Church of Jesus Christ-Christian: Aryan Nations

Our storyboard is a brief but informative dive into the Christian Identity group known as the Church of Jesus Christ Christian - Aryan Nations. Founded by Ku Klux Klan member Wesley A. Swift in 1946, the group still exists today. Currently, the group operates in the shadows with no official meeting place. Still, the website sends out monthly newsletters, and it seems there is a reasonable number of active members that align with the church's ideas and values.

Originally the White Identity Church of Jesus Christ-Christian, it is now known as the Church of Jesus Christ Christian - Aryan Nations.

Founded in 1946 by Wesley A. Swift, the church started in California and eventually moved to Hayden Lake, Idaho where it appears to have found a permanent home.

Wesley A. Swift was born in New Jersey in 1913. His father, Richard Swift was a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church part of a sect that split from mainstream American Methodism.

Swift moved to California to attend college. In 1946 he found his way to Big Bear, California, where he participated in cross-burnings and attempted to reignite the local the Ku Klux Klan chapter.

Instead, He decided to start his own church in Lancaster, California, which he named the Anglo-Saxon Christian Congregation. He was influenced by the teachings of Howard Rand, and by 1957, he took on the name Church of Jesus Christ Christian.

Richard Butler, born in Bennett, Colorado, was an aerospace engineer prior to getting involved with the Chrisitan Identity movement.

After the death of Wesley A. Swift in 1970, Richard and his wife Betty seized control over the Church of Jesus Christ Christian.

A year after buying 20 acres north of Hayden Lake, Idaho, Richard and Betty moved to North Idaho from California.

In 1977, their property became the location of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian – Aryan Nations. 

Aryan Nations is filled with a community full of white supremacists with the contradictory ethnic belief that White power is all the power. It is even stated on their website:

"WE BELIEVE in the preservation of our race, individually and collectively, as a people as demanded and directed by Yahweh. We believe our Racial Nation has a right and is under obligation to preserve itself and its members."

The conservation of their people/nation matters to them most, if not more so, than preserving the other communities under Yahweh.

Aryan Nations believe that Whites are a supreme race compared to the majority. They also believe that:

"Adam, a man of Genesis, is the placing of the White Race upon this earth. Not all races descend from Adam. Adam is the father of the White Race only. (Adam in the original Hebrew is translated: “to show blood in the face; turn rosy.”) - Genesis 5:1

Contrary to beliefs shared by Catholicism and Christianity that Adam is regarded as the first human that allowed the rest of humanity to be created under him, Aryan Nations believe this to be false. Aryan Nations rejects the notion that God created Adam to descend the white nation. This belief allows their followers to misconstrue their teachings in a self-serving manner.

In 1946, Swift attempted to resurrect the dormant Ku Klux Klan in California by burning a cross on a hillside near Big Bear Lake. He lectured to American Legion posts about "the new Klan" and his mission to save America from Communism and race-mixing. A rising star of the postwar American far-right Swift was making waves across the state's political and spiritual landscapes.

Later that year, the Attorney General's office looked into Swift's activities.

They discovered that he had formed his own KKK faction, the Christian Knights of the Invisible Empire. He had also built a private rifle range in the backyard of his Lancaster ranch and was conducting paramilitary training for Klansmen in the Antelope Valley desert. 

Richard Butler, the 86-year-old leader of Aryan Nations, the country's most infamous neo-Nazi group, died on September 8, 2004. Butler, who outlived several designated successors, led the group from his base in Hayden, Idaho, for over three decades.

Butler's failing health and the loss of the compound due to a lawsuit reduced the group's size and influence in recent years. Despite the group's declining influence, individual members continue to be involved in a number of serious crimes.

By January 2001, Aryan Nations was still operational, but its future was uncertain. Butler appointed Shawn Winkler, 21, as the group's acting staff leader and youth activities coordinator. Winkler already had permits for three marches in Idaho for the coming year. A new phone number was also announced, as well as a new webmaster, Pastor August Kreis III, who previously ran a website for another Chrisitan Identity group: the Posse Comitatus. Kreis is the Ambassador to the seven states for the Aryan Nations' northeast region, based in Pennsylvania. Before his death, Butler declared defiantly that the organization would revert to its original name, the Church of Jesus Christ Christian - Aryan Nations.

After Butler's death, Pastor David J. Minor sought to revitalize Aryan Nations. Instead of meeting in church kinsmen/followers now communicate with each other through monthly bulletins.