

===Eric Robert Rudolph===
[[Eric Robert Rudolph]] is a convicted terrorist whose series of violent acts across the southern United States included attacks on abortion clinics. Rudolph was involved in the 1996 bombing at Olympic Centennial Olympic Park which injured more than one hundred people and killed Olympic spectator Alice Hawthorne; the 1997 bombings of a Georgia family planning clinic and a Midtown Atlanta nightclub; and the 1998 bombing of a Birmingham family planning clinic that killed Police Officer Robert Sanderson and critically injured nurse Emily Lyons. On [[April 13]], [[2005]], 38 year old Rudolph of Murphy, N.C. waived all appeals and pleaded guilty to the Birmingham bombing attack and the three Atlanta attacks. Pursuant to his agreements, Rudolph provided information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and others to find the locations of more than 250 pounds of dynamite buried in several locations in the Western North Carolina area. His plea agreements provided for multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.<ref>ERIC ROBERT RUDOLPH SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON FOR BIRMINGHAM BOMBING ATTACK; U.S. Department of Justice Press Release; [[July 18]], [[2005]] [http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2005/July/05_crm_380.htm]</ref>

From the early 1980s Rudolph had contact with loosely organized and strongly anti-Semitic Christian Identity groups and Aryan Nations, influential in the militant movement. Racial genocide is a major theme within the Christian Identity movement and Michael Barkun, a professor of political science at Syracuse University and consultant to the FBI on Christian extremist groups speculates that the Olympic terrorism "may have symbolized for Rudolph the mixing of races and cultures," or may have triggered "pervasive fear of a global tyranny run from the United Nations and destroying American independence and so on."<ref>"Is Terrorism Tied To Christian Sect? Religion May Have Motivated Bombing Suspect"; By Alan Cooperman; Washington Post; Monday, [[June 2]], [[2003]]; Page A03</ref> Whatever the motive, however, "bad guys know with the whole world watching, the Olympics provide a perfect stage from which to send a message." On Saturday, [[July 27]], [[1996]] shortly after 1 a.m. as the seventh day of competition came to close Jack Mack and the Heart Attack was on stage at the Centennial Olympic Park when an unattended bag exploded hitting victims as far as a football field away killing an innocent woman.<ref>"The Olympic Park Bombing; The Most Notorious Crimes in American History"; LIFE Books; pg. 46</ref>

Rudolph’s letters might provide insight to his beliefs and relative to the 19th century German existentialist philosopher, Nietzsche, who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality, Rudolph, in a letter to his mother, wrote: "...I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible." In another letter regarding the Russian novelist Dostoevsky, Rudolph wrote: "I've read his Crime and Punishment years ago, which I can honestly say was the best novel I have read to date.”<ref>"Special report: Eric Rudolph writes home; By Blake Morrison; USA TODAY; 7/5/2005 [http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-07-05-rudolph-cover-partone_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA]</ref> However, in an 11 page manifesto released by attorneys after Rudolph entered his guilty pleas is a statement conflicting with his preference for existentialism: "I was born a Catholic, and with forgiveness I hope to die one," wrote the former explosives expert for the United States Army.<ref>"Eric Rudolph lays out the arguments that fueled his two-year bomb attacks"; By Doug Gross; ASSOCIATED PRESS; SignonSanDiego.com by the Union-Tribune; [[April 14]], [[2005]] [http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20050414-0149-ericrudolph.html]</ref>

==Notable incidents==
===Evangelical Alliance===
In November 2006 the [[Evangelical Alliance]], which represents 1.2 million Christians in the United Kingdom, released a report which stated that violent revolution should be regarded as a viable response if British legislation encroaches further on Christian rights: "If, as most Christians accept, they should be politically involved in democratic processes, many believe this may, where necessary, take the form of active resistance to the state. This may encompass disobedience to law, civil disobedience, involving selective, non-violent resistance or, ultimately, violent revolution.".<ref name="eauk">{{cite news|publisher=The Telegraph|date=2006-11-05|title=Christians ask if force is needed to protect their religious values|author=Jonathan Wynne-Jones|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nrelig05.xml}}</ref> Very Rev. Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark, said such actions would send out a confused message, as "the fundamental themes of the gospel are love and reconciliation, not violent revolution."<ref name="eauk"/> Aversion to physical violence for the defense or propagation of the faith has been the norm for most major evangelical faiths, who take the Scripture as their supreme authority. As it was for the primitive New Testament church, which found the New Covenant disallowing such.

==See also==
*[[Domestic terrorism in the United States]]
*[[Hate groups]]
*[[Islamic terrorism]]
*[[Jewish terrorism]]
*[[Christian pacifism]]

==References==
{{reflist|3}}

==Bibliography==
*Hedges, Chris. 2007. ''[[American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America]].'' Free Press.
*Lea, Henry Charles. 1961. The Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Abridged. New York: Macmillan.
*Mason, Carol. 2002. ''Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics.'' Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
*Tyerman, Christopher. 2006. ''God's War: A New History of the Crusades.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Belknap.
*Zeskind, Leonard. 1987. ''The ‘Christian Identity’ Movement,'' [booklet]. Atlanta, Georgia: Center for Democratic Renewal/Division of Church and Society, National Council of Churches.

[[Category:Abortion-related violence in the United States]]
[[Category:Christianity-related controversies]]
[[Category:Christian terrorism| ]]
[[Category:Christian terrorists| ]]
[[Category:Religiously motivated violence in the United States]]

[[et:Kristlik terrorism]]
[[fi:Kristillinen terrorismi]]
[[sv:Kristen terrorism]]

Revision as of 14:39, 9 December 2008

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