The Christian Patriot movement is a radical and extremist movement of American political commentators and activists. They promote various interpretations of history based on their belief that the federal government has turned against the ideas of liberty and natural rights expressed in the American Revolution, and against what they believe to be America's Christian heritage.
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Ideology
The movement originally referred to the late 1980s' Posse Comitatus group, a militant far right organization. Posse Comitatus followed an ideology based on the teachings of cult Posse founder and Christian Identity minister William Potter Gale, and the majority of the Christian Patriot movement's members still adhere to Christian Identity's white supremacist views. This ideology holds that state and federal governments are agents of an arcane conspiracy to deprive Americans of their rights as "sovereign citizens." It also holds that this conspiracy can be undermined through various legal pleadings from English common law and other sources, such as a motion protesting the way a defendant's name is typeset in a legal complaint. The ideology persists despite numerous court rulings that have declared its theories frivolous.
Status
The movement grew during the 1990s after the Ruby Ridge incident and the Waco Siege appeared to confirm the suspicions of Christian Patriots. The movement maintained ties with the militia movement of the same period. A highly publicized federal confrontation with Christian Patriots occurred in 1996, when Federal marshals arrested the Montana Freemen. After 2000, the original movement became defunct and the term Christian Patriot was increasingly adopted by conservative Christians who identified themselves as patriots.
In 2009 The Southern Poverty Law Center said that militia groups may be experiencing a "Patriot revival."